Did Voyager Just Fail to Adapt The Changing Landscape of Televsion

[The Overlord]

Did Voyager Just Fail to Adapt to The Changing Landscape of Televsion

A common criticism of Voyager, at least at first, was that it felt like a rehash of TNG, rather its own thing. The big problem is, TNG came out in 1987 and Voyager came out in 1995. By the mid 90s, television was starting change: episodic Sci-Fi series were being replaced by ones with ongoing plots: X-Files, Babylon 5 and of course DS9. Trying to recreate a popular show from 1987 in 1995 and ignoring what was going on in television at time seemed like folly, perhaps that's what Voyager from the onset.

Do you think Voyager failed to adapt to changing landscape of television from the on set?

 

[Akiraprise]

The initial show runners saw the changing tv landscape. The entire premise of VOY lended itself to an ongoing plot arc. Unfortunately UPN at the time wanted nothing to do with that type of show. They wanted TNG mark 2. If VOY had been syndicated like TNG and DS9 we'd have had a way different series I think.

 

[The Wormhole]

I wouldn't say it "failed to." Rather, UPN didn't allow it to.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager failed to write interesting stories. It could have been episodic and a much better show, just over half the talent had been siphoned off by DS9 and what was left was running low on creative juices.

 

[Lance]

^ What those guys said.

The Voyager writers might have recognised a change in television, but they were not hired by UPN to do a serialised show, even though the original format (like TNG and DS9 before it) certainly allowed for long-form storytelling.

You don't ingratiate yourself to your bosses by telling them they're wrong. Even when you, they, and everybody's dog knows it.

Also, I find the notion that "Voyager didn't adapt to the TV landscape" argument rather dubious. There weren't much dramas of the typically serialised variety on American television in 1994, and even by 2001 the examples were limited to a small handful of the Buffy/Charmed/BSG variety (it was accepted, but hardly widespread). It wasn't like Voyager was flying through a TV landscape littered with serialised shows the likes of which we take for granted as 'normal' today.

Enterprise, on the other hand, was borne into a television landscape where season long story arcs were an accepted norm, and we can see them adapting to that throughout the run.

 

[The Wormhole]

Also, I find the notion that "Voyager didn't adapt to the TV landscape" argument rather dubious. There weren't much dramas of the typically serialised variety on American television in 1994, and even by 2001 the examples were limited to a small handful of the Buffy/Charmed/BSG variety (it was accepted, but hardly widespread). It wasn't like Voyager was flying through a TV landscape littered with serialised shows the likes of which we take for granted as 'normal' today.

Enterprise, on the other hand, was borne into a television landscape where season long story arcs were an accepted norm, and we can see them adapting to that throughout the run.

But also, the "Event of the Week" type show was fading by 2000. I can think of about five shows I was watching at that time which did have developing story arcs, meanwhile we had UPN actually issuing edicts to Voyager not to have a story last longer than two parts.

The only reason Enterprise was allowed to do they season long Xindi arc was because story arcs were becoming "cool."

 

[Lance]

Also, I find the notion that "Voyager didn't adapt to the TV landscape" argument rather dubious. There weren't much dramas of the typically serialised variety on American television in 1994, and even by 2001 the examples were limited to a small handful of the Buffy/Charmed/BSG variety (it was accepted, but hardly widespread). It wasn't like Voyager was flying through a TV landscape littered with serialised shows the likes of which we take for granted as 'normal' today.

Enterprise, on the other hand, was borne into a television landscape where season long story arcs were an accepted norm, and we can see them adapting to that throughout the run.

But also, the "Event of the Week" type show was fading by 2000. I can think of about five shows I was watching at that time which did have developing story arcs, meanwhile we had UPN actually issuing edicts to Voyager not to have a story last longer than two parts.

The only reason Enterprise was allowed to do they season long Xindi arc was because story arcs were becoming "cool."

Of course serialised storytelling was being adopted by 2000, shows like Buffy were at their critical zenith then, and certainly any show created at that time would have been done so with the expectation (or, at least, the possibilities) of long-form storytelling in mind.

But, I would argue, it wasn't the era of Voyager. Voyager was almost finished by then. It would have been like trying to change course on a ship when it's only a few miles from it's destination. Appreciated, perhaps, but not so easy to do. Air-lifting out a character like Kes and dropping in a character like Seven was a considerably easier task than changing the entire course of a series' format on a dime. Especially when their pay-masters at UPN expressly forbid them from doing story arcs.

They went into the creation of Enterprise with a much greater ability to tackle those changes from the get-go (and make the case to UPN that viewers expected something more from their television these days). It was baby steps, but the sense of change was palpable.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I have not read this thread but my answer is YES. But not YES for specifically VOY, yes for the whole of Star Trek.

I can hear the future screams when Star Trek embraces FOR REAL changing landscapes. People will clench.

The impulse to hold old shit, aka what you love, in TIGHT never to be dislodged is a powerful one.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You'd make a swell life coach for heroin mules.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

"Before the dogs can even sniff it out you will have absorbed the ESSENTIAL molecules and, via absorption, you will be soooo chill. This is SCIENCE!"

 

[JD5000]

They went into the creation of Enterprise with a much greater ability to tackle those changes from the get-go (and make the case to UPN that viewers expected something more from their television these days).

To me, this is an argument that Voyager did something right, not despite of but because of it's limitations. If Voyager had the stop/false start/start/false stop continuity of the Enterprise story arc(s), I wouldn't be watching episodes right this second.

