When did voyager go wrong?

[Guy Gardener]

When did you figure out that the Ewoks were roasting clone meat stormtrooper faces inside those stormtropper helmets, they all had on sticks, dancing around the fire?

Like Lollypops but with human heads.

If you think about it, what ever that armour was made out of, it would have been most effective at diffusing the heat and harmful radiation endemic with blaster fire (Carter said something like this on Stargate while talking about their plans to counter jaffar staff weapons.) which is making it perfect for hobobaking.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

When did you figure out that the Ewoks were roasting clone meat stormtrooper faces inside those stormtropper helmets, they all had on sticks, dancing around the fire?

Like Lollypops but with human heads.

This is the reason why I love them.

And it was always obvious, I mean they had Our Heroes trussed up over the fire. On a spit. Though I still get to point out that they eat people to folk who never realized this which is fun.

"I hate Ewoks.. @#&.."

"But they eat people!"

"Wha.."

They are furry vicious killers. That's why I named my cat after one of them.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You gotta wonder if the skievier Ewoks ate any of their rebel allies after those tastey ground pounders got drunk and passed out?

 

[Anwar]

I disagree they weren't hamstrung by the premise, loss of crew over the years would have had an impact on everyone. Aside from the Pschological impact, what about the physical. Those duty shifts that the crew who had been lost would have to covered, so people would have to do longer etc...

The premise said that they'd spend the entire series going home, that if anyone died they couldn't be replaced and they'd never get any support from anyone ever (no help, no resupplies, no repairs, etc). That means if anyone dies then they can't be replaced at all, not by extended duty shifts or anything.

There was plenty they could have done, I think rather than being hamstrung by the the premise they failed to embrace the premise and all the problems that would come with it.

It's Gilligan syndrome. They had a plot that could never ever be resolved without ending the show and didn't bother giving them any plots that COULD be resolved without ending the show. And the internal conflict was never going to be that interesting either since the Maquis and Fleeters weren't diehard enemies.

They basically took a one episode plot from TOS and TNG (this happened to both Picard and Kirk) and tried to stretch it out into an entire series.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes if someone dies, they can be replaced by extending duty shifts, if VOY was on a 4 shift rotation, with diminishing crew numbers it might have to go a 3 shift rotation. And the length of each shift might increase from 6 to 8 to 10. Yes there might come a time when extending shifts couldn't be done. Which might mean less important things i.e. repairing every interior corridor so it looks like it had just left Utopia might not being completed.

In the workplace if someone leaves, you can't always replace them but the same amount of work still has to be done. So the rest have to pick that up.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Almost 30 people died on camera or left.

They did fine.

Neelix killed Suder and Hogan, if Voyager had been a Klingon ship, he would have gotten their jobs, their stuff, and their women.

 

[Anwar]

In the workplace if someone leaves, you can't always replace them but the same amount of work still has to be done. So the rest have to pick that up.

Which defies the premise of "We need everyone", which if followed meant they couldn't survive anyone dying or replace anyone that died.

There's a reason why most "Lost Ship" shows usually have the ship be automated to the point where they don't really need crews (Farscape, Stargate Universe, Andromeda).

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

There's a reason why most "Lost Ship" shows usually have the ship be automated to the point where they don't really need crews (Farscape, Stargate Universe, Andromeda).

So they can kill people off and no one ever asks how they're going to keep flying?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Voyager can run on a hundred people.

They were fine.

 

[Anwar]

There's a reason why most "Lost Ship" shows usually have the ship be automated to the point where they don't really need crews (Farscape, Stargate Universe, Andromeda).

So they can kill people off and no one ever asks how they're going to keep flying?

Well...yeah. It's because they don't want to have to constantly deal with the "Ship maintenance" part of the stories so they have the ships run themselves. Because when the ships don't require the cooperation of the crew to run, they can realistically spend more time in conflict with one another.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It is pretty stodgy watching series after series of a room with a big chair in the middle and some smaller chairs in front of it and everyone pushing buttons on their desks.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

Voyager can run on a hundred people.

They were fine.

Voyager can run on Seven, Janeway, and the Doc.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

But who will do the cooking?

Oh that's right, Janeway and 7 will have candle lit ration packs in her quarters and the Doc doesn't need to eat.

 

[JoCat]

I felt there were a number of plot ideas that could have been better developed. Also, not only did the Starfleet and the Maquii crews became buddy-buddy too fast. They also befriended some of the new aliens too fast. Most notably, the species 8472. These guys started out at being quite terrifying to meet up with. And that idea lasted just a few episodes. Then they befriend the species when the Voyager crew finds a replica of Starfleet headquarters set up by this alien. That was a huge disappointment as it immediately killed off new plot ideas for this species to make life difficult for Voyager. But the real thing that did me in was Voyager's series finale. For 7 years, I was nursing a strong feeling of suspense in wondering if Voyager would reach home. Kind of like the "who shot JR" plot of Dallas (Dallas did a great job of keeping its audience in suspense and they had the whole world watching.) But not with Voyager. In the finale, not even 5 minutes into the show, it is revealed that Janeway and most of the crew was already home, safe and sound. No more fun suspense.They completely killed it. That was it.

 

[MacLeod]

Well to be fair, they were unlikely to end the show with the crew not getting home. Not having the crew get home would have been a risky move, but if they had gone that route it might have been one of the more memorable endings for a TV show.

But overall in the show you never really got the impression that it might take them decades to get back to Earth.

 

[Vulcan Logician]

Jeez. Is this thread still going? VOYAGER was awesome! Sure, it had flaws. Sure, the bad episodes were the worst in Trek history. Sure, the most inventive characters: EMH and 7, were overused. Every Trek series had flaws. VOY remains one of my favorites. Plus, Janeway was awesome.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Overused? I never got sick of them. Long may they shine.

 

[MacLeod]

Jeez. Is this thread still going? VOYAGER was awesome! Sure, it had flaws. Sure, the bad episodes were the worst in Trek history. Sure, the most inventive characters: EMH and 7, were overused. Every Trek series had flaws. VOY remains one of my favorites. Plus, Janeway was awesome.

Yes it is true all TV shows/Films have flaws. But if as you say VOY had some of the worst Trek episodes in the history of Trek, couldn't that mean it's bad vs good/great is reduced.

Now I could say I say

Bad vs Good/Great for ST shows

TOS 40 vs 60
TNG 40 vs 60
DSN 20 vs 80
VOY 70 vs 20
ENT 50 vs 50

So based on that VOY had the poorest ratios of number of good or better epsidoes vs number of bad episodes. But others might have a different view, as we all look for different things in the shows we watch.

Some people who critise VOY do so because they feel it could have been so much more.

 

[Anwar]

Some people who critise VOY do so because they feel it could have been so much more.

And also because they mostly don't realize how constrained the writers were, both by UPN and by the premise of the show.

 

[MacLeod]

^They might have been constrained by UPN, but as for the premise the only way in which they were constrained was perhaps by the network wanting an episodic show, when the premise seemed to indicate a more heavily serialised format was needed.

There was nothing fundamentaly wrong with the premise, the problem was they wrote basically VOY as TNG v2.