And that's all superficial pretext.Well, the relative position at any time of the show dictated what type of aliens they met.
Once they left the Kazon and Vidiian space, those species only ever appeared in flashbacks or timetravel episodes anymore. The Voyager crossed the Borg space between season 3 and 4, after that the Borg continued to show up (because of their superiour travel speed), but only ever as single ships. Once they reached a point where communication with Earth could be established, that was a constant on the show.
However you spin it, the journey of the Voyager has very clear and obvious "steps", and the regions are more clearly defined by travel times than in any other Trek show ever, where a journey between Earth and Kronos could take everything from weeks to hours.
Again: Voyager is really not a serialized show. But that is because every single episode has a singular plot that is resolved one way or another at the end of the episode. But plot threads get revisited regularly, and have a clear progression. The series absolutely has serialized storytelling elements, period.
And that's all superficial pretext.
As I said.
And that's all superficial pretext.
As I said.
They could have done a lot more with locations in space to make it really feel like it mattered and cohesive and so forth but you can't do that and have the "reset switch" .
VOY did literally more in that regard, to differentiate and define the different locations it's travelling through, and give each of them a different feel and backstory, than any other Trek show before or after it.
I mean, yes, it's still a child of it's time, and a lot of it looks rather mundane now in the era of serialized television. A modern show would be expected to do dig way deeper in this regard. But then again, DIS is amodern show, and is a big step back again.
every episode of voyager was pretty much self contained
and could be watched in any order.
If we're taking about something that's intended to be an ongoing series, then I'd like mostly standalone/episodic, but throw in some serialized elements. Every week would be new adventure and story, but the decisions the characters made and the relationships formed in the previous episode(s) would carryover to the next episode and beyond. It's not just a blank canvas every episode. Imagine if in season 4 of TNG, Picard dealt with some sort of PTSD throughout the whole season in reference to the Borg. We got a little bit of that in 'Family', but what if it lasted several episodes? The episodes and stories would still be pretty much the same, but every once in awhile you get a glimpse of Picard's struggle. (Note - Just using this has a hypothetical example and totally not criticizing TNG - it was a product of its time and had a formula it had to adhere to.) I'm not an "The Orville is better than STD!!" guy, but The Orville to an extent does do this, blend standalone with serialized elements.
I don't have anything against serialization (I love Game of Thrones) - but one of the greatest things about Star Trek, and one of the key factors why it's been alive for so long IMHO, is that you can literally take almost any episode of TOS or TNG, regardless what season it's from, and watch it whenever you want. You want to watch The Inner Light? Go for it. Got 55 minutes to kill? Balance of Terror sounds good. With serialization, there's a shelf life. You're not going to just randomly start watching an episode of Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad... or Discovery.
Now, if we're talking a limited-run/mini series, obviously you'll want to serialize it. That's a little different. A contained 6-9 episode arc with a certain, definite ending is easier to consume than an ongoing serialized TV show that kind of tapers off in the later seasons.
There, hopefully I didn't ramble too much.
We use essential cookies to make this site work, and optional cookies to enhance your experience.