A Voyager confession

[Saito S]

Anwar, you asked me to go blow-by-blow on your big post that was a response to my big post, but I'm not going to, because you've just been repeating the same things over and over. And if I constructed another huge response post, I would just be repeating myself. In my three big posts in this thread, I have fully laid out what I'm trying to get across, in terms that were probably MORE precise and long-winded than was necessary. You didn't address the vast majority of what I said, so I'm not going to bother writing another novella about those same points. Re-read my posts if you want my insights, it's all there. I will only write up new stuff in response to your latest posts.

Note that this doesn't mean I won't write a huge post. I'm incapable of doing otherwise.

DS9 DID do only Bajoran political/religious stuff (everything to do with the Prophets and the Emissary was Bajoran religious stuff. It was just that the Emissary just happened to be Sisko that all Sisko stories are by definition Emissary stories), Cardassian stuff, and Gamma Aliens. It's just that those premises were broad enough that they allowed for stories like the Dominion to happen.

What RyuRoots said was "Gamma aliens of the week". That's an important distinction, since it refers to the "problem of the week" storytelling format that was used by all of TOS, the vast majority of TNG, and most of the first two seasons of DS9. This premise does NOT include room for a drawn-out, protracted, large-scale interstellar war told in a serialized, story-arc fashion. The Dominion War arc constituted a change in tone compared to the parameters around which the series was originally created. The fact that the Dominion happens to be from the Gamma Quadrant does not make the Dominion War a "Gamma alien of the week" story. No reason Voyager couldn't have made a similar change at some point.

VOY's premise wasn't as broad, it was "A starship without support travels home", making alliances means they no long lack support, damages done to the ship couldn't be repaired thus permanently stranding them in the DQ which is why they avoided those stories, and since they lacked support they could never challenge or evade the Borg in "outside the box" type thinking.

Wait, wait... wait. Wait. So you seriously think that the presence of the WORDS "without support" is the deal breaker here? That because those words were included in, um... Where were they written, exactly? On a VOY writer's bible? On the walls at Paramount? Inside Rick Berman's mind? Whatever, anyway... You seriously believe that the presence of those words in the basic premise hamstrung the Voyager writing team for seven years and made it LITERALLY impossible to tell more complex stories or create more interesting bad guys? I'm sorry, fiction writing does not work that way. Nor does television production. The premise is not a rigid rule that must be obeyed to the letter at all times on promise of death. It is flexible. Or it should be, at least. If it's not, then that's no good. That's not a premise in that case, it's a straightjacket. "Ship far from home" is not a straightjacket. In fact, Voyager's basic premise is the MOST broad of any of the Trek series. They are alone, in a region of space that has never been explored by the Federation. That means they can almost do whatever they want (the writers, that is) when it comes to what they encounter! They are not constrained by the parameters of "known space" as any other Trek show is. If anything, they had MORE creative freedom.

Now, if the premise had been "Starship Voyager is trapped far beyond the Federation" with NOTHING being said about the lack of support or going home, then it's a whole other story since with the "lack of support" gone it means they can build alliances and stuff and stick around one area of space instead of always being on the move.

"Ship trapped far from the Federation" and "Ship trapped in unknown space with no support" are basically the same thing. The important part of that premise is not the lack of support, it's the "trapped" part, and the "far from home" part. "No support" is an implied part of the deal, meaning no Federation support. To assume that the Voyager writers were sitting around saying to themselves "Remember! NO SUPPORT! They can't get help, they can't make allies! That's the premise!" is silly. Not to mention the fact that they DID sometimes get help, they DID make allies and receive "support", several times; "Dreadnought", "Basics, Part 2", "Scorpion" sort of, and "The Void" all come to mind. And I feel like I'm forgetting something important... what could it be... oh right! How does regular, reliable messages back and forth to/from the Federation - including the ability to allow the crew to send personal letters to family members back home - after season 4 fit into this "TOTALLY CUT OFF NO SUPPORT IT'S THE PREMISE" idea? By season 7, they could sustain these sessions long enough to conduct a TRIAL concerning the Doc's status as an author.

