The Continuity and Serialization of Voyager

[R. Star]

No discussion of any television show, regardless of genre, is going to be full of only praise and exhaltations.

Tell that to TOS fans, DS9 fans and NuBSG fans.

I love how casually you use "everyone" and "no one" when describing people with an opposing viewpoint.... you're spreading more than your share of the... venom, sir.

Gimme some slack, I've been dealing with some truly vitriolic haters (an entire Hatedom, to be frank) for about 18 years now. I'm more entitled than most when it comes to the defensive.

So it's bad when anyone else does it, but when you do it, you're entitled? Well we can put that as another definition under irony.

 

[Anwar]

I'm entitled because I earned it through 15+ years of defending something else first, whereas the bashers just bash at first sight.

Now there's logic in action.

No one ever complained that TOS only had 3 main characters, or that the Enterprise always had the right equipment and could do anything the plot needed. Yet here we are debating why VOY needed more secondary characters and how they should never have had anything the needed.

 

[Melakon]

No one ever complained that TOS only had 3 main characters. . .

You've missed a few posts around here somewhere, then.

 

[Anwar]

The TOS Enterprise had 3-4 times as many people on it as Voyager, but are as many complaints over how we should've seen more crewmembers on TOS as compared to the endless complaining over how we should've seen more of VOY's crew?

 

[Melakon]

I've never done any endless complaining about who is seen or not seen on either show, so you're asking the wrong person about this. You mentioned secondary characters, and that's what I was referring to.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

People don't complain about TOS doing zilch with Uhura, Sulu etc.. but they do comment on it. They don't complain because it's almost 50 years old and everyone just accepts that television shows worked on particular formulas then that television shows of today are freer to expand upon or change completely.

It's like how you don't complain about an old person being real slow when if your brother was that slow you'd harass him.

 

[MacLeod]

The TOS Enterprise had 3-4 times as many people on it as Voyager, but are as many complaints over how we should've seen more crewmembers on TOS as compared to the endless complaining over how we should've seen more of VOY's crew?

My memory might be faulty but didn't we see the Enterprise in TOS in orbit of a starbase in several episode during which virtually the entire crew could be replaced?

Let me see I'm sure VOY called in at a Federation Starbase in at least one episode, let me think yes it wasin the very first episode. So they only had the 150 or so crew that they left Starbase Deep Space Nine with plus the Maquis crew they picked up. But they couldn't even keep track of how many crew they had, the humber seemed to fluctuate from episode to episode (when it was mentioned).

As others have mentioned the nature of TV changes overtime, when I'm watching a TV show from the 1960's, I don't hold it to the same level of what I would expect from a TV show made in the 1990's. However if I'm watching two shows from the same era I would hold them largely to the same standards of what I would expect.

Every TV show/film/book etc.. has it's flaws, and every viewer/reader etc.. is willing to overlook and excuse some or all of those. But that doesn't mean they will always agree on what can be overlooked, as that is a subjective thing. What one person is willing to overlook another might not.

There is nothing wrong in critising something be it a book/film/TV show etc... Just as there is nothing wrong in prasing it.

Robert Picardo as the EMH was one of the best things about VOY, so whilst I can critisie it for something I can give it praise as well. How is that unfair?

 

[Anwar]

The TOS Enterprise was supposed to be on a 5 year mission wherein they'd be totally on their own without any support or contact or anything, yet they freely violated that premise all the time. No one complained.

 

[R. Star]

The TOS Enterprise was supposed to be on a 5 year mission wherein they'd be totally on their own without any support or contact or anything, yet they freely violated that premise all the time. No one complained.

I think you made up that "without any support or contact" bit.

 

[DigificWriter]

The same criticisms that get leveled against Voyager can be and have been leveled against other shows - Star Trek and otherwise - and Voyages isn't a perfect series by any means. However, one complaint which gets leveled against the series that is overemphasized and really not as warranted as is the common perception is its lack of continuity and serialization, areas in which it's being judged against series that are of an entirely different genre format type.

Going back to the topic of Procedurals and Serialized Procedurals for a minute, I thought of three other series that fall into the Serialized Procedural category: ANGEL, Dollhouse, and Supernatural.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

The TOS Enterprise was supposed to be on a 5 year mission wherein they'd be totally on their own without any support or contact or anything, yet they freely violated that premise all the time. No one complained.

I think you made up that "without any support or contact" bit.

It's in the introduction, just before "to boldly vindicate future sci-fi series."

 

[Anwar]

The TOS Enterprise was supposed to be on a 5 year mission wherein they'd be totally on their own without any support or contact or anything, yet they freely violated that premise all the time. No one complained.

I think you made up that "without any support or contact" bit.

A 5 year deep space exploration mission means that they're going to be out there on their own for the entire 5 years with no crew transfers or starbase support or anything. Yet, no one minded when they started going to colony worlds or starbases or stuff like that.

Why is that?

 

[Harvey]

When did they say the Enterprise was on a "five year deep space exploration mission?"

That's something you've inferred without evidence. Of course, if you did consult the evidence (the episodes themselves, the series bible, the early drafts of the opening narration), you'd find that it points to your inference being totally wrong.

 

[Melakon]

A 5 year deep space exploration mission means that they're going to be out there on their own for the entire 5 years with no crew transfers or starbase support or anything.

Where is this stated in dialogue?

 

[MacLeod]

Well if we go by the opening narration

Space the final frontier these are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, it's five year mission to seek out new life and new civilisations to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Where does it say it'll be a deep space mission with no visits to starbases? They'll be worlds within a few weeks travels of a stabase that might never have seen a manned mission to explore it.

 

[Anwar]

The Five Year Mission is, in the title sequence, said to be about them "seeking out new life and new civilizations" and going where "where no has gone before".

Going where no man has gone before, means going away from charted space and not going back into charted space. It's about going deeper and deeper into uncharted space and not leaving until the 5 years are up.

Going to colony worlds, starbases, etc, is them going where other men had gone before, and thus violates the title's premise.

 

[DigificWriter]

Anwar does have a point. If TOS were to have been completely true to its stated premise, we wouldn't have seen the ship visiting colony worlds, starbases, etc., and yet nobody seems to be complaining about that 'violation of premise' the way they do about Voyager's supposed 'violation of premise' (I say 'supposed' because I've come to the realization and conclusion that, although it might not have played out exactly as originally envisioned, the show did ultimately live up to its premise and fulfill it).

Anyway, let's move on from this line of discussion.

I'm only about halfway through Part 1 of the Year of Hell 2-parter, but, so far, the episode has been the perfect example of the things I've been saying re: Voyager's continuity and serialization. Thus far, we've seen every single specific detail that we learned about the YoH from Before and After (the loss of Sickbay, the Mess Hall becoming a triage center, the chronoton torpedo lodged in the Jeffries Tube on Deck 11, the nature of B'Elanna's injuries) realized in some fashion, even if things play out differently than they did in that earlier episode; if the show didn't have continuity or serialization, this kind of symmetry wouldn't be present to the degree that it is.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I guess if the Enterprise were attacked by Romulans, they would not be able to fire back because, one, it would be an encounter with known life, two, it wouldn't be part of the specific mission, and three, it would violate the premise of the show.

Myopic literalism should be required of no one, real or fictional.

 

[Anwar]

Then VOY shouldn't be getting it so bad because it didn't do the same and be myopic with its premise either.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

It's premise wasn't that it had an objective, but that it was in a situation that limited its action.