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Voyager was slipping in the ratings by its third season so word came down from UPN to mix things. Make the show more action based and 'sex it up' to appeal to a wider audience.
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You can see signs of it in Season 3. Take "Favorite Son" or the beach resort Holodeck vacation spot they had then, not to mention Kes going au faux-natural (has any female ever used her real hair in Star Trek? Maybe just Hoshi?) and wearing catsuits (/rolls eyes at the debate that just subsided on this thread).
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I never really added it up before but that makes Kate the most junior cast member. the voyager cast was together bonding learning to be one of those stage families, and then out of no where in walks this punk kid "Mulgrew' thinking that she's in charge pushing her weight around and taking the good parking spot.
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It's not unusual for the actress. Kate showed up, loving a mystery, and insisted she was Mrs. Columbo. Well, you know how well that went over. After going a few rounds with Catwoman (named the Red Claw, no doubt after her hairdo), she decided to board a starship for what seemed like it would only be a three hour tour. Well...
The weather in the Badlands started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed, if not for luck (certainly not a fearless crew), Voyager would be lost. The ship set down in the sector of this uncharted Delta Quadrant...
Chakotay's probably happy to be as far away from comet-induced zombie-ism as he can be.
Over 70 writers for 170 scripts.
Too much farming, not enough drive from the producers.
JMS wrote almost 60 consecutive episodes of Babylon 5 all by himself.
Some think that that's a good, others not.
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JMS's ability to churn out quality scripts like that is a lost art. Rod Serling had it, Stirling Silliphant had it, many shows back in that era of television had a lead writer, lead meaning they wrote more than half the episodes of each season, a season being 32-39 episodes each. The nature of television has changed and outside of rare niches like Babylon 5 was in (was lucky he got into Warner Bros. at the right time, as it was launching the PTEN venture which was aiming at a sci-fi audience. It certainly wouldn't have been on WB), that kind of singularity of writing just isn't seen on television.