Was it ever really possible for Voyager to be "Epic"?

[Anwar]

I've been going over this in my head and with others.

When folks say that Voyager should have been "Epic"...was that ever really possible?

I mean really, the show was about these folks on this one small unimportant ship traveling through the galaxy at break-neck speeds and never staying in spot for long.

To be "Epic", like DS9 or TNG's stories were they'd need to spend time in one spot and flesh the area out (and the audience would also have to care about the inhabitants too). But with the "Never stay in one spot" thing they couldn't do that.

I really don't think that it would've been possible for the show to be anything other than some typical adventure series about one crew on their own. And that means no epic events.

If they did do anything epic or important, wouldn't the complaints just be then that they were "too important" for one weak ship on its own?

 

[JeffM]

I'm not quite sure what 'epic' means in this context.

Does it mean that they did huge things, such as Kirk saving the Federation against things like Nomad and V'ger?

If that's the case, maybe Voyager did do some epic things. They potentially saved the galaxy from species 8472.

They also stopped the Krenim from rewriting history in that part of the galaxy; who knows how long and to what scope that would have continued.

Those are just a couple of examples off of the top of my head.

I'd say Voyager was kinda epic.

 

[Anwar]

I'm not quite sure what 'epic' means in this context.

Does it mean that they did huge things, such as Kirk saving the Federation against things like Nomad and V'ger?

Well, yes.

If that's the case, maybe Voyager did do some epic things. They potentially saved the galaxy from species 8472.

They also stopped the Krenim from rewriting history in that part of the galaxy; who knows how long and to what scope that would have continued.

But the first instance is considered the beginning of the Borg's Decay as villains because VOY was shown defeating an enemy that the Borg couldn't handle on their own, and the second instance is one where the audience complained that VOY was too important for one weak ship.

Was there really a way to do "Epic" in a way that satisfied folks? Neither of those satisfied folks.

 

[HoneyBLilly]

Sure it was.

Anything's possible.

If they had the right writers then it could have been.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Folks traveling in boats, hmm, Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas, nope, no way for a story like that to stand the test of time. Voyager's writers focused more on the encounter of the week and did too little with how it affected the crew in the short and long term of the show. The place to flesh out is in the ship, not the planet of the week that's being left in the ship's wake.

 

[Anwar]

Folks traveling in boats, hmm, Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas, nope, no way for a story like that to stand the test of time.

Those guys were on defined quests and were connected to the Gods themselves, and there was something bigger at stake most of the time too (fates of Kingdoms, etc).

In VOY there was no defined quest beyond going home, and the crew had no connection to any of the aliens they encountered (or anything in the Quadrant), nor was there ever anything at stake beyond their unimportant lives.

Voyager's writers focused more on the encounter of the week and did too little with how it affected the crew in the short and long term of the show.

Compared to an Epic War story deciding the fate of the Trekverse (DS9, some TNG and TOS stories), the story of a bunch of unimportant people who didn't have much to fight over to begin with doesn't seem so grand.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Folks traveling in boats, hmm, Jason, Odysseus, Aeneas, nope, no way for a story like that to stand the test of time.

Those guys were on defined quests and were connected to the Gods themselves, and there was something bigger at stake most of the time too (fates of Kingdoms, etc).

In VOY there was no defined quest beyond going home, and the crew had no connection to any of the aliens they encountered (or anything in the Quadrant), nor was there ever anything at stake beyond their unimportant lives.

Voyager's writers focused more on the encounter of the week and did too little with how it affected the crew in the short and long term of the show.

Compared to an Epic War story deciding the fate of the Trekverse (DS9, some TNG and TOS stories), the story of a bunch of unimportant people who didn't have much to fight over to begin with doesn't seem so grand.

That's simply a fault of the writers, not the world the characters function in. You simply have different tastes. I never found TNG or DS9 to be particularly epic except epically boring. Voyager, for all its faults, still feels far more epic for me.

 

[Yevetha]

"
In VOY there was no defined quest beyond going home, and the crew had no connection to any of the aliens they encountered (or anything in the Quadrant), nor was there ever anything at stake beyond their unimportant lives.'

