When did voyager go wrong?
- Thread starter WesleysDisciple
- Start date
No haven't heard of it, got a link to a synopsis?
Yes, I do. Here is the whole story, kind of a detective story too lol.
http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/1074.html
Her use of sock puppets is awesome lol. All in the pursuit of being the "Big Name Fan" in Harry Potter. Incidentally the BNF of that fandom was Cassandra Claire, who is now known as Cassie Claire. She writes young adult novels. You can check this on Amazon.
I do have some screen prints of something kind of strange. On March 21, 2003. One of Msscribe's sock puppets posted the following.
Well that kind of made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up because I remembered this from a new member's introduction on one of the Voyager forums.
April 9, 2004
What she hadn't said there was something she had said in an earlier post, that her therapist told her to write as a part of her rehabilitation.
See I could write a book (lol I should say I am writing a book lol.)
Back then, the idea was that there were 2 different types of Borg. "Born" Borg who were never individual and were "Born" into the Collective (the Borg babies we saw in Q Who?) and the assimilated ones.
Hugh and his group were meant to be "Born" Borg who had never been individuals and that was why Hugh was so easily de-assimilated just by being tossed around in a ship crash. That's why his newfound individuality had such an effect on his group.
And guess what? If Voyager had done the same thing or something similar to destroy a Borg Cube folks would be up in arms over how that shouldn't have scratched a Borg ship.
Hell, if they'd done that to destroy the Probe ship in "Dark Frontier" then there'd be uproars over how the Sun shouldn't have been enough to damage a PROBE ship.
I had to watch Decent to fight someone the other day, and my comment on that Ensign figuring out how to cause a solar flare to take out an opposing ship is "duh" because surely provoking solar flares is easy and something soldiers have been using to take out planets for hundreds of years? The Klingons seemed like the entire process han't been invented 4 years earlier by some punk kid.
Methinks that it's forbidden technology for moral reasons, everyone in the AQ signed a treaty not to use suns as weapons that it's just rediscovered forgotten tech.
Methinks that it's forbidden technology for moral reasons, everyone in the AQ signed a treaty not to use suns as weapons that it's just rediscovered forgotten tech.
"I want to lick your ridges."
"Only if I can ride you from your bun."
"Only if I can ride you from your bun."
One of the reasons that "Data's Day" is one of my favorite episodes is that the Romulans clearly win the day, they come out on top and force Captain Picard to back down. The villain who consistly loses to the crew of the hero ship isn't credible.
Voyager would have been THE opportunity to combine the serial storytelling of DS9 with the alien world of the week aspect of TNG. And put some dirt on the shininess.
I've been watching re-runs of VOY occasionally, and I actually like it. The characters are fine, I like Tuvok and the Doctor. Heck, even Neelix is entertaining most of the time. The problem is it could have been a lot more.
For one thing, Voyager shouldn't have been in that great shape for the entire show. There should have been problems, shortages, - heck - DIRTY uniforms would have even been something for a start. The relationships between the crew members where too "clean" as well, just like the TNG crew. They are 70 years away from home, in an EXTRAORDINAY situation, how about bending Starfleet protocols over the course of the show? They should have become a family, even more than the DS9 crew. But they stayed at that professional distance just like the TNG crew. The entire show is just too clean and sterile.
As a result, the show doesn't evolve at all. The first episode is like the last episode. Harry Kim staying an Ensign for the entire run of the show is the clearest sign of that.
Another aspect is the entire crew. I don't know how many there are supposed to be, 150 perhaps?
There are episodes where they are attacked and then Tuvok says "Engineering reports three dead, fifteen wounded.", and Janeway, or everyone else, just shrugs it off. That's not believable in any way.
They should have made a list of those 150 crew members right from the beginning, keep it consistent, and over the course of the show give each of those crew members a moment to shine, and then keep them in background scenes. Creating a real feel for the family aboard the ship. The bond amongst ALL crew members would grow so strong in such a scenario. And when one of them dies, its a big tragic event, not just something you can shrug off.
The Maquis / Starfleet plot should have been fleshed out more. It should have resulted in a truly unique Star Trek crew, even more unique than the DS9 crew, but in the end it was just like TNG.
And eventually, they relied on the Borg way, way, way too much.
And they didn't resolve the Caretaker storyline like it was promised in the first episode and occasionally hinted at during the seasons. In my opinion, the entire story arc should have come to a climax with Voyager finding another Caretaker who gets them back home.
