What, and miss out of "First Contact"?
No way, that's gotta be one of the best Trek films ever.
Why is the Trek community so negative about Voyager?
- Thread starter ReadyAndWilling
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No way, that's gotta be one of the best Trek films ever.
I suppose so. Maybe just say that the Borg civilization exist solely on their Cubes and there are only a few of them. By destroying two Cubes maybe 50% of all Borg are gone from the Universe. Then VOY can have the last two Cubes be destroyed in "Scorpion", all the Borg are permanently gone but Seven is a survivor. And the 8472 run back to their home dimension, seal it permanently and VOY is free to go on without needing to do some big galactic war epic that would break the budget.
Regardless, the Borg SUCK as a recurring enemy that shows up more than once every few seasons.
Regardless, the Borg SUCK as a recurring enemy that shows up more than once every few seasons.
First Contact was the first time I'd seen the Borg. The needle goes in, metal patches sprout and the victim is transformed into a powerful, semialive, semiimmortal enemy of humanity. Space vampires! Shortly after finishing the movie, I wonder, where does the metal for the the little Borg parts come from? Not to mention the little fan for the CPU or the bandwidth for the Collective.
There is a sense in which the Borg are too silly to survive any scrutiny. But nothing Voyager did ruined them.
The peculiar thing about the negativity is the falseness of so much of the criticism. Voyager is episodic, not serialized. Those who think serialization is intrinsically superior would therefore not find it to their taste. The feelings of rage and disdain surely cannot lie in this, obviously. But once you get past that, the standard litany of complaints only show double standards at work.
Of the original main characters, Janeway, the EMH, Tom Paris, Kes and Torres, no less than three, Paris and Torres and Kes were basically failures. (Chakotay and Tuvok were B-team at best. And Neelix and Kim were foils for Kes and Paris, respectively.) They desperately tried to salvage Paris and Torres, finally lumping them together in one sorry lump of soap. And they cut their losses with Kes. Seven of Nine had many good things about her, but she was horribly inconsistent. Yes, Seven of Nine, not Janeway, was the schizophrenic one, missing which shows how obtuse most Voyager criticism really is. Worse, Seven of Nine had no real relationships with anyone other than Janeway.
Along with the dimwitted science, these were the real flaws of Voyager. But if people don't even notice the real problems, but keep dredging up the same old inanities, what's going on?
There is a sense in which the Borg are too silly to survive any scrutiny. But nothing Voyager did ruined them.
The peculiar thing about the negativity is the falseness of so much of the criticism. Voyager is episodic, not serialized. Those who think serialization is intrinsically superior would therefore not find it to their taste. The feelings of rage and disdain surely cannot lie in this, obviously. But once you get past that, the standard litany of complaints only show double standards at work.
Of the original main characters, Janeway, the EMH, Tom Paris, Kes and Torres, no less than three, Paris and Torres and Kes were basically failures. (Chakotay and Tuvok were B-team at best. And Neelix and Kim were foils for Kes and Paris, respectively.) They desperately tried to salvage Paris and Torres, finally lumping them together in one sorry lump of soap. And they cut their losses with Kes. Seven of Nine had many good things about her, but she was horribly inconsistent. Yes, Seven of Nine, not Janeway, was the schizophrenic one, missing which shows how obtuse most Voyager criticism really is. Worse, Seven of Nine had no real relationships with anyone other than Janeway.
Along with the dimwitted science, these were the real flaws of Voyager. But if people don't even notice the real problems, but keep dredging up the same old inanities, what's going on?
Certainly, otherwise the holotechnology would be useless (and remember that the Hirogen needed Harry's expertise to keep things running in "The Killing Game").
Which was rendered useless in "Hunters," eliminating that line of communication.
35,000 lightyears isn't a paltry distance, I don't think. Even the Federation doesn't come close to reaching such a distance, does it?
Though, without their communication array, how did they communicate across such great distances?
Assuming the Hirogen have an alternative way to transmit data (or travel) tens of thousands of light years in no more than three years, the story still has to deal with the incredible coincidence of being near enough to Voyager's path for a distress signal to be received. And that, really, is the biggest problem. Everything else is just quibbling one way or another, but the big coincidence that starts off the story is the episode's weakest part (and, to be clear, it's one of the better episodes of season seven).
Possible, although both the Hirogen ships and the Station in "Flesh and Blood" look similar to me in origin (but the similarities are not striking enough to eliminate your theory as a possibility). We at least know that the holotechnology was Starfleet in origin, as per the episode.
Oh yes, but that misses the context of my original post, which was about story arcs where Voyager was followed by a hostile enemy (and, since the Hirogen stop following Voyager at the end of "The Killing Game," that's the end of that). "Flesh in Blood" is obviously a direct sequel to "The Killing Game," and the next installment in the loose Hirogen arc (unless you count the two or three one-offs of Hirogen characters between these two episodes).
