Can we just pretend that Voyager never happened?
- Thread starter mahler
- Start date
Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that you might have liked them better had the writers focused on them much more than they did. As I mentioned before, the Chakotay character was something Trek had never done before and it could have been a game-changer for VOY. But he was quickly reduced to just being another random crewmember who got maybe one episode focused on him, and not even having it be about his spirituality. Tom went from a Han Solo-type rogue to a sappy hubby for Belanna (basically the same thing that ruined the Chandler character on Friends, if you ever watched that show).
I'm not sure why Native American spirituality, animal guides, and vision quests would be classified under "racism." Perhaps if Chakotay was constantly wearing a Washington Redskins jersey, wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap, or smoking a peacepipe in his quarters, that would be crossing the line. But I just don't see any racism attached to his character at all.
Incorrect. There are tons of sci-fi shows that don't rely on technobabble at all. TOS never did either. That didn't start until TNG, but VOY was the main culprit of it. There's no reason whatsoever that technobabble needs to be a staple of any science fiction, unless that technobabble is succinctly explained to the audience, which in VOY it never was.
There's a reason why it was never explained. It's because it was absolute completely unadulterated bullshit. In fact the idiot who wrote these lines of crap likely didn't know enough science to outsmart a donkey.
That's no accomplishment, even inanimate carbon rods are more engaging than Harry Kim.
But I agree with you DS9 was Trek at it's most sophisticated, God only knows why they chose to take several steps bck with most of Voyage instead of another step forward.
As for my personal best in each season:
1: Caretaker Part 1 and 2 (Back when the show still had potential) Phage (Vidiians!!!) Faces (More Vidiians!) Jetrel
2: Persistence of Vision, Cold Fire (which should have been the start of an ongoing arc) Death Wish (Only Q Epsidoe in the entire Franchise I like) Lifesigns, The Thaw, Tuvix, Basics
3: Before and After, Scorpion
4: Nemesis, The Raven, Year of Hell, Mortal Coil
5: Infinite Regress, Counterpoint, Bliss, Dark Frontier, Think Tank
6: Survival Instinct, Barge of the Dead, Collective, Child's Play
7:...........I guess the Void and Human Error?
The spirituality stuff with Chakotay wasn't racist in and of itself, but the fact that it was always the focus whenever an episode was about Chakotay in the first two seasons kind of made it seem that way. And it didn't help that he is the only main character in all of Trek history to take spiritual matters seriously.
Technobabble is only a problem when it's used as the main driving force of the plot. It's not a problem when it's just used as decoration to make things seem more futury.
Technobabble is only a problem when it's used as the main driving force of the plot. It's not a problem when it's just used as decoration to make things seem more futury.
I like that. But I would extend it a little bit.
She proceeds to repair it, ignoring the hurt crew member at first, but then for no apparent (to her) reason, she attends to him. Then apologizes for reviving him, that is, for "being inefficient".
The problem with the "Native American stuff" is that it is a generic amalgamation of details, despite specifically referencing a actual South American tribe. The racism is in the broad strokes, rather than dealing with the specific tribe and working that in to his backstory.
If you want more details about it, listen to SFDebris review of "Tattoo."
The results of this could be very intersting as to what types of stories people prefer but me
Season One
Eye of the Needle
Season Two
Threshold (just kidding)The Thaw
Season Three
Future's End
Season Four
Message in a Bottle
Unforgettable
Living Witness
Season Five
Night
Timeless
Counterpoint
Latent Image
Relativity
Season Six
Dragon's Teeth
One Small Step
Pathfinder
Blink of an Eye
Ashes to Ashes
Life Line
Season Seven
Imperfection
Critical Care
The Void
True.
I'm sorry, but I'm still not seeing "racism" here. Racism would be either deliberately making fun of or downright slandering the race/creed/belief system of the particular character. I see nothing of the sort with how Chakotay was portrayed.
And as for Chakotay's spirituality being the main focus: Logic was the main focus whenever a story focused on Spock. Greed was the main focus whenever a story focused on Quark. Heck, spirituality was the main focus whenever a story focused on Kira Nerys. Why are these examples fine when spirituality being the focus on Chakotay isn't? Because those other people are all fictional aliens and Chakotay is a Native American? Doesn't fly with me. Plus, I never felt that the writers were ramming his spirituality down our throats the way greed was with Quark, for example.
