Ronald D. Moore about Voyager

[ALF]

Except his complaints have total merit.

Agreed, I understand his importance within Star Trek/influence on modern sci-fi and why his complaints have merit over Joe Six-Pack. It's the quantity of negative complaints that come from him. I feel like he's on this exacerbating campaign - just from the headlines alone. Maybe it's the headlines from the interviews that are clickbaity:

"Ron D. Moore On Why Replicators are the WORST ... - Bleeding Cool" etc.

 

[Dukhat]

Agreed, I understand his importance within Star Trek/influence on modern sci-fi and why his complaints have merit over Joe Six-Pack. It's the quantity of negative complaints that come from him. I feel like he's on this exacerbating campaign - just from the headlines alone. Maybe it's the headlines from the interviews that are clickbaity:

"Ron D. Moore On Why Replicators are the WORST ... - Bleeding Cool" etc.

To be fair...what else is he going to say when asked about Voyager? It's not as if his opinion of the show and its production has changed one iota over time. If anything, it's probably gotten worse.

 

[suarezguy]

The audience is still watching VOYAGER. The ratings are down, but the ratings are down across television, in every category, on every network, and every program.

At least he was able to admit that, though he considered it a big disappointment for him he didn't pretend it was widely or particularly rejected by the audiences.

You could say that DEEP SPACE NINE was too inside, and it was too complex. It got too much inside of its own head to be accessible to people who just approached the show for the first time, but that is a reflection of deep passion and commitment to the show.

Even more unusual to admit that his own show was pretty non-commercial, pretty not friendly to a lot of viewers, though insisting that was better. There is something to that if ratings decline anyway you might as well try to focus more on really pleasing the few big fans than keep trying to get mass viewership.

The show doesn’t have a point of view that I can discern. It doesn’t have anything really to say. I truly believe it simply is just wandering around the galaxy.

That seems pretty harsh, seems to stem from believing if it's not dark or about interpersonal conflict and/or serialized it's bland and a waste of time.

I just don’t understand why it doesn’t even believe in itself. Examine the fundamental premise of VOYAGER. A starship chases a bunch of renegades. Both ships are flung to the opposite side of the galaxy. The renegades are forced to come aboard Voyager. They all have to live together on their way home, which is going to take a century or whatever they set up in the beginning.

That may be what he wanted the show to be and it could have been that but he admits from the beginning it wasn't really that so it's hard to think that that actually was it's main point. The Maquis were outlaws but far from unprincipled or against Starfleet, some were former Starfleet who left over the controversy (literally decades away from them now) or personal issues. You could argue that interactions were a little too seamless and obedience a little too constant but the point wasn't to have two rival groups working together purely out of necessity.

How many space anomalies of the week can you really stomach? How many time paradoxes can you do?

One or two or maybe even three a year, out of 26 episodes a year, isn't particularly a lot, far from exhausting.

When we were talking story before the season began, I thought, ‘One of the shows you should do is the trial of Captain Janeway. You should have the crew, one day, put her on trial.’

That actually would be entertaining, very different from what the show was but probably worthwhile. But of course it would feel weird (especially coming in the sixth season) and regardless, they would have to end up accepting her despite her flaws so it could be cheesy.

 

[Tosk]

but the point wasn't to have two rival groups working together purely out of necessity.

No? I thought that was completely the original point. If they had known they would abandon the 'two groups who have different approaches' angle so quickly, why bother to even start the story that way at all? If you started the series with just Voyager alone being stranded it would barely make much difference to the series as a whole.

I’m sure that Moore broke with BnB mainly because he wanted some serious darkness in relationships on the ship, coupled with disasterous malfunction of systems, maybe some mental illness, and some sex and violence. And that would be hard, if not impossible to do, if your aim is to promote the optimistic, family feel of VOY.

Except all of those things did happen on Voyager, so it's clearly not that hard to do.

 

[diankra]

Does it seem like RDM is always complaining about 90s era Trek?
Articles citing him always seem to take these super-negative positions.

"Franchise fatigue!"
"Wasted opportunity!"
"The audience doesn’t sit there and go, ‘God damn, they know science. That is really cool. Look how they figured that out. Hey Edna! Come here. You want to see how Chakotay is going to figure this out. He’s onto this thing with the quantum tech particles; it’s really interesting. I don’t know how he is going to do it, but he is going to reroute something. Oh my God, he found the anti-protons!’ Who cares?"

