Was "Voyager" as dark as "DS9"?

[Lynx]

"Course: Oblivion" for me. That episode is 45 minutes of "midnight in a sea of black ink in a system where the sun burned out a billion years ago".

I remember this one and I remember that I didn't like it. Creepy, but not in a good way, almost sickening and disgusting.
It should have been made in this decade among all other doom-and-gloom movies, series and episodes.

 

[somebuddyX]

I think Voyager does go to some dark places but there's usually some glimmer of light (of a sort) at the end of the story, like "Mortal Coil" or "Remember", or feels like some great cosmic joke in "Course: Oblivion". I just don't feel like there's the same kind of soul crushing character study of "In the Pale Moonlight", the horror of war of "The Siege of AR-558" or the way people are tools of institutions to be used and destroyed as in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"
I don't think that's a fault on Voyager or anything though. I think Voyager did fine when it was serious about it's subject matter.

 

[Dryson]

I think Voyager was darker than DS9. After all Janeway was part of the attack that nearly eradicated a species. Janeway was completely consumed with getting rid the Borg, that is pretty dark in my opinion. But then again the Borg do eradicate everything in their path.

DS9 did have its dark moments, however the species involved in the DS9 conflicts were able to be compromised with, unlike the Borg.

Voyager was definitely darker.

 

[Oddish]

Janeway was completely consumed with getting rid the Borg, that is pretty dark in my opinion. But then again the Borg do eradicate everything in their path.

The Borg are about as close to pure evil as possible. And they seek to spread that evil to the corners of the galaxy, and even into fluidic space. So maybe they really do need to be dealt with.

 

[dupersuper]

If I were to rank the shows from light to dark ,

LD
TNG
VOY
TOS
ENT
PIC
DIS
DS9

Voyager is lighter than most shows in the franchise. But it has dark situations like DS9.

Oooo: lists are fun.

TNG
LD
TAS
VOY
TOS
SHORT TREKS
PROD
ENT
DISCO
DS9
PIC

Seven vaporizing Bjayzl – Dukat killing a pregnant Jadzia Dax

I don't think she was pregnant: just that the treatments she got to reproduce with a Klingon were working.

The main difference is that PIC has only had one season, while DS9 had seven. And has yet to have a major war break out, a broken peace treaty with an ally like the Klingons, or even an episode like “Duet” or “In the Pale Moonlight”.

Picard having fewer episodes contributes to making it darker, in my opinion. Most of the comparisons you gave between DS9 and Picard illustrate this to me: the story points you give are generally in an episode or two of a 26 episode season for DS9, but often part of the overall story that Picard is telling.

 

[Dryson]

The Borg are about as close to pure evil as possible. And they seek to spread that evil to the corners of the galaxy, and even into fluidic space. So maybe they really do need to be dealt with.

I understand completely what you are saying. Unless you have very good negotiating skills the Borg will assimilate and basically kill you just to add more drones to the Collective.

But should one always run away from the Borg and hope they never you?

Or do attempt to systematically eliminate the Borg from existence?

If you did choose to wipe the Borg out and were successful, how would other warp capable species such as the Klingons or Romulans and even the Vulcans view Starfleet?

Starfleet wiped out an entire species, like it it or, that would play into a much greater political issue and possible conflict or conflicts that the Federation might never recover from.

And could possibly see Starfleet hunted to extinction or at enslaved by other Federation member states.

 

[at Quark's]

I'm not sure Janeway ever saw 'eliminating the Borg' as a realistic option, regardless of whether she would have wanted to do so in the first place. Dealing them a crippling blow by destroying one of their transwarp hubs, yes (Endgame). Destabilizing them by encouraging a resistance movement within the Borg collective, yes (Unimatrix Zero). But eliminating them? I think that idea was only seriously considered by Starfleet in TNG's I, Borg

I understand completely what you are saying. Unless you have very good negotiating skills the Borg will assimilate and basically kill you just to add more drones to the Collective.

