Does It Get Better???

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

  1. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    Glad to be here. :devil:
     
  2. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    Here's how the show looks season by season. These are the average scores for episodes from seasons 1-5.

    Season One: 5.06
    Season Two: 5.65
    Season Three: 5.62
    Season Four: 6.23
    Season Five: 6.46


    With the exception of season three, each season has been a significant improvement over the season(s) prior to it. Let's hope this trend continues with seasons six and seven. :)
     
  3. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Or you're becoming calloused and desensitized?

    Those scores kinda prove my point about Voyager being consistently the same the whole way through, since the difference between a score of 5 and a score of 6 and a 1/2 is damn negligible.

    To make me a liar, season 6 and seven need to score an average of 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 8 or 9 or 10 to suggest great development or a complete crash.
     
  4. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    I think that a whole point and a half is actually a pretty big difference. It means that the average score in season 5 was either 6 or 7 (above average to good), whereas in season 1 the average score was 5 (borderline average, so not bad but not at all memorable either).

    I haven't scored TNG or DS9, but I'm pretty sure that the best and worst seasons of each show wouldn't be more than 2 whole points different.

    If what you are saying about me being calloused and desensitized is true, then in several years or more when I go back and rewatch the show my scores for each season should be about the same. That would indicate that it was me as a viewer who changed, not the quality of the show itself. I'm curious to see if that's true.
     
  5. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Calloused and desensitized but watching 170 episodes of the same show in too short a period.

    The economic theory is called "diminishing returns"

    The more you consume of anyone commodity will yield proportionately less utility as time goes by until you're generating negative utility.

    "It's not the years, it's the mileage"
     
  6. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    I should have been more clear in my previous post. When I said my scores should be about the same, I meant that each season should have about the same score (so, for example season one might have a 6.0 and season four might have a 6.0), not necessarily the same scores I gave the episodes during my first watch-through. (This is of course assuming that I've been "desensitized")

    And I'm actually taking a microeconomics course at my college right now, and last week we were talking about something similar to what you mentioned. :)
     
  7. JanewayRulz!

    JanewayRulz! Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Except the one about not crossing boundaries with her crew. :rolleyes:

    As for the imperfection of Janeway... just remember folks... she got them home 69 years sooner than they had a right to expect.

    To be fair... that wasn't "her"... it was the duplicate one who couldn't tell the difference between her original form and her human model.

    We obviously have different definitions of psychopath!

    :wtf:


    Minimum of negative consequence?

    She was stranded up to 75,000 light years from home for 7 years, during which time she lost numerous men & women on her crew and her fiance back in the Alpha quad and went into her own depression for several months in the void.


    :sigh:

    Saying LUCRETIA in Spartacus is an inspiration is crossing the line, not so with Janeway.

    Watching Leroy Jethro Gibbs in NCIS get away with assassinating the killer of his family, after his team discovered it and reported same to his bosses during an investigation into why his own colleagues were killed in retaliation to said assassination is more :rolleyes: than Janeway's fan club.

    IMHO

    Hi... my name is JanewayRulz! and I am PROUD to cross that line for that character any time, any day.

    :bolian:
     
  8. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    So, would you have made the same decisions that Janeway made in Equinox? Just curious...
     
  9. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Are you seriously suggesting that those constitute negative consequences, as opposed to a) something she partly did to herself, b) something that happens to -every- starship captain we've ever seen...and let's recall that risk is part of the business, and c) something that was most likely bound to happen as a consequence of their situation?

    When I say a negative consequence, I mean something like a good chunk of her crew actually expressing some discontentment, or even -one- person at some point choosing to settle down on a friendly planet and hedge their bets. Or, aside from the one whole episode where this depression was in evidence (even Torres got more development on that front), actually second-guessing herself or winning because she accepted someone else's advice as opposed to walking all over them because she's the captain and she knows best.

    Heck, I'd even accept "the ship is seriously damaged for a time" as a negative consequence...but the two times I can think of that might qualify, one was cleared up with a Reset Button and the other was never referenced again.

    Say what you want about how Janeway fared in "Before Dishonor", but Q wasn't entirely off-base in her assessment of Janeway's character as seen in the series.
     
  10. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    If Janeway was a "psychopath" then so was Kirk.

    Why did her crew so deeply respect and love her if she was a psychopath?
     
  11. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    And there are a variety of reasons for why her crew may have "loved" and/or "respected" her. Here are a few:

    1) They were crazy too.

    2) They didn't really respect her, they were just too afraid of her to stand up to her.

    3) She somehow brainwashed them all.

    I like option 3 the best.
     
  12. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Janeway didn't seem human to me at all.

    Anyway, the only problem with Voyager is that even if you feel the episodes (and average) improves as you go along, the show begins to feel very stale with its adventure of the week layout, compounded by the fact we'd already watched 7 years of an adventure of the week in space show with TNG. So by the time you get to season 6 of VOY for example, you've seen 12 seasons of a ship roaming about the galaxy getting into a different adventure each week and the events being forgotten the week after.

