Would we have watched Voyager if they HADN'T gotten Caretaken?

[2takesfrakes]

It would've been nice if VOYAGER had been thrown into the DQ by an unknown, natural phenomenon, instead of the Caretarker, per se. But it's fine, whatever ... there are a lot of fans for all-powerful deity aliens. Unfortunately, I'm not really one of them. If not for John de Lancie's essay of the Q, I wouldn't have even cared for them, either. But we're not encouraged to believe in God, in STAR TREK, only Magical, Mystical Aliens with comic book superhero powers. Whatever. In these STAR TREK-parched times, we need all the STAR TREK we can get, so great. Fine. It's going to be a VOYAGER night!

 

[Catarina]

I'd try it. As long as it's the same cast.

 

[MacLeod]

The central premise of Voyager was to put two diverse crews (and then some) and cut them off from all that was familiar to them, and set them on a journey home. Whether that was successful or not is one thing, but that was the idea.

But far earlier than that, there was originally talk of just prolonging TNG into season eight and beyond; if Patrick Stewart wasn't continuing, to place Riker in charge, get a bunch of new crew, and keep on truckin' on the Enterprise-D.

So let's split the difference here. What if Berman & Piller & Taylor had decided to do with a new ship and wholly Starfleet crew and keep them doing along various Alpha Quadrant adventures? Heck, what if we got a show with the original Voyager crew, including Commander Cavit, Dr. Fitzgerald, Lt. Stadi, and some un-named Chief Engineer?

I think it could have been fine keeping it local. There would be lots of potential to interact with TNG and DS9 crews, plus we'd develop the AQ while still having both good and mediocre new worlds and new civilizations to bump into. Post-First Contact, the Borg would surely be brought back into it as well.

So would things have been that different? Based on how Voyager turned out, I don't think it would have. Your thoughts?

Mark

I tend to agree, sure a few things would have to be tweaked, but in terms episodes many could have easily been told in the AQ. I suspect that is part of the reason as to why VOY is sometimes referred to as TNG-lite.

Sure some episodes of VOY relied on it's DQ setting so might need more heavy tweaking.

 

[kirkfan]

I think they should have put more (regular) aliens in heavy make up on Voyager. There's no reason Armin Shimerman and Rene Auberjonois should be the only ones to suffer!

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Thing is, Voyager managed to deal with the usual AQ suspects whenever it suited them, so the Romulans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Humans, and quite a few Klingons were in the show - arguably only a smidge less than we'd have expected in TNG (given that whenever AQ races were featured, it was a big deal and they just didn't happen to be in the background).

Functionaly, Voyager WAS a continuation of the TNG paradigm and concept, whose key plotting differences adding in various adversaries who by nature would not be featured for long in a show designed to leave them behind. I think that it would not have been markedly different if they'd just KEPT them in the AQ overall, perhaps as a deeper-space mission as has been suggested here, and allowing both VOY, DS9 and even TNG to cross over in a larger picture. The Dominion War was a creation of, and basically contained within DS9, but if they'd had the foreknowledge to plan out something that could involve multiple elements of the TV franchise beyond lip service in an episode or movie here or there (DS9 was name-dropped on Voyager, but NEVER the other way around), we could have had something special.

IMO Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis got that right by not denying the multiple shows were all co-existing in different places of the same universe in their various plots, freely referencing and crossing over plots, characters and backstories.

Mark

 

[kirkfan]

Thing is, Voyager managed to deal with the usual AQ suspects whenever it suited them, so the Romulans, Cardassians, Ferengi, Humans, and quite a few Klingons were in the show - arguably only a smidge less than we'd have expected in TNG (given that whenever AQ races were featured, it was a big deal and they just didn't happen to be in the background).

