Can we just pretend that Voyager never happened?

[Iamnotspock]

I actually like Voyager best of all the Treks. It got back to doing what the series does best -episodic, imaginative stories with the focus on exploration. It got away from the horrible mistake of attempting to do a character driven, novelistic epic storyline that failed so miserably with DS9. It also moved away from the political correctness that infected TNG (great as that show was at its peak) and utterly swamped DS9 so the characters didn't just behave as if they were reading from a safety manual.

 

[Sarahjs]

This show was such a trainwreck. Poor acting, poor writing, poor directing. This is the show that began the slow decline of Trek.

I'm going to pretend you never posted this in the Voyager forum! Not sure if this is an attempt at trolling, but it seems to be to me.

In answer to your question - you are more than welcome to pretend that Voyager never happened, but don't expect everyone else to by saying "we".

 

[Dukhat]

Nobody makes you watch it. Personally, I see VOY as 2 different series. Kes VOY & 7 of 9 VOY and I prefer 7 of 9 VOY. I prefer it because I think Jeri Ryan is a better actress in a stronger role than Jennifer Lien. I also prefer it because the scriptwriting is stronger and the show wisely concentrated on Janeway, The Doctor and 7 of 9 and left the other, less interesting, characters to fight over the scraps.

Interesting. I feel the same way you do (about seasons 1-3 and seasons 4-7), but for the complete opposite reasons. I use "seasons" here instead of a Kes/7of9 debate because I don't feel that either of them were any better of an actor than the other. Rather, that there was a huge shift in writing between the end of season 3 and the start of season 4, to the complete detriment of the show. Contrary to your opinion, the writing focused way too much on Janeway, Seven, and the Doctor, while the far more interesting characters like Tom Paris, Chakotay and Tuvok were just shit on. By the end of the show Chakotay could have literally just been played by a stand-in. Contrast that with the emphasis in the beginning of his spirtuality, spirit guides and vision quests, which could have been the defining characteristic of VOY and made it a truly unique show based on the lack of technology use instead of shoveling technobabble down our throats.

 

[Lynx]

Voyager was a good show with a good premise, good charaters and good actors.

Unfortunately, those in charge messed it up in the later seasons.

But as someone wrote in a post above, it's possible to save the show by omitting certain events.

1. See the events in "Threshold" as a nightmare Janeway had after eating too much of Neelix's food.

2. Forget the "Sky Spirits" rubbish in "Tattoo" and focus on Chakotay's relationship to his father instead.

3. Forget a certain insulting, character-destroying crap episode in season 6 and replace it with my story "Coming Home" which can be found on my "Kes Website".

4. Pretend that Lt Carey wasn't killed of and pretend that "Homestead" never happened. Nelix's place is with his colleagues and friends.

5. Pretend that "Endgame" never happened. They arrived home in another way.

I just realized that I have to add another point:

6. Pretend that "Mortal Coil" never happened. Horrible episode.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Voyager was a good show with a good premise, good charaters and good actors.

Unfortunately, those in charge messed it up in the later seasons.

But as someone wrote in a post above, it's possible to save the show by omitting certain events.

1. See the events in "Threshold" as a nightmare Janeway had after eating too much of Neelix's food.

2. Forget the "Sky Spirits" rubbish in "Tattoo" and focus on Chakotay's relationship to his father instead.

3. Forget a certain insulting, character-destroying crap episode in season 6 and replace it with my story "Coming Home" which can be found on my "Kes Website".

4. Pretend that Lt Carey wasn't killed of and pretend that "Homestead" never happened. Nelix's place is with his colleagues and friends.

5. Pretend that "Endgame" never happened. They arrived home in another way.

I just realized that I have to add another point:

6. Pretend that "Mortal Coil" never happened. Horrible episode.

Or they could rewrite it and make Seven say; "His function on this ship is... What is it exactly? Never mind, I don't know how to revive him captain...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

It would have been interesting if at some point 7 had repaired something when she should have been reviving someone because she considered that person less essential than what she was repairing.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Nobody makes you watch it. Personally, I see VOY as 2 different series. Kes VOY & 7 of 9 VOY and I prefer 7 of 9 VOY. I prefer it because I think Jeri Ryan is a better actress in a stronger role than Jennifer Lien. I also prefer it because the scriptwriting is stronger and the show wisely concentrated on Janeway, The Doctor and 7 of 9 and left the other, less interesting, characters to fight over the scraps.

My opinion in this matter are the exact opposite of yours.

I consider the show as two series. Star Trek Voyager and Star Trek Seven Of Nine.

Considering your icon, I am unsurprised by your perfectly valid opinion. Peace.

