TV Guide featuring Voyager, "most promising and risky Star Trek yet!"

[fireproof78]

Very true. That's why I typically watch more TNG and VOY than DS9. Maybe if it ever becomes possible to watch Paramount Plus on my TV, that might change, but bingeing on a smartphone? Ucchhh.

Voyager is something I can watch in singular episodes. It is not something I enjoy back to back episodes of.

 

[Parallaxis]

Voyager is a show that I think has aged very well. Back in the day, it always ran into comparisons to DS9, which ran concurrenty - and was certainly more "risky". But today, one can watch it as simply more, good ol', straightforward Star Trek, and in far more cases than not, it fully delivers that. I used to be very critical of VGR, but I've really come around to it in the years since it ended. By contrast, with ENT, which I am currently rewatching for the first time since 2005, I am not having quite as many moments watching where I conclude that what I'm seeing is better than I remembered it.

Yes, 100% this.

Voyager plays much better now than when it aired. Back when the show aired everyone wanted it to be like Year of Hell or Battlestar Galactica. The "reset button" was the number one criticism, to the point that it became a running joke. But now that fans have had shows like BSG, I don't think people are as critical of Voyager for not going that route. And looking back I'm glad they didn't. BSG is a slog to get through for me now, and it's certainly not a series where you can just jump in at any episode.

Another show that plays better now than when it aired is Stargate Universe. That show plays SO MUCH better when you can binge it and not wait a week in between slow moving episodes.

 

[Ragitsu]

Back when the show aired everyone wanted it to be like Year of Hell

I still see this sentiment; people want "Year of Hell" or "Equinox" conditions twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Another show that plays better now than when it aired is Stargate Universe. That show plays SO MUCH better when you can binge it and not wait a week in between slow moving episodes.

Sluggish pace aside, I find it difficult to stomach SGU because it is darker than SG-1 and Atlantis (both literally and figuratively).

 

[fireproof78]

Back when the show aired everyone wanted it to be like Year of Hell or Battlestar Galactica.

No.

I just wanted stuff to matter. And things didn't on Voyager. It plays better as episodic and ignoring much of the larger framing device.

 

[Summer Solstice]

Yes, 100% this.

Voyager plays much better now than when it aired. Back when the show aired everyone wanted it to be like Year of Hell or Battlestar Galactica. The "reset button" was the number one criticism, to the point that it became a running joke. But now that fans have had shows like BSG, I don't think people are as critical of Voyager for not going that route. And looking back I'm glad they didn't. BSG is a slog to get through for me now, and it's certainly not a series where you can just jump in at any episode.

Another show that plays better now than when it aired is Stargate Universe. That show plays SO MUCH better when you can binge it and not wait a week in between slow moving episodes.

I love the Voyager characters, all of them, even Neelix. For me, the Delta Quadrant premise means they don't have episodes that are about Federation politics, so the show overall is less talk-y that TNG and lighter than DS9, which means I enjoy it more. It's more like TOS. (On the other hand, I now like ENT a lot more than I did at the time and some of that is because of the formation of the Federation storyline...)

 

[XweAponX]

Sluggish pace aside, I find it difficult to stomach SGU because it is darker than SG-1 and Atlantis (both literally and figuratively).

Yes, that always bothered me about SGU… they could never get a break, there was always some disaster pending, and I can’t even count how many planets got blown up when they tried to open the gate to destiny… Didn’t Kowlonna get waporized? plus there was severe antagonism between characters. What I did like, was the occasional cameo of SG 1 characters.

But nothing beat when Teal’c and Ronon had their little episode in Atlantis… and they took out a whole bunch of wraith… oh Ghod I hated the wraith! I hated the Ori! And in SGU, they were always being pursued by unnamed aliens, with an unnamed agenda. Which finally became unnamed robots, they had to bypass a whole galaxy because the entire galaxy had been taken over by robots…

I just thought it was too much, voyager had a good mixture of disasters, and also episodes where things went right…

 

[Ragitsu]

IMO, Seasons 1 through 5 were the golden age of SG-1: not only was the show still fairly episodic, but there were more non Goa'uld (i.e., the designated bad guys) episodes. The showrunners and producers were willing to take risks.

 

[XweAponX]

IMO, Seasons 1 through 5 were the golden age of SG-1: not only was the show still fairly episodic, but there were more non Goa-uld (i.e., the designated bad guys) episodes. The showrunners and producers were willing to take risks.

“Foothold” was a pretty interesting non-Gould episode… also, that one episode where they have the mini-Jack clone, that kid who played the younger Jack, he had the character perfect. Perfect! I also liked the season with Parker Lewis… Er, I mean Jonas Quinn. They should have kept the character in the show.

Halcyon days...

