Why is the Trek community so negative about Voyager?

[Anwar]

Seven years of TNG made it QUITE clear that "Starfleet dress code" is "Wear your uniform while on duty. Make sure it looks nice." The idea that Henley's headband, Chell's pendant, or Gerron's earring are in any way "against regulations" is preposterous.

I don't know. Ensign Ro made it clear that Bajoran ear-rings were against the dress code regulations. Maybe having the ornamentation is something that individual captains and officers can allow if they feel like granting crewmembers some leeway.

Of course, if that's the case, I'd say Tuvok needed to allow the Maquis to keep their headbands, pendants and ear-rings - as a way of showing that he was willing to bend to their needs and not just forcing them to conform to his and Starfleet's ways.

Look at that! A normal conversation!

I know it feels kinda wierd.

I think that for the most part the earrings are allowed, Riker was just being a dick to Ro. No one had any problems with Worf wearing his sash or Rom wearing that Ferengi head-band.

And yes, normal conversation is more than mere theory.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The Borg just suck as a recurring enemy, Micheal Piller should have just made it clear that the Borg Cube from BOBW was the entire Borg species and they ALL died in that episode with no chance of more of them. They really didn't have anywhere to go after that but down.

What, and miss out of "First Contact"?

No way, that's gotta be one of the best Trek films ever.

We also would have missed out on Seven of Nine, who was one of VOYAGER's better ideas.

Seven of Nine was the ultimate in Mary Sue...

 

[Anwar]

No more than Spock.

 

[TheGodBen]

This thread is something else.

I like this thread, but for it to become legendary we need to create a Captain Robau style mascot for it. I nominate we use Lt Ayala:

Lt Ayala is so badass that he doesn't need to speak, he communicates through facial expressions, and he only has two facial expressions; badass and harder badass.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

1. Apotheosis, space war, empires falling, etc. Space opera, in other words. I like me some space opera too but if they wanted more DS9 they'd have been better off making more DS9.

I would have been all for it, but Berman hated it.

2. In other words, competing with DS9 made it look bad. If you say so.

No, it meant that the Trek audience was somewhat divided between the two shows, just as TNG/DS9 before it. It didn't have the advantage of being "the only game in town.

3. The Star Trek vision of the future has its roots in the Sixties. Of course it's getting out of date. There's no reason to think it's any truer of DS9 than Voyager.

"Trek fatigue" has nothing to do with "vision of the future" or "roots", and everything to do with the creative bankruptcy/burnout of the showrunners (Berman and Braga).

4. Since Voyager was on UPN, it certainly had more network meddling than a syndicated show. That's given. Shocking as it may seem, sometimes the suits are right. As near as I can make out, it is controversy that brings out the worst in them. Ditching Chakotay's electronic hallucinator religion was the character's last chance for a real contribution. And Chakotary wasn't a Neelix or Kim, his dramatic weakness hurt the show.

So you admit that the meddling hurt the show, but then defend that the meddlers were right?

5. Less like DS9, in other words.

No, more like TNG: episodic, "perfect people", etc. To the extent DS9 played against those flaws was what made it creatively the excellent show that it was and is.

6. No, Voyager wasn't serialized like DS9.

The magic shuttle machine, torpedo spontaneous generation, etc had nothing to do with not being "serialized" and everything to do with ignoring your premise and continuity.

8. This is incredibly stupid. I've seen posters talk about patched up ships! Just because someone lacks the sense to wonder where the patches are going to come from (floating by in the interstellar void?) doesn't mean they should be taken seriously. Again this is an incredibly blatant double standard. There's no way Voyager's replicators are any sillier than TNG's or DS9's. The whole notion of hardships is and was ridiculous. But people say they wanted more ridiculous? This is too crazy to be true.

No, they wanted it to be true to it's premises. Limited power, limited supplies of NON-replicatable parts (too big, requires exotic elements, etc) If the ship got shot to hell and gone one week, they rightfully said WTF when next week it was shiny new and spit polished, just like always.

9. Again, this is saying, not DS9. DS9's notion of character development is turning Sisko into a god, Odo into a god, Bashir into a superhuman, Kira into whatever seems cool, even a kind of Jewish stepdaughter to Hitler!