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Ever hear of Kira Nerys?
Kira doesn't count.
Her gods are real.
Her gods are real.
But she believed before the Celestial Temple was discovered.
And she continued to believe in them past their scope of interest after they were revealed to be hilarious cherry picking aliens.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N5e1R4-G9I[/yt]
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N5e1R4-G9I[/yt]
But that doesn't really matter, does it? It's about her faith, not about who her gods actually turned out to be.
They realized the risk was too great. If the return trip lasted past the end of the episode, the dreaded Reset Button would cause the Doctor to forget how to restore them. So they didn't try it.
They were saving F-U for These Are The Voyages.
Her faith that her gods exist, her faith that her gods are looking over her, or her faith that her gods are not assholes?
1. They exist.
2. They are not looking over her.
3. Yes, they are assholes.
...
Faith in this case is redundant.
...
Weyoun worshipping his gods, the Founders, has nothing to do with faith either.
Certainty in the face of the metaphysical is mental instability.
Calling faith faith instead of facts keeps the bedlams less stressed.
What we have here is weirdly the reverse.
Kira is calling facts faith.
I don't like how facty your facts are, can we muddy our facts up a bit, make these facts a little more blurry around the edges until they're maybe %80 extra factless.
Kira is a WAD.
A Wormhole Alien Denier.
1. They exist.
2. They are not looking over her.
3. Yes, they are assholes.
...
Faith in this case is redundant.
...
Weyoun worshipping his gods, the Founders, has nothing to do with faith either.
Certainty in the face of the metaphysical is mental instability.
Calling faith faith instead of facts keeps the bedlams less stressed.
What we have here is weirdly the reverse.
Kira is calling facts faith.
I don't like how facty your facts are, can we muddy our facts up a bit, make these facts a little more blurry around the edges until they're maybe %80 extra factless.
Kira is a WAD.
A Wormhole Alien Denier.
It's racist to take different facets of Native American tribes, toss them in a blender and call it a backstory. Racism can take many forms, not just slander or mockery. Even if it isn't always racist, it is ignorant, mostly because the information used to create background was factually incorrect, given by the consultant the writers used.
I don't think every part of Chakotay's character was racist, just that there are elements of it that are. And it really didn't need to be.
Naturally I just love being patronized, thanks for that. You do realise that novelistic storytelling focusing on naturalistic character driven narratives isn’t the only way of doing things, don’t you? Perhaps you can tell me the outstanding character traits of King Arthur in Morte d’Arthur? How about Launcelot or Guinevere? More recent? How about Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings? Care to give me a run down of his distinctive foibles? Achilles in The Iliad? Satan in Paradise Lost? Gulliver? What are those guys realistic and down to earth character traits?
That’s putting an interpretation upon what I’ve said to suit you. Essentially putting words in my mouth. Besides which I can hardly be saying that it failed to actually be a character driven novelistic narrative when that is precisely the characteristic that I’m critiqueing. Expressing my opinion that it failed is a value judgement. One I stand by. It undoubtedly failed commercially relative to TNG (as did Voyager).
More importantly I think it failed artistically. In the specific terms we’re discussing I think that the characters were uninteresting and boring, their presentation was often childish and unconvincing, as was the environment they lived in, and their development was in many cases utterly divorced from reality.
Take Garak, one of the few interesting characters, someone who had a truly dark past and yet his treatment was so Star Trek ‘safe and user friendly’. People talk about the Disneyfication of George Lucas in the prequel trilogy (how ironic is that now...) but 80’s and 90’s Trek was always U rated. I have no problem with that in itself but don’t try to do something that you simply can’t with those restrictions (and in truth I don’t really believe that you can’t but I’ll leave it like that because I’m feeling charitable).
The various romances never rise above the level of the cheapest soap operas. Now, I don’t have a problem with Star Trek having relatively basic characterization –it’s not what I watch it for. Appealing, intriguing, or engaging characters are of course necessary to carry the drama but I’m really not looking for Middlemarch. Turning around and telling me that DS9 is so great because of these qualities that it blatantly doesn’t have just isn’t going to fly.
The thing is this has actually been done in a sci-fi show. By Ron Moore. BSG is a staggering achievement in this regard. The intensity of the characters, the quality of the performances and the production are in an altogether different category. In spite of the questionable elements to the denouement of the whole thing the show produced top quality drama throughout its run and matches the best TV has produced in long running shows in this regard.