VOY going after Borg ships to help Seven isn't the same thing since it was made clear not all Borg ships are equal to Cubes and Spheres, and there are really weaker Spheres.

Not all Borg ships are created equal, granted. But (again, MIDDLE GROUND, do you understand this concept?) it's one thing to say "They are fighting weaker Borg ships than the cubes seen in TNG, so they can actually win" and quite another to go "Borg? Oh. Target their engines and weapons." *zap zap* "Alright, cool, let's be on our way." The latter is what Voyager did, more than once.

As for the Krenim being more menacing, they weren't uber-powerful like the Borg and were permitted to do damage to the ship and kill people, plus the writers knew it was only temporary and would all get reset. No Borg attack on VOY could ever result in less than total annihilation and thus had to end in the Borg's own destruction.

What about the times the Ent-D or Ent-E fought a Borg ship (alone, mind you; no "they had the whole Federation to back them up" excuse), suffered casualties, but didn't blow up? Whether or not the Enterprise won the battle?Who ever said that if a Federation starship fights the Borg, and the Borg are shown fighting at full power, then the Fed ship will GO DOWN IN FLAMES INSTANTLY NO CHANCE OMFG? What about the other times when background Voyager crew members died, permanently? Obviously they had to be careful about killing extras, since they only have 150 people and cannot obtain replacement crew, but people DID still die here and there. What's the difference between people dying against various other threats vs. dying against the Borg?

 

[Anwar]

Your excuse for Voyager seems to boil down to what it couldn't do and I fundamentally do not understand this perspective.​

Simple, being on their own without any support means the bad guys can't be at the same level as the Dominion because there are no redshirt armadas for them to blast apart and look cool. Voyager was the only ship, and they HAD to always get away or otherwise the show would be over. Thus the bad guys could never look cool in that they could never score a real defeat of VOY since that would entail the ship's destruction. Also, that these guys weren't just single-ship pirates but entire empires means they are also incompetent in that for all their power and numbers they can't destroy one ship that isn't even significantly more advanced than them. It would be like if squads of Dominion battleships always lost to the Defiant. The Dominion sure as hell wouldn't be a danger then, would they? VOY's adversaries were in the same boat.

You're telling me, that because Voyager was alone, there weren't stories they could have done that would have been less lolfull, more substantive and all around better sci-fi than what they produced

Not at the same level as the Dominion War or BoBW, no.

Voyager's problem wasn't the story.

It was entirely the story/premise. For the kinds of stuff you guys want, it would have to have a premise far removed from what it was.

And there were ways to tell that story that worked on other Star Trek series that could've worked on Voyager. DS9 had the Dominion War Arc. Voyager could've had any number of different arcs that would've taken the "ham" factor out of some of the villains, could've allowed for greater character development, and could have set a consistent tone for the show (or at least for the characters within a season.)

Yeah, like what? I've asked before WHAT could've been done to make all of VOY's enemies into undecayable super-baddies with entire empires and advanced weaponry at their disposal, while staying true to the fact that VOY has nothing to really fight back with.

But if they were going to use the Borg they needed to have thought out how a lot more than they did.

There's nothing that could've been done that would've been better than the Borg stories VOY did, nothing. The premise just doesn't allow for one lone ship that isn't that powerful to begin with, to have such massive effect on the Borg and the Delta Quadrant, while maintaining the Borg as the nigh-invincible super-baddies TNG made them out to be.

 

[Anwar]

Anwar, you asked me to go blow-by-blow on your big post that was a response to my big post, but I'm not going to, because you've just been repeating the same things over and over

You still didn't answer what the hell VOY was supposed to do to be the perfect ultimate series the haters keep whining it should have been, while keeping every single last enemy they had as ultimate badasses who never lose.

