I did a search through the forums but didn't find this posted. My apologies if it has been already. For those who haven't read it before (like myself) enjoy: http://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-voyager/23099/why-do-star-trek-fans-hate-voyager ".... A lot changed between that and Voyager of course. The Next Generation eventually stopped trying to live up to Rodenberry’s utopia and allowed whole other worlds of conflict. Deep Space Nine would make its name actively challenging the concept in landmark episodes such as Homefront and In the Pale Moonlight. So when Voyager got flung into the Delta Quadrant it was now in a wild unknown where it was free to disregard the more restrictive elements of Rodenberry’s vision. Voyager was given every gift that the Star Trek universe had to offer and it mishandled every one of them....." Read through and let me know you're thoughts as Voyager fans. I have my own position, but I'll leave it out of the discussion for now so the topic doesn't get muddied right off the bat from the OP and you guys can focus more on what's mentioned in the above link.
my god must we have another stupid hate thread? We already had one in general. Blech. Anyway "star trek fans" is a very big brush. But if people want to hate VOY and ENT (which is the one that gets the most vitriol) whatever. My library of love is bigger than their library. MY LIBRARY OF LOVE PEOPLE! Yeah.
Edited/Added: I didn't start this to be a "Hate Voyager / Voyager Sucks" thread. Instead, I was leaning towards not focusing so much on the show, but focus on those who don't like it so much. It's kind of one of those social experiment thingys. For me, I try to think of what's so different between Voyager and the previous seriesez'ez that causes this preference or lack there of. I personally don't hate Voyager, it had some good concepts & good episodes. I also can't say I hate Enterprise. People will say they hate Voyager and others will say they think Enterprise sucks..... and at the same time you'll have TNG fans say DS9 sucks...... and TOS fans say TNG sucks. It's just the way it is. People like what they like. As you said, Whatever. But for me, I'm more interested in what the "Core Differences" between each series had which causes such division. All of them had varying inconsistencies in certain areas or flaws, so we can ignore that here for the time being. One can focus on each series and discuss "What happened in this series which caused fans of the previous series to not get interested?" The link in the OP presents one person's opinion as to why he thinks Voyager didn't catch on with many "Trek Fans" "Trek Fans" Basically meaning: Trek Fans of Star Trek up to this point where Voyager comes in.... TOS, TNG, DS9. "Trek Fans" when discussing Enterprise = Fans of ST up to when Enterprise came out.... TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY. Yes, it sucks to have a big brush slapping around branding and generalizing the fan base in over simplistic identifications, but in some cases, it gets the general point across.
First of all, this type of thread has come up before, but I applaud your willingness to address this again. As with most of these types of topics, it is wrought with angst and opinions, resulting in misunderstanding of why people may hate a show. I point this out because my point is not to hype on any fan group or individuals, and to avoid arguments, and have an actual discussion. That being said, I think the article articulates very well how I feel about Voyager, with a couple of exceptions. I don't "hate" Voyager, any more than I hate any other TV show or film, because that requires a level of emotional investment that I don't commit to that (I save it for important things like politics and people who talk in the theater ). Voyager, in my opinion, was a mixed bag. It grew up in the shadow of older siblings and tried to be like them rather than moving in to new territory. SF Debris makes this point in one of his reviews that, for the most part, Voyager maintained the status quo, having the reset button, rarely referencing back to character development, following the TNG formula. In that way, I agree. The episodes that stand out in my mind are ones where a change happens, like "Message in a Bottle" when, at the end, the Federation is aware Voyager is still looking for them. It gives more punch to the thru-line of trying to get home. Someone is missing them. On the other hand, Voyager often ignored consequences and did little to endear me to feeling like these characters are people to care about. Probably because character moments did not always lead to development throughout the series. It was only in the later parts of the show's run that it felt like they were characters and not caricatures. There are some genuine fun bits in the show, but for me, it does not grab me like TOS, TNG did or how DS9 does for me now. Obviously, mileage will vary, but in the end, for me, VOY did not make good use of what it had.
In regards to Voyager, I was really looking forward to it and was all hyped up to watch it when it first came out. When I first heard about it coming, Geneviève Bujold was planned to be the Captain. I watched all the way through the first season and most of the second season when it was aired. For some reason, it just wasn't grabbing me. In all the other series before, the first 1-2 seasons were always a bit of a challenge to get through as the main "Feel" of the show isn't really brought into focus until season 3+, as the first two seasons are more about character development and scene setting. I stopped following the series on TV after that, but not because I didn't like the show, but because I was on my way out from my parent's house and into College..... which meant student loan budgets and thus, no cable TV..... thus no Voyager. By the time I could get back into Voyager, I missed a few seasons and the show was wrapping up. Over the last few years I took the time to go through the entire series and watch from start to finish. One particular thing that I found was missing for me was something that sucked me into the previous shows. There was character development of many of the Voyager characters, but not all of them and this left a bit of a hole for me. Chakotay needed a bit more focus I thought. If they took a few of the Seven of Nine character development episodes out of the equation and put a couple more for him, I'd have a bit more of a collective connection to the crew. I would have also loved him to confront Janeway more often and stand up to his principles more than he did.... but that's a different story. There were a number of episodes that focused on specific character's past history catching up to them or being focused on (Kim, B'elanna, Seven, Tuvok) yet other characters had little to no history being focused on. Janeway pretty much had her relationship stuff mentioned at the start and when they finally could communicate with the Federation, but beyond that, it was almost always Work Work Work. Tom Paris had tid bits of his past brought forward, but not really a lot overall. And if there was anything mentioning background of a character, it was usually a 4 second passing reference. For me, knowing where the characters came from helps me feel more connected with them..... In Voyager, the focus seemed more towards "what's going on now", rather than "who are these people we're watching?" TOS, TNG and DS9 had a lot of focus on letting the viewer know who these people are, where they came from and why they are the way they are..... Voyager seems to have not leaned that way, which I felt there was plenty of opportunity to do this in the first season. Then by the time season 2 came along, I could relate and know what the characters were thinking before they even made a facial expression. Again, this isn't trashing Voyager. It had everything going for it. There were some great rivals in it like the Borg of course, the Hirogen, Krenim, Malon, The Swarm and the Vidiians (My personal favourite, but could have been more hostile and long-running in the show imo) There were many moral dilemmas and drama, but the thing that holds things together for me in Star Trek is the Character Development.
WOW!!!...it is a Tea - Tay, Q - Q Who Knew, Catnip -Cannabis, Janeway Voyager Love-Fest... ...all we need now is a ship and crew... ...and a theme song to contain it all...