Does It Get Better???

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by AdmiralScreed, Dec 4, 2011.

  1. tighr

    tighr Commodore Commodore

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    Show me where in Caretaker it said that using the array wasn't a choice. The Caretaker died, and the self-destruct was damaged. Rather than allow the Kazon access to the array after they used it to go home, they decided to blow it up using the tricobalt warheads.

    So, I ask you, point to where in Caretaker they acknowledge that it's not a viable option?


    EDIT: Shoot, I'll do the work for you. This is from Memory-Alpha's episode summary:
     
  2. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    Obviously. That doesn't mean it was a "deep space mission" like the one Anwar suggests, where they're cut off from Starfleet for years. See my post here. I wasn't arguing against the 5-year mission premise. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
     
  3. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    So how does that make it any more plausible in Star Trek? Saying that another show did it too doesn't make it right.

    Kirk and Picard weren't stranded in another quadrant, and they weren't stranded 70 years away from home. Theire situations are a little bit different.

    Going back to Janeway, her decision in Caretaker is understandable, but what about in Prime Factors and False Profits? It's true that in Prime Factors the technology ended up being a fluke, but even if it had been capable of sending them back home Janeway still would have refused to steal it because it "goes against her principles." Now, I will give this episode credit for actually showing some adversity between the Starfleet and Maquis. Several Maquis (and Tuvok) went behind Janeway's back and stole the technology. That was interesting and exciting, and it made for a very good episode. My question is, why couldn't they have done episodes like that more often?
    I also mentioned False Profits. Janeway's blunder in this episode was not sticking to her principles, but rather just plain stupidity. Even though she had the perfect opportunity to get home (through the wormhole) she chose to wait on it because two stupid Ferengi on the planet were more important than getting the ship and its entire crew home. And, of course, the wormhole closed before they were able to use it.

    The situation I was describing was one in which the Maquis grow fed up with Janeway and her bad leadership, and decide to take measures into their own hands. Killing them in their sleep is going a bit far, I admit, but at the very least they could attempt to throw them in the brig or strand them on a planet.

    Your reasoning for Chakotay not turning on SF is sound, so I'll agree with you on that. In my scenario he could be one of the only Maquis that doesn't turn on the Starfleet officers.

    To clarify what I am saying, this scenario I am describing would not last for the entire show. In the first season there would a lot of tension between the Maquis and Starfleet. In season two things would erupt and both sides would fight for control of Voyager. It would start out with the Maquis doing things behind the SF officers backs, and would eventually escalate into war between both sides. The Maquis would eventually form alliances with other Delta Quadrant factions and they would leave Voyager to join with those factions in hopes that they could one day claim Voyager with the help of those other factions. When it comes down to it, what I am essentially describing is a much larger scale version of the Kazon arc, which as I've said before is my favorite series of episodes on Voyager so far.
     
  4. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Tuvok said that it would've taken hours/weeks (some long time length) to get the Array's "Return Voyager Home" program running, and in all that time they'd be under attack from the Kazon and their oncoming reinforcements. They could either stay, fight and lose so the Kazon would get both the Array AND Voyager, or they could blow up the Array then and there and run from the Kazon so they got neither.

    They'd never have the chance to use the Array to go home.

    And even if they had somehow managed to get it working faster, the way the Array pulled them there killed a lot of people meaning going back would also kill a lot of people. It wasn't even a safe way of going back.

    Because aside from that one story, wherein the remaining damage didn't even affect Moya in the future, Moya doesn't show any battle scars from anything else it goes through.

    They mentioned resupplying and repairs, but we never SAW any of it nor did that ever play into the plot. It was lip service.

    Would-be jailers who usually only went after them whenever they attacked the Feds in the first place for stealing supplies or raiding supply lanes for supplies and stuff. Not quite the same as the actively hostile Cardassians who go out of their way to kill them all the time. I'd say they'd be more ready to negotiate and cooperate with the Feds given the circumstances. And vice-versa with the Feds too.

