Biggest problem with "Voyager" is that they didn't really take any chances.

[fireproof78]

Well, I doubt that DS9 would as fondly remembered if they were isolated to just that Station and Bajor and never ever went anywhere else.

Depends on story and characters.
I can image several stories that could be made to work with just those two locations. It's also a rather unreasonable statement that, in the age of tech that DS9 is in, that they "won't go anywhere" or have things come to them.

This was probably a symptom of how they just had bad luck with their Centrals and couldn't even get THEM to all get along. Beltran and Wang being the biggest offenders. If they had some excuse to split the crew up so they weren't all on Voyager the way DS9 was able to with its cast, they'd have more wiggle room because the difficult actors wouldn't be thinking "Why give that extra focus that should be mine?"

That's an interesting supposition that isn't support by facts. At least, none of the interviews or BTS information that I have read, or as @Prax noted, reports by the actors themselves.

Also, regardless of any divas on staff, Alan Alda was a bigger one. It comes down to writers willing to craft stories that make sense in the world. Which, honestly, a lot of Star Trek productions have struggled to do, so I won't lay this completely on VOY.

It perhaps is a larger symptom of how the production staff views Star Trek as a whole.

 

[Voth commando1]

Yeah remember guest stars aren't always available.

And I would totally see the Voyager male actors becoming very close.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Personally I'm glad they didn't focus more on other crew members. I would rather see screen time used for main characters that i care about

One small problem I now see with this is that we end up with the Big Three syndrome --focusing only or mainly on Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Picard Riker and Data, and so on. All the romances, adventures, speeches, complex thoughts are given to them while the secondary characters seem to linger in the back ground. No life. No real dialog beyond work related things.

I like TOS and TNG, but when re-watching it, I now find myself wishing I could see more of Sulu's, Uhura's, Geordi's Crusher etc. life and personalities. Now we can't and we're locked into just seeing the adventures of the main characters, even if they are great, it's still a limiting feeling.

I mean, it's kind of ironic that the "iconic" characters like Uhura hardly had that much dialog compared to the others and yet she is considered------ iconic?

The Big Three thing can get boring if stretched too much, and I think that formula may have been a small part of the franchise fatigue that killed it for a while. I think that era is kind of done, or at least toned down a bit now.

If the extras are given lines of dialog, TPTB have to pay them more.

I know, but one problem that I always noticed is when a main character will say something to a background crew member, the background crew member will always just nod-and not say anything. I know they can't say anything, but this makes them appear to be--not real.

 

[Anwar]

Depends on story and characters.
I can image several stories that could be made to work with just those two locations. It's also a rather unreasonable statement that, in the age of tech that DS9 is in, that they "won't go anywhere" or have things come to them.

By that logic, people shouldn't have gotten upset whenever Voyager got involved in some big meaningful event or war or whatever. But they were.

Voyager plays a meaningful role in the 8472/Borg conflict? They're too important.

They stop the Timeship and Annorax? Too important.

The Void? Their role is too important.

They can cure the Vidiian Phage? Too important.

So on and so on.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

It perhaps is a larger symptom of how the production staff views Star Trek as a whole.

Absolutely.

What I don't understand about Voyager was the lack of guidelines on topics such as:

- characters, like Janeway who did ‎everything and its opposite from one moment to the next,
- stories which weren't enough developped,
- the lack of focus on the crew and its diversity (groups left out, like those of Equinox, Maquis, Starfleet, and varied species working together,
- too much focus on some Voyager's ennemies, like Kazons in first seasons, Borg (I liked everything about them but let's be honest, some episodes were useless , like those featuring the children -> neither Neelix or Seven needed them to show their ‎empathy towards little ones) from s4.
- too much using of holopgrams and holoprograms for me, as it was an easy way to producers and writers, to make a story.

Although all that, I still like Voyager, which is the only ST series that I purchased in DVDs. But yes, Voyager could have been better as a SciFi show and much more recognized by Trekkies.

 

[fireproof78]

By that logic, people shouldn't have gotten upset whenever Voyager got involved in some big meaningful event or war or whatever. But they were.

