Did we really wants "Battlestar Galactica'?

[somebuddyX]

I wouldn't want Voyager to be like BSG and I don't think RDM thinks this either. I think Voyager could've used it's lone starship and mixed crew storyline more effectively with a semi serialised manner and still tell a good hopeful Star Trek series and I would bet good dollars RDM feels the same way. It's all about using the strengths of a particular story or setting to the best of it's ability and not about trying to turn it into something it's not. BSG and Voyager are like apples and oranges. However, all this said, by the end of the second episode I understood what direction Voyager was going as just a random fun romp of the week and made my peace with it all.

 

[hux]

Voyager should have had a more difficult time in the Delta quadrant (but not depressing, misery levels of difficulty). It did end up being a pleasure cruise and needed to be somewhere closer to the middle ground. I also wanted more conflict with the Maquis; not because they were Maquis but because they were untrained, undisciplined non-Starfleet people who should have had less of a goody-goody Starfleet policy regarding how to get home.

My main gripe though has always been that the ship felt parochial. The crew just seemed small and bridge focused (understandable for a Trek show but if they're traveling for decades together, the lower ranks should have been more prominent). I wanted voyager to have a travelling community feel about it. Relationships and families being the norm on board. A sense that they really would be travelling for years and would have to band together to create a real family. Perhaps pick up others and turn into a convoy for some of the journey.

In the end, it was just the bridge crew, doing normal, formulaic Starfleet stuff as though they'd be home fairly soon. No big deal. Even episodes like Twisted where everyone is apparently being pushed to the centre of the ship (Sandrines) didn't make much effort to create a tangible sense that this was a huge ship with a a huge crew. Despite being pushed to the centre by the anomaly, the only people who ended up at Sandrines were the bridge crew.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

My main gripe though has always been that the ship felt parochial. The crew just seemed small and bridge focused (understandable for a Trek show but if they're traveling for decades together, the lower ranks should have been more prominent). I wanted voyager to have a travelling community feel about it. Relationships and families being the norm on board. A sense that they really would be travelling for years and would have to band together to create a real family. Perhaps pick up others and turn into a convoy for some of the journey.

This would've been great for the show. Since they kept on about the crew being a family and that there were only 150-ish onboard. Actually seeing that element would have made it stronger.

DS9 had a long list of recurring characters, any one of which was better developed and written than most of the VOY main cast.

 

[Relayer1]

Voyager should have had a more difficult time in the Delta quadrant (but not depressing, misery levels of difficulty). It did end up being a pleasure cruise and needed to be somewhere closer to the middle ground. I also wanted more conflict with the Maquis; not because they were Maquis but because they were untrained, undisciplined non-Starfleet people who should have had less of a goody-goody Starfleet policy regarding how to get home.

My main gripe though has always been that the ship felt parochial. The crew just seemed small and bridge focused (understandable for a Trek show but if they're traveling for decades together, the lower ranks should have been more prominent). I wanted voyager to have a travelling community feel about it. Relationships and families being the norm on board. A sense that they really would be travelling for years and would have to band together to create a real family. Perhaps pick up others and turn into a convoy for some of the journey.

In the end, it was just the bridge crew, doing normal, formulaic Starfleet stuff as though they'd be home fairly soon. No big deal. Even episodes like Twisted where everyone is apparently being pushed to the centre of the ship (Sandrines) didn't make much effort to create a tangible sense that this was a huge ship with a a huge crew. Despite being pushed to the centre by the anomaly, the only people who ended up at Sandrines were the bridge crew.

This !

If you throw in some continuity regarding damage, torpedoes and shuttles expended and some genuine resource scarcity, you'd have a great show. I'd still have cast other actors for Janeway and Tuvok, possibly Torres too, but I could have put up with them...

 

[somebuddyX]

I remember liking the look of Voyager in Scorpion Pt 2 and The Gift, with the Borg junk on the outside of the ship. I wish there had been more little modification details like that.

 

[stardream]

by the second episode I understood what direction Voyager was going as just a random fun romp of the week and made my peace with it all.

That was pretty much my attitude. I just decided to go with it. Looking back I didn't expect DS9 to take the direction it did...I thought it would have a TNG like crew at a space station or something but I did the same with that...just accepted it. Made life a lot easier.