Talking about DS9 as quality drama when you have things like BSG, Six Feet Under, The Wire, or Breaking Bad to compare it to is so absurd that I can barely believe that I’m hearing it. Back in the day were you to compare it to the likes of Homicide: Life on the Street or even NYPD Blue purely on dramatic terms it would be like comparing chalk and cheese. Even amongst genre shows and sci-fi trash something like the X-Files has deeper character development and far more nuanced performances (and a long running overarching multi-season storyline for that matter).
As a counterpoint here’s an example from something I happened to look at today, The Game from season 5 of TNG. The whole thing is a very laboured drugs metaphor from the Just Say No era of the type that we’ve all seen so often. I still quite enjoyed it. That doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous in many regards. The characters are cured of their addiction (which was a genuine seratonin fuelled addiction so strong that it had basically turned them into compliant slaves) by having some lights flashed in their face. Once. Now I just read an old interview with Ron Moore yesterday where he bangs on about being part of a team that brought a focus on characterization to TNG (and then DS9) and contrasts it with Voyager. Yet this crew who were made willing slaves by this game and were willing to force it upon their supposed friends, deactivate Data, and were in the process of utter dereliction of their duty and actually committing treason (obviously all metaphors for the danger of ‘good people’ being turned to crime by drug addiction) are just fine and dandy immediately afterwards. Surely they’d suffer serious long term psychological issues, face withdrawal, and be plagued by guilt for many years I hear you cry. Nope, it was just mind control –everything’s fine now! This is not in depth characterization and it certainly isn’t an example of ongoing novelistic storytelling. It’s quite obviously an episodic style of genre storytelling. Adventure of the week. And That’s Fine. Just don’t pretend that it’s something it isn’t.
I’m sure you can easily argue that DS9 is more ‘joined up’ than that but, an example off the top of my head from a show I just don’t watch if I can help it, Odo should’ve hated Garak for life for torturing him on Enabran Tain’s ship. Instead it was played more like a bonding experience. That’s not to say that the performances weren’t good and the idea of playing it that way had no merit –the scene itself was well done. But seriously. He’d never have forgiven him afterwards! Incidentally, for my money, being tortured by Garak should’ve been like Paul Wang’s torture by the silicates in Space: Above and Beyond. That’s how scary Garak should’ve been. Anyway, the point is that as far as being ‘realistic’ or convincingly characterized DS9 just isn’t anything like top notch. It’s a soap opera and it’s way too family friendly. It does those things much more than any other species of Trek, sure, but that doesn’t mean it did them successfully. Now, I’m glad for you that you like it, but I don’t and I was just expressing my opinion.
Now, my criticisms here are strong but that's because you're asking me to judge it in those terms and I don't think that it can possibly measure up in those regards. Normally I'd be more forgiving because i'd judge it in terms I normally would for Star Trek -as episodic, adventure led, imaginative fiction. In that conetxt it's neck and neck with Enterprise as my least favourite species but I certainly wouldn't slaughter it to that degree (I reserve that for the likes of Babylon 5 (let alone Crusade!), the Stargate tv shows or Andromeda in that context).
Sorry for the double post (and both ludicrously overlong) but I thought I should answer and this was a more convenient format.
Incidentally, regarding the Chakotay spiritualism discussion I agree that his early portrayal left a lot to be desired. Whether or not you regard it as racist seems more a matter of semantics. It was a clear example of reductive stereotyping which personally I found embarrasing. It really was space injun by numbers. I groan whenever he starts wheeling out his spirit guide. I thought he was much better portrayed later as an enlightened, sophisticated, scholarly man of reason and compromise, ying to the captain's yang, the antithesis of the terrorist stereotype, and distanced from the earlier guff.
Mind you, I'm glad I didn't see any of Voyager until season 3 originally as I'd probably have hated it otherwise. There's lots of great stuff in the first two seasons but as a whole the concept was weak and the presentation of it lacked punch or distinctiveness. Saying that, the first two of TNG were much worse but I didn't see them originally either, praise the lord.
That’s rather a big question to have to answer. I suppose the normal two responses are to either refuse to answer and appear to have taken my ball and gone home to sulk or to give five or six examples which you proceed to dissect and show how much better than mine your taste is. I'm afraid I'm going to do neither and if you'll have to work for it if you want to demolish my position.