    Also "Janeway got her crew home quickly" isn't really a defense of the character since she's not a real person...It was the writers who got them home so quickly.
     
  13. AdmiralScreed

    AdmiralScreed Captain Captain

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    Survival Instinct: The best Borg episode that Voyager has done so far. This episode had everything; a great script, a cerebral story, a dark atmosphere, and some humor at just the right moments.
    This episode felt very fresh (if that makes any sense), which is ironic because Borg episodes on this show were starting to feel really stale. I can't put my finger on why, but this episode didn't feel like an episode of Voyager. It felt like something even greater.
    Hopefully season 6 continues to be this good!
    9/10

    EDIT: I'm tempted to give this episode a 10. I'll have to see how I feel about it tomorrow or the next day.
     
  14. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It's just ok for me.
    One of Voyager's better episodes but nowhere near a 10.
    I feel "Scorpion", "Dark Frontier" & "Child's Play" are better episodes featuring the Borg.

    I was called:" For the Uniform"

    While we jump on Janeways case and call her a psychopath for her actions, lets considered it was Sisko that poisoned an entire planet, covered up a murder of a diplomatic Ambassador and showed racial prejudice toward a holodeck program due to a period in history he never experienced. I understand why it was important to Aver Brookes but within the context of Trek, it makes not sense to having racial prejudice in the 24th century about something that happened in the 21st. Especially if there is no longer racism within the Federation and wasn't any in during his father or his life time.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012
  15. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Possibly because Ronald D. Moore wrote it. Personally, I love both episodes he was involved in. I definitely did like the atmosphere of "Survival Instinct", the fact that Voyager was at a busy space port getting supplies was a nice touch. I mean why hadn't we seen that kind of thing more often? Its kind of absurd.
     
  16. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    A space station in the Delta Quad. is a bad concept especially when you have Borg and Hirogen in the same space looking for victims. It's nothing more than a stationary target. I'm surprised the writers never considered that fact.
     
  17. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    The Delta Quadrant is a large place.
     
  18. exodus

    exodus Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Not if you go by "Equinox" or "Homestead".
    Voyager found stuff that should have been a million and one shot.
    Seriously, what are the chances that the only two Federation starships that arrived in the DQ at different times, traveled two different directions, unaware either one was there would some how end up crossing the same paths?
    You've got a better chance winning the lottery.:lol:
     
  19. stj

    stj Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    For the people who care about the supposed pussyfication of the Borg, this is the climax of the process. This episode tells us that 1.) the Collective's control of the drones can be blocked, meaning that any species advanced enough to build jamming devices will come out victorious; 2.) that the Collective does not actually exist, since it is impossible for minds to meld by an electronic equivalent of telepathy; 3.) that any drone can set up as the Queen; 4.) that drones can escape from the Collective.

    If you don't care about this supposed sin of Voyager, you should still care that since these things are true, the characters' fears of the Borg menace are simpleminded hysteria (if not borderline psychotic.) Having characters fearing a villain who is written as a paper tiger is piss poor writing.

    The scene where the freed drones insanely try to go off in opposite direction is absolutely key to what action there is in this pointless angstfest. Yet, the truth is that no rational human beings would do this with such mindless gusto. I suspect that Moore really does have unbounded contempt for humanity as he essentially repeated this scene with his Cylons. The rest of the episode is Seven guiltily realizing she is indeed the Borg Queen.

    I don't know how anyone can really find this preposterous character development anything but a clumsy attempt to saddle a character with, simultaneously, enormous power and enormous guilt,yet there is no chance of ever using this power nor does anyone else ever has any chance to exercise judgment. It's all boo-hoo-hoo.

    The Borg are interesting as a concept because there is a desire for the communion of minds, and a chance that technology might someday promise the terror of a wish come true. We, who all live alone in our minds, should see the Borg and think a little. We might possibly be afraid about getting swallowed up. This episode, insensible of the dream, casually dismisses the nightmare. Seven nobly shouldering her guilt no doubt is much lighter, but of no real interest whatsoever. Seven was only interesting when she was like Spock, not too keen on being human.

    B'elana Torres was a mess from day one. There is no reason for a dinky little girl to buy into the macho Klingon horse shit, which made the character a complete cipher. Ron D. Moore, the guy so strongly associated with Klingons that he had a batleth given to him couldn't do something to fix the Torres character! They shouldn't have let him quite, they should have fired his sorry ass.
     
  20. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Survival instinct written by RDM as a metaphor for how Janeway handled exactly the same issues.

    Crew lost?

    Tick!

    Can't get home?

    Tick!

    Crew freaking out?

    Tick!

    Bring on the brainwashing and cult mentality.

    What would Seven do if put in (almost) exactly the same situation as Janeway in Caretaker?

    This episode answers that question.
     
    Last edited: Mar 13, 2012