 

[JeffinOakland]

Nobody makes you watch it. Personally, I see VOY as 2 different series. Kes VOY & 7 of 9 VOY and I prefer 7 of 9 VOY. I prefer it because I think Jeri Ryan is a better actress in a stronger role than Jennifer Lien. I also prefer it because the scriptwriting is stronger and the show wisely concentrated on Janeway, The Doctor and 7 of 9 and left the other, less interesting, characters to fight over the scraps.

Interesting. I feel the same way you do (about seasons 1-3 and seasons 4-7), but for the complete opposite reasons. I use "seasons" here instead of a Kes/7of9 debate because I don't feel that either of them were any better of an actor than the other. Rather, that there was a huge shift in writing between the end of season 3 and the start of season 4, to the complete detriment of the show. Contrary to your opinion, the writing focused way too much on Janeway, Seven, and the Doctor, while the far more interesting characters like Tom Paris, Chakotay and Tuvok were just shit on. By the end of the show Chakotay could have literally just been played by a stand-in. Contrast that with the emphasis in the beginning of his spirtuality, spirit guides and vision quests, which could have been the defining characteristic of VOY and made it a truly unique show based on the lack of technology use instead of shoveling technobabble down our throats.

Fair enough. I consider Tom and Chakotay among the least interesting main characters in all of ST. I don't even dislike them. I just think they (and Harry and B'Leanna) are boring and poorly acted. The Native American "stuff" was racist crap and wisely discarded. Technobabble is long-standing Achilles heel of ST and any other space-based SF/Fantasy story. When the science doesn't exist in real life, you have to fake it and the fakery inevitable sounds like the bs it is.

 

[bbjeg]

^I liked Tom, especially his Captain Proton character. He was a cool pilot and a bit of a dork, two things I'd be if I was a Star Trek character.

It would have been interesting if at some point 7 had repaired something when she should have been reviving someone because she considered that person less essential than what she was repairing.

That would have been interesting, especially during her early days.

 

[JeffinOakland]

^I liked Tom, especially his Captain Proton character. He was a cool pilot and a bit of a dork, two things I'd be if I was a Star Trek character.

It would have been interesting if at some point 7 had repaired something when she should have been reviving someone because she considered that person less essential than what she was repairing.

That would have been interesting, especially during her early days.

He's likable enough. I think of Voyager, in general, as "the potential show." Many of the characters have potential to be really interesting but nothing happens. Only The Dr. snd 7 of 9 have character arcs. Tom in the beginning of Season 1 is the same Tom as the end of Season 7. A "bad boy" who can be childish and sarcastic and misguided but is a decent sort who means well and isn't that bad.

 

[Akiraprise]

Sure you can pretend it didn't happen, it won't change the fact that it happened.

This.

And let's not forget that the people who actually made the show didn't want it to be like this. I mean, they wanted "Year of Hell" to last an entire season! It was pure, unvarnished network interference that made them do what they did. The network bean-counters specifically ordered the show to be TNG-lite. The actual writers, producers, etc. had no choice in the matter.

That being said: I liked Voyager. There were some of its episodes (Blink of an Eye, One Small Step, Living Witness) that are some of my favorite Trek ever made. There are also some stinkers. But there's not a show in the history of TV that didn't have a similar diversity in quality.

Think of it this way: No show is so bad that someone, somewhere will not enjoy it...and the reverse is also true.

True this. Loved Voyager best of all series. Capt Janeway and her coffee fixation for the win!

 

[Makarov]

Voyager gets a bad rap unfairly imo... when you look at the stranded in the delta quadrant thing as just a setting and drop the expectation of a continuous plot, it's a lot better. Quite a few episodes measure up to TNG's standard in my opinion. And the Doctor is on Data's level as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Horizons96]

It had lost potential but it has been a beacon in my life. That outweighs the disappointments.

EXACTLY! I think, to lesser extents, the same can be said of all Trek series.

I remember towards the end of the series whilst still in production (2000-2001) I had lost faith in Voyager, but upon re-watching all of them 12 months ago, I not only completely renewed my faith in Voyager but absolutely fell in love with it and its characters. For example when I watched a couple of episodes of Enterprise back in 2003 i HATED it, turned it off in disgust and threw the remote at the wall. The theme song was the salt in the wound. Now, in 2014 I have begun for the first time actually watching them from start to end, and I cannot overstate how much I absolutely LOVE it, LOVE and empathise with the characters (shedding tears over episodes is a nightly occurrence) and I sing the theme song to my cats when I come home! Oh how times and feelings can change!

Voyager forever!

