Did we really wants "Battlestar Galactica'?

[stardream]

First off I know about the trials and tribulations of Ron Moore and I respect him as a writer and I LIKED the first two seasons of BSG until the Pegasus arc. Then I endured it.

And I am not one of those fans who believed that Voyager was a missed opportunity and it fell short of some goal. With the exception of some episodes that I now skip I was pretty much ok with how the series went. I do understand how some can feel that way of course but I guess my expectations were different to begin with.

There were some things on BSG that I like. I liked how beat up the ships got and how hard it was to do repairs. I did like the tension among the crew.

However...I eventually got tired of it. I got tired of the infighting and divided loyalties. I got tired of the desperation. Even though those things might have been realistic I just didn't want to watch them. I reached the point where I no longer cared about the characters and wouldn't have been upset if they had just blown themselves up in space. I kept watching out of habit. Hated the finale.

I never got tired of watching Voyager. Frustrated at times but I was never bored with it. Never watched it out of habit. I always cared about the characters. Finale...meh. Not the best or worst. Was sorry to see it go.

Retcons, dropped storylines, unanswered questions, plot holes etc etc to the point where it seemed the writers were just running out of steam. To be honest it gives me more of a headache thinking about it when it happened BSG than it did when it happened on Voyager. I have no idea why I'm more forgiving of Voyager...maybe I'm blinded by the Star Trek logo.

Not saying Voyager is a better show. Would never do that. I don't mind it when things go dark...I liked the darker nature of DS9 so I don't have to have things light and fluffy all the time.

I'm glad Voyager did NOT follow that pattern and I'm glad Ron Moore did not get his way completely. Wish he had gotten his way a little bit more than he did but not to the extent that he did with BSG.

Could any 'lost in space' show ever be able to continue on past two years without folding in on itself?

 

[Rahul]

Yeah. I'm pretty with you on that.

I really loved BSG, it's still one of my favourite scifi-shows (well... except for the final episode...).

But I never got why Trekdom demanded Voyager to be grimdark...

I mean: it's still Star Trek. A positive, post-scarcity future! Which means: This one ship was pretty much self-sufficient! Also: people like to forget how BIG this ship is! It has, like, four times the volume of a US Nimitz-class carrier, and that has a crew of 3.200 (!!) people and is pretty much self-sufficient! Finally: The Enterprise was often lost in space, too, and the commanding officers NEVER turned on each other!

So yeah, I'm pretty happy with the tone of the show. That a lot of episodes didn't quite reach the extraordinary quality that TNG consistently had is a very different issue...

 

[Lynx]

I agree. I'm happy that they never made Voyager a doom-and-gloom series.

 

[E-DUB]

No, but striking a not-so-happy medium would have been possible. Continue the Starfleet-Maquis conflict a little longer, have some damage to the ship be permanent, deal with the real morale issues that would develop is such a circumstance.

 

[Dukhat]

I wouldn't have wanted VOY to be like BSG. Conversely, I wanted VOY to be more than just a retread of TNG. I never once felt that the crew was in any danger of running out of supplies, crew, shuttles, weapons, etc. Most of VOY could have taken place right back in the Alpha Quadrant, and no one would have known the difference.

 

[Rahul]

Yeah. i really think they should have put a bit more focus on characters. Having a plot of the week is fine, but I would have like to seen some long-term developments for the characters.

That being said: I didn't like the Maquis-idea. The Maquis and Starfleet are political enemies. Not personal ones. It's not like Kirk having to work together with the klingons. More like Democrats with Republicans...
There simply isn't that much interesting conflict. And in the face of a true challenge, avoiding personal conflict should be the norm, So no surprise that everyone got together just fine.

If you want personal conflict, they should have done either:
a) Have real enemies on the ship, like a few Romulans or
b) have a civil crew on board, one that isn't Starfleet and just is not trained to face those circumstanes every week, but still is needed as part of the crew because so many officers have died in the pilot.

 

[Rahul]

I wouldn't have wanted VOY to be like BSG. Conversely, I wanted VOY to be more than just a retread of TNG. I never once felt that the crew was in any danger of running out of supplies, crew, shuttles, weapons, etc. Most of VOY could have taken place right back in the Alpha Quadrant, and no one would have known the difference.

Yeah, but I think that's the point: Voyager shouldn't run out of supplies. Star Trek is post-scarcity. They can replicate everything, the only concern would be really rare things (like Dilithium crystals) and energy (which they have enough of, as long as the warpcore is running).