Reminds me of Guinan's words in Q Who.:

Q set a series of events into motion, bringing contact with the Borg much sooner than it should have come. Now, perhaps when you're ready, it might be possible to establish a relationship with them. But for now, for right now, you're just raw material to them.

I don't think we've ever seen a species the Borg were aware of they didn't consider 'raw material'. So it makes me curious what kind of species that would be.

 

[Herbert]

As a whole, probably not but I consider The Thaw and Meld to be among Trek's darkest/creepiest episodes ever released. They can easily compete with an episode like Hard Time.

The Thaw is one of the only Voyager episodes I want to rewatch again. Great stuff.

Hard Time bothered me because of the episodic nature of Star Trek. The trauma of that event should have affected Miles in later episodes. Instead, O'Brien goes on as if nothing happened. Again, I realize it's the nature of episodic television but then again DS9 would get less episodic when the Dominion War arc heated up so they could have done something with that in a recurring way.

Season 3 of ENT is pretty damn dark.

 

[Oddish]

Hard Time bothered me because of the episodic nature of Star Trek. The trauma of that event should have affected Miles in later episodes. Instead, O'Brien goes on as if nothing happened. Again, I realize it's the nature of episodic television but then again DS9 would get less episodic when the Dominion War arc heated up so they could have done something with that in a recurring

I just figure that two inconsistencies canceled each other out. One was that Miles memory supposedly couldn't be altered. The other was that Miles seemed to recover too quickly. I reconcile the two by deciding that Bashir was able to study what was done to Miles in greater detail. He wasn't able to erase the memories, but he was able to reduce them to a blur, the kind of recollection you'd have of a three-day tequila bender.

 

[Odo]

DS9, IMO, had more morally complex stories with no right answer. Voyager had a little bit of that too, but not as much. Voyager definitely had more pulp horror than DS9. So I guess it depends on what "darker" means.

 

[Ragitsu]

It doesn't get much darker than Night.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

What about DS9's Wrongs Darker than Death or Night?

 

[Oddish]

It doesn't get much darker than Night.

"Night" is pretty dark. But IMO, "Course: Oblivion" makes it look like a Wee Sing video.

 

[Dryson]

DS9, IMO, had more morally complex stories with no right answer. Voyager had a little bit of that too, but not as much. Voyager definitely had more pulp horror than DS9. So I guess it depends on what "darker" means.

Voyager was simply a rope line bridge over a bottomless cavern to get home safely series. One wrong step and Voyager was gone.

No rescue fleet, no support at all. Pretty dark when DS 9 had thousands of starship to support the stations life.

 

[Oddish]

Voyager was simply a rope line bridge over a bottomless cavern to get home safely series. One wrong step and Voyager was gone.

That's why "Course: Oblivion" was so dark. Because it plays out that plunge into the galactic abyss. And when "Voyager" perishes, it's like it never existed.

 

[Dryson]

That's why "Course: Oblivion" was so dark. Because it plays out that plunge into the galactic abyss. And when "Voyager" perishes, it's like it never existed.

I don't know if the Voyager would have survived the decent into madness of being 70,000 light years, need exact distance to three decimal places, away from Earth without any support from Starfleet at all.

 

[Dryson]

Which Threat Force, other than the Borg, was the darkest threat that Voyager encountered?

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I've only seen up to season 4 or so, but the Vidiians are probably the aliens I'd least want to run into in a dark alleyway. If they don't immediately steal your organs they'll put you in an underground labour camp, rip out half your DNA, wear your face, and then steal your organs.

 

[Akiraprise]

The Bothans from Persistence of Vision always make my dark villain list. They hide in the shadows and will hurt you just for kicks.

 

[Oddish]

Which Threat Force, other than the Borg, was the darkest threat that Voyager encountered?

Not saying they're #1, but those guys from "Counterpoint" who wind up telepaths and do God knows what to them...