I've been watching re-runs of VOY occasionally, and I actually like it. The characters are fine, I like Tuvok and the Doctor. Heck, even Neelix is entertaining most of the time. The problem is it could have been a lot more.
For one thing, Voyager shouldn't have been in that great shape for the entire show. There should have been problems, shortages, - heck - DIRTY uniforms would have even been something for a start. The relationships between the crew members where too "clean" as well, just like the TNG crew. They are 70 years away from home, in an EXTRAORDINAY situation, how about bending Starfleet protocols over the course of the show? They should have become a family, even more than the DS9 crew. But they stayed at that professional distance just like the TNG crew. The entire show is just too clean and sterile.
As a result, the show doesn't evolve at all. The first episode is like the last episode. Harry Kim staying an Ensign for the entire run of the show is the clearest sign of that.
Another aspect is the entire crew. I don't know how many there are supposed to be, 150 perhaps?
There are episodes where they are attacked and then Tuvok says "Engineering reports three dead, fifteen wounded.", and Janeway, or everyone else, just shrugs it off. That's not believable in any way.
They should have made a list of those 150 crew members right from the beginning, keep it consistent, and over the course of the show give each of those crew members a moment to shine, and then keep them in background scenes. Creating a real feel for the family aboard the ship. The bond amongst ALL crew members would grow so strong in such a scenario. And when one of them dies, its a big tragic event, not just something you can shrug off.
The Maquis / Starfleet plot should have been fleshed out more. It should have resulted in a truly unique Star Trek crew, even more unique than the DS9 crew, but in the end it was just like TNG.
And eventually, they relied on the Borg way, way, way too much.
And they didn't resolve the Caretaker storyline like it was promised in the first episode and occasionally hinted at during the seasons. In my opinion, the entire story arc should have come to a climax with Voyager finding another Caretaker who gets them back home.
I agree with you there. I liked Voyager, don't get me wrong. Every now and then, to this day, I still go on a Voyager season 1-7 marathon, rather than watching regular TV for a few weeks. There was nothing wrong with the characters themselves, even Chakotay, and I had no problem with the Borg. But yeah, things were too clean. Too much ex deus machina and Mary Sue writing going on, IMHO. By season 7, the idea of a Caretaker had almost been completely forgotten. I think it would have been pretty cool that instead of Janeway time-traveling to save the Crew, that Kes evolved to a caretaker and helped them battle the Borg and get home in the finale.
Isn't it funny that Ron Moore got many of the elements you mention correct in BSG? I mean we saw conflict of the Pegasus and Galactica crews working together. We saw the progressive battle damage and decay of the the Galactica. When crew members died,it seemed more important to the survivors. If only Braga and Moore hadn't had a falling out, I think Moore could have helped Voyager with its realism problems. But then again, we might not have had a BSG.
BSG used the "Reset button" as much as Trek ever did. No matter what, Adama always ended up Commander of the Fleet and Roslin always ended up back as their Leader one way or another. They run into a new Battlestar? Oh, it gets destroyed very stupidly.
And Galactica's damage was window dressing, it never really affected the ships' function.
Difference was, Galactica had tons and tons of cannon fodder for the Cylons to kill off without harming Galactica or the crew, and Galactica would run into things to offset their resource problems (the Pegasus able to make new Vipers, making booze out of algae, the hybrid baby's blood curing cancer, etc). VOY had none of that, no cannon fodder or anything.
That, and anytime they DID manage to do repairs to the ship everyone hated it. Meaning they wanted the ship to get so badly damaged it could never be fixed, nevermind this would mean the show would be over. That didn't matter to them.
If anything, BSG shows that the "Lost in Space" plot is only good for 2 seasons. After that, the show fell apart.
What VOY really needed was to have a plot beyond "Lost in Space", because it would mean they could have a plot where they'd accomplish things without ending the show.
And Galactica's damage was window dressing, it never really affected the ships' function.
Difference was, Galactica had tons and tons of cannon fodder for the Cylons to kill off without harming Galactica or the crew, and Galactica would run into things to offset their resource problems (the Pegasus able to make new Vipers, making booze out of algae, the hybrid baby's blood curing cancer, etc). VOY had none of that, no cannon fodder or anything.