DANG Kes was HOT back then… she definitely had a few episodes that were stellar. Warlord was my favorite, she shows pretty good range. It was a mistake to drop the character. But in the end they ended up giving her too much power, “God like aliens with god like powers” which was the reason I liked Fury, not because of the powers, but that they used the younger Kes to influence the older one. And the final scene between Neelix and Kes, where she says “see anybody you know?” And Neelix says “Just you…”… that one moment says more than the whole episode.

 

[at Quark's]

I still see this sentiment; people want "Year of Hell" or "Equinox" conditions twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

I don't think I'd want that.

Coming straight out of DS9 back then, I would have appreciated a bit more arc work and 'choices have consequences' in Voyager (e.g. you choose to engage in a battle, the ship looks not entirely up to spec for three episodes or so (but each week better than the week before)). (Not that DS9 always handled this impeccably, but still.)

But ramping it up all the way to 'year of hell' levels 24/7 would have made the series far too 'heavy' for my tastes. I long thought DS9 could have done without the lighter (and sometimes silly) 'filler' episodes in the middle of the grand war arc, but I found out upon watching Enterprise S3 (the Delphic Expanse arc) which only had very few of those 'breather' episodes, that they do have an important function after all.

And the final scene between Neelix and Kes, where she says “see anybody you know?” And Neelix says “Just you…”… that one moment says more than the whole episode.

As far as I'm concerned, it is the only positive point of the entire episode.

 

[Oddish]

Regarding the Reset Button, there are good ways to use it. Outstanding episodes like "Year of Hell" and DS9's "The Visitor" could not have existed without them. But, there's a difference between use and overuse.

 

[at Quark's]

Regarding the Reset Button, there are good ways to use it. Outstanding episodes like "Year of Hell" and DS9's "The Visitor" could not have existed without them. But, there's a difference between use and overuse.

I agree those are two of the better uses of the 'reset button' . Even though, in Year of Hell I still find it vaguely unsatisfactory that in the end, all those events never 'really happened' in the sense that no one (in-universe) remembers them.

 

[Oddish]

I agree those are two of the better uses of the 'reset button' . Even though, in Year of Hell I still find it vaguely unsatisfactory that in the end, all those events never 'really happened' in the sense that no one (in-universe) remembers them.

Maybe that's the triumph of Janeway and Voyager's final sacrifice... no one ever has to remember it.

 

[at Quark's]

Maybe that's the triumph of Janeway and Voyager's final sacrifice... no one ever has to remember it.

It's not that I wish the crew to have traumatic memories of a horrible year or anything like that. Still, someone having a vague indication of it would have made the story more satisfying to me. Like Guinan in Yesterday's Enterprise, who at the end seemed to know knew things somehow weren't right before, but were right again now. I suppose Kes would have been the logical person for that, but she had already left Voyager by then.

 

[Lynx]

Voyager had a great premise.
Sadly, it was never fulfilled due to bad writing.

 

[suarezguy]

I honestly feel like it's just a combination of things and I don't think it was just UPN. Part of me thinks that Season 1 was exactly what the producers wanted to do as more TNG stories but in a TOS type environment. I don't think they had someone like Ira Behr pushing to go hard into the idea of them being stranded and having a real division between Starfleet and Maquis, not to say everything needed to be like DS9 and Starfleet/Bajor though. I just think Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor and Brannon Braga kind of got what they wanted to be honest.

Yes from comments from the DVD it seems that UPN/Paramount, from day 1, really didn't want to risk a dark angsty tone alienating viewers (that they didn't want it to exactly be TNG 2.0 but they wanted it to be a lot more that than Deep Space Nine) but the writers didn't even want to have much of that, mostly just to have the setting changed to get to have all-new aliens and slightly different stories and tone.

 

[Oddish]

Voyager had a great premise.
Sadly, it was never fulfilled due to bad writing.

Or showrunning. Rick Berman did a fine job shooting down every idea that would have helped it get closer to its potential.

 

[XweAponX]

Or showrunning. Rick Berman did a fine job shooting down every idea that would have helped it get closer to its potential.

You sure it was Berman, Voyager was an official Network show, afflicted by official network KnickersSniffery, Beancounting and Pencilpushing. I’m positive there were other not too visible people who interfered with the show.

 

[Oddish]

I'm sure it wasn't just him. But he was the one who reportedly insisted that the Maquis put on uniforms like good little Starfleet in Eposide 1, and also vetoed the actual year of hell.

 

[XweAponX]

I'm sure it wasn't just him. But he was the one who reportedly insisted that the Maquis put on uniforms like good little Starfleet in Eposide 1, and also vetoed the actual year of hell.

but on the other hand, he did write some very good episodes, and I actually enjoyed insurrection a lot. He based some of the material on the battle of helms deep from lord of the rings

interesting that the enterprise “Arguments” episode (augments- I hate that word, Plus, those kids seemed to be very good at arguing and not much else) ends near the Briar Patch.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

Halcyon days...

I love how all the 'high-tech' stuff they are posing with is decidedly low-tech these days. Look at Picardo holding aloft *gasp* a chunky camcorder as if it's the Cup of Christ.

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