I’ve done my best to provide a range here from what I can remember by scrolling through the episode list, although it's rather meandering. This is not an indication of quality –some of the eps mentioned here are actually awful. The point is that, at least in the context of mainstream televisual sci-fi, or of Star Trek itself, these ideas strike me as being interesting twists on the usual or as worthwhile developments within the franchise and are, I believe, indicative of this being a general trend in Voyager. Many of these my response to was ‘Why didn’t anyone think of doing this before?’. Anyway, enjoy –no doubt you’ll be glad you asked...
For those who haven't watched the series or are in the process of doing so there are tons of SPOILERS here so stop reading now.
The Kazon: Major enemy who is technologically backward and not on an equal footing with the heroes. Totally different to any prior ‘ongoing’ villains in Trek. This is particularly nicely developed in State of Flux where ‘simple’ replicator tech which viewers take for granted has horrifying consequences.
Phage: The Vidians are an alien race that are truly monstrous bad guys yet they have real, sympathetic motivation. It’s hard to deny that any race faced with such a situation would probably do the same if they had the means. This is utterly unlike anything in the Trek universe before which is populated by a range of baddies comprising space Nazis, space commies, space pirates and comedy capitalists.
The Vidians were one of several new alien species that had strong concepts and good designs which were created for Voyager. Species 8472, the Hirogen, the Malon, the Hierarchy, and perhaps the Vaadwaur are also worthy of mention. I’d say that TNG only produced the Borg (and perhaps the Trills but I think the concept was successful here but offered nothing in terms of design). As for DS9 I’d say that only the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar qualify.
Faces: Genetic splicing of a character into two distinct halves. Original play on the ‘warring nature’ trope.
Jetrel: Mass murderer portrayed sympathetically.
Prototype: starts off down the well trodden road of empathy with a different form of life/consciousness only for the lead’s heroic actions turn out to be utterly misguided as the creature turns out to be a genocidal lunatic. This theme of the potential and the dangers of artificial intelligences is played on repeatedly throughout the series sometimes positively and sometimes far from it. On the negative side we might consider Dreadnought, Revulsion, the Doctor being reprogrammed in Equinox, Warhead, and even the troubling implications of Renaissance Man. Where TNG would’ve had a rousing affirmal of Data’s rights as a sentient being Voyager answered with a much more troubling half hearted ceding of very limited rights in Author, Author.
Threshold:
Meld: I don’t see any question that this is easily the most original approach to mind melds in Trek history. Having Tuvok suffer the consequences of a meld with a psychotic was a brilliant idea. Also, the fact that one of the permanent crew who is a recurring character for a while was a psychotic murderer. That in itself is a totally fresh idea in Star Trek.
Death Wish: Star Trek’s obsession with omnipotent beings is back again; but this time with a very different approach. The idea of an omnipotent being wanting to kill itself to end the boredom of its unending existence is totally unprecedented in Star Trek which was ideologically more profound than any prior Q episode. The later appearances of Q in Voyager would almost match it for originality and genuine thought provocation too.
Tuvix: An excellent and original ‘transporter accident’ ep ex[ploring a strong central concept. Stands as one of the definitive examples of the genre and presented an excellent moral dilemma.
The Swarm: pres4ents aliens who are totally alien both socially and in their environment. Utterly resistant to communication and diplomacy of the TNG committee style.
Future’s End: Voyager is of course infamous for its time travel, causality paradoxes and for its use ofthe reset button. They’re all here. They’d already done one where the heroes’ well intentioned meddling actually causes the disaster they were trying to prevent and results in a paradox. This time its a similar approach save that the results of the intervention are less direct –they set in motion the events leading to the disaster and the paradox and its the actions of a ‘professional’ time traveller and the potential multiple futures they could have come from that underpins their motivation causing the whole thing. Running through all of these paradoxes would take up too much space but most are inventive and entertaining and often provide opportunities to tell stories you’d otherwise be unable to tell in an ongoing series. Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who has taken up the baton and gone much further with this stuff but it was Voyager that laid down the gauntlet.
Blood Fever: Excellent Vulcan episode combining Pon farr and mind melds to new, amd of course logical, effect. Its influence is detectable in one of Enterprise’s better episodes too.
Unity: Best take on the ‘post Borg’ on a mass scale. So much better than ‘IBorg’ and undoing much of its damage. Exploration of the horror of the collective consciousness but also the allure of its power and the temptation for abuse. Makes an ‘origin of the Borg’ story pretty redundant –it’s all here.