My main gripe though has always been that the ship felt parochial. The crew just seemed small and bridge focused (understandable for a Trek show but if they're traveling for decades together, the lower ranks should have been more prominent). I wanted voyager to have a travelling community feel about it. Relationships and families being the norm on board. A sense that they really would be travelling for years and would have to band together to create a real family. Perhaps pick up others and turn into a convoy for some of the journey.

Oh I agree with this. They could have used characters like Carey a lot more than they did AND the crew members from the Equinox. They should have done at least one episode of them trying to adjust. Some more 'lower decks'.

Someone somewhere made an attempt to use the same extras (on LOST they changed from week to week) and the main characters would sometimes name drop some random character from time to time (like Chell) but that is about as far as they went.

 

[Makarov]

Yeah for me I lost a lot of enthusiasm for BSG after the Pegasus stuff. I realized stuff was going to keep resetting to the status quo in the long term. I love some of the characters, acting and moments on that show but the overall story lets it down big time.

BSG's story just doesn't evolve far enough for me, it kept hitting the reset button like it was pseudo-episodic. The show pretends the big cylon reveals in later seasons would be game changers but it still felt like nothing changed to me. I prefer Voyager because it knows what it is and sticks to it, an episodic stranded in space series.

 

[fireproof78]

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.
.

I can see that, and perhaps charm is the wrong word. I think I just did not find anything endearing about the VOY crew that would make me feel invested in whether or not they succeed.

As ridiculously over-the-top dark BSG was, I at least got a sense of their characters, their momentum and what the goal was. VOY felt like it had a goal, but no real characters that carried that vision forward.

It's hard to explain. I just didn't feel a chemistry in the VOY crew that the TNG crew had and it made other problems with VOY more apparent.

But, as you said, your mileage may (and probably will) vary.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree Voyager shouldn't have been NuBSG.

But it could have been a light show while still maintaining some semblance of continuity and loyalty to the premise.

It's not a black or white issue, either the Maquis blend in completely in the first season or they spend seven years at each others' throats. I like that they learned to work together quickly, but they could have done that while still preserving the Maquis identity separate from Starfleet. Hell, DS9 pulled it off with the Bajorans. They start out fighting with Starfleet, and end up working together as friends but without losing their identity to Starfleet. Voyager could have had a character like Garak who was on Voyager's side but willing to fight dirty to survive.

 

[Isolinear]

I like the stand-alone episode (TNG-lite) format of Voyager. That said, the show didn't properly use the premise of a lost ship. I agree that most episodes could have taken place in the Alpha Quadrant. It never felt like they were far from home.

The Enterprise always stopped by Starbase X or Y for repairs and new supplies. Voyager couldn't do that and it still looked like a brand new Starfleet vessel. By season 4 it should have looked like a repaired patchwork of spare parts with some Alien tech! Maybe they should have altered the standing sets a bit at the start of each season.

A season-long Year of Hell? We basically got a taste of that in Enterprise Season 3 and I really don't think that fits Voyager's lighter tone.

We got some episodes that dealt with the issues of stuck incompetent crewmembers or depression (Learning Curve, Good Shepherd, Extreme Risk, Night), but it was always forgotten by the time the credits rolled.
I don't think you can blame Voyager for only focusing on the Bridge Crew though. That's what every Star Trek (and every other space opera) has done, even DS9 with the same 20-something people on a huge space station.

BSG started to lose its mind in Season 3 with all the Cylon paranoia. I think that's a symptom of the serial format. I've seen it happen in more than one series. The main characters start to act weird, new characters hijack the show and you don't even recognize the show you loved so much. Even DS9 fell victim to this with their Dominion War obsession in my opinion.

Like I said, I much prefer Voyager's episodic approach, although it definitely could've used more continuity. I think DS9's season 3-5 had the perfect balance of continuity and classic Star Trek episodic storytelling.

 

[T'Girl]

Besides, the whole reason the Maquis even existed was because of the Cardassians

No, the whole reason the Maquis even existed was because of an agreement between the Federation and the Cardassians.

The Maquis was fighting both, not just one.

 

[MacLeod]

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'.

I though that the replicators basically convert one form of matter to another. So you have to expend energy to in essence umake it and then expend more energy to convert it to something useful. So they have to have bulk matter to work, it's not greated out of thin air i.e. erengy.

To answer the question did we really want BSG, No becasue BSG was a campy show from the 70's and nuBSG hadn't aired yet.

