I feel that KRAD made kind of an interesting point (or maybe I inferred it) with his VOY rewatch on TOR. VOY did experiment with story arcs with the Jonas/Paris stuff in S2, but it didn't quite come together as well as one might have hoped. It may be the case, for good or bad, that TPTB got cold feet about story arcs after seeing how that arc turned out.
I need encouragement with Voyager
- Thread starter EnriqueH
- Start date
There are more story arcs down the road. The Hirogen, Borg, Pathfinder, relationship arcs, and more.
I agree. The show can be good or bad but if it doesn't mean anything to you then what's the point.
M
marlboro
Guest
Stick with it. There are some great episodes.
I appreciate TPTB giving us the subtle arcs they did. Knowing now that they were never going to be allowed to go down the DS9 or nuBSG path due to network interference. There were many examples of times they did followup episodes to things they did in earlier seasons. The Kazon arc, the Voth episode following on from Basics Pt2, Kes' on going mental abilities, Pathfinder stuff, the silver blood entities, the Hirogen. But I do wish we could have had mini-arcs like ENT did in season 4. Especially with the Krenim and Vaadwaur.
There's a REASON why the show was staring down cancellation after S3.
The producers were struggling with the network just to get two-parters made.
Can anyone throw some light on this? I really have no idea how filmmaking works ...
Is it like this:
People in the filmmaking business: We are going to do some story arcs.
Network people (who, I strongly suspect, are economists or whatever managers but have nothing to do with filmmaking): No, you won't.
People in the filmmaking business: But that's what the viewers want.
Network people: Who cares?
Any justification on the side of the network people WHY they are against story arcs?
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If they are indeed economists, then the sad part is that arcs and two-parters SAVE them money.
One of the reasons ENTERPRISE did mini arcs in season 4 was because their budget for the season got slashed. Not only was it creatively a great decision but it allowed the same sets and actors to be used across multiple episodes, lowering overall costs of the season.
One of the things the network people were always talking about was rerun watching and arcs being unable to be followed because stations could air them out of sequence and they would 'lose' the audience. Clearly, they insulted and underestimated the intelligence of their viewers.
One of the reasons ENTERPRISE did mini arcs in season 4 was because their budget for the season got slashed. Not only was it creatively a great decision but it allowed the same sets and actors to be used across multiple episodes, lowering overall costs of the season.
One of the things the network people were always talking about was rerun watching and arcs being unable to be followed because stations could air them out of sequence and they would 'lose' the audience. Clearly, they insulted and underestimated the intelligence of their viewers.
Surely there is a different reason, than the re-run sequence issue.
If they ran Voyager in a random order or a lot of other shows for that matter there would be a lot of people not watching due to confusion.
Just on Voyager for example.
It would be Kes one night, no Kes but 7 of 9 tonight. Next night, Kes again.
B'Elanna and Paris a couple, next night, not a couple. Etc.
There must be a different reason. Maybe they are more expensive due to shot times, continuation issues over the longer/ larger real time.
Frankly, I find shows like Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, to be really annoying. They reach a point in the story, then the credits roll.
Yea, great. I have to wait a week to see what's going to happen next.
.Done.
I'll wait for the DVDs or until I can binge watch it some snowy cold weekend.
Is there concrete evidence viewers want story arcs??? These producers and writers are not talented enough to convey a story in one episode and move on. I've seen too many stories like "Star Trek: Picard" where the tale lingers while the story is practically non-existent. There should always be the question, "What is this about?" "Can it be told without excess?" I thought Voyager's format was correct and when it required a theme to express it was done.
I prefer arcs to episodes. I want things to feel like they matter.
There are character arcs within single episodes of Star Trek and they matter, and I don't mind a mythology to keep the series hold (Mad Men, Game of Thrones), but I think the writers and producers can do so much more and they can for their characters in two episodes than the same story is stretched for multiple episodes. Certain themes will occur in every outing like Kes having only Nine years to live and it matters to every character because it's an investment to her well being, but I wouldn't want a multi-sode of the Borg or the Kazons concurrently as a barrier for the characters to overcome for Kes' to survive. That's if the story was centered on Kes or Captain Janeway.
I'm the opposite.
It matters for the characters or matters for a viewer (Yourself)? Please explain?
That it matters to the characters on an ongoing basis. I feel like episodes cut off things and leave them behind due to the format.
Star Trek: Voyager aired January, 1995 to May, 2001. The show was created for a 90's audience. Back then, most shows were episodic wirh character arcs instead of story arcs. Some shows were beginning the trend of story arcs like The X Files, DS9, and Stargate SG-1, but it wasn't common. I think Brannon Braga wantwd the Year of Hell to span most of the fourth season. The network, UPN, wanted it to be a two-parter. Back in the 80's and 90's, a show relied heavily on reruns to recoup from the cost of initially creating the show, such as the building of the expensive sets and what not. UPN wanted the show formatted so reruns could be shown in random order.
The network didn't even like two-parters. Out of about 170 episodes, we only got about a dozen two-parters.
Where the network chilled out was "follow up" episodes to older episodes. So, we got a lot of those.
The network didn't even like two-parters. Out of about 170 episodes, we only got about a dozen two-parters.
Where the network chilled out was "follow up" episodes to older episodes. So, we got a lot of those.
This is kind of how I see it.
Some of the shows just go on and on and on like following someone around all day at there job, say working in a toll booth.. Back and forth, over and over. I agree the writing is lacking.
I'm not into feeling for the character in a show. I want a good story. I don't want a lot of back story or 'home life ' story for a character. That behind the scene of the character stuff to me is a time waster.
Like Vic Fontaine singing an entire song during a Deep Space Nine Episode. I can just hear the writers thinking, " Great! There's 1.5 minutes of dialogue I don't have to write this week."
I don't want to see Picard playing his damn flute. I don't want to see Tom Paris watching an ancient Tom and Jerry cartoon on a TV.
Game of Thrones was ridiculous with all of the gratuitous nudity and sex. The books wern't like that. Just like True Blood, from years back. Instead Of Vic Fontain they had sex scenes.
Every show is aimed at a contemporary demographic, for the sake of ratings and what those can provide. That's generally how it works... So why not have a show aimed at today's 70-somethings, I'll get the popcorn...? Actually, lots of today's 70 year olds enjoy the stuff made for today's 30 year-olds so that's almost as much a moot point as the 30 year-olds of today who love the stories made when today's 70 year-olds were 30 year-olds so there's something else going on despite this apparent dictate that everyone must adhere to a certain temporal range...
It's cool when shows last longer than that, though in the days before smartphones and smartphone sensors that can capture more precise motion, those old shows where computerized weapons that keep firing off target end up looking stupid...
...just nowhere near as stupidly as contemporary shows using the same tropes in a day and age where said smartphones have already been out for years. Oops...
But many viewers also look at a 40 year old movie and ask why there's no fart joke when none ever existed...
And speaking of flatulence-related humor, as the TNG episode "First Contact" reminded us,
Which is insightful in of its own accord, but
renders it even more insightful. If not obvious...
...or one would sincerely hope. Imagine if the Galaxy Quest aliens saw a KISS rock concert circa 1978 rather than Gilligan's Island and thought we all breathed fire and have campy long tongues and looked like silver glitter globs and spat blood to appease the audience that got bored of Dracula but wanted more of the same thing. Oops, I just made a loose-associative parallel to "The Orville" without realizing it... and a pretty good one too now that I'm realizing it!