Favoriet Son: Harry Kim has a rather delightful tendency to find himself in a Buck Rogers storyline. This time the Amazon Women really are going to mate with you but then they’re going to kill you. Blast that planet of the spider women!
Worst Case Scenario: Easily the best example of the most hated type of Star Trek episode. This is the only one that’s actually essential viewing. So many good ideas in its play on the genre that it’s like a Russian doll. It’s outstanding the way that all the motivations and behaviour all tally at each level of the plot, and is simultaneously satirical. Tight as hell.
Scorpion:
Alliance with the Borg. Real interaction with a collective consciousness rather than the bullshit Queen from First Contact (don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for the Queen in terms of dramatic necessity for repeated use of the Borg but the Collective is still a purer and better representation and this is probably the most in depth look at it we ever got. It actually had to make tough decisions rather than just be so unbeatable that any discussion is, er, futile).
Also, the Captain is wrong. She’s so bullheaded that she’ll get everyone killed. Chakotay saves the day with his back up plan. Picard would never do this. He’s always right and always noble (like the way he can never lose the ship –if the Enterprise goes down it’s always Riker in charge...). The only exception for Picard is the Borg. Then his judgement is thrown and he can behave ignobly. The same is true with Sisko –it’s Picard and the loss of his wife that will set him down the wrong path. These are Achilles heels. The difference is that it’s a genuine character flaw with Janeway rather than a particular trigger, and her weakness is also her strength. We see it again in Year of Hell –Janeway’s stubbornness and total belief in herself leads to huge loss of life and the crew having to abandon ship. This is something new in Star Trek.
The Gift: Character’s telepathic abilities evolve to a point where they can no longer coexist with physical beings bound to this plane of existence.
Day of Honour: Warp core ejection has since become a staple of the franchise but was first done in Voyager. This is probably the best example where one of their attempts to incorporate alien tech to go faster backfires badly. It’s become a significant trope of the whole conception of the dramatic iconography of the Engineering section in Trek.
Nemesis: Decent take on the ‘get involved in the hoopla on the planet’ type with psychotropic brainwashing recruitment. Nice to see the ugly monsters as the good guys for a change too.
Scientific Method: There are a series of species encounters ‘on the go’ with aliens that have evolved unusual natural defences or have very distinctive methods. This si one of my favourites. Calling into question the morality of science in the RW and even that of our heroes. Some other examples are the aliens who conquer with substitution, the sleeping aliens, aliens who can’t be remembered,
The Omega Directive: Great tribute to classic Trek but with excellent use of the Borg as a counterpoint perspective on the directive.
Random Thoughts: Telepathic backwash? Criminal justice applied to it?
Living Witness: Use of artificial intelligence’s ‘immortality’ in an examination of the notion of historical truth.
Demon: Taking the exploration angle to an environment that would normally be overlooked. At last, not another M class world. Similarly Night has them traversing an area where there’s just nothing for an extended period. It’s against type but presents opportunities.
In the Flesh: Ace take on old Soviet style spy training towns.
Timeless: Back From the Future! Our heroes saved from certain death by their future selves.
Thirty Days: Leading character breaks the rules and is demoted (for a long time).
Gravity and Blink of an Eye: Both inventive takes on time moving at different relative speeds.
Bliss: Take on the sirens with interstellar predator.
Dark Frontier: The Hansens as scientists acting outside of Starfleet seen in practice. Good bit of bubble bursting.
Course Oblivion: By this time the show was often playing on itself. This was one of the best examples and a superb surprise.
Alice: Symbiotic spacecraft, malign influence of telepathic interface.
Dragon’s Teeth: Strong premise of army in suspended animation. No doubt some will point to Khan but that’d be missing a lot. This is a civilization saved for the future not imprisoned. The heroes, following the initial accident, wake them up as allies only to discover their mistake.
The Voyager Conspiracy: Could hardly be targeted more at the audience and its perceived tendency to overlap with the conspiracy nut demographic.
Virtuoso: Alien society that’s never experienced music.
Memorial: Innovative take on the idea of a war memorial.
Ashes to Ashes: Procreation through the reanimation of the dead.