What RyuRoots said was "Gamma aliens of the week". That's an important distinction

Gamma Aliens and Gammas of the week are interchangable, the Dominion just showed up for more than ONE week. It still stands they were well within the "Gamma Aliens" premise.

Wait, wait... wait. Wait. So you seriously think that the presence of the WORDS "without support" is the deal breaker here?

Yes, and the fact that VOY strayed outside it's premise in the show proper and has received massive criticisms for doing so is all the proof I need that it was in a no-win scenario with the audience. They stay within the premise and we get what I've been saying all along: inevitably decayed villains to keep the show going. Or they stray outside the premise and...well, the existing criticisms speak for themselves.

You seriously believe that the presence of those words in the basic premise hamstrung the Voyager writing team for seven years and made it LITERALLY impossible to tell more complex stories or create more interesting bad guys?

Yep, "no support" mean no support EVER. Meaning there's no way of surviving constant attacks from uber-badass enemies, thus the decay to keep the cast alive.

The premise is not a rigid rule that must be obeyed to the letter at all times on promise of death.

Then why are nearly all criticisms of VOY coming from the direction of "They didn't stay within the premise!"? NOT being rigid to the premise is the reason VOY is as abused as it is.

If it's not, then that's no good. That's not a premise in that case, it's a straightjacket.

Which is what it was.

"Ship far from home" is not a straightjacket. In fact, Voyager's basic premise is the MOST broad of any of the Trek series. They are alone, in a region of space that has never been explored by the Federation. That means they can almost do whatever they want (the writers, that is) when it comes to what they encounter! They are not constrained by the parameters of "known space" as any other Trek show is. If anything, they had MORE creative freedom.

Nope, the premise was two things: A ship always on the move and a ship that has no outside support whatsoever, for the entire series. That immediately hamstrings their attempts at villains because a ship without support can't survive an advanced Empire gunning for them. The ship always being on the move means they also have to keep losing their enemies within a few episodes, meaning the writers never have a chance to really develop them or build up their threat except in terms of raw power and damage they can do to the ship. It's the LEAST creative freedom of all trek show.

"Ship trapped far from the Federation" and "Ship trapped in unknown space with no support" are basically the same thing.

One explicitly says they will have no aid or support from anyone for the entire show, the other does not.

The important part of that premise is not the lack of support, it's the "trapped" part, and the "far from home" part. "No support" is an implied part of the deal, meaning no Federation support.

They're all equally important, and the support thing refers to ALL support. Otherwise it should read "no federation support".

Not to mention the fact that they DID sometimes get help, they DID make allies and receive "support", several times; "Dreadnought", "Basics, Part 2", "Scorpion" sort of, and "The Void" all come to mind. And I feel like I'm forgetting something important... what could it be... oh right! How does regular, reliable messages back and forth to/from the Federation - including the ability to allow the crew to send personal letters to family members back home - after season 4 fit into this "TOTALLY CUT OFF NO SUPPORT IT'S THE PREMISE" idea? By season 7, they could sustain these sessions long enough to conduct a TRIAL concerning the Doc's status as an author.

Like I said, they went outside the premise (like you said, being "flexible") and these led to the biggest criticisms about the show.

Not all Borg ships are created equal, granted. But (again, MIDDLE GROUND, do you understand this concept?) it's one thing to say "They are fighting weaker Borg ships than the cubes seen in TNG, so they can actually win" and quite another to go "Borg? Oh. Target their engines and weapons." *zap zap* "Alright, cool, let's be on our way." The latter is what Voyager did, more than once.

So they didn't explicitly say "We're fighting weaker Borg ships we can defeat" every single time. No need to baby-feed us.

What about the times the Ent-D or Ent-E fought a Borg ship (alone, mind you; no "they had the whole Federation to back them up" excuse), suffered casualties, but didn't blow up? Whether or not the Enterprise won the battle?