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

Voyager gets a bad rap unfairly imo... when you look at the stranded in the delta quadrant thing as just a setting and drop the expectation of a continuous plot, it's a lot better. Quite a few episodes measure up to TNG's standard in my opinion. And the Doctor is on Data's level as far as I'm concerned.

Actually, the Doctor is a much better Character than Data, whom I found boring at times. I was getting sick of his "I can't (sorry "I cannot", that can't do contractions crap was also getting on my nerves) feel emotions" theme. Enough already!

 

[MacLeod]

I'd much rather forget that DS9 ever happened.

...or the presentation of the Klingons in any of the post TOS TV series which is ludicrous and catastrophic (yet still hugely popular with the fanbase).

I actually like Voyager best of all the Treks. It got back to doing what the series does best -episodic, imaginative stories with the focus on exploration. It got away from the horrible mistake of attempting to do a character driven, novelistic epic storyline that failed so miserably with DS9. It also moved away from the political correctness that infected TNG (great as that show was at its peak) and utterly swamped DS9 so the characters didn't just behave as if they were reading from a safety manual. It often managed to put an interesting twist on the staples of sci-fi programming.

Unfortunatly I found most of VOY largely unimaginative, retreads of what TNG did. You do realise that characterisation is a key component of any storytelling, and how exactly did it fail miserably with DSN? You might not have liked it but that is different from it failing to do a a more character driven storyline as you put it.

And I found VOY largely stayed away from having imaginative twists on Sci-Fi staples, but out of interests what interesting twists did you spot?

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I'd much rather forget that DS9 ever happened.

...or the presentation of the Klingons in any of the post TOS TV series which is ludicrous and catastrophic (yet still hugely popular with the fanbase).

I actually like Voyager best of all the Treks. It got back to doing what the series does best -episodic, imaginative stories with the focus on exploration. It got away from the horrible mistake of attempting to do a character driven, novelistic epic storyline that failed so miserably with DS9. It also moved away from the political correctness that infected TNG (great as that show was at its peak) and utterly swamped DS9 so the characters didn't just behave as if they were reading from a safety manual. It often managed to put an interesting twist on the staples of sci-fi programming.

Unfortunatly I found most of VOY largely unimaginative, retreads of what TNG did. You do realise that characterisation is a key component of any storytelling, and how exactly did it fail miserably with DSN? You might not have liked it but that is different from it failing to do a a more character driven storyline as you put it.

And I found VOY largely stayed away from having imaginative twists on Sci-Fi staples, but out of interests what interesting twists did you spot?

I don't know, like when it turned out that the kids were the old people in one episode. That came as a surprise to me.

 

[mahler]

You all raise some valid points perhaps I need to review some of this show again. What are the best episodes from each season?

 

[Lynx]

You all raise some valid points perhaps I need to review some of this show again. What are the best episodes from each season?

Best season 1 episodes: Caretaker, Time And Again, Ex Post Facto, Jetrel, Projections (note that I count "Projections" as a season 1 episode due to stardates and production)

Best season 2 episodes: Cold Fire, Persistence of Visioon, Basics #1, Alliances, Meld

Best season 3 episodes: Basics #2, Warlord, The Swarm, Future's End (parts 1 and 2), Darkling

Best season 4 episodes: Nemesis

Best seasons 5&6 episodes: Equinox (parts 1 and 2), Blink Of An Eye

I must admit that I love seasons 1, 2 and 3 but I don't care too much about seasons 4-7 for obvious reasons.

 

[Melakon]

I don't know, like when it turned out that the kids were the old people in one episode. That came as a surprise to me.

I actually had a problem with that one ("Innocence") when I saw it in first run. It felt like something I had seen in the 60s or 70s, and the old to young business was definitely mentioned in an old book I had on writing science fiction that called it an overused cliche.

 

[hux]

Voyager is my favourite but i'm still smart enough to recognise the fact that it doesn't get anywhere near the drama or character development seen in DS9

Aside from the intriguing Dominion war, DS9 is swarming with fascinating characters....some of which aren't even regulars (the enhanced doctor, the mysterious shape shifter, the battle weary Bajoran, the sinister Cardassian spy, the jem hadar soldiers, the mad Cardassian Leader, Michael Eddington, the perverse Bajoran spiritual leader, the shady Ferenghi barkeep, Sloane etc etc

Even without dialogue, Morn manages to be more engaging than Harry Kim

And chief O'Brien is sublime as the everyman (the anchor)

DS9 was unique though in that it could have a huge number of characters coming and going

It is the jewel in the Trek crown as far as i'm concerned

But i still love Voyager the most. I guess you have to enjoy the lost in space premise to really appreciate it