I suppose I thought Riker-Troi was the soap opera cliche and Troi-Worf represented TPTB willing to move past it a bit.
For starters, Starfleet didn't get Voyager's logs until the year after the Dominion War ended. And the more important question is, why didn't Voyager just use warp 10 to get home after Threshold since they had a cure for the Salamander thing?
Because they couldn't control where you re-emerged from transwarp space. Maybe they needed a tardigrade navigator
Yeah, I know. My point was, after a couple of token mentions in subsequent episodes, the writers realized what a bad idea it was and dropped it. ...So, technobabble BS, then. Because then they'd have to recall what happened in "Threshold," and that's truly a more hideous fate than being stranded in the Delta Quadrant.
But they did get a full briefing from The Doctor during the War, at a time just before the Romulans entered it. He may not have gotten all the technical stuff about the flight, but he was there for the results.
A lot got dropped for Worf when he joined DS9. They didn’t even mention Alexander until Sons & Daughters when he’d aged 6 years and dropped 60 IQ points. This reflected really negatively on Worf that he just abandoned him again. I’m curious why the writers didn’t bring in Alexander in S4. Could have made Jake and Nog into a trio.
No. They only sent the Doctor. The logs weren't sent until proper contact was made with Starfleet in Pathfinder in season 6. That's just it, without the technical details, it would have been meaningless. "We achieved warp 10 with a shuttlecraft." "How?" "I'm a doctor, not an engineer. I don't know those details." "Why didn't your crew use it to get home?" "Maybe because it accelerates evolution into salamanders." "...The fuck?" Alexander was mentioned in The Way of the Warrior. He was living with his grandparents on Earth and was happier there then he ever was on the Enterprise.
I knew there was a reason I liked DS9 more than TNG. Perhaps it was because the show already had three kid characters (Jake, Nog, and Molly) and the last thing it needed was a fourth? But as long as keeping Alexander off the show prevented more episodes like the godawful "Cost of Living," I'm all for it.
Another TNG one that I've long wished was followed up. The nicely creepy S6 episode Schisms ends with the antagonist aliens sending a mysterious pulse of energy out into space just before their rift is closed, suggesting we've not seen the last of them, but they never reappear, and the pulse is never explained. A tantalising loose end just left to drift...
With regards to Warp 10, "Threshold" also indicates that Our Heroes had found a new form of dilithium crystal that enabled the events of the episode (per MA). Now, the Feds may have been able to come up with something similar if they had any data regarding the crystals in question (from Folger's, doubtless), but "new form of dilithium crystal" in and of itself probably wouldn't be very helpful.
So instead they completely throw away Worf's TNG S7 character development and make him seem like a deadbeat dad? From a storytelling standpoint, I think if you want to use a character, you need to take all of the character and not change the character into something less respectable to only take the parts you want. They could have given Alexander some kind of minor role without being an annoying presence like he was on TNG.
His service may have been in various (normally) underwhelming departments and roles most of the time. Kind of like a minor league player who's pretty good, but doesn't get as much recognition due to the glut of talented players in the majors (and his generally perceived lack of personality).
You can't develop something that only occurred on one of Barclay's holodeck simulations. "You're just supposed to sit here?"