When we met Tom Riker again (can’t recall if it was DS9 or NG) - he was with the Maquis, and IIRC, they were actually doing bad things.
well, actually here - Thomas Riker | Memory Alpha | Fandom - on re-read, seems rather tame.
I’ve said this here many times, the problem with *Voyager *wasn’t the premise or the actors themselves. It was the characters they portrayed. It was a perfect opposite of TNG, where on that show every main bridge character was likeable, and not just in terms of having a pleasant demeanor but in terms of remaining respectable by (most) always making logical, sensible, intelligent decisions.
*Voyager *was the complete opposite. Every main character was an idiot, a milquetoast, and/or a total jerk. They only respectable one was Seven of Nine. She was essentially brought in to be the show’s Spock, restrained but not absent of emotion, extremely intelligent and practical when the shit hit the fan. The closest things to likable characters were the Doctor and Neelix. But they weren’t the least bit respectable because they were nothing more than ineffectual comedy relief.
http://blip.tv/confused-matthew/star-trek-voyager-intro-6633080
This is a long (and NSFW) review of why Star Trek: Voyager didn’t quite work… but there’s a great point around 3:15… centered on where the writing screwed the show over. Lines like “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the warp coil!”
Neelix was not likeable. IMHO YMMV
He was a Jar Jar character. Comic annoyance.
And he was sleeping with a 3 yr old.
:eek:
I agree with your last, and disagree with your first two points. The problem with Voyager was that the actors sucked, the premise was stupid, the writing barely broke the 3rd grade level, the producers were lazy, and so on. There wasn’t a single redeeming factor in the whole show. It was the Anti-Trek in every way.
So to answer the OP’s question: No, with what they had to work with, it wouldn’t have worked any better today.
Good points. Voyager had a really strong concept but had trouble going anywhere. A ship separated from the rest of the Federation for years, having to struggle with things that the Enterprise could just resolve by going back to Stardock for a few days? Great idea. Problem was that they didn’t explore that well enough. There should have been much more emphasis on preserving supplies, manufacturing or acquiring new supplies, growing food, and forming alliances. If I were Janeway, I wouldn’t just keep going after blasting up the alien ship du jour - I would stop (if reasonably safe) and send salvage teams to strip it of fuel, weapons, shuttlecraft, starfighters, warp cores (why don’t Federation ships ever carry more than one? It’s not like it’s incredibly huge anyway), food, computer cores, etc. They also should have seriously considered capturing a few enemy ships to form a fleet. Surely they had enough crew to offload a few dozen people to form a skeleton crew to operate that Hirogen battlecruiser or whatnot.
Enterprise did have some better writing, but perhaps not to the level desired. The subplot with Tucker and his obsession with avenging the death of his little sis was reasonably well done and did help to flesh his character out a bit. ENT did, however, concentrate too much on referencing Bush’s “War on Terror” to the exclusion of other relevant social issues of its time. The original series with Kirk managed to jump back and forth and explore a lot of issues - economic, social, religious, ethnic, political, etc. Enterprise just went with ZOMG more religiously-motivated terrorists ELIMINATE THEM!!!111!!11one and use more underhanded tricks to find the rest of them that we know exist! The first time was cool, but there came a point where people just got tired of phaser jihad and changed the channel.
Energy is at such a premium that Janeway can’t even replicate a cup of coffee but Tom Paris can spend hours in the holodeck french bar
The other series used the magic reset button quite a bit, and managed to explore some interesting what-ifs related to the characters and nations. E.g. what would happen to the fragile peace of the Bajoran system over the next several decades if Sisko were to just up and die in the middle of it all? Or the TNG episode where they explore how the Federation barely avoided a TNG-era war with the Klingon empire with a single rescue mission to aid a Klingon outpost.
I thought the Temporal Cold War subplot on Enterprise was one of the silliest things ever. Apparently the network said, “Hey, we’ve got Bakula. Let’s do another Quantum Leap.” I’m glad they finally put and end to it once and for all. It must have felt good to Bakula when Archer told Daniels, “I’ve had it. I don’t want to see you ever again.” Sort of like the anti-Sam Beckett. 
The fourth season of Enterprise was getting to be more like “Star Trek,” but unfortunately they grew the beard too late.
I’m guessing the reasoning was “It’s a prequel, so we know Earth won’t get blowed up real good; it’s still around in Kirk’s day. And the Federation won’t fall to the Klingons; it’s still around in Picard’s day. A biological weapon is set to wipe out all Vulcans? Yeah, I’m pretty sure T’Pau is going to be just fine – and Sarek is still going to be an ambassador, sure as T’Pring is still going to make eyes at Stonn, and Sybok is still going to become a cult leader, and don’t get me started on Tuvok; absent time travel, we know how everything’s going to play out.”