Too me, that's why I find them great villains.
It's not how powerful their technology is to me.
I don't mind the idea that if you're clever enough to take a risk, you can out smart them. That was the whole point of us being superior as individuals was about. Being a co-operative beats the collective because we we aren't one mind. The flaw to the Borg is the Queen is the only voice commanding the collective.
What made the Borg awesome to me is the fact that they never go away. As long as one exists, the Borg survive and they do have the possibility to out survive the Federation. That and there are probably 50 Borg to 1 Starfleet Officer. So if the Borg ever did decided to go on a full scale attack on Earth, I'm pretty sure Starfleet would still run out of Officers before the Borg run out of Drones.
So Voyager can bring back to Earth all the data they can on the Borg. After "Endgame", if Borg survived(..and I'm fairly sure they did) they're frantically roaming the galaxy now desperately looking for newer technology to get one up on us.
The Borg are equal to Killer Bee's and Janeway shook hive.
It may take a few decades but they will still come for us.
...most of which I'm not going to reply to individually, because it's just rehash (again) and has been more than adequately addressed already. Plus, I'm not going to be responsible for turning this into another "Voyager Borg" thread.
One thing, tho...
No, the fandom liked Scorpion because they thought it was an excellent Borg story and an excellent VOY ep. Period. No one wanted the show to be a "serialized convoluted mess"; that's YOUR term. What many have said they wanted was JUST A LITTLE serialization. i.e., some later acknowledgement of those events which qualified as HUGE. Show some consequences, revisit things that - logically - WOULD come up again, etc. That's all. No more, no less.
No, "they" weren't POd that it was only a two-parter. No, "they" didn't stop liking it. It REMAINS one of the most highly praised eps of VOY, as well as one of the most highly praised Borg eps, to this day. What some people have expressed disappointment over is the fact that the whole Borg/8472 conflict as a whole (and the 8472 themselves) kinda fizzled later on.
Which addresses the original topic of this thread: Scorpion was AMAZING, yet what followed (with the Borg and with 8472) ranged from mediocre to awful. That's what I and the vast majority of Trek fans I've spoken with had a problem with when it came to Voyager. We couldn't just write the whole thing off and say "this show sucks." Because at times, it was brilliant... but just so damned inconsistent and rife with wasted potential.
On this point, I... kinda sorta agree, actually. We have hashed out in bloody detail how we disagree in terms of how and why each show handled the Borg the way they did, but to some degree, I do think that a simple numerical overuse of them is bad news. When the Borg show up, it should be a major EVENT. While I still maintain that the manner in which VOY used the Borg was a big part of the problem (Scorpion aside), I agree that the sheer number of times they showed up was also part of the problem.
Kinda like how a LOT of things in Trek (and in non-hard sci-fi in general) don't hold up if you examine them too closely. Kinda like how almost NOTHING in Star Wars holds up to scrutiny.
They used them too many times, and in extremely uncreative ways.
Speak for yourself. Tom was one of my favorite characters (though to be fair, there WERE aspects of his development I wasn't happy with, most notably when he and most of the cast were swept under the rug to make room for Star Trek: Janeway, Seven, and The Doctor in the last couple seasons).
Simply declaring that Janeway wasn't inconsistently written doesn't make it so. Perhaps you disagree, but you are way off the mark with this assertion that somehow, Seven being much more inconsistent than Janeway is some sort of incontrovertible FACT, and to "miss" it "proves" that most VOY criticism is therefore invalid.
What's going on? I'll tell you.
Some people have a different opinion from you about how good a show Voyager was. Some people have a different opinion from you about exactly what the show's "real flaws" were. Shocking, isn't it?
Forgive me but I think you're thinking too small, so I'm not sure you're getting my point. What I'm saying that I believe the information traveled that far from Hirogen hunting down the next nearest Hirogen and passing it on to him and so on and so on, like the Pony Express. Until it reached the instillation were they could set it up. Even without the array, the Hirogan still know how to track another vessel.
The Hirogen would cover more ground faster and farther than the Federation because they aren't stopping to explore everything, they're hunting. They would track their prey for as far and as long as it takes. They also unlike the Federation, they aren't stopping to recruit members to get trade deals or permission to pass through their space. The Hirogen are single minded toward their goals.
IMO the show is fiction so the fact that coincidences such as that does even register for me. Not that there's anything wrong with you feeling that way, I just don't hold sci-fi to those types of rules. If you tell me it is so, then I accept it as such for the sake of the bigger story. Know what I mean?