 

[Nebusj]

Also, I find the notion that "Voyager didn't adapt to the TV landscape" argument rather dubious. There weren't much dramas of the typically serialised variety on American television in 1994, and even by 2001 the examples were limited to a small handful of the Buffy/Charmed/BSG variety (it was accepted, but hardly widespread). It wasn't like Voyager was flying through a TV landscape littered with serialised shows the likes of which we take for granted as 'normal' today.

Yeah, looking over the circa-1995 network lineups, it's really not clear to me that serialized dramas were taking over, or that they were particularly popular. The most successful serialized shows were the evening soap operas, like Melrose Place or 90210 and nobody's ever thought of making a science fiction soap opera.

Some shows, like NYPD Blue or Homicide were successful (at least artistically) and had serialized elements; but, e.g., Murder One flopped famously. And the most successful dramas seem to have been quite episodic, like Murder She Wrote, or Law and Order.

I do think Voyager failed its premise by not taking it more seriously: as I remember the buzz everyone was interested in a Star Trek where the characters had to do more heavy lifting, where we might see a shiny future that has to be patched up under impossibly remote conditions. But it turned out the hardships the characters had were more like they only had fourteen kinds of tomato soup to choose from. And how long did it take to get a spacetime-anomaly reset-button story out of the show?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The term "reset button" in the context of Star Trek means that no one EVER talks about what happened last week, no matter what happened last week, every week.

The reset button is pushed between episodes.

In Non Sequitur no one mentions Kes trying to have babies with Neelix, and he wasn't interested until the humans twisted his arm.

In Twisted no one mentions that Harry destroyed the universe and replaced it with a different universe.

In Parturition no one mentions that Neelix is a jealous fuck.. Oh? They did. Okay that's two episodes in a row where he's being a jealous fuck, but these are separate unconnected instances of jealousy. No one mentions the ship being turned inside out? No, no they didn't.

In Persistence of Vision no one mentions Neelix and Tom's food fight.

In Tattoo no one mentions being attacked in their day dreams (again?).

In Cold Fire no one mentions that Chakotay met his gods and proved that his religion is not bullshit.

In Manoeuvres no one mentions almost murdering a Caretaker or Kes almost cheating on Nelix with Tannis.

In Resistance no one mentioned the Kazon crashing a fucking shuttle into the side of Voyager.

In Prototype no one mentioned a couple days without power, or that the day was only saved by Janeway pretending to be a prostitute.

...

It's called a reset button because no one learns anything. They wake up as almost same person from the pilot tableau erasa, no matter how many thought provoking morality plays they they go through for years on end.



Don't get me wrong. This is how all tv was made until the mid nineties, and it's still how most scripted drama is made today.

The difference is the tie in shit running off the production line for Star Trek.

All those novels and comics and the bloody 80 dollar encyclopaedia that insists that every episode is important and connected when they clearly are not.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes and No, it might be more accurate to say it failed t live up to its premise. The premise off the show leaned towards a more serialised apprach, yet what we got was a more episodic show. If for example the show was set in the AQ/BQ along the Federation border or just outside of it. Then I don't think it would have come under as much critisim as it has for certain things. As has been pointed out contempary shows such as B5, DSN, The X-Files had a more serialised apprach. So sure perhaps it wasn't as common then as it is now, but VOY with it's largely episodic approach found itself on what is now the less common side.

And the end of the day VOY generally played it safe rarely daring to take a risk, now this might be because of a network edict, the show runner(s) etc.. But does it really matter where the edict came from.

Sure in more heavily arc based shows if you miss an episode it can cause issues, but that's what the Last Time/ Previously on segment is for to remind the audinace of things they might have missed/forgotten that are relevant to this episode.

They made the same mistake with ENT for the first two season they played it safe, it wasn't until S3 when they took a risk with a season long arc like 24. Then the following season they switched to mor serialsed/arc based story telling. But buy that time it was too little to late. Aside from the core base the general audiance had simply moved onto other shows. Would they have gone if ST had been less risk adverse I can't say, nobody can.

and nobody's ever thought of making a science fiction soap opera.

I beg to differ, I present Jupiter Moon


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Moon

 

[Lexx Shrapnel]

I have not read this thread but my answer is YES. But not YES for specifically VOY, yes for the whole of Star Trek.

I can hear the future screams when Star Trek embraces FOR REAL changing landscapes. People will clench.

The impulse to hold old shit, aka what you love, in TIGHT never to be dislodged is a powerful one.

A new Trek series will be very different than anything before.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I have not read this thread but my answer is YES. But not YES for specifically VOY, yes for the whole of Star Trek.

I can hear the future screams when Star Trek embraces FOR REAL changing landscapes. People will clench.

The impulse to hold old shit, aka what you love, in TIGHT never to be dislodged is a powerful one.

A new Trek series will be very different than anything before.

I wasn't aware that they were planning one.

 

[JD5000]

I wasn't aware that they were planning one.

Closest thing at this point is "Renegades", website says they are planning to have the pilot ready to pitch to CBS by 2/10. I think what's been released looks pretty cool and I like the premise, fingers crossed.

 

[Kobayshi Maru]

I wasn't aware that they were planning one.

Closest thing at this point is "Renegades", website says they are planning to have the pilot ready to pitch to CBS by 2/10. I think what's been released looks pretty cool and I like the premise, fingers crossed.

That would be great. To think that I was convinced that ENT would be the very last one.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's called brand confusion, and there's also brand dilution.

A shitty TV show might probably stop people from seeing their next movie.

Even a good tv show will create brand exhaustion. Why buy the cow at the movie theatre when you can get the milk for free at home?

 

[Anwar]

Voyager's other big problem was that the show didn't really have a plot or premise. Not a sustainable one anyways. All they had was a mini-series plot, but not something you could really stretch out for more than 1 season without things getting stale.