They had plot contrivances like Q or Picard's remaining connection to the Borg (as well as an ARMADA) to help them out. VOY had neither.

Who ever said that if a Federation starship fights the Borg, and the Borg are shown fighting at full power, then the Fed ship will GO DOWN IN FLAMES INSTANTLY NO CHANCE OMFG?

Goddamn everyone who complains VOY weakened the Borg.

What about the other times when background Voyager crew members died, permanently? Obviously they had to be careful about killing extras, since they only have 150 people and cannot obtain replacement crew, but people DID still die here and there. What's the difference between people dying against various other threats vs. dying against the Borg?

Tons and tons of people would've died against the Borg, while considerably fewer would die against the other threats.

 

[Saito S]

Alright, that's it; I'm done.

You are so completely wrong about so many things in this discussion and have missed the point of my posts by such a wide margin that it's not even funny. But we are going in circles here.

My policy on arguments like this is to keep coming back and responding as long as it's still interesting, or entertaining, or whatever; as long as I'm getting something out of it. But we are much too far into the realm of repeating ourselves over and over, and thus, it isn't engaging anymore. So I'm done with big, epic-sized posts and point-by-point rebuttals. I've laid out my position and reasoning very clearly, and I don't feel the need to do so again.

 

[Silvercrest]

So one actor saying one word in a particular tone of voice immediately destroys all threat posed by the Borg. I had no idea the Borg were so weak that merely talking of them in less than reverent tones destroyed their power .

Nope, I'm saying the actor was given the line because that's how the writers had started thinking of the Borg.

Actually, I like your phrasing. Writing of the Borg in less than reverent tones is what destroyed their power.

 

[Rhionnach]

And hell, the pretty sci-fi babe in a strange outfit has been a staple of sci-fi for so long, Trek shouldn't be called on it anymore than anyone else.

They did eventually put Deanna Troi into a uniform in TNG, and at least Marina Sirtis can act, unlike Ms Booby Borg.

 

[Anwar]

Jeri Ryan can act, which is the reason Seven wasn't JUST eyecandy after a while.

 

[Rhionnach]

Jeri Ryan can act, which is the reason Seven wasn't JUST eyecandy after a while.

I must have missed that nanosecond of Voyager.

I recall seeing her in Dark Skies and she was really bad in it. When I heard she was going to be in Voyager I was very unimpressed and I remain so. She is nothing but eye candy. She really could have been left out and we would have missed nothing.

 

[Diddle]

IMO the problem with Seven was that they had this great character and as the seasons went by she just when downhill in dullness. I like Jeri Ryan as an actress, though, I can't blame her. :|

 

[Anwar]

Alright, that's it; I'm done.

Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing what intelligent posters would have said in response to my "Okay, tell me HOW VOY was supposed to make all its' villain undecayable" and "VOY's premise was too constricting".

You are so completely wrong about so many things in this discussion and have missed the point of my posts by such a wide margin that it's not even funny/

Then prove it, TELL us how VOY was supposed to be good with its' premise and its villains as permanent badasses. Or if not, how its was supposed to be good by changing its premise when all changing the premise did (when the show was on) was bring down endless criticisms about "They didn't stick to the premise!". Tell me what I am so TOTALLY wrong about instead of just saying it.

Seriously, go back on our posts and these questions AREN'T answered.

 

[RyuRoots]

Alright, that's it; I'm done.

Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing what intelligent posters would have said in response to my "Okay, tell me HOW VOY was supposed to make all its' villain undecayable" and "VOY's premise was too constricting".

You are so completely wrong about so many things in this discussion and have missed the point of my posts by such a wide margin that it's not even funny/

Then prove it, TELL us how VOY was supposed to be good with its' premise and its villains as permanent badasses. Or if not, how its was supposed to be good by changing its premise when all changing the premise did (when the show was on) was bring down endless criticisms about "They didn't stick to the premise!". Tell me what I am so TOTALLY wrong about instead of just saying it.

