Better if they had allowed main cast to die?

[Melakon]

^ Damn. Martha and Kate chewing it up and Beltran does his blank stare look.

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

What person A defines as something being trashed, person B defines as critisim. It is possible to enjoy something yet feel that it was lacking in parts.

But that's not how it is with VOY. When anyone "criticizes" it all they do is point out the bad and never mention the good. That's not critique, it's just trashing something.

And no, "It should've been serialized" or "These characters should've been more!" are not critiques, they're just more mudslinging.

Like I said with "Living Witness" the number one thing always pointed to is "There shouldn't be a backup!" because they let that drown out anything else about the episode.

A fair few people don't think VOY ever really sold us it's premise hence why the show is referred to as TNG-lite.

The premise itself was incomplete, had some good points, but overall needed a bit more time put into it to iron out the kinks. That was also part of the problem, they took something that wasn't totally ready and put it on the air.

And yes "Shades of Gray" and "Spock's Brain" are bad episodes and they are both definantly towards the franchises bottom end in terms of quality.

And yet neither gets mentioned as much as VOY's "criticisms" are.

Oh if I could rec this....

This sums up my view towards Voyager's reception. Voyager ended over a decade ago, whiners got their vision of Voyager by their favorite writer Ronald Moore, nu Battlestar Galactica. That's what they wanted Voyager to be, at least according to their own words around 2004/05. Yeah, it may not have turned out as they hoped but as so rarely happens in sci-fi television, they got the series they were hoping for in another series.

I had hoped people could finally leave the critical baggage of the past and watch Voyager as just another Star Trek show and take episodes as they are, but instead we get old divides being rehashed by new generations. It's just like the console wars. At some point people just have to step back and realize they're fighting over useless points. Just play the games, get the console you want and stop spreading crap about all the other consoles online or here, just watch the episodes or not watch the episodes. It doesn't mean negative views can't be spoken, but at some point, the bitching gets tiresome. Voyager's been nagged on for 18 years. When is it enough? Yeah, it isn't the series many people hoped. So what? That battle is over. Yes it may not be great, but is it all bad? At some point, people have to accept everything isn't going to be the finest steak, wine, and caviar and sometimes a burger and fries or a sandwich, sometimes pretty good, sometimes acceptable, and sometimes edible but not much more is going to make up most of the meals one eats. We can enjoy things that aren't great. Good and decent aren't so bad. There are more fulfilling pursuits. Imagine if there were major complaints still being rehashed over the filming of Seinfeld, The X-Files, or Hercules, or even TOS or I Love Lucy. Wouldn't it seem inane? What is it about Star Trek that people can't just say "Not my cup of tea", instead having to watch it, torturing themselves, giving them the 'right' to complain or not watching it but complaining to no end how a series over a decade old/off the air isn't what they wanted it to be? Same goes for people being partisan, feeling like they need to love 1 or 2 Star Trek series but absolutely hate the other 3 and they have to show their hate by going on the warpath to all within earshot or keystroke.


A huge irony is people attack certain Voyager plot holes (Equinox, Juggernaut, Ashes to Ashes geographic discrepancies) yet they wholeheartedly gobble up the Doctor leaving Voyager on a potential one-way trip for a whole month "in Paris' good hands" for an '80s drama episode (Prodigal son wants ailing father to respect him, says to father, "Father. Help me help you". /groan), or Barclay's navel-gazing juvenile empowerment fantasies (AKA "Hollow Pursuits Part 2") where everyone idolizes him and he can calculate Voyager's position despite *six* leaps of variable distance and means (well, two were slipstream) since "Message in a Bottle", or Barclay acting like a Ferengi with some stupid premise which means red giants across the galaxy can be used as a wormhole network all to get nanoprobes they could get from any number of dead drones from "I, Borg" or random Borg attacks or occurrences throughout Alpha/Beta Quadrant space. People loved certain episodes with gaping plot holes and ignored those plot holes. Those episodes also corresponded with TNG guest stars. At least everyone didn't fall over themselves with the Riker/Troi Enterprise 'Valentine' or the Bajoran brainwashing Tuvok to revive the Maquis (even though the Cardassians were decimated 1 year earlier and wouldn't pose a threat to the Bajorans for quite some time). These People didn't seem to mind the distance barrier falling as Starfleet Command could call collect long-distance, nor Ferengi, Klingons, et al visiting Voyager even though this undermined the premise of being isolated halfway across the galaxy and being out on their own, and given what TNG established of the speed of subspace communications, it was just the first technological leap ahead, on the same level with transphasic torpedoes and ablative hull armor. *Sigh* People complain Voyager isn't hardcore enough, feral enough. They get nuBSG, still complain. They even whine about Equinox (and ratings showed it got no bump up, meaning complainers who were sitting out by Season 5 didn't tune back in to see this episode). The show undermines its own premise and distance and is frequently visited by TNG characters or Alpha/Beta Quadrant races and people are content. One might think people wanted Voyager to jump the shark... or they just wanted more TNG but can't admit to it.

