It's strange that as viewers we can rationalize over a personal truth. Like having children and saying I love them all the same but deep down knowing you like one more than the other. I have zero problem, as is obvious no doubt, saying Voyager is superior. It is not to be mean about the Original which was the foundation of the franchise even before it was a franchise. Or to disregard Next Generation which was my favorite when it came along. Or even Deep Space Nine which I didn't really like as a setting but the characters saved it. Enterprise did not capture my imagination. Voyager rises to the top. The child I like best,
Considering the kind of attitude Voyager has gotten for 20 years, it's justified. The Feds and Maquis weren't going to be enemies for 7 years, and they weren't going to survive 1 season if they couldn't repair damage or resupply.
I'm almost glad I ventured into another re-watching of Voyager having learnt of the criticisms regards Voyager and her maintenance. Practically every episode accounts for them. I just never thought to notice before. But they are there.
I only watched Voyager sporadically when it first aired. I lost interest early. The early stories, for the most part, didn't really grab me. I popped in from time to time but it just never stuck. Now, I'm going through the entire series again. I'm in the middle of season six. Watching the first couple seasons only reinforced how generally dull they are. Neelix really annoyed me until Kes left. He got less annoying after that. The episodic nature of the series is not something I care for. I often wonder how the rest of the cast felt when Jeri Ryan came in and Seven of Nine was getting most of the screen time. I can imagine some of them being a little irked by it. I've generally enjoyed the show but after I finish I don't think I'll ever want to watch this series again, a few episodes excepted.
I stopped watching Voyager when it aired also, but it had nothing to do with the shows quality. I was just getting older and not watching any TV. All Star Trek is "Episodic." That's the format and idea.
^Well, not all Trek. There's the 10-episode finale from DS9 and the 3rd season of ENT in the Delphic Expanse. But it is mostly the base format, yes. It isn't really fair to condemn VOY for that but not TNG, at least not without any additional qualifiers (see below). Also, non-episodic isn't necessarily better. I'll take a well-done episodic show over a badly executed serialized show anyday. I think, objectively speaking, there is significantly more character development and ongoing continuity in VOY than in TNG (even though there are several 'reset button instances'). However, VOY was a show in a time when many viewers had started to expecting some more long-term development than could be found in traditional Trek shows such as in TNG (possibly because of series such as DS9 and Babylon 5). Globally then the argument would become analogous to the holodeck episodes sentiment: Why criticise VOY, but not TNG, for that? Because by the time of VOY - as one of the successor series to TNG- it was by a part of the viewership percieved as old hat, 'been there, done that, please think of something new', while it was still felt to be at least somewhat original in TNG's time - even though it is of course an old writer's trick to use devices or dreams to tell more stories. Fair criticism or not? I won't decide on that.
I think Voyager kind of gives you the best of both worlds...many episodes are self contained stories but there are many underlying arcs throughout the show.
Fair enough guys and gal. Maybe it's just Fairhaven that irritates me. Good point on the reset button instances. And yes, TNG overused the holodeck. Maybe the difference was that at least in TNG. the holodeck was new. By Voyager, it's old hat.
Here we go again. Was VOY a bad show no, was it as good as it could have been no. What's one of the critisims levelled at VOY great premise that was wasted. For those that loved it for what it was great enjoy it. All the Trek shows had flaws in fact most shows if not al shows and films have flaws. But very little about VOY felt fresh the best character wasn't even real rather a seris of lines of code and photons held within a forcefield. Now to for those wwhos indrocution to ST was VOY if might have seemed fresh because they hadn't seen the same stories told in DSN, TNG or TOS (several times over). VOY was also airing at a time when more serialsed shows is what the audiance was after and yes whilst there was some growth, I think there could have been more. They could have been better use of secondary characters (as it's not like they could get any replacements). Not to mention the seemingly endless suplly of shuttles of photons despite being told they couldn't replace them.
Episodic style shows do seem to age more badly when you try to re-watch them. The characters do seem to be stuck in a 2 dimensional world. You get romance of the week, villain of the week, passenger of the week etc. episodes that are never mentioned again. You can see how bad it can get when a character is killed and a few minutes later the main characters are laughing about something-because they quickly forgot what happened a few minutes ago. And in those (TOS and TNG in particular) they tended to do the same things--focus on the "Big Three" all the time and treat everyone else as background characters-the result is limited viewing and "what ifs" later when you re-watch them. You can see it in almost all the TOS movies and especially the TNG movies. I give credit to Voyager, because they did try to give everyone something to do-each character got their own episodes a few times and it wasn't always focused on Janeway. Although some people do think that later they started to do the same thing with Seven. And they mixed it up a bit with episode arcs. I liked DS9 because it was like watching a soap opera. They kept the focus on Sisko as the leader, but had a real diverse cast of good, dodgy, shades of grey characters that weren't necessary good or bad. And found a way to divide up the screen time to make them interesting. But--it was too late for Voyager, I think. It still had too much of the old style format that made the show and the franchise look very tired at that point..
Serialised shows aren't without their issues however. Unles they have a plan in mind it can come across as the writers making it up as they go along, witness nBSG and the Cylon "plan". B5 worked slightly better because JMS had a plan worked out (events such as the very late S5 renewel didn't help.
Don't forget the two great Moriarty episodes from TNG. p.s. Does anyone have a complete list of Holodeck-centric episodes?
The memory alpha page has a list of notable holodeck programs. It's close to a list of episodes http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Holodeck
I wanted to like that show (the reboot of Galatica) but it was gloom and doom. Like the Stargates. They started off all McGyver fun and games and then became violent and disturbing. Why do they do that with some of our favorites? Think they have to become gritty and serious to be realistic. Why should science fiction need to be realistic anyway and caught up in the familiar to be relatable?
^I watched some of the Galactica reboot. I didn't care for it much and didn't watch it all the way through. I liked the old one though. @Refuge ,Did you feel like the Stargate saga became violent and disturbing while it was still just SG1 and Atlantis? Or is it only the third program Universe that you feel became that way? I tried 2 times to watch Universe. I would get about half way through the first season each time and then I couldn't stand it anymore. Does anyone recall seeing a news article where Ronald D. Moore (who wrote for Voyager and for nuGalactica said, "This is what Voyager should have been". I think I saw it mentioned somewhere on this board.