Seriously, go back on our posts and these questions AREN'T answered.

Actually Anwar, they are. The fact that you simply ignore and don't respond to many valid points does not mean that they were not made.

 

[Anwar]

All Saito was said "get creative" and gave one example of the Borg hunting VOY in an asteroid field (or something). And all you really said was "make the Kazon more competent" and that was it without any explanation of how this was to happen without VOY getting captured/destroyed when an entire empire is hunting them and they have the "no support" straitjacketing them creatively.

Neither of which really answers anything or gives real alternatives.

 

[Saito S]

Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing what intelligent posters would have said in response to my "Okay, tell me HOW VOY was supposed to make all its' villain undecayable" and "VOY's premise was too constricting".

I already did. I wrote up huge, mountainous paragraphs about why this idea of yours that Voyager's premise was too constricting is WRONG. That's not how premises work, that's not what premises ARE. If a premise is that constricting, then it's a straitjacket, and is thus a BAD premise. If Voyager's premise were such a straitjacket, it would mean that the creators of the show are idiots for boxing themselves in so badly. But that's moot, since Voyager's premise ISN'T that constricting. Not even close. I don't know how to spell it out any more than that. It simply IS NOT.

Then prove it, TELL us

Us? You mean... you?

how VOY was supposed to be good with its' premise and its villains as permanent badasses.

A) See, this is part of the problem, dude. You always go in extremes. Do you understand the concept of "middle ground"?
Look at it like this. Scale of 1 to 10. 1 is a complete weakling who is more likely to be a liability than an asset in combat, 10 is a badass comic book superhero or something. The Kazon, in my view and the view of many others who have criticized them, were like a 2 or (at best) 3. They were ridiculously incompetent idiots. The Borg in TNG were an 8, who were reduced to like a 5-6 on Voyager. "Permanent badasses", as you say, implies a 9 or 10. That's not what we want. Stop saying that. We are not saying Voyager's villains should have been 9's or 10's, just that they shouldn't have been 3's. Make sense?
B) As I've made clear before, I'm not going to take the time to actually come up with fully fleshed-out story ideas for how Voyager could have better used its premise, or whatever. That's not my job. As a viewer, I am allowed to discuss what I see as flaws in a TV show without being obligated to come up with alternate ideas to cover up those flaws. (I pointed this out in an earlier post, too. You ignored it.)

Or if not, how its was supposed to be good by changing its premise when all changing the premise did (when the show was on) was bring down endless criticisms about "They didn't stick to the premise!".

Alright, technically speaking, I actually haven't addressed this particular point in my other posts, so here:
Within a given premise - any premise for any work of fiction - there are aspects of it you have to stick to in order to make good on that premise. If you pitch a show as "Vampires who have been asleep for centuries wake up, and must try to survive in a modern-day city, always hiding their true nature from everyone around them, who would surely destroy them if they knew", then you cannot have - in episode 3 - one of these vampires calmly tell a human friend of theirs "Oh, by the way, I'm actually a vampire... that's cool with you, right?" Now, if you had come up with a story where the human WOULD find out, then there are better ways to do it. You could set up some circumstance where the human finds out, through no fault of the vampire's, or something. Basically, there are good ways and bad ways to "go against the premise."

Part of Voyager's premise was that it was stranded far from the Federation. And since this isn't just a stand-alone sci-fi show, but is Star Trek, part of the premise was presented in terms of how it would be different from previous Trek shows. For example: no insta-repair between episodes. The "oh, I guess they went to a starbase and got fixed up between eps" is a long-standing tradition in Trek, but Voyager can't do that, because there ARE no starbases for them to visit. Yet they did it anyway. No matter how banged up the ship was at the end of an ep, everything was crisp and clean at the beginning of the next ep. They claimed in one ep that a lack of energy was a huge problem, yet in quite a few eps, run holodeck programs for entertainment for hours at a time. They had the vampire just casually tell the human he's a vampire, like in my example above, when they should have had the human find out about the vampire's true nature through a specific series of events that preserved the story's internal logic.