Voyager plays a meaningful role in the 8472/Borg conflict? They're too important.

They stop the Timeship and Annorax? Too important.

The Void? Their role is too important.

They can cure the Vidiian Phage? Too important.

So on and so on.

Not sure what "people" are being referred too, but it has not been the majority in my research.

Also, these points seem rather nonsensical.

 

[Anwar]

Not sure what "people" are being referred too, but it has not been the majority in my research.

Also, these points seem rather nonsensical.

I'm pointing out that DS9 can get away with stuff like "To the Death" where they team up with the Dominion to stop renegade Jem'Hadar and no one cares, but if Voyager did something similar (the 8472 thing) they get panned.

DS9 can have them work together with an enemy, but if Voyager does it in "The Void" they get panned.

So on, and so on.

 

[Sophie74656]

I'm pointing out that DS9 can get away with stuff like "To the Death" where they team up with the Dominion to stop renegade Jem'Hadar and no one cares, but if Voyager did something similar (the 8472 thing) they get panned.

DS9 can have them work together with an enemy, but if Voyager does it in "The Void" they get panned.

So on, and so on.

There was a whole other thread about this kind of thing. Sisko becomes obsessed with catching Michael Eddington, but when Janeway goes after Ransom Voyager gets criticised for it. Sisko can destroy a whole planet, but Janeway threatens one person and Voyager gets criticised for it. DS9 has countless episodes abut the Dominion, Voyager has episodes about Borg and they get criticized. DS9 uses time travel the same as Voyager and Voyager gets criticised for it....i could come up with more examples

 

[fireproof78]

I'm pointing out that DS9 can get away with stuff like "To the Death" where they team up with the Dominion to stop renegade Jem'Hadar and no one cares, but if Voyager did something similar (the 8472 thing) they get panned.

DS9 can have them work together with an enemy, but if Voyager does it in "The Void" they get panned.

So on, and so on.

Which I have refuted in the past, so I feel no need to rehash.

There was a whole other thread about this kind of thing. Sisko becomes obsessed with catching Michael Eddington, but when Janeway goes after Ransom Voyager gets criticised for it. Sisko can destroy a whole planet, but Janeway threatens one person and Voyager gets criticised for it. DS9 has countless episodes abut the Dominion, Voyager has episodes about Borg and they get criticized. DS9 uses time travel the same as Voyager and Voyager gets criticised for it....i could come up with more examples

Voyager gets criticized regarding the Borg because they completely defanged the Borg.

 

[Sophie74656]

Which I have refuted in the past, so I feel no need to rehash.


Voyager gets criticized regarding the Borg because they completely defanged the Borg.

I disagree with that. In my opinion the Borg were always something scary and Voyager did a great job with them

 

[fireproof78]

I disagree with that. In my opinion the Borg were always something scary and Voyager did a great job with them

Agree to disagree then. I think the Borg were thoroughly reduced as villains, with little being added to their mythos. There were rare exceptions, like "Scorpion" and "The Raven" but things like "Unimatrix Zero" and "End Game" left them feeling unimpressive.

 

[Nightdiamond]

Voyager gets criticized regarding the Borg because they completely defanged the Borg.

I think, unfortunately, they watered down the Borg too much. A super Borg drone, Borg children, former Borgs, Borgs daydreaming, Borg insurrections etc. They discovered almost everything about how the Borg works, beat the Borg again and again--it seemed to have taken the mystery and fear out of the Borg. At one point, as a viewer, you didn't even feel fear or suspense when they were on screen anymore.

What I don't understand about Voyager was the lack of guidelines on topics such as:

- too much using of holopgrams and holoprograms for me, as it was an easy way to producers and writers, to make a story.

Although all that, I still like Voyager, which is the only ST series that I purchased in DVDs. But yes, Voyager could have been better as a SciFi show and much more recognized by Trekkies.

That was kind of my impression too. Wasn't there an episode where they went to a region of space where holograms were outlawed and the Doctor had to hide inside Seven or something? There were some pretty interesting episodes, but some of them visited the idea too many times and just seem to push the idea over the top.