 

[Lynx]

That was partially because Beltran was a b*tch on set and squandered any chances he was given to do anything so they stopped caring.

Also, it was because they didn't do a good enough job making him that dissimilar from Janeway in the first place and were afraid of the underlying sexism of the premise (A weak woman captain who has to compromise with terrorists).

I think that it was the other way around. Beltran maybe did become "a b*tch on set" in the last 2-3 seasons because they didn't care about the character, shoving Chakotay more and more in the background. I can understand that he was upset about that.

Season ONE:

Chakotay confronts his lover on her betrayal and using of him. Should have been a great scene except Beltran delivers it with all the emotion of a cigar store indian. It's AWFUL. And it's season one. So this stuff about how poor poor Beltran got pissy because he was sidelined is only half the story. He was sidelined I suspect because he was terrible! Just like Picardo got more and more limelight because he was fantastic. Writers aren't going to write dramatic storylines for people who can't deliver.

I don't see any problem here. Maybe he was supposed to act this way, being in shock over the fact that his former lover tuirned out to be a traitor.

I can agree that this scene is not convincing. But check out Caretaker! Check out Beltran in "Maneuvers" and when he hits Dalby in "Learning Curve" or the episode "Nemesis".

I think that he delivered in most of the early episodes.

As for NuBSG, I'm actually happy that Voyager never got close to that kind of doom-and-gloom show.

 

[Anwar]

Beltran may have given some effort in early episodes, but he gave up on his own. I don't think he ever took the job seriously to begin with, same with Garrett Wang.

Then again, I think VOY could've done well with a smaller central cast.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Well that's the problem, the actors belonging to the minor characters got pissed off because the writers/producers pretended that they didn't exist.

 

[Anwar]

The Central Cast should've been Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor.

Kim, Kes, Torres and Neelix should've been the recurring secondaries who weren't in every episode.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Hey! Those human beings had value! Roxanne and Jennifer were probably putting down payments on houses, and Wang had his endless string of floozies. They needed that money!

 

[Anwar]

And since they aren't tied down as regulars, that'd leave them plenty of open time to do other TV work and stage plays, etc.

Them might also escape the typecasting.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Weren't the actors playing human characters under strict orders to be boring in order to make the aliens more interesting?

Can we really blame Wang and Beltran too much if that's the case? The producers wanted boring, so they got boring, and then they didn't like it.

If Chakotay was allowed to disagree with the captain more he could have been a way better character.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I'm not sure that I would know how to follow that direction.

Besides, that just makes you wonder why the aliens didn't seem more out-there?

You know who really dialled it all the way back down to 1?

Jason "Duckman" Alexander.

 

[Dream]

Weren't the actors playing human characters under strict orders to be boring in order to make the aliens more interesting?

Thank goodness Patrick Stewart was never told that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Considering how awful his French accent was, it's clear that the man could not act.

 

[Melakon]

For proof, see his rude French maitre d' in L.A. Story.

 

[Dream]

Considering how awful his French accent was, it's clear that the man could not act.

That wasn't a French accent, it was a British accent.

 

[R. Star]

Considering how awful his French accent was, it's clear that the man could not act.

That wasn't a French accent, it was a British accent.

Don't you know anything about history? World War 3 obviously has Britain conquering France.

 

[Anwar]

Weren't the actors playing human characters under strict orders to be boring in order to make the aliens more interesting?

Wang was saying that, with little to nothing to back it up.

And anyways, with his acting ability no one would know the difference.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Honestly, Wang has natural gerbil like charm, he didn't have to act, he was just being himself "reading" 90 percent of the time.

After 7 years of Geordie, played by a guy who I'm told can act very well, but decided to be a gerbil, it's amazingly fortunate how Wang found himself a magic bullet to milk for a couple years.

 

[MacLeod]

Considering how awful his French accent was, it's clear that the man could not act.

That wasn't a French accent, it was a British accent.

Don't you know anything about history? World War 3 obviously has Britain conquering France.

Well remember by the 24th Century the French Language was considered obscure.

But really what they should have done when Patrick Stewart was cast was change the character of Captain to British.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The only good thing about the British is that they hate the French.

 

[starburst]

Killing off characters like anything has pros and cons. SG:A killed off at least two of it's leads Beckett and Weir, was it a good move that's open to debate. But in the case of Beckett the fallout was so bad they had to bring the character back (via a clone).

I actually liked the way they killed off Beckett, it was a shock when it happened and reminded me of how it felt when Daniel died on SG-1... Both of these characters had decent story lines to write them out and then back in again... Weir was just captured and we were told killed then mysteriously came back as someone else.

I think other than killing off a main character they should have developed the background players to the point that when they meet their fate we, the audience, actually care that they are gone. An example keeping with Stargate would be Sgt Riley in SGU.