The only thing that should really be a concern: No back-up. No allies. And total isolation. (Of which we sadly didn't saw much either...)

 

[Dukhat]

I wouldn't have wanted VOY to be like BSG. Conversely, I wanted VOY to be more than just a retread of TNG. I never once felt that the crew was in any danger of running out of supplies, crew, shuttles, weapons, etc. Most of VOY could have taken place right back in the Alpha Quadrant, and no one would have known the difference.

Yeah, but I think that's the point: Voyager shouldn't run out of supplies. Star Trek is post-scarcity. They can replicate everything, the only concern would be really rare things (like Dilithium crystals) and energy (which they have enough of, as long as the warpcore is running).

The only thing that should really be a concern: No back-up. No allies. And total isolation. (Of which we sadly didn't saw much either...)

If they could just replicate anything, why did they need Neelix to cook for them? Why were they always fretting about losing too many shuttles or torpedoes? Why was holodeck time rationed at first?

 

[Rahul]

...

Yeah, but I think that's the point: Voyager shouldn't run out of supplies. Star Trek is post-scarcity. They can replicate everything, the only concern would be really rare things (like Dilithium crystals) and energy (which they have enough of, as long as the warpcore is running).

The only thing that should really be a concern: No back-up. No allies. And total isolation. (Of which we sadly didn't saw much either...)

If they could just replicate anything, why did they need Neelix to cook for them? Why were they always fretting about losing too many shuttles or torpedoes? Why was holodeck time rationed at first?

Well, all of those things are very energy consuming:
shuttles and torpedoes need engines and anti-matter, the holodeck and replicators create matter out of pure energy. So it's logical they should be rationized.

As for Neelix' food: When you have only a few replicator rations, his food is probably still preferable to the 'standard protein rations'.

 

[Solarbaby]

In later episodes they decided that the holodeck had its own separate energy supply so thats why it could be used rather than on the replicators- WTF lazy writing!

 

[Solarbaby]

This is an interesting thread, I loved year of hell and would have been happy to see an entire season of this story. It would be interesting to see the crew interaction facing some of the darker themes on BSG. It was part of the inspiration I took in creating my own animated series set in the same era as Voyager. I wanted to see 2 opposed crews working together properly with all the realistic fallout and conflict of such an unusual collaboration. I felt the Maquis story was a complete waste of time as nothing ever came of it. In my story I have a loyal Starfleet crew and outed section 31 operatives forced to coexist.

 

[Anwar]

Well, it's not like the Maquis plot had much life to it in the first place. They'd have to learn to get over their grudges and work together within a year or so, otherwise they'd be a bunch of mentally unbalanced folks who were never going to survive.

It didn't help that the Feds and Maquis weren't real enemies in the first place, their main point of contention was over the DMZ. The same DMZ that was now 75 years away, the same absent DMZ that meant there wasn't much reason to stay adversarial to one another.

 

[BruntFCA]

Well, it's not like the Maquis plot had much life to it in the first place. They'd have to learn to get over their grudges and work together within a year or so, otherwise they'd be a bunch of mentally unbalanced folks who were never going to survive.

It didn't help that the Feds and Maquis weren't real enemies in the first place, their main point of contention was over the DMZ. The same DMZ that was now 75 years away, the same absent DMZ that meant there wasn't much reason to stay adversarial to one another.

I agree with you that the tension had a limited shelf life but I think where they went wrong was making both of the Maqui regulars Starfleet (Chakotay was a former officer and B'Elanna was trained at the academy). Having 2 of the main characters with a different perspective would have been fertile grounds for stories.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I'm glad they dumped all the Maquis crap. They always irritated me anyway. Besides, the whole reason the Maquis even existed was because of the Cardassians. Out in the Delta Quadrant, there are no Cardassians. So why dredge up the conflict where it has no need to exist? And as for the holodeck: I agree that morale issues would be of the greatest importance in a show like this. That's why they kept the holodeck running. Without the holodeck, half the crew would have gone insane from loneliness within a year.

As for BSG: I'm also glad they didn't make Voyager like that. It might have been appropriate if the showrunners had gotten their wish to make an entire season out of "Year of Hell", but that should have been the end of it.

Voyager is a Trek show, and thus it should have at least some likable characters. That alone is a reason not to make it like nuBSG - in which I found NO one I could like.