If they were expecting the 8472 to become some major plot point that would dramatically alter the rest of the show like the Dominion did for DS9, they DESERVED to be disappointed. They were invented for ONE story and ONE story alone and for the sole purpose of getting VOY by the Borg and giving them a new character. Once that story was told, they're done. That's it. No more.
Of course, that couldn't be it because the audience liked the 8472 too much even though their story was done. Plus, the writers realized they put themselves in a corner again (like when they made the Borg too powerful) and decided to get rid of the 8472 from the series in a way that was permanent, cheap, and didn't require a big Borg/8472 space battle.
And don't say "Sure you can leave them in the show", because you just can't. This isn't like the Dominion just signing a treaty and leaving, they were dealing with Xenocidal maniacs who had the power to actually destroy the Universe if they wanted to. You HAVE to totally resolve something like that.
Thing is, whenever anyone here says that there should've been consequences for the Borg's appearance and a price for VOY's victory I don't think they were paying attention. In BOBW aside from Picard's assimilation (which he DIDN'T DIE FROM) there were no consequences or loss. In I, Borg there weren't any prices to pay. In Descent there was no price to pay or consequences. in FC there was no price to pay or consequences.
So why does VOY have to do what TNG never did? All TNG offered was cannon fodder to the Borg. TNG never paid any price for victory, no REAL price.
And aside from BOBW and FC none of the Borg episodes on TNG were big "Events", really.
There isn't much to a Borg appearance on VOY, since there's nothing at stake but VOY itself. And that's not enough to count as anything. Please don't give me any "If you care about the characters" stuff because that doesn't count compared to how huge the scope was in the Borg's TNG appearances. In Farscape the fate of the Galaxy was at stake if either the Peacekeepers or the Scarrans got the secret weapon tech on Moya, in NuBSG the fate of an entire civilization was at stake if the Cylons won. In VOY, there's nothing at stake, no real loss beyond VOY itself. And that just isn't enough.
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IMO the show is fiction so the fact that coincidences such as that does even register for me. Not that there's anything wrong with you feeling that way, I just don't hold sci-fi to those types of rules. If you tell me it is so, then I accept it as such for the sake of the bigger story. Know what I mean?
I understand what you mean. It still a big leap of story logic for me, but it leads to an interesting episode, so I'm not going to totally dismiss "Flesh and Blood." I just wish the writers had been more careful when it comes to stories that heavily rely on coincidences, especially in the final season, which uses similar leaps in logic with the episodes "Prophecy" and "Homestead," and those are by no means the only episodes I could name.
Yes, "Prophecy" is a bunch of bullshit but I don't mind "Homestead". My logic is, if we can find Klingons from the Beta Q. in the Alpha Q. as far as DS9 or farther, then I don't find it too far fetched to find Talaxians that far in their native space. Especially when you consider they had engineering skills to turning their ships into a mining complex. I don't se it hard for them to have found a way to upgrade their ship engines. Plus, Seven told Neelix the Borg encountered a convoy of Talaxian ships once. I assumed the Talaxians in "Homestead" were part of that convoy.IMO the show is fiction so the fact that coincidences such as that does even register for me. Not that there's anything wrong with you feeling that way, I just don't hold sci-fi to those types of rules. If you tell me it is so, then I accept it as such for the sake of the bigger story. Know what I mean?
I understand what you mean. It still a big leap of story logic for me, but it leads to an interesting episode, so I'm not going to totally dismiss "Flesh and Blood." I just wish the writers had been more careful when it comes to stories that heavily rely on coincidences, especially in the final season, which uses similar leaps in logic with the episodes "Prophecy" and "Homestead," and those are by no means the only episodes I could name.
I know it might be outside the box but I piece together these theories based on actual canon given in the show. So IMO, I think it could possibly hold up.
Re Tom Paris: What were the good Paris episodes?
Re Seven of Nine's schizophrenia: Contrast the Seven of Nine in Drone, Collective, Omega Directive, even Voyager Conspiracy with the Seven of Nine in One, Retrospect, Someone to Watch Over Me. I've never seen anyone, ever, produce a list like that about Janeway, despite literally claiming they could.
Re not writing a legal brief each and every time I give my opinion: If I did, it would be criticized as prolix and pompous. Malevolent gotcha bullshit is not an argument.
Re real problems: If you want to be taken seriously, say something besides stupid cliches.
Re Seven of Nine's schizophrenia: Contrast the Seven of Nine in Drone, Collective, Omega Directive, even Voyager Conspiracy with the Seven of Nine in One, Retrospect, Someone to Watch Over Me. I've never seen anyone, ever, produce a list like that about Janeway, despite literally claiming they could.