This is gross hyperbole at best, and utter BS at worst. They did plenty to "humanize" the above mentioned characters, not to mention the excellent Worf material (picking up from one of the few things TNG got completely right).

10. Seven was so inconsistent the character should have been controversial. The cat suit was squarely in the Star Trek tradition of miniskirts. This double standard requires a level of dishonesty that is truly remarkable.

More BS. It had less to do with the catsuit and more to do with Ryan's questionable performance, the writers' infatuation with making damn near everything about her, involving her or just sticking her into it for no good reason. She's the best modern example of a Mary Sue ever seen on screen (magic powers [nanoprobes], excessive and unwarranted angst, everybody loves her, etc)

11. Star Trek has always had some abominable stories. Thankfully, most of them could be skipped because the series was episodic. The difficulty is understanding how someone could like a serialized show whose Big Story is a disaster.

And that would be?

12. Another shameless double standard. Prophets, anyone?

How did they "not make sense"? They rarely appeared, even more rarely did more than deliver some piece of exposition. The ONE time they took direct action was literally when all other options had failed (Sacrifice of Angels), and even then Sisko had to browbeat them into doing it.

Liking DS9 doesn't require fatuous criticism of Voyager.

Good thing our criticisms are not fatuous then...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

There were, what? four episodes featuring the Borg Collective?

Actually, there were 16 episodes that featured the Borg, and that's excluding the ones that used holograms or hallucinations. If you include those, it jumps to 22. Source is Memory Alpha. It IS just a quick once-over of the list, but I'm fairly sure that they were a focus in more than four of them.

http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Borg#Appearances

Even more than that if you count Seven's incessant references to her time as Borg, eps where her nanoprobes were technobabble solution of the week, etc.

You never even bothered to consider my idea of making the other VOY crew be Romulans instead of Maquis...

I absolutely cringe at saying this, but I would have watched such a show. It uses the "Piller option" of using conflict based on Federation vs not-Federation to get around Roddenberry's "perfect people" rule.

VOY was the right idea, wrong time and place.

Right idea, wrong time (too soon) and poorly executed.

As for the Borg, they just don't really work as a recurring enemy. They're too boring and dead-end creatively. And TNG built them up too much to feature in a show about one ship with no allies or armadas.

Another cringe as I am forced to agree...

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Back OT:

On it's worst day VOY was better than B5.

Hardly. B5 was better plotted, better written and generally better acted than Voyager.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Seven years of TNG made it QUITE clear that "Starfleet dress code" is "Wear your uniform while on duty. Make sure it looks nice." The idea that Henley's headband, Chell's pendant, or Gerron's earring are in any way "against regulations" is preposterous.

I don't know. Ensign Ro made it clear that Bajoran ear-rings were against the dress code regulations. Maybe having the ornamentation is something that individual captains and officers can allow if they feel like granting crewmembers some leeway.

Of course, if that's the case, I'd say Tuvok needed to allow the Maquis to keep their headbands, pendants and ear-rings - as a way of showing that he was willing to bend to their needs and not just forcing them to conform to his and Starfleet's ways.

I think that for the most part the earrings are allowed, Riker was just being a dick to Ro. No one had any problems with Worf wearing his sash or Rom wearing that Ferengi head-band.

All right, who replaced Anwar with a pod person?

Going as far back and TMP, we could see crewmembers wearing cultural ornamentation (so long as it didn't get in the way of proper performance of their duties. This mirrors the real life military where such things as the yamuke (sp?) are permitted.

 

[Anwar]

Back OT:

On it's worst day VOY was better than B5.

Hardly. B5 was better plotted, better written and generally better acted than Voyager.

B5 had the advantage of not being a major franchise which kept most Exec Meddling away, it was a truly risky gambit of being written out beforehand (B5 is the EXCEPTION, not the standard. This usually DOESN'T work), and the acting was lousy 50% of the time, especially the extras and guest characters.

Even more than that if you count Seven's incessant references to her time as Borg, eps where her nanoprobes were technobabble solution of the week, etc.