Child’s Play: Viral warfare against the Borg. Obviously a play on ‘I Borg’, and perhaps ‘Descent’ too, but this is so much darker with a race so desperate that they are sacrificing their children.
Live Fast and Prosper: Hilarious satire of Federation nobility. If you can’t laugh at yourself...
Unimatrix Zero: Hypothesizing dream state in collective consciousness. Excellent new angle on the Borg.
Repression: The Maquis taking over the ship had always seemed like a likely plot to occur in Voyager in the early days. It finally happened when there appeared to be no chance of it ever happening.
Critical Care: Laboured essay against Obamacare (or the NHS for those of us in the more civilized parts of the world...) also explores the potential for slavery of AI’s.
Body and Soul: AIs and cybernetics in slapstick hi-jinks.
Flesh and Blood: Logical progression from earlier story sees misuse of donated tech. Prime Directive actually looks sensible for once.
Prophecy: Klingon religious nuts. One of them even appears to be a reasonable person rather than the usual caricature. Batleths still appear to be the most impractical weapon ever devised though. Paris really should have looked into the possibility of being allowed to use a sword against one of the idiot Klingons –he’s have cut him to ribbons.
Workforce: great sci-fi labour shortage idea.
Friendship One: Decent idea for pro-Prime Directive narrative. Tragic death of likeable minor character nudged audience towards weighing the moral balance of the story (not relevant to what I’m talking about here but I just thought I’d mention it as it upset many –I think it carried storytelling weight).
Incidentally, regarding the Chakotay spiritualism discussion I agree that his early portrayal left a lot to be desired. Whether or not you regard it as racist seems more a matter of semantics. It was a clear example of reductive stereotyping which personally I found embarrasing. It really was space injun by numbers. I groan whenever he starts wheeling out his spirit guide. I thought he was much better portrayed later as an enlightened, sophisticated, scholarly man of reason and compromise, ying to the captain's yang, the antithesis of the terrorist stereotype, and distanced from the earlier guff.
Mind you, I'm glad I didn't see any of Voyager until season 3 originally as I'd probably have hated it otherwise. There's lots of great stuff in the first two seasons but as a whole the concept was weak and the presentation of it lacked punch or distinctiveness. Saying that, the first two of TNG were much worse but I didn't see them originally either, praise the lord.
That’s rather a big question to have to answer. I suppose the normal two responses are to either refuse to answer and appear to have taken my ball and gone home to sulk or to give five or six examples which you proceed to dissect and show how much better than mine your taste is. I'm afraid I'm going to do neither and if you'll have to work for it if you want to demolish my position.
I’ve done my best to provide a range here from what I can remember by scrolling through the episode list, although it's rather meandering. This is not an indication of quality –some of the eps mentioned here are actually awful. The point is that, at least in the context of mainstream televisual sci-fi, or of Star Trek itself, these ideas strike me as being interesting twists on the usual or as worthwhile developments within the franchise and are, I believe, indicative of this being a general trend in Voyager. Many of these my response to was ‘Why didn’t anyone think of doing this before?’. Anyway, enjoy –no doubt you’ll be glad you asked...
For those who haven't watched the series or are in the process of doing so there are tons of SPOILERS here so stop reading now.
The Kazon: Major enemy who is technologically backward and not on an equal footing with the heroes. Totally different to any prior ‘ongoing’ villains in Trek. This is particularly nicely developed in State of Flux where ‘simple’ replicator tech which viewers take for granted has horrifying consequences.
Phage: The Vidians are an alien race that are truly monstrous bad guys yet they have real, sympathetic motivation. It’s hard to deny that any race faced with such a situation would probably do the same if they had the means. This is utterly unlike anything in the Trek universe before which is populated by a range of baddies comprising space Nazis, space commies, space pirates and comedy capitalists.
The Vidians were one of several new alien species that had strong concepts and good designs which were created for Voyager. Species 8472, the Hirogen, the Malon, the Hierarchy, and perhaps the Vaadwaur are also worthy of mention. I’d say that TNG only produced the Borg (and perhaps the Trills but I think the concept was successful here but offered nothing in terms of design). As for DS9 I’d say that only the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar qualify.
Faces: Genetic splicing of a character into two distinct halves. Original play on the ‘warring nature’ trope.
Jetrel: Mass murderer portrayed sympathetically.