 

[MacLeod]

There was a whole other thread about this kind of thing. Sisko becomes obsessed with catching Michael Eddington, but when Janeway goes after Ransom Voyager gets criticised for it. Sisko can destroy a whole planet, but Janeway threatens one person and Voyager gets criticised for it. DS9 has countless episodes abut the Dominion, Voyager has episodes about Borg and they get criticized. DS9 uses time travel the same as Voyager and Voyager gets criticised for it....i could come up with more examples

It's not about the number of time travel episodes each show had but what they do with it. "Eye of the Needle" had a decent twist on the time travel episode by communicating through time and DSN did a similar one in "The Sound of Her Voice" both where ok episodes relative to each series. "Timeless" another one of VOY time travel episodes was one of VOY better episodes. It's the same with all the Trek shows some time travel episodes are better than others.

DSN had 11 (6.2%)time travel episodes, VOY had 13(7.6%) (counting Endgame as two episodes). So whilst they are close in number of episodes as apercentage of total episodes VOY had more time travel episodes.

As for Eddington we as the viewer knew him so some might have been more emotionally invested in the character. Now what VOY could have done in regards to Ransom and the Equniox is have some build up to it in previous episodes with them hearing rumors of another ship claiming to be from the Federation and not exhibinting the ideals that Janeway says the Federation holds, making negotiations harder i.e for provisions, passage through space etc..

 

[Sophie74656]

Voyager never actually beat the borg. The only times they were able to harm a borg ship was when they encountered an already damaged weakened borg ship or when they had assimilated crew members taking down the shields from inside

 

[MacLeod]

Voyager never actually beat the borg. The only times they were able to harm a borg ship was when they encountered an already damaged weakened borg ship or when they had assimilated crew members taking down the shields from inside

Didn't Voyager blow up Borg ships in Endgame before Janeway was assimilated? (yes they had the help of future tech)

 

[Sophie74656]

Didn't Voyager blow up Borg ships in Endgame before Janeway was assimilated? (yes they had the help of future tech)

Right they had weapons from the future

 

[fireproof78]

Both in "Endgame," as well as "Unimatrix Zero."

 

[Tracy Trek]

There was a whole other thread about this kind of thing. Sisko becomes obsessed with catching Michael Eddington, but when Janeway goes after Ransom Voyager gets criticised for it. Sisko can destroy a whole planet, but Janeway threatens one person and Voyager gets criticised for it. DS9 has countless episodes abut the Dominion, Voyager has episodes about Borg and they get criticized. DS9 uses time travel the same as Voyager and Voyager gets criticised for it....i could come up with more examples

Or Janeway makes morally questionable choices and she's considered unstable. But Sisko makes a choice to do something that he has to talk himself into believing he can "Live with it" and people just fawn all over it and say things like "Now that's Star Trek for adults".

I was on the Quora Q&A website yesterday and someone asked what they should watch after Voyager. Somehow they had watched Voyager before any other Trek. It seemed to me like half to 3/4 of the answers were panning Voyager. Saying things like "Here's hoping you can get all the way through it" or my personal favorite is "What you should be watching instead of Voyager is nuBattlestar Galactica, it's what Voyager wishes it could be". Not exact quotes, but you get the idea.

Voyager gets criticized regarding the Borg because they completely defanged the Borg.

Spoiler: Concerning Borg

IMO the Borg got their fangs back in the TNG novels that are set post Endgame. In the few I've read. Like Before Dishonor

Now what VOY could have done in regards to Ransom and the Equniox is have some build up to it in previous episodes with them hearing rumors of another ship claiming to be from the Federation and not exhibinting the ideals that Janeway says the Federation holds, making negotiations harder i.e for provisions, passage through space etc..

That does sound like it would have been better.

 

[Sophie74656]

Personally I absolutely love the new Battlestar but it is a very different show.

 

[Voth commando1]

Yeah people praise Sisko and DS9 for its "adult" stories yet criticize Voyager for the same.