This doesn't really count, since the DQ is the home of the Borg naturally more evidence of them would show up all the time compared to the Alpha Quadrant series where they were deep space invaders.

And please stop blaming Berman for everything, he didn't hate DS9, he wasn't all that involved in VOY's creative process, and Braga was only a showrunner for TWO SEASONS out of SEVEN.

 

[number6]

Back OT:

On it's worst day VOY was better than B5.

Hardly. B5 was better plotted, better written and generally better acted than Voyager.

Nope. Wrong answer.

B5 Sucked harder than a NY crack whore.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

Back OT:

On it's worst day VOY was better than B5.

Hardly. B5 was better plotted, better written and generally better acted than Voyager.

Nope. Wrong answer.

B5 Sucked harder than a NY crack whore.

Bullshit.

B5 had a strong through narrative that having ONE person primarily in charge of writing and overseeing script development allowed to be preserved throughout the run.

The characters were well developed and complex, and most DEFINITELY didn't suffer from Perfect People Syndrome.

The dialogue was crisp (and often witty). Just about any time you got Londo and G'Kar on the screen together, for example, you just knew JMS was going to knock it out of the park (having such strong actors in the two parts didn't hurt either...)

Speaking of actors, the casting was massively impressive vis a vis the primary cast (esp Jurassik and Katsulas, with honorable mentions to Doyle and Furlan). The secondary cast was also good (esp Furst , Mumy and Biggs), if on occasion underwritten compared to the primaries.

Furthermore, B5 took social issues HEAD frakking on, rather than mask them with inferences and "wink wink-s".

B5 was a masterpiece of serialized sci-fi (and a masterpiece of good drama PERIOD). Objectively looked at, it was and is a superior show even to it's Trek counterpart DS9 (and I say this as a HUGE DS9 fan).

 

[exodus]

Back OT:

On it's worst day VOY was better than B5.

Hardly. B5 was better plotted, better written and generally better acted than Voyager.

Nope. Wrong answer.

B5 Sucked harder than a NY crack whore.

Word!
If it wasn't for the characters like Londo & G'Kar, I'd have found the whole thing a waste. I found the some of the writing structure sloppy and haphazard. My God that show looks sooooo dated now too. Even though it was done in the 90's, it looks like it's from the 80's.

 

[Anwar]

The characters were well developed and complex, and most DEFINITELY didn't suffer from Perfect People Syndrome.

You know, this is really just becoming some kind of stereotype. None of the characters in TNG+ were "perfect people", they just weren't blatant racists and/or hypocrites. And even then there were bits of racism. It's an unfair generalization because certain folks just can't stand it when people are able to work together without having serious issues with everyone else.

Hell, even in TOS there wasn't THAT much conflict going on all the time.

The dialogue was crisp (and often witty). Just about any time you got Londo and G'Kar on the screen together, for example, you just knew JMS was going to knock it out of the park (having such strong actors in the two parts didn't hurt either...)

For those two, yes. A lot of the rest of the dialog really belongs in a book and not TV because it just doesn't translate that well. Ivanova's "I am your death" speech was ESPECIALLY painful. I'm surprised the Earth Captain didn't open fire on her halfway through!

Furthermore, B5 took social issues HEAD frakking on, rather than mask them with inferences and "wink wink-s".

You make it sound like Trek NEVER did that. It did, lots of times.

B5 was a masterpiece of serialized sci-fi (and a masterpiece of good drama PERIOD). Objectively looked at, it was and is a superior show even to it's Trek counterpart DS9 (and I say this as a HUGE DS9 fan).

It's the exception, not the new standard. Shows like B5 RARELY ever succeed.

 

[darkwing_duck1]

The characters were well developed and complex, and most DEFINITELY didn't suffer from Perfect People Syndrome.

You know, this is really just becoming some kind of stereotype. None of the characters in TNG+ were "perfect people", they just weren't blatant racists and/or hypocrites.

BS! They were cold, unfeeling, overly intellectual and stiff as a board. This was precisely because GR laid down his "perfect people" edict. Can't argue. Can't get mad. Secular humanism is the philosophy of choice. Always conform to the "higher standard".

