Well, why not? I mean, I'd rather have them have the Kazon, Vidiians, Krenim, Hirogen, Malon and Vaadwaar all exist in the same large area of space so that we'd be able to see stories of the DQ aliens and their interactions with one another rather than just have VOY run into them one at a time. Look at Farscape, did they just stop using the Peacekeepers after one season and use the Scarrans exclusively, or did they decide to actually flesh out the political landscape of the Uncharted Territories and have all the aliens co-exist together?
I don't really understand how that would have made sense, why would the crew not be trying to leave that area of space to get to earth? It would be a bit weird for them to be faffing about in the same region of space for 7 years.
Something (The Female Caretaker, Q, etc) keeps them from leaving/has set up a barrier around the entire area to keep anyone from leaving. Basically, any kind of contrivance to keep them from leaving would work. Having them be on the move squandered the Delta Quadrant premise. If you bother sending them out there, don't make it so easy to get back. The show should've been as much about defining the DQ as well as the AQ has been defined.
You really are a person of extremes Anwar. There's a middle ground between "being trapped in one tiny part of the delta quadrant" and "racing home at maximum warp" that could still involve story arcs and fleshing out of DQ races.
Just so you folks know, I was busy yesterday evening and I will be busy tonight, so no Voyager episode reviews/ratings until tomorrow night. Plus with winter break ending and second semester of college beginning next week I am going to have less time to watch Trek. I'll still try to watch at least a couple nights per week, but just know that that's why I'll be on less often. You may now carry on with whatever you are discussing......
Not to the extent that TNG and DS9 fleshed out the AQ races. Again, look at Farscape. It fleshed out its aliens and didn't just give us "One at a time" aliens where the new ones were encountered as replacements for the old ones, it had them all being introduced and living in the same general area so we got a more whole portrayal where stories revolved around their interactions with each other as well as Moya's crew. That's what VOY should've done, had all their aliens live in the same big area of space instead of "Alien villains one after the other" approach.
Words do not make a review. This wordage did not correctly say anything about the themes the episode was clearly concerned about. We might attribute this to incompetence on the reviewer's part but the episode is not even correctly described. No one who reads this review would have any idea about what actually happened in this episode, even though these are not supposed to be spoiler free reviews. The only thing he wrote about was the first two acts. In the second two acts, if nothing else, there was a society using recreational drugs and offering group sex. This is rather notable, but it's not noted because the review is not even finished, i.e., he refused to write one. The supposed 1500 words are aimed at filling up an empty space in the complete set of reviews. There are complaints about poor execution but there are no details. This is true even though such grossly obvious details as the vulval doorways are practically begging for commentary. There are complaints about cliches which are typical of most Trek episodes, from Star Trek on, and many, many other SF adventure shows, and therefore not about the episode at all. Suddenly discovering a problem with something that is common to other shows or episodes is sure symptom of refusal to say what's reallly on the mind. And this also refusing to write a review. The genetic programming of a hatred for the Nizari is equivalent to genetic programming of a love for the Founders. Objecting to the one while enjoying the other (especially since the Founders don't even have a form to love) is nuts. This is one reason why something about this episode was clearly offputting to a DS9 fan. And refusing to talk about why the one is great and the other is objectionable, is refusing to write the review. You may draw a distinction between criticism and reviews but even a review should give a hint as to why someone didn't like what's being reviewed. This so called review does not even attempt to do that. In fact, it does even worse because of the pretended reasons, an objection to Fun with DNA, falsifies the story. A key plot point is that the DNA can't do everything, the exact opposite of the alleged complaint. And to repeat, this guy loves DS9 which has much worse offenses, for episode after episode, with DNA. When someone claims to dislike something because of a trait which is not true, you're not getting the real story. Once again, this is refusing to write the review. The smell of BS may give you the warm fuzzies but it offends me.
The big difference between Farscape and Voyager, though, is that in Voyager they knew which direction they were going to get to Earth. In Farscape they were literally just flying around at random because none of them knew where to go.
Which is why the "Get back to Earth" thing was made too easy in VOY. If you're going to make them lost, they should at least do THAT right and have them be LOST.
Voyager didn't need to flesh out the aliens as deeply as DS9. As I've said before - balance. Voyager could have reasonably fleshed out alien civilizations during story arcs (like the proposed Year of Hell arc) to a reasonable extent while at the same time paying attention to its own characters and its journey home. And STJ, I wish you'd just stop posting this crap. Plenty of people think Favorite Son is a bad, dull episode. Just what point are you even trying to make anymore. PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT OPINIONS FROM YOU, GET OVER IT!
But that's just it, the whole "Lost ship" thing on its own just isn't that interesting after 1-2 seasons. Another hook/series arc was needed, and if they stayed in one area for the show then it becomes easier to do that.
^^ These are all good ideas. Even if the budget was a problem, that still doesn't explain why they couldn't just redecorate the Mess Hall from time to time. In fact, it seems like the sort of thing that Neelix would have done anyway, given his penchant for colour. It didn't have to be a huge structural overhaul, just something that would have brightened the place up a little. Why did they get hid of the hydroponics bay? It would have provided a nice area and change of location from crew quarters/the mess hall for various crewmembers to go and have personal chats and such. And also go some way toward explaining how the crew kept up their supply of edible resources. I think it's fine that they did this and it fits in to the background of Chakotay well. But considering the character was so badly underused it would have been better if the writers would have added more scenes of Chakotay interacting with random Maquis members who were disgruntled by some of Janeway's decisions. He was supposed to be really good with people, right? It's enough for me to accept that he talked down any simmering tensions and proto-rebellions. It just would have been more believable if they had shown us some of this happening. Regarding the initial purpose of this thread, I'll just say that I too think Displaced and Worst Case Scenario were both pretty decent episodes, with WCS being the better of the two.
Spoiler: season four Perhaps the hydroponics bay was re-dressed as Seven's cargo bay beginning in season four? When was the last time we saw it? (Memory Alpha doesn't have a detailed article on the location.) Considering that the set was primarily associated with the character of Kes, I can understand dropping it, although it certainly added some color.
That was going to be my suggestion, too, except that the OP hasn't watched Scorpion yet so I figured it to be spoiler.
Spoiler: Oops... spoiler coded too! That would make sense. Although couldn't they have made it half and half or something? I always presumed that we were supposed to accept that the hydroponics bay was still on the ship but we just never saw it. A lot of Seven's cargo bay was just used for random storage containers... maybe it would have been better to use it for plant life? It also would have been a nicer atmosphere for Seven to live in... not that she would have cared... This makes sense from the perspective of the writers if they wanted to excise the memory of Kes and make the audience focus on the new character of Seven. But from a story perspective, surely the other characters, especially Neelix, Janeway and Tuvok, would have wanted to keep the hydroponics bay intact and well-maintained in rememberance of their friend?
Spoiler: this is ridiculous. I have children older than this episode. It was an air farm not a water farm. Aeroponics. Seven probably stole the set,and Seven probably added some borg power boost that mad the replicators work better and they no longer needed their farm. Undercutting Kes ocmpletely, I'm surprised she didn't get Neelix a better lung while she was at it.
I think the proper saying would be "This episode is older than some of my children." Which in and of itself isn't really that descriptive of the episode's age. Suffice it to say, the episode aired in 1997. Maybe like "When this episode aired, iPods weren't even a thing yet", or "we were still worrying about the Y2K bug" or something. People still rented VHS, maybe.