"No support" is a very minor part of the equation. It's not the key, and it was certainly not meant as "Voyager will be completely on its own all the time with no help whatsoever." Their location, their far removal from friendly territory, THAT'S the key. Nowhere was it said that they must have no support of any kind. And as I pointed out in my last big post, they DID get help and support! They DID make allies! Several times. They even were able to regularly communicate with the Federation after a certain point. So clearly, the Voyager writers agreed with me. As they should, since - as writers - they understand that a premise is not that constricting. NO premise is, not just Voyager's, if the premise is worth anything.

Tell me what I am so TOTALLY wrong about instead of just saying it.

Between this post and my previous posts, I have more than adequately done so.

Seriously, go back on our posts and these questions AREN'T answered.

There are FAR more points that I made in my posts that you completely ignored than the other way around, dude.

EDIT:

All Saito was said "get creative" and gave one example of the Borg hunting VOY in an asteroid field (or something). And all you really said was "make the Kazon more competent" and that was it without any explanation of how this was to happen without VOY getting captured/destroyed when an entire empire is hunting them and they have the "no support" straitjacketing them creatively.

Neither of which really answers anything or gives real alternatives.

"All Saito said"? ALL I SAID WAS GET CREATIVE?? Wow... I'm almost vaguely insulted. All the gigantic posts I've put into this thread, and apparently, all I said was "get creative!" Ok, sure. I guess you really DIDN'T read most of my posts ("an asteroid field (or something)." Yeah, you were REALLY paying attention.)

As I explained earlier in this post, we are not going to tell you exactly, precisely what Voyager coulda/shoulda done. THAT'S NOT OUR JOB. We're not Voyager writers, and I don't particularly have the inclination to spend the time and energy required to draw up ideas on how to fix the show's problems.

And no, for the last time, the premise was not straitjacketing them. See the rest of this post, above.

 

[Kelthaz]

All Saito was said "get creative" and gave one example of the Borg hunting VOY in an asteroid field (or something). And all you really said was "make the Kazon more competent" and that was it without any explanation of how this was to happen without VOY getting captured/destroyed when an entire empire is hunting them and they have the "no support" straitjacketing them creatively.

Alright, here's an idea. How about NOT have the entire empire hunting them. Maybe cause the empire has other concerns and a single ship flying around trying to get home isn't that much of threat? Sorta like the Goa'uld on Stargate.

 

[Withers]

How about all the Borg episodes at once? I've made this suggestion somewhere else (and maybe even more than once) but if the Dominion and Xindi Arc's worked for DS9 and Enterprise one certainly could've worked for Voyager. They took the "Big Bad" and gave him a bunch of episodes all at once in an Arc and it worked. The fans loved it (I'm not even the biggest Enterprise supporter and I liked the Xindi arc), the characters were able to develop, supplementary characters got to be established, and over all a good story was able to be fleshed out. Serialization made it possible.

All this crap about "Voyager was alone thus no bad guy could ever be written as powerful or intimidating" is BS. Essentially, that's what the Enterprise Xindi arc was- One ship, alone, far away from friendly territory. They managed to make the Xindi not the Voyager Borg or Kazon... so why wasn't Voyager able to do that? The simple answer is that they could have.

Rather than have the Borg/8472 conflict resolve itself in Scorpion Part II why not extend that into an arc? Why not give Seven of Nine a little more time? She went from "Put me back in!" to "Hey, this is a pretty snappy catsuit" in like an episode.

That's just one example of many, many, many things that could have easily been improved. As someone noted, however, it isn't my job to fix what is wrong with Star Trek Voyager. I watch Voyager and think to myself "They did this so much better in other series... why did they even bother to make this show if this was as much effort as they planned on putting into it?"