There was the potential elimination of the Borg species.

Was anything else at stake then their unimportant lives in Firefly?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Eliminating the Borg is what the Romulans would do.

The Federation befriends their enemies.

How to befriend a species of serial mass rapists?

(Genophilia?)

Every one says that you can't have a grand adventure if Voyager keeps moving, faster than any stink or horror they generate, but where-ever they go, they take themselves with them ad there could have been as plenty moving drama aboard ship as at least the Loveboat or Zack and Cody Suite Life on deck.

 

[froot]

"
In VOY there was no defined quest beyond going home, and the crew had no connection to any of the aliens they encountered (or anything in the Quadrant), nor was there ever anything at stake beyond their unimportant lives.'

There was the potential elimination of the Borg species.

Was anything else at stake then their unimportant lives in Firefly?

Not to mention saving the entire galaxy from the 8472.

And good point with Firefly. I guess you could argue more was at stake in the movie, though.

 

[Yevetha]

Yeah but the TV show part was about their butts and nothing else.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Janeway cocked it up.

8472 wasn't a threat. They would have destroyed the Borg, maybe a few other "minor" species, got bored and gone home. besides the Borg can wipe out entire species in a matter of hours... 8472 takes months, years just to take a chink out of some problem species who gets their tits up, gods forbid taking on every species, thousands upon thousands of empires in the Delta Quadrant Alone. If that is that they had any actual intentions to go beyond the Borg and their "immediate" allies.

Janeway saved the Borg, and the Borg alone, in error.

 

[Anwar]

There was the potential elimination of the Borg species.

Was anything else at stake then their unimportant lives in Firefly?

But that's what I mean, whenever they TRIED to do anything epic on VOY like wiping out the Borg the audience complained that they were too important.

As in, there was no way for them to do anything "Epic" in a way that was enjoyable or acceptable.

As for Firefly, yeah there was something at stake. Members of the crew had secrets beyond them, and River's secret knowledge was a major plot point.

 

[F. King Daniel]

To me, "epic" in the context of Voyager would have been the epic saga of the crew getting across the galacy and home. To really do that justice would have required more ongoing story arcs and a grand plan akin to Babylon 5 - which was never gonna happen under the "planet of the week" format.

 

[Anwar]

To me, "Epic" would entail them not knowing how to get home, having to stay in one large area of space that they spend 2-3 seasons flying around in circles getting to know the inhabitants, then they help them fight off a massive Borg invasion by tricking them into fighting the 8472 aliens.

Then they go home, go back as part of a real Starfleet task force and spend the rest of the series trying to settle things diplomatically with the 8472.

 

[MacLeod]

We'll it could have been Epic if the writers had tried instead of TNG-Lite. Yes the show had it's good episodes but it could have been so much more.

The look of the ship interior and exterior should have evolved a bit more of time to refelect personal touches. Maybe in the earlier seasons have a bit conflict between the Maquis and Starfleet crew. For example you could have evolved the Torres-Kim Starfleet-Maquis dynamic so it evolves from a dislike into a more playful banter over time.

Other thinks that could have been done to spice things up even in the show as it stands when Paris was demoted, Kim gets promoted to his superior, changing that character dynamic.

 

[Jetfire]

The show became epic the moment they added Seven Of Nine.

 

[BillJ]

To me, "Epic" would entail them not knowing how to get home, having to stay in one large area of space that they spend 2-3 seasons flying around in circles getting to know the inhabitants, then they help them fight off a massive Borg invasion by tricking them into fighting the 8472 aliens.

Then they go home, go back as part of a real Starfleet task force and spend the rest of the series trying to settle things diplomatically with the 8472.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

 

[Shatnertage]

I think we're conflating "epic" with "stuff I'd like to see."

To me Star Trek is more about exploration--both space and the "human condition"--than a discrete epic story.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes Trek is about those things, but I never really got that vibe coming from VOY. We never really got the depth of characcterisation we should have got. Being cut of from home, with a slim chance you'll see your loved ones again. Even the most profressoanl of people would be effected by that possibility