Do you think Voyager would have been better...

[John200]

if it had all the focus?

I never understood why they had to run two shows at once.

I think the logical thing would have been to wait for DS9 to end before stating a new show ,but that's just me.

Voyager really suffers for it ,and is the worst of the Treks because of it.

lol one of the writers even admitted to being scatter brained in interviews.

 

[di_mar]

Personally, I quite enjoyed DS9 running at the same time as Voyager..it allowed them to have little tie-ins. E.g: Quark in Caretaker.
It also allowed the viewer to have a 'breath of fresh air'. One could feel the Starfleet experience again in the Alpha Quadrant without having to watch old episodes of TOS and TNG. Since Voyager was stranded, you couldn't really see what was happening much with regards to Starfleet.

 

[Oparu]

I liked both running at the same time too because they had very different flavours. It was nice to have the contrast.

 

[kimc]

if it had all the focus?

I never understood why they had to run two shows at once.

I think the logical thing would have been to wait for DS9 to end before stating a new show ,but that's just me.

Voyager really suffers for it ,and is the worst of the Treks because of it.

lol one of the writers even admitted to being scatter brained in interviews.

While I disagree with you that Voyager is the worst of the Treks it may have been better for the writing staff to focus on one show at a time. Despite what may be the best series opener in "Caretaker" for several shows after that it was the "anamoly of the week". Oh, and it only took a few episodes for them to fall back on that old time travel crutch. ("Time and Again").

 

[SpyOne]

Remember that DS9 premiered in the sixth season of TNG: they'd been doing two shows at the same time for two years already. TNG ended, and Voyager debuted halfway through the next season of DS9.

I think it might have been better if they hadn't done both at once. They could, for instance, have had all their best writers working on the same show.
On the other hand, your best writers are occasionally going to come up with a great idea that just doesn't fit the show they are currently working on: by having two different shows on the air at the same time, you are sometimes able to use those ideas on the other show.
Of course, the ability to borrow props and sets from each other is an incentive: those are a big part of why science fiction is more expensive than contemporary fiction, and the more shows use them on the less it costs each show.

 

[Anwar]

Berman wanted to wait until DS9 was done to do VOY, so yes I agree with that. I also think it shouldn't have been a network show, doing that brings down too much executive meddling and attention. If it was syndicated then the writers wouldn't have been saddled with the enormous interference they had.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I kind of thought that DS9 and VOY operated independently of one another. Yes, Rick Berman oversaw both shows, but I think the shows ultimately had different writing staffs and showrunner teams (Ira Steven Behr & Ronald D. Moore on DS9, and Jeri Taylor & Brannon Braga on VOY).

As far as why they had to run two Trek shows, it was solely because of UPN. VOY was really used to launch the then brand-new network. Without UPN, it's possible that Series IV might have debuted in syndication in 1998 or 1999--and it could have been a very different show with different creators behind it...

 

[Navaros]

No, Voyager would not have been better if it had all the focus. The focus of Berman is what made Voyager much worse than DS9. When Berman mostly handed off DS9 to other men so he could focus on Voyager instead, that is when DS9 stopped being a formula show like TNG and Voyager, and evolved into something much better than them both. Berman moving his focus from DS9 to Voyager is the best possible thing that could possibly have happened for DS9, but to the detriment of Voyager.

The exact opposite of what you are proposing is true. Voyager would have been much better if it never had any of Berman's focus. But in that case, DS9 would have remained a bad show from Seasons 2-7, instead of a great one, because Berman's focus would have been continuing to drag it down instead of Voyager.

If they did one at a time, then Voyager would have remained just as bad as the Voyager they made is, and DS9 would have been that bad as well. It wouldn't have helped Voyager be better in any way.

 

[Arix]

Berman wanted to wait until DS9 was done to do VOY, so yes I agree with that. I also think it shouldn't have been a network show, doing that brings down too much executive meddling and attention. If it was syndicated then the writers wouldn't have been saddled with the enormous interference they had.

I agree with you Anwar (wow, never thought I'd say that ), I think having all the executive meddling and attention was why Voyager was not as good as it could have been.

I kind of thought that DS9 and VOY operated independently of one another. Yes, Rick Berman oversaw both shows, but I think the shows ultimately had different writing staffs and showrunner teams (Ira Steven Behr & Ronald D. Moore on DS9, and Jeri Taylor & Brannon Braga on VOY).

Yeah, from what I've heard they were fairly independant - if it wasn't for Ira Behr becoming the showrunner and (from what I understand) standing up to Berman and the other execs, DS9 might not have been as great as it was.

No, Voyager would not have been better if it had all the focus. The focus of Berman is what made Voyager much worse than DS9. When Berman mostly handed off DS9 to other men so he could focus on Voyager instead, that is when DS9 stopped being a formula show like TNG and Voyager, and evolved into something much better than them both. Berman moving his focus from DS9 to Voyager is the best possible thing that could possibly have happened for DS9, but to the detriment of Voyager.

The exact opposite of what you are proposing is true. Voyager would have been much better if it never had any of Berman's focus. But in that case, DS9 would have remained a bad show from Seasons 2-7, instead of a great one, because Berman's focus would have been continuing to drag it down instead of Voyager.

If they did one at a time, then Voyager would have remained just as bad as the Voyager they made is, and DS9 would have been that bad as well. It wouldn't have helped Voyager be better in any way.

This.

Though I won't say its entirely Berman's fault - they just needed someone like Ira Behr who was willing to stand up for the show and stop TBTB from meddling in the show, to its detriment.

 

[Anwar]

It wouldn't have mattered if VOY had Ira Behr or Ron Moore doing it, it would've turned out the same. UPN was the problem, not the showrunners (except maybe Jeri Taylor).

And despite Ira Behr's whining (or Navaros'), DS9 would've turned out the same if Berman had been involved more in it.

 

[exodus]

The exact opposite of what you are proposing is true. Voyager would have been much better if it never had any of Berman's focus. But in that case, DS9 would have remained a bad show from Seasons 2-7, instead of a great one, because Berman's focus would have been continuing to drag it down instead of Voyager.

If they did one at a time, then Voyager would have remained just as bad as the Voyager they made is, and DS9 would have been that bad as well. It wouldn't have helped Voyager be better in any way.

I think it's become to easy to put the blame of EVERYTHING wrong in Trek or Voyager on just one or two people like Berman & Braga because they are the only names we associate with EVERYTHING going on behind the scenes. Nobody ever takes into consideration that every shows success and/or failure is a group effort of all those involved with it. Berman is only one man in the soapbox of ideas that went into the creation and evolution of Voyager. Just like Ira didn't single handedly make DS9 what it was nor did Roddenberry alone make TOS or TNG the legends they are either.