The best eps of modern Trek were ones that showed us conclusively that the people of the Federation were FAR from being perfect, no matter what they told themselves: The Drumhead, Peak Performance, Homefront/Paradise Lost, In the Pale Moonlight, etc.

And even then there were bits of racism. It's an unfair generalization because certain folks just can't stand it when people are able to work together without having serious issues with everyone else.

Showing a truly "enlightened" human would mean showing them Working together means doing so DESPITE their differences, not never having them.

Hell, even in TOS there wasn't THAT much conflict going on all the time.

the Spock/McCoy feud, Lt Stiles, Finney

For those two, yes. A lot of the rest of the dialog really belongs in a book and not TV because it just doesn't translate that well. Ivanova's "I am your death" speech was ESPECIALLY painful. I'm surprised the Earth Captain didn't open fire on her halfway through!

That was a dropped ball, yes, but she also got gems, like:

"Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! Babylon control out... Civilians." [Looks at ceiling.] "Just kidding about that God part. No offense."

And every character got more than a few good ones. Name me a character and I'll find you an excellent example of quoteage from him/her.

Furthermore, B5 took social issues HEAD frakking on, rather than mask them with inferences and "wink wink-s".

You make it sound like Trek NEVER did that. It did, lots of times.

No, it dressed them up in "socially acceptable clothes". It used allegory and symbology to avoid flat out saying what it wanted to say.

B5 was a masterpiece of serialized sci-fi (and a masterpiece of good drama PERIOD). Objectively looked at, it was and is a superior show even to it's Trek counterpart DS9 (and I say this as a HUGE DS9 fan).

It's the exception, not the new standard. Shows like B5 RARELY ever succeed.

That only makes B5 MORE of a masterpiece, because it DID succeed.

 

[exodus]

BS! They were cold, unfeeling, overly intellectual and stiff as a board. This was precisely because GR laid down his "perfect people" edict. Can't argue. Can't get mad. Secular humanism is the philosophy of choice. Always conform to the "higher standard".

I don't think that's a correct description of characters like Riker, Troi or Geordi. Riker especially was far from cold, unfeeling & stiff as a board. For someone in his position he was always happy good lucky and amused by something.

 

[Cepstrum]

FWIW, I read an interview with either Piller or Taylor in which they said it was very difficult for them to do Learning Curve: the UPN execs did not like the idea, and thus they had to tone it down. And that as bold of a general Maquis/SF conflict they could do. (not including, obviously, the evil Seska arc, and she wasn't even a true Maquis.)

I don't know if Piller et al. are telling the truth, but that's what they claimed.

 

[zar]

You never even bothered to consider my idea of making the other VOY crew be Romulans instead of Maquis...

(and I'm being serious over this, no baiting)

I personally think it would have worked.


But it's only fair that we give your ideas the same consideration you give ours:

Are you NUTS?! That would have caused the fans unspeakable agony. It would have completely destroyed TNG's vision of Romulans. The audience expects all Romulans to be evil all the time. They had to use ex-Fleeter Maquis because everyone would hate the idea of outsiders deciding to work with Starfleet. Even though that happened all the time on DS9. Complete double standard. Plus it would have been impossibly expensive to give half the regular cast Romulan makeup every single episode, which is just further proof that VOY's entire premise was flawed from the start. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.


Seriously though, nothing wrong with Romulans.

 

[froot]

Eek, I never thought I'd see the "only casual Trek fans like VOY" argument again until I read this thread.

I love all Star Treks. However, VOY is my favorite. The end. My husband likes VOY as much as TNG. We enjoy watching it together, and we have fun.

It didn't take enough chances at times and it had too many "what-if" stories, but I blame the network for that.

When I was younger, we enjoyed watching VOY as a family as much as we enjoyed watching TNG or DS9. Good enough for me.

 

[Anwar]

BS! They were cold, unfeeling, overly intellectual and stiff as a board. This was precisely because GR laid down his "perfect people" edict. Can't argue. Can't get mad. Secular humanism is the philosophy of choice. Always conform to the "higher standard".

