Long thread... but... I disagree. One of the things I like about ST is the camaraderie of the crew. There didn't seem to be a lot of that on DS9, which is why I didn't like the show as much. Having the Marquis crew at odds with the captain constantly would have just been a distraction. That's not what the show was supposed to be about. The fact that the two different crews learned to work together is what ST is all about, isn't it? How many episodes of the Marquis crew taking over the ship would we have to endure? There was enough as it is. I think a prolonged conflict with the Marquis would have made the show less watchable; kind of like the suspicion surrounding Seven lasting season after season after season. It would have stagnated the development of the characters, and the show.
Wow. There aren't too many Star Trek episodes, from any of the series, that I dislike. Some are my favorites, and some would be at the end of my list... This one is not so bad. And I happen to not mind Wesley Crusher, and never understood why he was such a problem for some. The only ST character that I think was just horrible and should have been recast is the doctor on DS9. Everything about the character was bad, his retconned "genetic engineering" didn't help matters, and the actor that portrayed him is especially hard on my eyes and ears. I dislike this character so much I typically avoid episodes of DS9 where the character plays a leading part, and fast forward scenes where he's prominent or talks too much.
I actually agree that any conflict between the Starfleet and Maquis crewmembers wouldn't have been enough to sustain the show by itself - at latest, it would probably have run out of steam by the end of the second season. The problem was that it was something clearly set up in the early episodes, then just swept under the rug and forgotten about. And that applied to most things about the situation Voyager found itself in - no trouble finding supplies or materials to make repairs with, nothing. In fairness to the writers, however, I think they actually did realise this problem, as evidenced by the original plan for the Year of Hell to take up all of Season 4. It's just that someone higher up (Berman, UPN, or both) wanted something nice and safe.
That is precisely what happened in DS9. The Starfleet and Bajoran forces had two very different mindsets at first, but eventually worked well together. Another reason why I always felt DS9 was the series that stayed to truest to the ideals of STAR TREK.
I guess I don't see that at all. But you know, everyone has their own point of view. I once came across a blog where some guy listed his top ten episodes of Voyager. Except for one or two, every one of them would have been on my list of least favorites. I wish I could find the blog again so I could ask the guy what he saw in those episodes. It was incredible that he picked my absolute least favorites ten as his best. Anyway I don't see it in DS9. * Kira and Odo were openly hostile to Quark, to the point where by the last few seasons Kira was just nasty to him. * You always thought Odo had some kind of affection for Quark, but it didn't turn out that way. Odo was entirely self-serving and self-absorbed. He didn't hide his contempt for his human comrades. He sentenced an entire colony of people to non-existence for his selfish "love" of Kira. He was perpetually in a foul mood. * Kira was just full of hate and anger. I prayed someone would just phaser her. *The Bajorans were supposed to be this great civilization, but they are contemptuous, self-serving and whiny. I got so sick of the whole "occupation". Here's a thought. You don't want to be occupied? Be strong and able to defend yourselves. When did they start to work well with StarFleet? * And the doctor is IMO, is the absolute worst character in all of ST. The writers couldn't figure out what to do with him, like so many of these characters. Genetically engineered? Indeed. O'Brien's "friend". I get tired of his whining "KAHmaaandah" to the point I just fast-forward his scenes. * Everyone was mistrustful of Garak. * Quark treated his nephew and hs brother like crap. * O'Brien was a tepid character. He was nasty to Quark too. His "friendship" with the doctor was so hopelessly contrived... * The lounge singer was one of the stupidest plot threads since Data's stand up comedy, which thankfully lasted only one episode. * Even Worf was disgusted by the doctor, accusing him of being an immature child that played with toys, which he was. Worf had little love for anyone except the Captain and Dax. I'm sorry, I don't see any camaraderie in this show. I see characters that didn't get along too well, and were contentious with each other almost all of the time. This ain't the ideals of ST.