-Withers-​

 

[tvih]

I couldn't stand Janeway, and as for Neelix and Kes - airlock now!

I never really disliked Voyager, although as always, there's some silly episodes, but there's far more good ones - and several very good though-provoking ones, in true Trek tradition.

As far as characters go... well, I agree on Neelix, he's just plain annoying most of the time. And Janeway... yeah, well, her voice is a bit unpleasant to my ear certainly, but other than that she's ok in my books. And it's not like she (the actor) can help it

But Kes? She's one of my favorite characters! Not really that extraordinary in many ways, but overall I just find the character likeable.

Actually one of the more annoying things in the early series especially is that there's a sense of them not really traveling much. A prime example: the Kazon. Apparently, none of the factions were supposed to have many ships at all, according to what's said on screen earlier on. Yet later on, they seem to have more and more. Well, that itself is not really the problem. But you get the sense that the factions are not very big overall. So it stands to reason they wouldn't have all that much occupied space. Yet, while the Voyager is supposedly traveling towards the Alpha Quadrant, they keep running into the same damn Kazon (Cullah mainly) all the time, as if they weren't in fact moving at all.

Now, you could say Cullah is following them, and you'd be right, but if they're really a small faction, with not that many ships, how could they afford to leave their space relatively unprotected just to chase a ship? Overall, in two years of trying to get home, they still seem to be within the reach of the Kazon forces, just as much as in the beginning. Imagine if they were in the Alpha Quadrant. In two years, they would've went from one end of the Federation's charted space to the other (well, most likely anyway). And that encompasses the areas of many, many species indeed.

While I understand it's a storytelling element and an attempt to bring a recurring theme in the early show, it still feels illogical and disturbing. Not that it ruins to show or anything, but it's a nagging feeling regardless

 

[Anwar]

The "Dominion" arc lasted for 5 years.

The "Xindi" arc is constantly criticized, and they weren't advanced enough to always be able to overtake VOY or detect it anywhere unlike the Borg. And also it was only one group of Xindi who were really gunning for them while the other Xindi were willing to stop them from doing so. Nothing was stopping the Borg, thus they had to be depowered in order for VOY to NOT get blown to bits.

Seven going from Borg to Barbie was a UPN direct order, cutting Braga's ten-episode arc down to one.

If you want to go on about how much you hate VOY and everything about it, just go start another hater thread.

 

[Withers]

My problem with your point of view, Anwar, is that you have an excuse for absolutely everything. You won't concede that anything could've been done better than what was shown (which is lazy at best), you won't allow for the possibility that any mistakes were ever made (even though every other person in this thread has made comment that mistakes are made in every incarnation of Star Trek), and when someone provides anything you ask you either ignore it or claim they didn't do exactly what you asked.

It makes it hard not to, after a few rounds of that, just disregard your "contributions" to any given thread.


-Withers-​

 

[Anwar]

Of course I think VOY made mistakes, why do you think I wrote all this (http://http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=101620)? I just disagree that VOY-as-is was the worst thing ever.

I have issues with VOY's very premise.

 

[RyuRoots]

Of course I think VOY made mistakes, why do you think I wrote all this (http://http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=101620)? I just disagree that VOY-as-is was the worst thing ever.

I have issues with VOY's very premise.

I sure as hell don't think it's the worst thing ever. If nothing else, it's leagues above ENT and I've said many times that I think it has more good than bad. And the discussion was about perceived failures of villain races. Not sure what in the world that has ANYTHING to do with anyone thinking VOY is the "worst thing" ever. And frankly, I think Withers has a point in that you seem to REFUSE to believe that someone could see given race X from VOY as having a flawed execution because there happens to be an excuse available for WHY they did it.

And no, no, no. You have issues with how that premise failed to live up to its potential. Or issues with how the writers focused on parts of the premise you didn't like. But even if you do have issues with the premise itself, the premise, and how villain races are handled are two entirely different issues!

The premise is. not. a. straitjacket.