That, and anytime they DID manage to do repairs to the ship everyone hated it. Meaning they wanted the ship to get so badly damaged it could never be fixed, nevermind this would mean the show would be over. That didn't matter to them.
If anything, BSG shows that the "Lost in Space" plot is only good for 2 seasons. After that, the show fell apart.
What VOY really needed was to have a plot beyond "Lost in Space", because it would mean they could have a plot where they'd accomplish things without ending the show.
But it took several episodes sometimes.
What d you mean "'No matter what?"
Haven't you seen the last half dozen episodes?
What d you mean "'No matter what?"
Haven't you seen the last half dozen episodes?
So their reset buttons also had a lot of padding up to the reset.
That they always got their positions back.
Unfortunately, yes.
A little "padding" goes a long way. Nobody wanted Voyager to be limping across the Delta Quadrant with huge chunks of her hull missing, but it would have been nice to have some acknowledgement, say, a week or so after a big battle that the ship had sustained damage. Or a little bit of hand waving as to where those shuttles and torpedoes were coming from.
The idea of the series was good going back to the original series concept exploring unknown space in a other part of the universe.it start fine then they completely screwed up the writers didn't know what was happening something happened in 1 episode then the following season it didn't happen,then the borg came and they were able to defeat them in every encounter(something picard and crew couldn't do)like enterprise they tired to remake the magic of the kirk-spock-McCoy trio with janeway seven abd the doctor and make the other cast as recurring characters.
To me, the show would have been more effective if:
1. They hadn't relied on alien crew members from species that had already been explored more effectively in the other series (Vulcans, Klingons, Borg etc.) - this detracted from the "far into the unknown" feel they seemed to want in the beginning - explore new alien concept (like Odo and the Jem'Hadar were on DS9)
2. The ship hadn't stayed in such perfect shape - I would have liked to have seen the crew actually have to abandon the Voyager at some point, and re-name an alien ship they acquired the "Voyager", or else have the ship get in terrible shape, and have to be retrofitted with parts from many alien cultures they encountered.
3. If a Maquis had ended up in command of the Voyager. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if one of the Maquis, who was a former Starfleet officer, but no longer bound by its rules, ended up in command, with a real "by the book" Starfleet type acting as that captain's first officer - would have created some unique command decisions we might not have seen from Picard or Sisko, if the captain was no longer a member of Starfleet (e.g. "Prime Directive? What Prime Directive??"
4. Send the ship into an entirely different galaxy, not just a different section of our galaxy, the "delta quadrant" - a radically different galaxy where life is completely different - where the possibility of getting home seems even more remote and unreachable, so the crew has to struggle with the concept that they may have to create a new life for themselves, in a galaxy they cannot understand or predict - the rules of science don't always apply here ...
5. If they hadn't made the make-up of the one unique alien on the regular cast, Neelix, look so much like an Earth animal (according to one entry on Memory Alpha, Neelix's alien design, with its spots on the forehead and mane of hair, was meant to ressemble an Earth warthog, based on inspirations from the character in "the Lion King", but I'm not sure if that's true). I always find that on shows where aliens look like Earth animals (e.g. cats, dogs, bears, etc.), it makes the show feel much more like a cartoon or a kids show to me, rather than serious sci-fi ... Neelix was certainly cheery and bubbly enough to be a character on a children's TV show - move over Teletubbies and Barney the Purple Dinosaur - here comes Neelix, the friendly space warthog!
The instant he called Tuvok, "Mr. Vulcan" on the first episode, I almost abandoned ship! ;-)
(Heck, didn't Neelix actually get his own show on the ship in one episode, something like "Cooking with Neelix"? - Yikes!)
In my opinion, Voyager had the potential to be one of the most unique Treks ever made, but fell into some formulaic elements from the previous Treks that had worked for the earlier shows, but unfortunately gave this series too much of a "been there, done that" feel for a viewer like me (though it did have some well-written episodes...)
1. They hadn't relied on alien crew members from species that had already been explored more effectively in the other series (Vulcans, Klingons, Borg etc.) - this detracted from the "far into the unknown" feel they seemed to want in the beginning - explore new alien concept (like Odo and the Jem'Hadar were on DS9)
2. The ship hadn't stayed in such perfect shape - I would have liked to have seen the crew actually have to abandon the Voyager at some point, and re-name an alien ship they acquired the "Voyager", or else have the ship get in terrible shape, and have to be retrofitted with parts from many alien cultures they encountered.