You're not alone. The writing was shitty. I didn't notice that the Borg had been annihilated completely, for maybe 10 years. It was poorly explained and Novels either didn't notice, or didn't care and continued on that the Borg had only been mostly murdered, but enough of them survived to build a genocide fleet, and burn down 2/3rds of the Alpha Quadrant in response to Admiral Janeway's Virus.
I don't agree. I think the problem was that they set the potential conflict up as a major premise, and then junked it. It doesn't mean it needed to be "Maquis taking over the ship"...that's preposterous. It would have been an excellent device to intelligently explore different ideologies and approaches rather than just the mundane Star Trek "perfect approach" every episode. It had a ton of potential for nuisances that would have challenged the black and white dogma of the typical Starfleet characters. Instead, the writers shit their pants and went back to watered-down TNG relationships. DS9 works much better because the characters are believable, relatable, and realistic, unlike the Pollyanna and "mid-80s style hero" characters on display in TNG and VOY. In DS9, hey had differences and leaned to work as a team despite their differences. They were diverse and came from different backgrounds with different values, and they struggled through that in spite of it. I'd argue, rather strongly, that this IS the "ideals of Star Trek." I can't care about a bunch of characters whose friendly relationships / camaraderie are served to me on a silver platter. I want those relationships to be earned and require work, like it is with real actual people. That's interesting and dramatic. A crew of winky smilers agreeing like a bunch of cult followers isn't idyllic. It's just homogeneous and fucking boring.
Well, you have to keep people watching or you go belly up. I wouldn't have wanted a year long Year of Hell. Most of the crew gone, etc. It would have gotten very old very fast. Even DS9s war wasn't in every episode. It would have been hard to find different plots to break up the monotony with a broken ship and a blind Tuvok. A lot of people don't get the ending of that story. The whole point is that the only way for that captain to repair the timeline was to turn the weapon on itself. This way everything the weapon ever did would be erased. I think a lot of people saw it as a too easy ending, boom, then everything is completely back to normal. No, the answer all along was for the weapon to erase itself from time. The captain of that ship should have known that. Can you imagine if the year long story ended that way?
My disdain for "Year Of Hell" is that VOY fell back on this trope so frequently, having an entire episode end up as a meaningless "what-if" due to some reset or other twist, that it became a frustrating waste of time. I don't know if anyone wanted something as extreme as Year of Hell drawn out over a season, but I think people would have liked to see the permanent and meaningful consequences to a perilous voyage through unknown space, rather than reset buttons and episodic non-events every week. Again, it was another example of a premise with unique potential that went nowhere and was never leveraged....and that in a nutshell is the answer to the original question of "what went wrong"
I think you're exaggerating, a lot. What did you want? Every character is a self-absorbed self-serving immature douche, and after being selfish immature douches for 35 minutes, they "all come through" in the end? That's the formula of every post-1980 movie ever made. I like to think that kind of behavior will be gone in 400 years. Besides Matt Leblanc wasn't a cast member. I liked it better because I wanted to see science fiction, not bitchy people. Speaking of Matt Leblanc, do you remember the Lost in Space movie from 1998? The Kids were disgusting brats, the parents were barely married, Major west was an immature self serving douche, but everyone "pulled together as a family" at the last minute. This formula is my idea of boring. I would have much preferred a stable family fighting with their situations, not each other. I used to watch "Knot's Landing" way back when. Infidelity, back stabbing, divorces, cheating, remarriages, shady business deals, murder, you name it. The writers set up a plot line where one of the prominent married couples were supposed to go through some tough times, maybe divorce, infidelity, etc. The actress who played the wife, said "No". She refused to play it. She said that ONE family on this show had to be stable. There would be no infidelity, no divorce. Maybe normal disagreements, but it stopped there. She threatened to quit. She won, and the couple was stable for the duration of the show (over 10 years). In retrospect, it was exactly the right thing to do in the sea of utter chaos that was that show. Star Trek in it's entirety, is that to me.
