Losing Voyager
- Thread starter Laura Cynthia Chambers
- Start date
If they wanted to be daring and experimental, the series premiere of Voyager should have been the season finale with the characters already established and the new setting accustomed to. Then the episode ends with a flashback sequence to a year earlier and the second episode would begin the story with everything in S1 getting us to where the premiere began.
"Daring and experimental" is kind of the antithesis of Voyager, a show that rejected everything that could have made it unique.
Given the dubious quality of many of its 7th season episodes, I think they could have easily eliminated a few of them and replaced them with some post-homecoming shows.
Well it doesn't help that everytime they tried something new that stood out more they got panned for their efforts...
I suppose
That doesn't make sense to me, considering the series was about the crew's experiences in the Delta Quadrant.
The "dubious quality" of its seventh season? VOY was the only Trek show in which I didn't have a problem with its final season, aside from the Chakotay-Seven romance. Now, if one had referenced the show's sixth season, I would have agreed about its "dubious" quality.
I don't recall the Trek franchise being known for being unique, daring and experimental. Not since the original series.
Last edited:
They could've done another "they're home!" fakeout by showing us what is in a few minutes revealed to be a "they never left in the first place" timeline story - seeing what the characters would have been like/who would have been there if Voyager had had an unremarkable run (relatively speaking, in that they may run into other weird and wondrous situations, albeit in better known space)
Which is why I can generally tolerate some of its worst elements: its obnoxious over-reliance on the Reset Button, for example, or turning the Maquis into Good Little Starfleet. I only really have issues with unnecessary stupidity or sloppiness.
It was still mainstream TV, and it understood its audience. All too many companies or franchises have failed to do so, to their own detriment.
Let me use the Walking Dead again as an example. The conflict between the Fleeters and the Maquis? It wasn't any different from how things ultimately went between Rick and Shane in Walking Dead. And what happened there....well by the end of the 2nd season Rick had to kill Shane who kept trying to kill him despite Rick forgiving him repeatedly.
So yeah, if the Maquis had betrayed them to the Kazon or tried a Mutiny that's how it would end too: With one side having to wipe out the other, permanently.
Oh would certainly have been interesting in retrospect tbh. With that said can't deny ST Voyager is a wonderful show as is too!!
Bringing along the shortest haircut among the senior staff.Chakotay has entered the chat.
Any conflict that lasted more than one episode would have been welcomed. Hell, Chakotay and Paris started off hating each other in the pilot but that moves on quickly. It's ok to have seeds of distrust continue on for a bit, especially with Tuvok and Chakotay.
No, it doesn't have to end in a mutiny but have Janeway have to navigate the difficult waters of leadership when everyone doesn't get along.
It's ultimately why Seven was such a breath of fresh air for VOY... her nature conflicted with Starfleet, and she wasn't afraid to show it. "PREY" was an excellent example of this. (And a damned good episode, too... especially the differing philosophies of Janeway and Seven regarding what to do with Species 8472.)
Seven did adopt more Starfleet/humanity ideals, but it was earned through time and conflict.
We, as the audience, were kind of robbed (for the most part) of that great opportunity with the Maquis.
Seven did adopt more Starfleet/humanity ideals, but it was earned through time and conflict.
We, as the audience, were kind of robbed (for the most part) of that great opportunity with the Maquis.
Seven's final confrontation with Janeway at the end of "Prey" reminded me of everyone who's ever been told to take more initiative, then was slapped down when they made a decision their superiors disagreed with. If you want people to be more decisive you have to expect that sooner or later they'll do something you wouldn't have done.
Never mind that I strongly suspect if Seven hadn't beamed 8472 over to the Hirogen then Voyager would have been destroyed, since I didn't exactly hear Janeway proposing another option for escaping their predicament.
I'm not saying Janeway was wrong to be angry about the situation, but she could have shown a bit more of an understanding of Seven's views on the matter as well, or at least allowed as for how Seven hadn't been an individual for very long at that point.
Never mind that I strongly suspect if Seven hadn't beamed 8472 over to the Hirogen then Voyager would have been destroyed, since I didn't exactly hear Janeway proposing another option for escaping their predicament.
I'm not saying Janeway was wrong to be angry about the situation, but she could have shown a bit more of an understanding of Seven's views on the matter as well, or at least allowed as for how Seven hadn't been an individual for very long at that point.
Or simply given Seven some leeway for saving the ship.
The overuse of the reset button? Exactly how many episodes used this narrative?