Now this is where things get tricky

1.>Some where happy with a retread of TNG type stroy telling

2.>Some where new to ST

3.>Some read the premise and made what many would say not unreleastic expections on what to expect in part helped by what was said about the show before it aired and in early episodes.

i.e we only have 38 torpedeos and no way to replace them.

The logical extension of that is if they can't replace something like a torpdeo then they have no chance of replacing something more complex like say a shuttlecraft.

Lets not forgot a torpedeo is a little bigger than a human, so that might mean they can't repalce hull panels, interior panels etc...

No you can argue it was a bad line and perhaps it was but rather than address the issue which would have taken all of three or so seconds.

Captain's Log, Engineering reports they have found a way to build new photon torpedeos

Job done, it shows your audiance that you aren't treating them as idiots. If you are reading a book and in Chapter 7a limitation is placed and in Chapter 34 the writer ignores the limitation without reason you would call it sloppy writing.

Unlike TNG for some VOY seemed to lean more towards the serialised format of storytelling for some . Not saying one form is better than the other.

At the end of the day VOY could have had tighter continuity and perhaps and most of it would have made little impact to the episodes themsevles so would really impact the casual viewer but could have helped allievate some of the compaints levelled at it from some of the fans. So it could potentailly have sruck a balance between nuBSG and what we got.

True some of the problems of VOY came from network interfference and VOY isn#t alone in suffering from netwrok interferance E:FC and Andromeda anyone?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Besides, the whole reason the Maquis even existed was because of the Cardassians

No, the whole reason the Maquis even existed was because of an agreement between the Federation and the Cardassians.

The Maquis was fighting both, not just one.

The problem is that the Maquis failed to consider just WHY the Federation might have signed that treaty with Cardassia in the first place. They had no concept of the greater picture - of how likely it was that outright WAR with Cardassia would have resulted, if not for that treaty.

Oh yes, there is also that niggling little technicality that it was the colonists' whole IDEA to live under Cardassian jurisdiction in the first place!

The point is that the Federation did not just hand over those colonies on a whim. The Maquis may prefer to think of the Federation as "The Man" - the stereotypical eeeeeeeeeevil government handing over innocent colonists - yet they failed to realize there were clear reasons why the Federation might have risked such a move.

The Cardassians may well have committed war crimes in the DMZ; I am not dismissing that. But I also feel obligated to point out that the Federation had what I consider to be clear reasons for engaging in that treaty. (Realpolitik, if you will.) The Federation is not the outright villain here. That's all I wanted to say.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I like the stand-alone episode (TNG-lite) format of Voyager. That said, the show didn't properly use the premise of a lost ship. I agree that most episodes could have taken place in the Alpha Quadrant. It never felt like they were far from home.

If they just wanted to make an episodic show about discovering new planets, they shouldn't have used a premise that demands at least some serial arcs.

 

[Sybok Was Wrong]

The studio did the right thing in the big picture of making "Star Trek: Voyager" episodes virtually all "standalone".

It's better for syndication, it's better for the casual viewer.

It's what was already a proven success for TOS & TNG, the two most popular and successful series.

DS9, Babylon 5 & new BSG were all quality shows in their original runs, but good luck finding them in reruns now. All more serialized shows.

There's a lot of reasons DS9 is the least popular Trek series by the general public- serialization being a big one.

Serialized shows are an investment of time a lot of people don't have. And when I sit down to watch "Star Trek: Voyager", I want to see a bit of that likeable, optimistic escapism, not a smashed up starship, a demoralized, beat up crew.

UPN & Rick Berman did the right thing.

 

[fireproof78]

I like the stand-alone episode (TNG-lite) format of Voyager. That said, the show didn't properly use the premise of a lost ship. I agree that most episodes could have taken place in the Alpha Quadrant. It never felt like they were far from home.

If they just wanted to make an episodic show about discovering new planets, they shouldn't have used a premise that demands at least some serial arcs.

Or have them establish allies, even briefly, that allows them to feel more comfortable exploring a little bit on the way home.

Regardless, I could have gotten more in to VOY if the characters were better developed.

The studio did the right thing in the big picture of making "Star Trek: Voyager" episodes virtually all "standalone".

It's better for syndication, it's better for the casual viewer.

It's what was already a proven success for TOS & TNG, the two most popular and successful series.

DS9, Babylon 5 & new BSG were all quality shows in their original runs, but good luck finding them in reruns now. All more serialized shows.