You're comparing character relationships and complex development that takes place over seven years in a serialized television format in DS9 to a woefully shitty Matt Leblanc movie and Knotts Landing. And you've stretched the points I was trying to make to the point of absurdity in an effort to successfully argue your position. Who exactly is exaggerating again?
All you're proving here is exactly what I said in my post. You don't get the episode. From the moment the plot was set up, it was obvious that the only way for the captain of that ship to restore his timeline was to turn the weapon on itself. This was the grand mystery. How else should it have ended? Destroy the weapon? Why would you do that when everyone should have figured out that everything would be reset, including all the species and planets he destroyed, if the weapon could somehow erase itself from history? Star Trek is supposed to be cerebral... not a collection of modern personal conflicts and situations set 400 years from now. None of the series would have lasted as you describe. Enterprise was more along the lines of what you're asking for, and look what happened to it. Most hate it, and it lasted a only 4 seasons.
Ok, I didn't compare the show to to Knotts Landing. I used a situation in Knotts Landing to illustrate that I need Star Trek to be my stability in our world of chaos. I can't be bothered to explain metaphor or simile to you. Since you cant seem to have a conversation without hostility and profanity, would you mind just steering clear of my posts? A search tells me you've been spewing the same rhetoric for years, I just don't need it.
I got the episode just fine thank you. It was a what-if that ended up going nowhere, like many other VOY episodes that spend 45 min doing nothing material whatsoever because the events never took place in the main timestream or with the "real" characters And any time someone starts throwing around the "Star Trek is cerebral" card, I know exactly who I'm talking to, and I bow out. ...After vomiting in my mouth a little Thanks for the discussion.
Okay, so every thing happens that we saw, and then we see Neelix in Domestic Bliss inside that asteroid, when (Think back to the Future) Kes materializes into his kitchen, and says "Neelixxxxxx! They got home! They got home and they're having a party! Lets go!" Then the credits roll, and we see Polaroids of the Party goers partying splash over the credits.
Interesting. I know what you mean about the first few seasons... The shows were a little out there. I suggest you watch them again, perhaps after you go through the whole series once. Like any show, it takes some time to get used to the characters. I "don't mind" "Ex Post Facto", but "Jetrel" is on my list of 10 least faves for the whole series. I can't stand James Sloyan's voice, and I find the episode a big who cares? There's lots of thought provoking concepts in this season, but more will come later. These are my favorite episodes, with the starred ones being my best, and what I consider somewhat thought provoking: "Time and Again" form season 1 "Eye of the Needle" from season 1 (although I hate that the Romulan died) "Threshold" from season 2 (a lot of people don't like this episode. I don't know why.) "Deadlock" from season 2 *"Tuvix" from season 2 "Future's End from season 2/3 "Macrocosm" from season 3 "Distant Origin" from season 3 "Scorpion" from season 3/4 *"Scientific Method" from season 4 *"Living Witness" from season 4 "Timeless" from season 5 "Gravity" from season 5 *"Latent Image" from season 5 "Relativity" from Season 5 "Equinox" from season 5/6 *"Blink of an Eye" from season 6 *"Memorial" from season 6 "Critical Care" from season 7 "Workforce" from season 7 *"Friendship One" from season 7 "Blink of a Eye" is great... not to give too much away but they wind up caught in orbit of a planet that's spinning wildly like a pulsar, and as it turns out there is a huge time differential between normal space and the surface of the planet. They're only caught in orbit for like a couple of days, but many centuries pass on the planet. My favorite scene is when they send the doctor down to the surface to do a little recon, there's a little trouble beaming him back, for seconds, but he's been "abandoned" on the planet for two YEARS. He's only been gone for seconds, but he's so happy to see everyone when they beam him back. I always try to get something out of each episode, and enjoy almost all of them. I think people ruin their own experiences when they think "this is how I think it should have been" instead of just enjoying what it is. P.S. Yes, the Kazon were just horrible. Fortunately, they were gone before too long. Even the Borg considered them an inferior species.