It's an old interview. Maybe 2000, given the mention of GvsE, and non-mention of Nemesis, Enterprise and nu-BSG. So maybe he isn't always grumbling, just having his quotes reappear?

 

[chris of nine]

Except all of those things did happen on Voyager, so it's clearly not that hard to do.

Accepted.

But he would do it all the time, times ten.

And destroy the optimism of the show.

Turn the humans into the bad guys, criminals, even.

Maybe even give a truly evil side to every character.


Start with, hmmm....Chakotay being drunk while on duty.

 

[Tosk]

But he would do it all the time, times ten.

And destroy the optimism of the show.

Turn the humans into the bad guys, criminals, even.

Maybe even give a truly evil side to every character.

Start with, hmmm....Chakotay being drunk while on duty.

He didn't do that on DS9, there's no reason to think he'd do it on VOY.

 

[gakelly]

I never watched Voyager when it was new, except for the pilot, which did nothing to inspire me to watch it. My thought at the time was a Lost In Space type show or reverse Gilligan's Island. I assumed half the episodes would have some way to get home but it would fall through at the end...ala Gilligan messing up the Professor's plan.

I recently watched the series on Netflix, although I admit some of the boring episodes became background noise. Still hated the premise, still hated Janeway. I literally would think...here's another time travel episode. Even the finale was a lame time travel episode.
There were a few interesting episodes, but not enough to make it what I would consider a great series.

 

[chris of nine]

He didn't do that on DS9, there's no reason to think he'd do it on VOY.

But he did on his own show.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of RDM.
I own the whole BSG box set.

It showed where his heart really is.
He’s very into the characters, which are strong but dark.
No alien monsters of the week.
And everything has flaws.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I would have loved to have seen more Voyager from Ron Moore. His one script, Survival Instinct, is quite possibly my favorite episode of the entire show.

 

[Terok Nor]

Not sure I agree Voyager had the best cast but it's objectively just as good a series as TOS. Total Star Trek adventure of the week craziness. TNG could never. I do prefer TNG but Voyager is a very fun Sci fi romp that is very underrated. Sure, the premise was wasted but once you get past that it's a crazy ride with the most bipolar captain in Starfleet history at the helm!

 

[STEPhon IT]

I always thought Ronald D. Moore would've been better on Voyager while Braga worked on DS9; it seemed Braga had loads of ideas which would've been far more forming for the Gamma Quadrant which the writers on DS9 completely wasted when the war came around. Moore on Voyager could've aided the writers on producing good character driven stories which didn't feel as if they belonged to one of TNG characters, and he may have solidify the strength and weaknesses of the characters or finally help give more screen time for the other characters. One thing I think Moore could've improve was giving the Incomparable Captain Kathryn Janeway an Achilles heel, something she needed from the start of the series. I sincerely doubt a first time Captain could be this perfect and not have some faults in command or strategic obstacles.

 

[Farscape One]

I honestly think when the TNG writers were divided between DS9 and VOYAGER, they put them where I think they could thrive the most.

Rene Echevarria and Ronald D. Moore were excellent at characters and their interactions, which is what DS9 was best at. Considering how many secondary characters were created in DS9, to juggle that many characters needed writers on staff who were best at writing those traits.

Brannon Braga was always a high concept writer. I did notice he dove into the time travel well too often... I did a count of all his credited STAR TREK episodes a long time ago, and about 1/2 - 1/3 dealt with time travel in some way and that may not seem like much, but he was credited in nearly 100 episodes, which means at the very least about an entire television season was time travel related. That sounds a little time travel obsessed to me.

Despite that, Braga was very imaginative and he did some really good scifi concepts, and VOYAGER needed someone like that from the start. The Delta Quadrant needed a way to separate itself from the Gamma, and just look at the odd sentient lifeforms encountered in season 1. A living nebula, a photonic lattice, disembodied entities (Which has been done before in STAR TREK, but the twist with Chakotay was refreshing.), space dwelling lifeforms, and a twisting distortion. Particularly since VOYAGER was launching a new network, it needed someone like that to draw the audience in.

Later, Joe Menosky was brought on, and he and Braga were a good pair. Joe helped ground Brannon, and that helped make some really great episodes... "DISTANT ORIGIN", "SCORPION" two-parter, "YEAR OF HELL" two-parter, "TIMELESS", and others.