Prototype: starts off down the well trodden road of empathy with a different form of life/consciousness only for the lead’s heroic actions turn out to be utterly misguided as the creature turns out to be a genocidal lunatic. This theme of the potential and the dangers of artificial intelligences is played on repeatedly throughout the series sometimes positively and sometimes far from it. On the negative side we might consider Dreadnought, Revulsion, the Doctor being reprogrammed in Equinox, Warhead, and even the troubling implications of Renaissance Man. Where TNG would’ve had a rousing affirmal of Data’s rights as a sentient being Voyager answered with a much more troubling half hearted ceding of very limited rights in Author, Author.
Threshold:
Meld: I don’t see any question that this is easily the most original approach to mind melds in Trek history. Having Tuvok suffer the consequences of a meld with a psychotic was a brilliant idea. Also, the fact that one of the permanent crew who is a recurring character for a while was a psychotic murderer. That in itself is a totally fresh idea in Star Trek.
Death Wish: Star Trek’s obsession with omnipotent beings is back again; but this time with a very different approach. The idea of an omnipotent being wanting to kill itself to end the boredom of its unending existence is totally unprecedented in Star Trek which was ideologically more profound than any prior Q episode. The later appearances of Q in Voyager would almost match it for originality and genuine thought provocation too.
Tuvix: An excellent and original ‘transporter accident’ ep ex[ploring a strong central concept. Stands as one of the definitive examples of the genre and presented an excellent moral dilemma.
The Swarm: pres4ents aliens who are totally alien both socially and in their environment. Utterly resistant to communication and diplomacy of the TNG committee style.
Future’s End: Voyager is of course infamous for its time travel, causality paradoxes and for its use ofthe reset button. They’re all here. They’d already done one where the heroes’ well intentioned meddling actually causes the disaster they were trying to prevent and results in a paradox. This time its a similar approach save that the results of the intervention are less direct –they set in motion the events leading to the disaster and the paradox and its the actions of a ‘professional’ time traveller and the potential multiple futures they could have come from that underpins their motivation causing the whole thing. Running through all of these paradoxes would take up too much space but most are inventive and entertaining and often provide opportunities to tell stories you’d otherwise be unable to tell in an ongoing series. Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who has taken up the baton and gone much further with this stuff but it was Voyager that laid down the gauntlet.
Blood Fever: Excellent Vulcan episode combining Pon farr and mind melds to new, amd of course logical, effect. Its influence is detectable in one of Enterprise’s better episodes too.
Unity: Best take on the ‘post Borg’ on a mass scale. So much better than ‘IBorg’ and undoing much of its damage. Exploration of the horror of the collective consciousness but also the allure of its power and the temptation for abuse. Makes an ‘origin of the Borg’ story pretty redundant –it’s all here.
Favoriet Son: Harry Kim has a rather delightful tendency to find himself in a Buck Rogers storyline. This time the Amazon Women really are going to mate with you but then they’re going to kill you. Blast that planet of the spider women!
Worst Case Scenario: Easily the best example of the most hated type of Star Trek episode. This is the only one that’s actually essential viewing. So many good ideas in its play on the genre that it’s like a Russian doll. It’s outstanding the way that all the motivations and behaviour all tally at each level of the plot, and is simultaneously satirical. Tight as hell.
Scorpion:
Alliance with the Borg. Real interaction with a collective consciousness rather than the bullshit Queen from First Contact (don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for the Queen in terms of dramatic necessity for repeated use of the Borg but the Collective is still a purer and better representation and this is probably the most in depth look at it we ever got. It actually had to make tough decisions rather than just be so unbeatable that any discussion is, er, futile).
Also, the Captain is wrong. She’s so bullheaded that she’ll get everyone killed. Chakotay saves the day with his back up plan. Picard would never do this. He’s always right and always noble (like the way he can never lose the ship –if the Enterprise goes down it’s always Riker in charge...). The only exception for Picard is the Borg. Then his judgement is thrown and he can behave ignobly. The same is true with Sisko –it’s Picard and the loss of his wife that will set him down the wrong path. These are Achilles heels. The difference is that it’s a genuine character flaw with Janeway rather than a particular trigger, and her weakness is also her strength. We see it again in Year of Hell –Janeway’s stubbornness and total belief in herself leads to huge loss of life and the crew having to abandon ship. This is something new in Star Trek.
The Gift: Character’s telepathic abilities evolve to a point where they can no longer coexist with physical beings bound to this plane of existence.