3. If a Maquis had ended up in command of the Voyager. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if one of the Maquis, who was a former Starfleet officer, but no longer bound by its rules, ended up in command, with a real "by the book" Starfleet type acting as that captain's first officer - would have created some unique command decisions we might not have seen from Picard or Sisko, if the captain was no longer a member of Starfleet (e.g. "Prime Directive? What Prime Directive??"
4. Send the ship into an entirely different galaxy, not just a different section of our galaxy, the "delta quadrant" - a radically different galaxy where life is completely different - where the possibility of getting home seems even more remote and unreachable, so the crew has to struggle with the concept that they may have to create a new life for themselves, in a galaxy they cannot understand or predict - the rules of science don't always apply here ...
5. If they hadn't made the make-up of the one unique alien on the regular cast, Neelix, look so much like an Earth animal (according to one entry on Memory Alpha, Neelix's alien design, with its spots on the forehead and mane of hair, was meant to ressemble an Earth warthog, based on inspirations from the character in "the Lion King", but I'm not sure if that's true). I always find that on shows where aliens look like Earth animals (e.g. cats, dogs, bears, etc.), it makes the show feel much more like a cartoon or a kids show to me, rather than serious sci-fi ... Neelix was certainly cheery and bubbly enough to be a character on a children's TV show - move over Teletubbies and Barney the Purple Dinosaur - here comes Neelix, the friendly space warthog!
The instant he called Tuvok, "Mr. Vulcan" on the first episode, I almost abandoned ship! ;-) (Heck, didn't Neelix actually get his own show on the ship in one episode, something like "Cooking with Neelix"? - Yikes!)
In my opinion, Voyager had the potential to be one of the most unique Treks ever made, but fell into some formulaic elements from the previous Treks that had worked for the earlier shows, but unfortunately gave this series too much of a "been there, done that" feel for a viewer like me (though it did have some well-written episodes...)
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Having said that, I did like the character of Neelix, later on, when they started to give the character some darker past experiences, which helped to possibly explain his overly cheery disposition in other situations - he was trying to compensate for all the pain he had experienced in his life, perhaps. I also thought Ethan Philips is a good, emotional actor ... I just wish the make-up design for the alien design had been a bit more unique - some unique being found only in the mysterious Delta Quadrant!
One of the reasons that "Data's Day" is one of my favorite episodes is that the Romulans clearly win the day, they come out on top and force Captain Picard to back down. The villain who consistly loses to the crew of the hero ship isn't credible.
That was a silly episode in a lot of ways. But yeah, it was nice to see the good guys get clearly beaten. Plus it showed a lot about Picard's character. When he realized he'd been outmaneuvered by Mendak he didn't risk his crew on some sort of heroic gesture to save face, he just tipped his hat and got out of there. Not to mention it was nice to see an Admiral who had an actual fleet then. Five warbirds was a WOAH moment when that episode first aired, even if three of them were off screen.
I agree, and I think that they should've trimmed the main cast a bit and had more characters from the other Alien species like the Kazon and Vidiians and Krenim.
I mean, we had the Vidiian Doctor that the EMH was in love with, why not keep her around?
This, I think they should've just had them go to lots of alien starbases and stuff. No one would mind if they just repeatedly told us enough times how the ship stayed in good shape.
I mean, Moya from Farscape never needed repairs unless really badly damaged.
3. If a Maquis had ended up in command of the Voyager. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if one of the Maquis, who was a former Starfleet officer, but no longer bound by its rules, ended up in command, with a real "by the book" Starfleet type acting as that captain's first officer - would have created some unique command decisions we might not have seen from Picard or Sisko, if the captain was no longer a member of Starfleet (e.g. "Prime Directive? What Prime Directive??"
I would've just made Janeway the 3rd Officer put in charge when the Captain and XO are killed off. The Science Officer or something. Chakotay would realize that they need to work together because the Maquis can't operate the ship on their own, and serve as more of a mentor to her. Then the conflict internally would be from both Fleeters who think she's not command material, and Maquis who think Chakotay sold out.
Yes, being truly lost and not knowing how to get home would've made things better.
The show had conceptual problems from the start that needed to be ironed out. The Maquis conflict was never going to be that interesting, and the whole "Lost in Space" thing is only good for 2 seasons. What the show really lacked was a real plot to drive things, a proper external plot.