 

[Iamnotspock]

Brannon Braga was always a high concept writer. I did notice he dove into the time travel well too often... I did a count of all his credited STAR TREK episodes a long time ago, and about 1/2 - 1/3 dealt with time travel in some way and that may not seem like much, but he was credited in nearly 100 episodes, which means at the very least about an entire television season was time travel related. That sounds a little time travel obsessed to me.

When it was announced a few short years ago that he was writing a comic story, I remember thinking, "It'll be a Borg time travel story." Lo and behold...

 

[Mareika]

It`s very interesting to read all of this comments. I for myself can agree in many of Moore`s statements.There`s one thing he spoke about, which I absolutally agree on. It`s the ending of Euinox.
Moore:
"What was the point of meeting this ship and this crew and this captain, and what did it mean? We finally landed on this idea that the two captains were going to go in opposite directions. Janeway was going to really feel the same kind of pressures and stresses that Ransom [John Savage] felt, and watch how it could turn a good, by-the-book Starfleet captain into what he had become. At the same time, his interaction with the Doctor [Robert Picardo] and Seven of Nine would rekindle his humanity. It was this nice, double track approach, but it just got lost in the translation. It has no coherence. You’re not sure what’s really going on. You’ve got some potentially good scenes. The scenes between Janeway and Chakotay had some real fire to them, and you kind of felt like she is going off the deep end, a bit. Then she relieves him of duty, and there is this crisis of command between the two of them. But at the end of the episode, it’s just a shrug and a smile and off to the next. I just hit the ceiling. I remember writing in the margins, ‘This is a total betrayal of the audience. This is wrong. You can’t end the show like this. If you are going to do all this other stuff, you can’t end the show like this, because it’s not fair, because it’s not true, and it just wouldn’t happen.’ "
That`s exactly what I felt when I first watched this two-parter (which I felt is a wonderful one).They are talking about going to a party and making a salat!!!!! Some hours ago she has put him in his quartier!

 

[suarezguy]

No? I thought that was completely the original point. If they had known they would abandon the 'two groups who have different approaches' angle so quickly, why bother to even start the story that way at all?

To make it a little different from the predecessors but not very different, if the writers/producers wanted something really different they would have made the other crew Romulans or Cardassians. The other crew being also Federation and in part formerly Starfleet indicates there will be some conflict but not very intense or, especially, long-lived.

I would have loved to have seen more Voyager from Ron Moore. His one script, Survival Instinct, is quite possibly my favorite episode of the entire show.

I thought it tried to bite off a lot more than it could chew, tried to cover too much and so a lot of it felt pretty rushed/underdeveloped.

 

[gakelly]

I think the endings of many of Voyager episodes are just so unrealistic. Someone betrays the ship and crew and at the end, it's not really a big deal...they just go back to their job and everyone forgets it. I really dislike that about Trek shows.

 

[Tosk]

The other crew being also Federation and in part formerly Starfleet indicates there will be some conflict but not very intense or, especially, long-lived.

It only indicates it in retrospect, character conflict was the reason they set up the show the way they did.

"Gene Roddenberry didn’t want conflict amongst his characters. That’s great, but it doesn’t help when you’re writing drama, because conflict is what drives drama. Without breaking Gene’s rules, we were always trying to find ways of creating conflict. This show featured the inherent conflict between Captain Janeway’s crew and that of the Maquis vessel. The Maquis become provisional Starfleet officers, but there will always be conflict between them, and that gave us something new and unique."
-- Rick Berman

And then...

The studio felt the cause of dwindling ratings on Deep Space Nine was dark and gritty conflicts, so they said, “This needs to be a bright, wonderful, happy show.” Well, what that did to us—and, by the way, I’m not sure Rick disagreed—is that when we created the circumstance that inherently had conflict in it, whereby you basically have the Maquis, the terrorists forced to become one crew with the people who are chasing them, which I think is a terrific premise, it was fundamentally decided that all that conflict was going to disappear almost immediately; everybody was going to wear uniforms, everybody is going to be Starfleet, everybody is going to obey orders, everybody is going to join hands and have the common goal to get home.

And we would not play the inherent conflict between the terrorists and Starfleet. It was very difficult for us to tell stories that made the characters come alive when you can’t have them disagreeing about anything. Essentially what you had is a launch to it that lacked the ability to tell character stories as a result of the studio’s feeling, and perhaps Rick’s, that we needed to get by the premise as quickly as possible and on our journey home, where it’s one for all and all for one.
-- Michael Piller