Functionaly, Voyager WAS a continuation of the TNG paradigm and concept, whose key plotting differences adding in various adversaries who by nature would not be featured for long in a show designed to leave them behind. I think that it would not have been markedly different if they'd just KEPT them in the AQ overall, perhaps as a deeper-space mission as has been suggested here, and allowing both VOY, DS9 and even TNG to cross over in a larger picture. The Dominion War was a creation of, and basically contained within DS9, but if they'd had the foreknowledge to plan out something that could involve multiple elements of the TV franchise beyond lip service in an episode or movie here or there (DS9 was name-dropped on Voyager, but NEVER the other way around), we could have had something special.

IMO Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis got that right by not denying the multiple shows were all co-existing in different places of the same universe in their various plots, freely referencing and crossing over plots, characters and backstories.

Mark

I really love all the Stargate series even the one that failed.

 

[ozzfloyd]

The 'one that failed' was the only one I could ever get into, even a little bit.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The original cast of SG1 is the only Stargate I'm really into. Atlantis was decent, Universe had some good things about it. But there were two things that make Stargate stand out, IMO.

1) They were using real life military technology like machine guns and grenades to fight technologically advanced aliens. This went away late in the series when they got starships and even transporters and every next enemy had to one-up the previous one making them so powerful the only thing that could possibly beat them was the great hidden alien artifact.

2) The chemistry the original cast had. Other than Kirk/Spock/Bones, no other scifi cast has had nearly the chemistry of O'Neall/Carter/Daniel/Teal'c.

In my mind, Lost City was the franchise finale.

I like the crossovers SG1 and Atlantis had, but I'm really glad Voyager wasn't about the Dominion War.

 

[kirkfan]

The original cast of SG1 is the only Stargate I'm really into. Atlantis was decent, Universe had some good things about it. But there were two things that make Stargate stand out, IMO.

1) They were using real life military technology like machine guns and grenades to fight technologically advanced aliens. This went away late in the series when they got starships and even transporters and every next enemy had to one-up the previous one making them so powerful the only thing that could possibly beat them was the great hidden alien artifact.

2) The chemistry the original cast had. Other than Kirk/Spock/Bones, no other scifi cast has had nearly the chemistry of O'Neall/Carter/Daniel/Teal'c.

In my mind, Lost City was the franchise finale.

I like the crossovers SG1 and Atlantis had, but I'm really glad Voyager wasn't about the Dominion War.

I really liked it when they brought in Picardo in the last season of Atlantis. He played a very different role from the doctor.

 

[Dukhat]

I never really thought it was necessary for the Voyager to be in the Delta Quadrant, but then I never really liked VOY's "lost in space" premise to begin with.

That was one of my criticisms of the show as well. I didn't so much mind the premise of being stranded on the other side of the galaxy (as a matter of fact I thought it was an ingenious idea, as this allowed them to be able to create a whole new universe and tell whatever stories they wanted since the "boundaries" of usual Trek tropes wouldn't be an issue.) But at some point, just wandering aimlessly around looking for a way "home" got old. So old that they needed to bring back all the usual Trek stuff that we'd already seen before (although to be fair, this was more of a UPN mandate than anything else). If they had just dropped the whole trying to get home crap, stayed in one place, and formed their own mini-Federation, it would have worked so much better.

 

[kirkfan]

I never really thought it was necessary for the Voyager to be in the Delta Quadrant, but then I never really liked VOY's "lost in space" premise to begin with.

That was one of my criticisms of the show as well. I didn't so much mind the premise of being stranded on the other side of the galaxy (as a matter of fact I thought it was an ingenious idea, as this allowed them to be able to create a whole new universe and tell whatever stories they wanted since the "boundaries" of usual Trek tropes wouldn't be an issue.) But at some point, just wandering aimlessly around looking for a way "home" got old. So old that they needed to bring back all the usual Trek stuff that we'd already seen before (although to be fair, this was more of a UPN mandate than anything else). If they had just dropped the whole trying to get home crap, stayed in one place, and formed their own mini-Federation, it would have worked so much better.

all the things that they had to do on the way (like fighting off the aliens of the week, being stranded on a planet etc..) should have seriously slowed them down. all of this should have made the journey home more than a hundred years long and not the initial seventy years.