    Now, if there was some pre-existing feud with Chakotay's Maquis Cell and Voyager (or if Chakotay was never a Former Fleeter) then I could see real tensions.

    Ideally, the second crew should've been Romulans but that's just my pipe dream.

    Kirk got lost beyond the Galactic Barrier in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and made it back, Picard and co got flung into another Galaxy in "Where No One Has Gone Before" and made it back too.

    Except they did it a lot faster than Janeway.

    As for her having them lose out on one chance home (and given how the Barzan Wormhole was unstable, it may not have worked right), let's be honest here: This is Gilligan Syndrome, NONE of their chances to go home were going to succeed because the show would end.

    What they needed was a more complete premise that they could accomplish without ending the show.

    Personally, I'd think that the Maquis would just be happy finding some DQ world to settle down on as a new home and not want to go back to the AQ at all. After all, their whole conflict was about having their own world to live on as they see fit.
     
  5. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I think all of Ron Moore's points stand, and the two main criticisms are hard to argue with.

    -The crew and ship should be struggling more. It shouldn't be so easy to just build another shuttle and warp engine whenever one crashes so far from Federation space. Sure they can trade if there are friendly aliens but what do they really have to give if their supplies are already limited and why are we not privy to seeing any of these exchanges? Its difficult to feel like you're watching real people in a real situation when the ship is nearly destroyed in "Deadlock" and looking like it did on day 1 in the next episode. I'm sure the ship has a competent core of engineers but its a bit harder to swallow the show telling us they can fix a critically damaged ship covered in hull breaches between episodes with limited supplies. Likewise the throwaway "holodecks have a different power source so we can use them as much as we like" line in season 1 is something Voyager will never live down and will always stand as a testament to the shirking of the premise done from the outset.

    -The crew act like a standard Starfleet crew. Looking at the show on paper, most people would expect an initial Starfleet/Maquis struggle ending in a compromise and a blending of Starfleet principles with Maquis pragmatism. Unfortunately we got the same old "senior officers debate Starfleet principles in the meeting room every episode". Thank goodness we finally got some conflict with Seven coming on board.
     
  6. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    But again, they never bothered properly defining the Maquis before VOY so we wouldn't even know just what "The Maquis Way" was and just how it differed.

    If they'd used a properly defined group as the second crew (like Romulans) then we'd know just what their differences were and would have something to draw us in as to what type of new crew would develop as a result.
     
  7. Misco

    Misco Commander Red Shirt

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    I suppose they were under the impression that having an adversarial group onboard Voyager, like the Maquis, that hadn't been well defined would give them more story opportunities/scenarios and would prevent them from writing themselves into a corner.
     
  8. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    On the other hand, they could just use a new group and flesh them out during the course of the show...
     
  9. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    There had been at least three Maquis episodes by the time Voyager began. DS9's The Maquis Part 1 and Part 2 as well as TNG's Preemptive Strike. I think audiences had a fairly good understanding of the Maquis by the time they were introduced to Voyager, so it wasn't as if they needed to rewrite the Maquis from the ground up. A little more fleshing out was all that was needed. Unfortunately, we didn't get any.
     
  10. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    And none of those episodes really gave off anything that showed how the Maquis were going to be different from the Feds.

    They were better off either just having the second crew be a bunch of random DQ aliens that were on the Caretaker's Array (or were Kazon prisoners on the planet), because then at least we'd also have characters who were linked to the DQ and could be used to flesh out the area better.

    Or, just use Romulans (since Klingons and Cardassians were getting plenty of screentime on DS9).
     
  11. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm disappointed.
    I found his son hilarious and family cliches hilarious.
    However the kicker is when all that ends when you have to watch his daughter die. First time I watched it, I bawled my eyes out.
    This will always be my #1 favorite Voyager ep.
    This too me was the Doc's "Inner Light".
     
