Where did the show go wrong?

[Sakonna]

But when the likes of DS9, Babylon 5, The X-Files, and even stuff like Buffy the Vampire Slayer were starting to dabble in long-term story arcs, Voyager's approach just seemed outdated, and I don't think the stories were, for the most part, strong enough to make up for it.

This is dead-on. Also, often the basic premises could have been entirely episodic, and the exciting development was that TV was finally ready to start developing them into a serialized narrative anyway. But there was no baked-in structural reason X Files or Buffy ever had to move beyond monster-of-the-week, they could have done that indefinitely.

So in that context it was even more frustrating that Voyager had a premise that DEMANDED strong serialization, and mostly refused to engage.

It is no coincidence ... until you add Terry Farrell back into that list, who admits herself her acting skills were insufficient when she was hired.

Heh, don't get me started on what all the female castmember issues on these shows reveals! But unlike Beltran/Wang/Montgomery, she got better, so I'd say she was ultimately validated as good casting. Sometimes you're forced to hire someone who's not there yet, with the belief that they have the raw material and they'll get there.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

she got better

Because the writers worked with her and adapted her character to her interests. That simply did not happen when Braga was in charge.

 

[Brennyren]

Because the writers worked with her and adapted her character to her interests. That simply did not happen when Braga was in charge.

Yeah, well, on VOY that didn't exactly make Braga unique.

 

[gakelly]

So far I am up to Non Sequitur and have noted that the entire franchise revolves around episodes that involve irregularities in the space time continuum.
Can't they just have an episode that doesn't focus on time alterations or alternate timelines?

And the 37s? Worst episode of any Trek I have ever watched. The dialogue sucks. Earhart's navigator was ridiculous and said some of the dumbest things I have ever heard. When the car was floating through space it reminded me of Abe Lincoln chilling in the Savage Curtain. Not a good comparison.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

I find the Kazon to be the most ill conceived aliens in trek. They just aren't very interesting.
I finished season 1 and can say it is rather bland...some episodes are just unmemorable. They aren't thought provoking, super interesting or anything, but they are just what they are...kind of just disposable.

Eye of the Needle
Ex Post Facto
Jetrel

These were the 3 episodes that I would consider high quality of season 1.

The Kazon are why I stopped watching VOY when it first aired. It felt like their space was endless, and there would never be an end to having to see them. They were uninteresting and lacked depth. And it's ironic because VOY had so many species-of the-week, and then when they attempted arcs with a certain species for a season or so, they didn't know how to develop those species into something interesting or compelling. The Hirogen were one of the last attempts, and they still failed badly.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I started to write out all of the ways I think they could have corrected the show, but realized that there's enough that it basically amounts to, "Care more, and do a different show." It's not that there's *nothing* I like about Voyager, but there's just too much wrong.

Premise-wise from the get-go, I think if they had gone with two ships - one being USS Voyager, and the other being a civilian colony ship (not Maquis) - had them delivered to another galaxy by some spatial anomaly that couldn't be bargained with (unlike the Caretaker situation, which put the decision to not go home immediately in Janeway's hands), and then maybe had them find evidence that another ship from the Milky Way had been where they have found themselves before and given them a reason to keep looking rather than just settle down somewhere, you could have had a much better show.

 

[MacLeod]

And that Scott Bakula, who's actually a pretty good actor, was hopelessly miscast as a starship captain.

Sorry but got to disagree with you that Bakula was miscast as a star ship Captain, perhaps he was miscast as Archer but given the right material it might have been a different story. But ENT suffered from some of the same issues VOY did, we were sold X but got Y.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

It went "wrong" in the final episode when it had Chakotay and Seven become an item.

 

[Starflight]

But I disagree with your statement about seasons 1-3.

As I see it, season 2 was outstanding. Most of the episodes deserves best possible points, especially those mentioned in this thread, although I consider "Projections" as a season 1 episode due to ther stardate. Therte was only one bad episode, "Threshold" and that episode is actually funny if you watch it as some nightmare Janeway had after eating too much of Neelix's food before going to bed. Some really amusing scenes here.

Season 1 is also very good. Two really weak episodes ("Emanations" and "Elogium") but otherwise great episodes.

Season 3 is also good but there are more bum episodes here than in seasons 1 and 2 and I get the impression that the writers started to lose interest and inspiration after Voyager left Kazon space. They didn't know what to do with the series which is surprising considering how many posiblikities there were to come up with great stories about a ship in uncharted area with lot of new interesting species and situations.

I'm definitely interested in re-appraising pretty much anything in Star Trek - it took me a long time to come around to season 2 of TNG, but now I think it's one of the most interesting seasons in Star Trek history - so I'll have to give early Voyager another chance at some point.

All I can vividly remember of season two right now though is an overdose of Kazon plots, Seska, and the arc where there's a defector aboard Voyager and Neelix searches for him, and I didn't get on well with any of those.

