What the hell? People didnt complain about Q-Who or Descent because they were well told stories!
And I'm saying that folks would've been more inclined to see the flaws of those stories rather than the good points, if they were Voyager episodes instead of TNG episodes.
And sure, the whole Borg conquer Earth thing was a big part of the story, but the main story was about Riker, which is something that could have been replicated on VOY.
How? Riker's story there was about him stepping up and proving himself in a major situation but it was just one subplot in an episode full of subplots for various characters. What would the VOY equivalent be, Chakotay wondering if he had a future on the ship? If he wanted he could just leave and be done with it.
And yes, without the greater storyline of the Borg wanting to conquer Earth it just falls apart. If it was about the Borg wanting to conquer some random planet VOY was nearby, the audience wouldn't care about the fate of those people and they'd think it was a waste of time for VOY to bother wanting to protect them.
Why dont you explain how its different, instead of just saying it is?
In NuBSG, they don't have replicators and they've never done deep space exploration before and the Galactica (plus all the other vessels) were all older clunkier things. Thus they have more reasons for needing resupplies and all that.
They also have a "magic" teleport engine that cannot be tracked, meaning whenever they use it the enemy can't just tell where they've gone and keep following them. They have a better escape method than VOY did for travel and running from enemies.
They also have a huge number of unarmed civilians to protect, which means they also have tons of cannon fodder to sacrifice to their enemy if the situation calls for it while again VOY has nothing to sacrifice or build up an enemy with.
Also, the Fleet is all that's left of their civilization meaning if they die then that's it. VOY is just one insignificant ship with an insignificant crew whom no one would care about or miss if they died, with no greater importance to anything or anybody.
Again, you seem to be judging a reimagining of Voyager by the standard of the current Voyager!
TNG did a good job of setting things up for DS9 with the Cardassians and Bajorans and showing their history and how they'd have differences with the Feds. DS9 in turn did NOT do a good job setting up the Maquis as a faction opposed to the Feds. There were no real differences between them, they weren't true enemies (the Cardassians were their foes, not the Feds) and the sole reason for conflict (The DMZ) was now too far away to continue fighting about.
They should have used the Romulans instead, they're the oldest enemy of the Federation and have well-established views/cultural differences/politics opposed to the Federation that would fuel lots of good stories. Plus, they'd add to things with their more militant attitudes and disciplines and better ability at spying and manipulations.
A big problem in Voyager is that the characters didnt really embody any values or functions. Janeway was just always right, she didnt have an interesting flaw like Kirk, Picard or Sisko did. Chakotay basically just agreed with her, unless te story was specifically about him disagreeing with her. Torres was totally useless, everyone else seemed to be just as good with the working of the ship as she was. Harry Kim was just the ensign. Tuvok was just this Vulcan who said 'logical' a lot. Tom was just the pilot. It never seemed like any one character was particularly necessary for ship functions, or for the dynamics of the story. Thats what was wrong with Voyager.
One flaw was having the cast be too large, the central characters should've been Janeway/Chakotay/Paris/Tuvok/The Doctor, with Kim/Kes/Neelix/Torres as Secondary recurring characters.
At least with shows like Farscape, the ship was automated and didn't need a crew. Thus the characters didn't need to work together and were allowed to have traits for better conflict and group dynamics.