  12. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Yes, I found Lien plays a better old person than she does sexy, seductive. Her sexy and seductive came off too me as a little girl playing dress up in her mommy's clothes.I think it's easier to play bad than her normal sweet and innocent. Not to mention the guards in the ep. reminded me of Prince in his "My Name is Prince" video w/ with the chain-link police offiicers hat.:lol:

    However, Kes is my least favorite character on the show. So me giving her any type of praise is big. IMO "B&A" is the only ep. that shows Lien's full range as an actress.
     
  13. tighr

    tighr Commodore Commodore

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    I'd have watched that show.
     
  14. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    I'm glad you enjoyed it, but do you honestly believe that this episode is of comparable quality to The Inner Light? IMO, The Inner Light is not only the greatest TNG episode ever, but the greatest Star Trek episode period. As much as I like Robert Picardo, there's no beating Patrick Stewart when he's at his best, and he really poured his soul into the part for The Inner Light. IMO, Real Life is just too cliched and cheesy to be anywhere near as good as The Inner Light, which I think has a very original and intelligent storyline. But that's just what I think. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. Glad you enjoyed this episode.

    Moving onward, I just watched a couple more episodes.

    Displaced: This was quite a good episode. Slowly transporting the Voyager crew off the ship and replacing them was a very original and interesting idea. I liked Chakotay's scenes at the beginning quite a bit. The way he maneuvered around the ship, shooting aliens and disabling systems, was very cool and fun to watch. I liked the way the aliens in this episode locked their captives in holo environments that mimicked their actual environments. On the whole this was a very fast paced, action packed, and exciting episode. I was very pleased.
    7/10

    Worst Case Scenario: My only complaint about this episode is that the premise for the holonovel didn't actually come true and it wasn't used back in season one or two as a long story arc. It would have made for some really dramatic storytelling with real consequences and development for the characters. Revelation, betrayal, and loyalty are all great themes. A shame they weren't explored more earlier on. Now it's too late because Voyager is one big happy family.
    Putting my rant aside, I thought that this was one helluva great episode. The opening kept me guessing as to what was happening. I was a little disappointed when I discovered that it was all just a holonovel, but the story still kept taking lots of twists and turns, from the revelation that Tuvok wrote the program to the discovery that Seska sabotaged it. All in all this was a very, very fun and exciting episode. Definitely one of my favorites of the show so far.
    9/10
     
  15. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    But the thing about a Maquis takeover...what really would have been different under the Maquis? All their attempts to go home faster would've still failed (because the show would end otherwise), and they were smart enough to know that they couldn't go around handing out advanced tech to people.

    Really, what would be the difference?
     
  16. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    There's no reason that the show would have to end if they got home. The writers chose to stick with the "lost in space" premise for seven seasons, but they didn't have to.
     
  17. Anwar

    Anwar Admiral Admiral

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    Like I said, it's Gilligan Syndrome.

    Other shows manage to avert it (Farscape being a good example) because they had OTHER plots beyond "Go Home". By the time Crichton got back to Earth the Scarran/Peacekeeper/Wormhole tech plotline had become more important.

    If VOY had another major plot to drive the show beyond "Go to Earth" then there'd be nothing wrong getting home earlier as long as they could continue the other major plots (which would involve leaving Earth again).

    But it didn't, which is a failing of the show that they relied on a limited plot.
     
  18. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I thought he romcom between Harry and Tom was interesting.

    Not enough to hang 40 minutes a week on, but still it was good to have such a positive homosexual relationship on TV in the 90s.
     
  19. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    You have zero imagination.

    RE: Displaced - It was a solidly entertaining but it was really just filler fluff and probably the weakest of the 16 episode stretch I mentioned earlier. I get confused that you sometimes mark episodes down for not being very substantive but then this episode gets a 7/10....I suppose your scores at their most basic really are just related to how much you were entertained by the episode right?

    RE: Worst Case Scenario - A good episode that I liked, not quite "excellent" in my book but not far off.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2012
  20. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    As I've said before, there's good filler and there's bad filler. IMO, Displaced falls upon the side of good filler.
    And with that said, this episode wasn't entirely filler either. I forgot to mention it in my analysis, but I also liked seeing Tom and B'Ellana's relationship develop. Their scenes together were well handled.