 

[WoTe]

BSG's problem was they kept upping and re-upping the drama until characters went OOC so much it didn't seem to matter what they did. They also had no clue where to take the show after a while. Everything felt dragged out after a while.

Plus I thought some things were unrealistic. Like their asperations towards Democracy after over 99.9999% of the population got decimated.

I agree. After season 2, I just stopped caring.

Voyager could have had tension (ship getting damage, the maquis) without everyone turning upon each other like BSG. In fact, written correctly, they could have reaffirmed the Star Trek philosophy without getting corny.

 

[fireproof78]

Did I want VOY to be BSG? No, of course not. I didn't want BSG to be BSG either, so there's that.

VOY's problem was simply the fact that it was TNG-lite, without the charm of the TNG cast. It set's up its premise, limited though it might be, with some prebuilt conflict with the Maquis.

Does it all have to be season long or series long conflict and problems? No! The whole idea of Star Trek is people and beings working together in cooperation for a common goal, including defense, exploration and, in this case, survival.

I think VOY had a lot of potential, but never really got my interest the way TNG or DS9 did. I certainly did not want a Trek version of BSG, but something more in the middle.

 

[Vanyel]

Yeah, but I think that's the point: Voyager shouldn't run out of supplies. Star Trek is post-scarcity. They can replicate everything, the only concern would be really rare things (like Dilithium crystals) and energy (which they have enough of, as long as the warpcore is running).

The only thing that should really be a concern: No back-up. No allies. And total isolation. (Of which we sadly didn't saw much either...)

The Federation is post scarcity. Even with replicaters the ship needed matter to rearrange into food or rations. That matter, the name of which eludes me now is on every Starfleet ship. The amount Voyager carried wouldn't last 70 years. Even if it recycled what was replicated, what is given back would be less than what was made. Voyager needed scarcity of materials. The replicater rations was a good idea.

Voyager could have certainly picked up a few lessons from BSG.

Conflict between the crew, what was it? 176 people on board, at least on a ship of 3000+ there is room for characters to come and go. If Tom and Chakotay couldn't work together at all, TFB, they had to work together.

People who didn't think a 70 year journey was worth it vs. those who did. Personally, I couldn't see why people like that weren't represented. That Voyager encountered all it did was pretty damn lucky, one way to knock out a few light years is okay maybe even two ways, but transwarp conduits, transwarp slingshot, Kes sending them all the way across Borg space, Q giving them a map to take a few years off their journey was all way too out there. I'm sure there would be those who said, forget it I'm staying here, away from the Kazon, and no Borg in sight.

The Borg, I would have mutinied to have the ship turn around and look for other ways. Don't mess with the Borg.

There were many natural ways conflict could have arisen including changing loyalties because of the reason I mentioned.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I do think VOY should've been more like BSG and SGU in that they are a group of people thrown together by circumstance and struggling to survive on their own. That's really where I feel VOY let itself down, the seemed to have it too easy throughout, there was never any sense that they were starving or suffered from any kind of depression or low morale at their situation, the ship was almost always spotlessly clean and in perfect working order.

A little suffering is good for the soul, so they say, it would also help show that they are committed to the principles and ideals of the UFP and Starfleet if, when at their absolute lowest, they stick to them, doing what's right instead of what's easy.

 

[stardream]

In later episodes they decided that the holodeck had its own separate energy supply so thats why it could be used rather than on the replicators- WTF lazy writing!

Didn't they establish that early on...like the second episode?

A little suffering is good for the soul.

I agree with this in part. I think they tried to do this with season 5. Everyone went through some 'dark night' which caused the characters to feel alone and look inward. They could have gone further with that as far as I'm concerned.

without the charm of the TNG cast

The TNG cast had charm? I liked them very much and all that but as far as actually caring for whatever reason I cared a lot more for the Voyager cast...but your mileage may vary and all that.


We also have to keep in mind that a lot of the writer's ideas were quashed by the network. Just read a BTS blurb about the writer of Maneuvers. He really really wanted Chakotay to be thrown in the brig for his actions but the word came down from on high that wasn't going to happen. Writer was frustrated. Looking back I wonder why on earth not? I think the fans would have been ok with it. Makes me wonder what other ideas got canned.

 

[Relayer1]

Nope, I'm of the Voyager was a huge missed opportunity persuasion. As well as it having poor writing, I didn't like the casting much either.

Whilst agreeing that BSG lost its way somewhat, it's still the best genre show I've seen for many years...