There aren't any real examples of them being cold or unfeeling. And if these people are surrounded by amazing sciences, technologies and seeing new wonders then naturally you'd expect them to be intellectual. They're the Flagship after all. Most of the non-Ent crew seen were plenty imperfect (along with the recurring ENT crew).

Showing a truly "enlightened" human would mean showing them Working together means doing so DESPITE their differences, not never having them.

That really isn't any different than having them be 100% like 20th century people who let petty differences get in the way and HAVE to be overcome, rather than just having differences that they don't allow to get in the way so blatantly. And even then, it still happened from time to time.

the Spock/McCoy feud, Lt Stiles, Finney

The Spock/McCoy thing wasn't nearly as big as nostalgia made it out to be, and a lot of the time it was because of external circumstances or some plot device messing with their heads. Lt Stiles, yes but that was a one episode thing and he was called out on it repeatedly throughout the episode. Like Data's Anti-Android XO in "Redemption". Finney was clearly a lunatic from the way he was acting. "Character conflict" is easier to do when you only have 3 characters to deal with, 1 of them being beyond the chain of command and the other's job being mainly to counter the Captain.

No, it dressed them up in "socially acceptable clothes". It used allegory and symbology to avoid flat out saying what it wanted to say.

And B5 simply used aliens to bluntly face them. The Cardassian/Bajoran thing that TNG started is as dressed-down as anything B5 did. Racism? The Federation had been in existence for 200 or so years by TNG, it would have been nuts to still have the member-species be blatantly racist to one another by then. In B5 at least they had the Minbari War so recently to justify anti-alien behavior. Seriously, B5 was hardly the pinnacle of that sort of stuff. Give me a social issue they did and there will also be a Trek example of it somewhere.

That only makes B5 MORE of a masterpiece, because it DID succeed.

And if Trek tried that, it was a good show, and it got canceled after one season regardless, what would you say then? That "Well, they tried and failed so obviously they did something wrong"?

But it's only fair that we give your ideas the same consideration you give ours:

Are you NUTS?! That would have caused the fans unspeakable agony. It would have completely destroyed TNG's vision of Romulans. The audience expects all Romulans to be evil all the time.

Well, actually TOS and TNG gave us good and bad Romulans more than any other series. DS9 was the one that gave mostly bad Romulans.

Plus it would have been impossibly expensive to give half the regular cast Romulan makeup every single episode,

Wouldn't have to be half the crew, maybe 1/3. And DS9 got away with it with the Cardassian and Ferengi makeup. And B5 had a much smaller budget and got away with how covered up THEIR aliens were all the damn time.

Seriously, though. Just having some fun there.

 

[firecrackerrrr]

Eek, I never thought I'd see the "only casual Trek fans like VOY" argument again until I read this thread.

I love all Star Treks. However, VOY is my favorite. The end. My husband likes VOY as much as TNG. We enjoy watching it together, and we have fun.

It didn't take enough chances at times and it had too many "what-if" stories, but I blame the network for that.

When I was younger, we enjoyed watching VOY as a family as much as we enjoyed watching TNG or DS9. Good enough for me.

I can't agree more. Frankly, it makes me wonder if these fans even get the concept of Star Trek and the philosophy behind it. It's very simple to agree to disagree but to flat out call someone a bad fan (or not a true fan) because they like a show THAT'S CANON AND PART OF THE SAME UNIVERSE is so ridiculous and juvenile. I originally got into TOS and TNG before Voyager. I love love love DS9. But my favourite show will always be Voyager. There's some awful episodes, sure. But I can name you about 20 bad episodes from each series. It's a matter of opinion, and while I'm aware of the shortcomings when it comes to Voyager (writing and inconsistencies) I am able to attribute it to a continuity error, move on and focus on what's great about it.

I also never got into Enterprise. Unfortunately real life caught up with me, I started going to uni and let me tell you, studying physics doesn't leave much room for anything else. From what I did see I wasn't overly impressed by it but I'd never bash this
show because I never gave it a proper shot. And even if I don't end up liking it one day when I do find the time to watch it, I'd never call someone a bad fan because they do like it. What, are you 12?