Re not writing a legal brief each and every time I give my opinion: If I did, it would be criticized as prolix and pompous. Malevolent gotcha bullshit is not an argument.
Re real problems: If you want to be taken seriously, say something besides stupid cliches.
Except when it worked I Borg.
So that's why I think Scorpion is the best episode of VOY, because I hate it. Thanks for clearing that up.
Whoever said that was right. To me, that was the main problem with Voyager. I did enjoy the show but nothing compares to DS9 in my mind.
Couldn't agree more. 
I think this is the first thing you've got right.
That would have been unbelievable, and counterproductive. Completely wiping out an enemy would serve no purpose other than to limit future creativity.
Nope. In every Borg appearance, without exception, damage was always done. Drones were killed. The Borg always took time to re-adapt in every engagement. They were never completely invincible, and fans at large did not have a problem with that. In fact, I think most would agree it would have been stupid if they were utterly invincible.
This is an irrelevant excuse. It doesn't matter what you think would have made sense. The fact is, that didn't happen -- and therefore the Borg were not invincible or impossible to hide from in TNG. That was what you were postulating in the first place, to support your claim that fans wanted them to be invincible in VOY just like they were in TNG. It has been demonstrated that your premise is wrong. Why do you continue arguing it?
It would really help your credibility if you cited the people you're replying to in this thread, instead of citing "the fandom" that exists mainly in your imagination.
Didn't expect you to challenge me, I was just commenting that I really like the character... but ok, sure. Off the top of my head, some Tom eps I like:
-The Chute (more of a a "Tom and Harry" ep, really)
-Vis a Vis (a weird ep, but... somehow I like it for some reason)
-Thirty Days (I have problems with aspects of it, but overall I quite enjoyed it)
-Drive (again, not JUST a Tom ep, but still a very important one for the development of the character, and a very good ep overall).
These don't really "prove" anything, they are just eps I like. Besides, all I really meant was that I like the character. I generally like how he was written, I like the actor, etc.
Uh... contrast what? I don't even see much of a pattern here. Neither the first nor second set of eps you gave particularly have that much in common with each other, in terms of how Seven acts. In BOTH sets, she sometimes acted more like an emotional human, and sometimes didn't. In your examples, when she reacted to something strongly, I usually saw a decent reason (i.e. in "One", she does find herself on this ship, completely alone, for an extended period. That would be a really weird experience for a former drone). Also, she IS a former drone! Let's not forget that. To expect her to act in a logical/rational way would be silly. Also, in "The Voyager Conspiracy," she was actually suffering from some kind of brain overload due to enhancements to her alcove or something (it's been a while since I saw the ep).
Furthermore, note that I never claimed she wasn't at ALL schizophrenic or written inconsistently. She WAS written inconsistently, to some degree; mainly, there was some jumping around in terms of just how far she'd come in understanding human emotions. All I was doing was pointing out that the notion that she was WAY more inconsistently written than Janeway is your opinion, and not hard fact. My own take is that Janeway was definitely more inconsistently written, and comes off more "schizophrenic", especially when one considers that Seven is a liberated Borg Drone and Janeway is supposed to be an experienced Starfleet officer.
Off the top of my head:
-Suder murders a guy for looking at him the wrong way, admits to it, and further admits to just BEING a psychotic lunatic in general, and the best Janeway can do is lock him in his room? Yet Tom - for his far lesser transgressions in "Thirty Days" - gets brig time.
-In "Equinox", she tortures another Starfleet officer to get information out of him. In many other eps - "The Void" is a notable example - she holds up Starfleet protocols and values as that which must be adhered to no matter the consequences.
-In the pilot, and later whenever it’s brought up, she’s ABSOLUTELY SURE that destroying the Caretaker’s array instead of using it to go home was the right thing to do! The Starfleet thing to do! There can be no rebuttal! …Except in “Night”, when she falls into this depression and questions if it was the right thing to do, calling herself a failure over it.
But it’s ok, because she’s back to thinking it was absolutely the right thing to do by the end of season 7!
What? What are you even referring to here?
Fine. The same point made again, without the sarcasm:"What's going on?" you asked. What's going on is that some people are expressing the opinion that the problems you see as Voyager's biggest ones may not be the biggest ones, for them. And that some of the things you brush aside as "inanities" are things that WERE problems for them, that affected their enjoyment of the show.
Frankly, I don't think your assertion that "people don't even notice the real problems" even holds water. You say the "real problems" were uneven character development and BS pseudo-science. People blast Voyager for those things all the time. So where are you even getting the idea that people AREN'T acknowledging those problems?
In any case, I still feel that Voyager had a lot of wasted potential, and was a "pretty good" show that could have been a GREAT show. You're free to disagree, but not to tell my I'm factually incorrect.
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