 

[SPCTRE]

Voyager Alpha Quadrant style

Pretty sure that's a porn title.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I never really thought it was necessary for the Voyager to be in the Delta Quadrant, but then I never really liked VOY's "lost in space" premise to begin with.

That was one of my criticisms of the show as well. I didn't so much mind the premise of being stranded on the other side of the galaxy (as a matter of fact I thought it was an ingenious idea, as this allowed them to be able to create a whole new universe and tell whatever stories they wanted since the "boundaries" of usual Trek tropes wouldn't be an issue.) But at some point, just wandering aimlessly around looking for a way "home" got old. So old that they needed to bring back all the usual Trek stuff that we'd already seen before (although to be fair, this was more of a UPN mandate than anything else). If they had just dropped the whole trying to get home crap, stayed in one place, and formed their own mini-Federation, it would have worked so much better.

I agree. I probably would have liked the series much more if it had gone that route.

 

[kirkfan]

Voyager Alpha Quadrant style

Pretty sure that's a porn title.

There's targ style also...

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Voyager Alpha Quadrant style

Pretty sure that's a porn title.

Make sure to guard your Demilitarised Zone

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I never really thought it was necessary for the Voyager to be in the Delta Quadrant, but then I never really liked VOY's "lost in space" premise to begin with.

I like the premise, it just wasn't done right in the show. There was never any real feel of isolation, desperation, trying to survive, or sense of true peril, they had it far too comfy. If it had been a much darker series, with more focus on the crew trying to get by (especially early on), rather than whining about getting home, stopping off to explore every damn spatial phenomena, and ticking off every race they encountered, then having them stranded 70 years from home would be alright.

Since conversation has side-tracked into Stargate, I'd have to say the Universe got the scenario spot on: unprepared characters, who fought amongst themselves and dealt with the true depressive situation they faced, whilst everything from the food they ate to the air the breathe was a struggle to maintain, on a ship that bore the scars of its journey and was prone to fail or get through by the narrowest of margins. VOY should've shown how even in the bleakest, worse-case situations, that hope and optimism for what we can achieve shines through.

Shame it never went that way, or that the PTB didn't give Universe a better chance.

 

[Lynx]

Since I watched TNG, TOS and DS9, I would have watched Voyager even if the premise hadn't been as it was with Voyager stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

However, what relly made me a Voyager fan from the start was the premise for the series and the characters.

As I've stated before, Voyager was one of few shows where I took an immediate liking to all the characters. It took me longer to get into TNG, mostly because the pilot was sort of a dissapointment then. "Is that all there is?" was my thought then. But after a couple of episodes I started to like it and that feeling grew on me during all the seasons. TOS was great in many ways but maybe a little dated. DS9 also took some time to like, from the beginning it looked like TNG:s "minor league team". However, I liked Kira, Quark and Odo from the start and started to like the others during season 1.

 

[kirkfan]

Throughout the show, we constantly see people getting killed on Voyager but with one exception, they are never replaced. It would have added credibility if they had recruited aliens, continuously to fill the void left by the dearly departed. I don't think they ever address the continuing decrease of the crew...

Has anyone ever determined how many people we see dying on the show, not counting the pilot of course? I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than twenty.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Throughout the show, we constantly see people getting killed on Voyager but with one exception, they are never replaced. It would have added credibility if they had recruited aliens, continuously to fill the void left by the dearly departed. I don't think they ever address the continuing decrease of the crew...

Has anyone ever determined how many people we see dying on the show, not counting the pilot of course? I wouldn't be surprised if it was more than twenty.

People have, but they have noted that the running count of crew members on the show never stays in sync with the actual amount of dead crew members.

I think having the show be in the Delta Quadrant was a good idea but then they rarely did any stories that actually required being in the Delta Quadrant.

 

[tomalak301]

At the time I was 10 years old and excited for anything new Star Trek, so yeah I would have watched it. I probably would have enjoyed it too, like I enjoyed Voyager and still do.