Day of Honour: Warp core ejection has since become a staple of the franchise but was first done in Voyager. This is probably the best example where one of their attempts to incorporate alien tech to go faster backfires badly. It’s become a significant trope of the whole conception of the dramatic iconography of the Engineering section in Trek.
Nemesis: Decent take on the ‘get involved in the hoopla on the planet’ type with psychotropic brainwashing recruitment. Nice to see the ugly monsters as the good guys for a change too.
Scientific Method: There are a series of species encounters ‘on the go’ with aliens that have evolved unusual natural defences or have very distinctive methods. This si one of my favourites. Calling into question the morality of science in the RW and even that of our heroes. Some other examples are the aliens who conquer with substitution, the sleeping aliens, aliens who can’t be remembered,
The Omega Directive: Great tribute to classic Trek but with excellent use of the Borg as a counterpoint perspective on the directive.
Random Thoughts: Telepathic backwash? Criminal justice applied to it?
Living Witness: Use of artificial intelligence’s ‘immortality’ in an examination of the notion of historical truth.
Demon: Taking the exploration angle to an environment that would normally be overlooked. At last, not another M class world. Similarly Night has them traversing an area where there’s just nothing for an extended period. It’s against type but presents opportunities.
In the Flesh: Ace take on old Soviet style spy training towns.
Timeless: Back From the Future! Our heroes saved from certain death by their future selves.
Thirty Days: Leading character breaks the rules and is demoted (for a long time).
Gravity and Blink of an Eye: Both inventive takes on time moving at different relative speeds.
Bliss: Take on the sirens with interstellar predator.
Dark Frontier: The Hansens as scientists acting outside of Starfleet seen in practice. Good bit of bubble bursting.
Course Oblivion: By this time the show was often playing on itself. This was one of the best examples and a superb surprise.
Alice: Symbiotic spacecraft, malign influence of telepathic interface.
Dragon’s Teeth: Strong premise of army in suspended animation. No doubt some will point to Khan but that’d be missing a lot. This is a civilization saved for the future not imprisoned. The heroes, following the initial accident, wake them up as allies only to discover their mistake.
The Voyager Conspiracy: Could hardly be targeted more at the audience and its perceived tendency to overlap with the conspiracy nut demographic.
Virtuoso: Alien society that’s never experienced music.
Memorial: Innovative take on the idea of a war memorial.
Ashes to Ashes: Procreation through the reanimation of the dead.
Child’s Play: Viral warfare against the Borg. Obviously a play on ‘I Borg’, and perhaps ‘Descent’ too, but this is so much darker with a race so desperate that they are sacrificing their children.
Live Fast and Prosper: Hilarious satire of Federation nobility. If you can’t laugh at yourself...
Unimatrix Zero: Hypothesizing dream state in collective consciousness. Excellent new angle on the Borg.
Repression: The Maquis taking over the ship had always seemed like a likely plot to occur in Voyager in the early days. It finally happened when there appeared to be no chance of it ever happening.
Critical Care: Laboured essay against Obamacare (or the NHS for those of us in the more civilized parts of the world...) also explores the potential for slavery of AI’s.
Body and Soul: AIs and cybernetics in slapstick hi-jinks.
Flesh and Blood: Logical progression from earlier story sees misuse of donated tech. Prime Directive actually looks sensible for once.
Prophecy: Klingon religious nuts. One of them even appears to be a reasonable person rather than the usual caricature. Batleths still appear to be the most impractical weapon ever devised though. Paris really should have looked into the possibility of being allowed to use a sword against one of the idiot Klingons –he’s have cut him to ribbons.
Workforce: great sci-fi labour shortage idea.
Friendship One: Decent idea for pro-Prime Directive narrative. Tragic death of likeable minor character nudged audience towards weighing the moral balance of the story (not relevant to what I’m talking about here but I just thought I’d mention it as it upset many –I think it carried storytelling weight).
I've read about suspicions that McCoys accent was fake.
All that Old southern country Doctor spiel is %100 bullshit.
Maybe Chakotay is faking it too, and just making stuff up on the spot.
Why, why on Io would he do that?
To pick up women of course, why else has man ever done anything?
All that Old southern country Doctor spiel is %100 bullshit.
Maybe Chakotay is faking it too, and just making stuff up on the spot.
Why, why on Io would he do that?
To pick up women of course, why else has man ever done anything?
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