Deep Space Nine couldn't follow up when the series nearly went out on a limb, as it's seventh season had proven. Yet, you want to complain about Voyager? Good grief.
How often did VOYAGER hit the reset button? Let's check out a few examples...
"THRESHOLD" - not even a mention of attempting to solve the 'matter of navigation', which B'Elanna said was the only real obstacle to going warp 10 and home, ever again.
"INVESTIGATIONS" - the warp coils were completely burned to the point of needing new coils to replace them, but were completely spotless the next episode.
"DEADLOCK" - the entire ship was badly, badly damaged. But was spotless the very next episode.
"REAL LIFE" - never see The Doctor's holographic family again. Nor any sign of any impact it had on him afterward.
"MORTAL COIL" - not only does Neelix not need to keep taking nanoprobes again (which was stated in the episode he needed to be injected with them regularly), but bringing a crewman back from death using the nanoprobes was never seen again.
"COLLECTIVE" - baby Borg was never seen or mentioned again.
These are just a few examples. And this doesn't even include the time travel reset buttons.
As for DS9's final season, it was BY FAR the most cohesive and good quality season 7 between TNG, DS9, and VOY. TNG season 7 was basically completely out of gas, and VOY season 7 was very middling and boring.
No need for hyperbole
, but I agree with you. The "use of the reset button" is a complaint so overused among Voyager critics that it's now actually more tropey than the trope itself. I bet TV Tropes has a clever name for that - maybe something like Hypertropeism, or the Tropeic of Cancer. I also join your opinion about DS9's seventh season. I enjoyed both TNG's seventh season and Voyager's seventh season, and while the stories in DS9's seventh season were good, they were extremely repetitive and adhered to a very laborious formula. We'll start with a scene with Martok telling off Admiral Ross. Cut to the Promenade, where Bashir is telling Garak about his latest interactions with the world of espionage while Garak makes witty, cryptic quips and Andrew Robinson overacts. (Sorry - Robinson is an incredibly nice, talented guy for sure, but a little of Garak went a looooong way for me.) Cut to Quark's Bar, where O'Brien is naturally having, what else, a raktajino (oof) while Quark bemoans what the war is doing to the trade of blankety-blanks. Suddenly, Sisko summons the senior staff and announces that because the Romulans executed a sudden side deal with the Breen, Deneb V is now under attack and the Defiant is needed there immediately with all hands except whoever who will be the center of this episode. Aaaaaaand now, choose your own adventure. Is Kassidy Yates running illegal plasma weapons? Does O'Brien encounter a pacifist Cardassian hiding in some allegedly unused area of the station? Does Sloan drop into school Dr. Bashir yet again on some spooky, ultra-dark S31 tactic? There are about six or seven absolute pearls in the seventh season, and the rest just sort of limps along to the end while we patiently wait to see how the Federation is going to dump the Dominion. I got fatigued.
Personally I'm happy that the problems on Voyager could be solved rather quickly. I wouldn't have like to see Voyager become like the horrible Stargate Universe when the whole first season was ruined by the constant bickering between the Military Faction and the Civilian Faction and most of all the two awfl characters who were the leaders of those factions.
However, I would have liked to see more realistic solutions when it came to solving those problems.
The Starfleet-Maquis conflict: To be honest, this problem was actually solved in a good way. The Maquis who were about 30 persons were smart enough to realise that they were outnumbered. Not to mention that they also were smart enough to realize that the Voyager ship was the best way to get home. They also respected Chakotay.
Therefore it was realistic to adapt to Janeway's ideas of an united crew, even if they didn't really like it. And to be honest, there were a few problems with the maquis, most notably Seska, Jonas and Suder and even characters like Hogan and Jarvin.
B'Elanna Torres: My only problem with Torres becoming so "tame" is that it happened too quickly. She should have continued to be somewhat rebellious for at least 2-3 episodes. That would have been more realistic.
Paris-Chakotay: That issue could have been solved in a more realistic way, simply with a scene in Parallax where Paris enters the mess hall, finds Chakotay sitting at a table, sits down and actually tells him: "Hey, I never abandoned you. I took the shuttle and left your ship, not to run away but to lure the Starfleet ship away from yo. Your ship was damaged and if I hadn't domne what I did, you would all have been taken prisoners by Starfleet." Just as Paris's actions when he left Chakotay's ship are described in Jeri Taylor's book Pathways.
Chakotay-Tuvok: No problems with a little tension between them from thie to time. That was handled good by the writers.
Similar threads