I do like Threshold though, despite everything. As crazy and unintentionally hilarious as it is, there's a genuinely creepy concept hiding in there somewhere.

 

[dauntless]

I think the main point of where the show went wrong can be summed up in three words:

Seven. Of. Nine.

There is too much reliance on her during the last 4 seasons of the show.

 

[gakelly]

Persistence of Vision. The plot sucks and there's a lot of technobabble. The holodeck malfunctions again...you would think they would just get rid of the damn things. If something threatens to destroy the ship 3 or 4 times every season because of a malfunction, Starfleet would put some serious restrictions on it.

 

[suarezguy]

Having the Maquis on Voyager created an expectation that things would be different. Nobody made TPTB put Maquis on the crew; hell, the Maquis were created so that some of their number could be on the ship. Why do that if it's not going to make any difference?

It did make some difference the first year and a half or two, just not a massive difference even then.

You're right -- the way things played out, it would have been better to make the crew all-Starfleet from the beginning. At least that way the audience would have had a better idea of what they would actually get.

They were all in Starfleet uniforms by the end of the first episode so maybe disappointed but the audience wasn't particularly misled.

And I realized once-and-for-all, with season two's "Alliances," that that was out of the picture. After making what only the blindly charitable could call a good-faith effort to form alliances within the quadrant (I'm sorry, but when you're looking for allies and you tender a serious offer to the same woman who's already betrayed you and used her insider's knowledge to attack and rob you, you're either an idiot or you don't really want your efforts to succeed), Janeway firmly, uncompromisingly, and well-nigh insufferably proclaimed her intent to play by the book. The Starfleet book. Nothing to learn, no need to change.

Yeah, that was a pretty bad episode that felt it was too strongly and too smugly trying to discredit a concept rather than actually try it.

 

[Lynx]

I think the main point of where the show went wrong can be summed up in three words:

Seven. Of. Nine.

There is too much reliance on her during the last 4 seasons of the show.

I agree. Seven took over the show. Everything was about "the sexy Borg" and the other characters were shoved in the background.

 

[Lynx]

Persistence of Vision. The plot sucks and there's a lot of technobabble. The holodeck malfunctions again...you would think they would just get rid of the damn things. If something threatens to destroy the ship 3 or 4 times every season because of a malfunction, Starfleet would put some serious restrictions on it.

I have to disagree here. There weren't more technobabble in this episode than in many other and the problems they had were not because of the holodeck but interference from shrewd aliens.

I like the episode. It's spooky and exciting from beginning to end.

 

[BigDaveX]

I think one of the main reasons why they fell back on using Seven so much in the latter seasons was because she was the only character - aside from the Doctor, and to a lesser extent Paris and Torres - who was in a position to undergo any sort of character journey during the series. Most of the others either started out as so virtuous and super-competent that there ended up being nowhere to take them, or were one-note characters that the writers clearly didn't have any interest in developing.

 

[MAGolding]

Where did Voyager go wrong?

In the Delta Quadrant.

Most of the few scenes in the Alpha Quadrant were fairly decent.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

It went "wrong" in the final episode when it had Chakotay and Seven become an item.

What was really regrettable for me there, was that Seven of Nine, who was an interesting and very active character since her arrival on the vessel, was presented by writers (and encouraged by Kate Mulgrew and supported by producers) as someone acting outside of her personality (in playing the supposedly shy although amiable young adult who needed to be guided by the male Alpha in the field of love) to accommodate the moaner Beltran and his will to have something to do,preferably heroic and/or chivalrous in the finale episode (made in the 2 parts).
Seven would have been much more helpful to Janeways, the Admiral and the Captain, to fight the Borg Queen in using her personal experience of Borg than spending her time to experience her crush &
wondering about the Admiral.

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I have heard it said that Voyager went wrong with Alliances, with the speech given by Janeway at the end. Those who argue for this interpret the speech as a message to the fans, stating that there would be major changes in the characters and that we should expect the reset button as a regular occurrence.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I think the main point of where the show went wrong can be summed up in three words:

Seven. Of. Nine.

There is too much reliance on her during the last 4 seasons of the show.

She was an interesting character concept, if they'd spent more time on the emotional fallout of being assimilated and slowly trying to reclaim her humanity, but she was all too often the cause of or solution to each episode.

 

[Count]

It went wrong when you set up a plot that basically _has_ to be serialized and _has_ to be focused on interpersonal relationships, only to focus on external one-offs every week.

Voyager at high warp should have been blasting past a lot of aliens, which means the only real development once they "pop in, screw/fix everything up for the week" should have been among the crew. The closest we got was Torres and Paris having a baby, and later Seven and the Doctor's "will they/won't they" thing.

It really got lost shortly after Parallax when Chakotay fell in lock step behind janeway, and "I was a Maquis" became more of an interesting watercooler topic than a serious contention.