There's a lot of reasons DS9 is the least popular Trek series by the general public- serialization being a big one.

Serialized shows are an investment of time a lot of people don't have. And when I sit down to watch "Star Trek: Voyager", I want to see a bit of that likeable, optimistic escapism, not a smashed up starship, a demoralized, beat up crew.

UPN & Rick Berman did the right thing.

Problem was, that wasn't the show they started out with, so it felt like the premise was left as a cliff-hanger that never really was fulfilled.

Again, it doesn't have to be a demoralized, depressing crew, but there was never a treatment that they were truly far away from home, save for lip service.

 

[Isolinear]

If they just wanted to make an episodic show about discovering new planets, they shouldn't have used a premise that demands at least some serial arcs.

Well we got the Kazon arc and that didn't work out very well.

Serial arcs involving the Voyager crew themselves, I can see that working, but recurring alien characters, races and alliances become kind of unbelievable when those aliens magically travel along with Voyager, a ship constantly on the move heading for home.

The whole concept of Voyager making a beeline for Earth demands Alien of the week episodes. Anything else doesn't make sense.

 

[Anwar]

I like the stand-alone episode (TNG-lite) format of Voyager. That said, the show didn't properly use the premise of a lost ship. I agree that most episodes could have taken place in the Alpha Quadrant. It never felt like they were far from home.

If they just wanted to make an episodic show about discovering new planets, they shouldn't have used a premise that demands at least some serial arcs.

The problem was that the premise was only good for one or two seasons in the first place with nothing to really replace it with.

 

[MacLeod]

The studio did the right thing in the big picture of making "Star Trek: Voyager" episodes virtually all "standalone".

It's better for syndication, it's better for the casual viewer.

It's what was already a proven success for TOS & TNG, the two most popular and successful series.

DS9, Babylon 5 & new BSG were all quality shows in their original runs, but good luck finding them in reruns now. All more serialized shows.

There's a lot of reasons DS9 is the least popular Trek series by the general public- serialization being a big one.

Serialized shows are an investment of time a lot of people don't have. And when I sit down to watch "Star Trek: Voyager", I want to see a bit of that likeable, optimistic escapism, not a smashed up starship, a demoralized, beat up crew.

UPN & Rick Berman did the right thing.

They may have done the right thing in making it stand alone from a commercial point of view but not from a story telling point of view. You could bascially move the show from the DQ to the AQ and for the most part it wouldn't make any real difference to the episode. Isn't that a failure of the show to have it's own identity? i.e it's nick name TNG-lite.

As for fidning DSN, it's currently in re-run on SyFy (UK), BSG(RDM) has recently rerun and even B5 was rerun a year or so back I think. So perhaps it might be more accurate to say good luck in findng those in reruns in the USA.

Finally imagine yourself trapped on that ship seventy years from home, with people trying to blow you up every other week, your ship taking a pounding, limited supplies etc.. Are you really saying that it would never get to you the fact that you might never see home again? They never really sold us that these people might never see their homes again, sure the writers knew they would but the characters wouldn't know that.

 

[stardream]

The problem was that the premise was only good for one or two seasons in the first place with nothing to really replace it with.

Which is what happened with BSG imho. There is a definite shift in tone around the start of Season 3 with Voyager. No longer 'let's get home' and more 'let's enjoy the ride'. I didn't mind it but I can understand how it could cause frustration for some.

There's a lot of reasons DS9 is the least popular Trek series by the general public- serialization being a big one.

Serialized shows are an investment of time a lot of people don't have. And when I sit down to watch "Star Trek: Voyager", I want to see a bit of that likeable, optimistic escapism, not a smashed up starship, a demoralized, beat up crew.

I wish I knew a bit more about who was who at UPN. Voyager wasn't only a network show...it was set up to be the flagship show of the network. Lots of pressure on a lot of people. I have also wondered if 'they' whoever they might have been had the attitude that 'these are things that have worked in the past on other shows' which in and of themselves might be perfectly fine elements but might not work as well for a Star Trek show.

I personally have found in my circle of friends (and I know this means little in the larger scheme of things) people who have said they didn't like Voyager at the time it was aired and many stopped watching but they find they enjoy it NOW. Some wondered if it wasn't because they weren't watching it in tandem with DS9 and hadn't gotten past comparing and contrasting. I admit I believe that's what I was doing even though I wasn't conscience of it at the time. I really like Voyager NOW better than I did back then.