I agree.
And Anwar, since you seem intent on not understanding my point on recurring characters, I am just going to agree to disagree with you. There comes a point when running in circles with someone is just useless and exhausting.
How would you change the show?
- Thread starter Admiral Jean-Luc Picard
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I agree.
And Anwar, since you seem intent on not understanding my point on recurring characters, I am just going to agree to disagree with you. There comes a point when running in circles with someone is just useless and exhausting.
I'm just saying, VOY's audience was MUCH harder to please than TNG and DS9. Even ENT ended up having it easier.
BTW, NuBSG did nonsense like having the Fleet resupply at Ragnar Anchorage ONCE in the entire series and that lasted them the entire show. If VOY had done that, the demand would have been that every 3 or 4 episodes every season they have to go to a supply base.
And Stargate Universe, when did they need to stop and do maintenance on the ship? Oh right...never!
VOY never should've said anything about their torpedoes or how many crewmembers they had. That way they wouldn't need to keep track.
Let me use Farscape again. That show didn't really have a lot of recurring characters, it mainly came down to Crais and Scorpius. Most everyone else was 1-3 episodes and that's it.
I don't recall anyone saying "Moya should have a bigger crew so we can have more recurring characters".
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Regarding BSG, the Galactica restocked their weapon supply at Ragnar Anchorage. They still needed to find food and other resources, and that was addressed several times in the show's run.
And SGU, if I remember correctly, they did need to fly into certain stars in order to resupply the power to maintain the ship. And it was done at least once that I can recall.
And FARSCAPE also had Commandant Grayza, Lt./Captain Braca, that scientist working on the wormhole project on Scorpius' command carrier (blanking on his name), Noranti, Sikozu, Stark (before and after he was made a regular), War Minister Ahkna, Emperor Staleek.
FARSCAPE and VOYAGER were both ships going through unknown space, but Moya had only a handful of people living aboard. Voyager had a crew of 150... there is no reason why there couldn't be more recurring people on the ship.
Yup. That's exactly the case. People blaming the various audience members upset at the details are ignoring the fact that simply put Voyager set itself up for these problems. It set itself up as one type of show, then moved to a more TNG style show.
Except, they did play around with recurring characters and made distinctions, including in the group that they hired for the vault robbery, "Jack" (the alien), as well as the rest that @Farscape One notes, especially Braca. Farscape did a lot with its premise.
Of all the Trek shows, VOY screams out to be serialised to some degree, the whole premise makes that the most common sense way of producing the show. And for a show that really tried to push the whole "crew as a family" angle, that really didn't apply beyond the core cast and perhaps Naomi Wildman--with less that 200 people aboard there should've been a much tighter sense of community, with a number of notable recurring crewmembers getting their chance to shine.
Really. They had quite a few characters with potential for long term development. Including...
Vorik: A young Vulcan, dealing with things like his first pon'farr (equivalent to being a teenager, maybe). Maybe his emotional control isn't as strong as others of his type?
Sam Wildman: Voyager's only mom (for a time), raising a kid in deep space
Seska: A Cardassian spy, trapped on a Federation ship. They're her only ride home... but can she be trusted?
Lon Suder: A Betazoid who joined the Maquis because he likes killing things... what could go wrong?
Ayella: He's in every episode... why not let him... you know, talk? Or at least mime.
Joe Carey: Passed over for the chief engineer slot... maybe there are still tensions?
Naomi and Icheb: Two kids along on the great adventure.
The Learning Curve Maquis...
The Good Shepherd crewmen...
Maybe a stray Kazon they pick up, or a Hirogen hunter whose respect they earn... there were many possibilities.
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I wish Kashyk from "COUNTERPOINT" stayed. Those two had fantastic chemistry.
Plus, it might have prevented the "Fair Haven" episodes, right?
Yes.
The one weapon resupply was supposed to last them the entire run of the show? Really? Have Voyager do that and raid some Kazon supply depot early in S1, that wouldn't work.
And SGU, if I remember correctly, they did need to fly into certain stars in order to resupply the power to maintain the ship. And it was done at least once that I can recall.
You mean like making Booze and Food out of Algae?
Noranti, Sikozu and Stark were regulars. Akhna and Staleek barely were in the show along with the Wormhole scientist. There's Grayza and Braca, I'll give you. But they were the exceptions, not the standard.
That's why I'm saying Voyager should have had a smaller amount of leads. It should've only been Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, the Doctor and maybe Paris. Everyone else should've been recurring but not Primary.
So figuring out how to overcome their problems is...bad?
They didn't have to worry about pedantic things like "Resupplying constantly", "Repairing constantly", "More background characters", etc. And they had their characters BE from where the show took place, meaning they had built-in connections to their setting and didn't have their characters be complete newcomers. If Voyager had more DQ characters in the crew, this wouldn't be an issue.
A smaller Primary cast would mean it would be easier to do more secondary and recurring characters, too many leads (some of whom the writers themselves didn't care about) made it unnecessarily difficult to build up the rest because the Primaries were fighting over their own exposure.
Look and Hercules and Xena, two of the biggest shows of the 90s. Did they need big primary casts? No, they got by with 2 leads each and everyone else as recurring or secondary.
If they stated or solved the problem would have been fine.
Regarding FARSCAPE... Noranti and Sikozu were NOT series regulars. They were always credited as guest stars. Therefore, they were recurring. And the wormhole scientist was there for almost half of season 3.
Also, they were constantly fixing and resupplying Moya. They didn't just do it once and was done with it. It was done multiple times during the show's run.
Regarding the BSG resupply at Ragnar... it was the only stop they could make for a weapons resupply, because they were heading out past the red line where they had no bases. Of course it would have to last for a while because they had no choice.
And yes, they found algae planet. They were also on the hunt for water early, too... which was how they got Richard Hatch as Tom Zarek and the ship of criminals to work to get that resource. They were constantly on rationing theur supplies of food, water, and medicine because they had no easy place to resupply.
The BSG comparisons are probably best with something like a modern aircraft carrier or battleship, ie how long would their ammo or food stores last for. The weapons resupply was only meant to get them into the fight, not last for ages. It was Roslin who convinced Adama to go on the run and leave the fight behind. It wasn't constant shooting the entire series but then again "33" has already had an insane amount of battles just prior to that episode beginning.
Agreed. Instead, it just... disappeared. And that indicated a lack of respect for the audience, especially given how elementary the solutions were.
Want to replace some of those 38 irreplaceable photons? Trade with a race that uses matter-antimatter weapons.
Want more shuttles? Trade for a high efficiency industrial replicator and put together a shuttle building team.
Want to use the replicators? Reconfigure the ship's power grid for laser induced fusion. Any gas giant can give you a limitless supply of hydrogen.
Want to keep a certain character at ensign forever? Just make him bad at his job, like the "Good Shepherd" misfits. Or, don't promote anyone at all, ever. Or, just don't suddenly decide that "someone gotta be duh ensign" after every recurring ensign on the previous shows moved on to bigger and better things.
They were "Guest Stars" the same way Edward Herrmann made "Special Appearances" on Gilmore Girls.
There was only one time it needed real healing work done, the Shadow Depository story. The rest of the time, the maintenance on the ship was never shown.
And somehow it lasted them years without any danger of them ever running out of ammunition or Nukes or anything weapons related. Meanwhile, Voyager developing new weapons was poo-pooed on meaning they couldn't do anything to resolve the "We have limited weapons" thing because anytime they did try they just got complaints.
So making booze out of Algae is fine, but Voyager doing anything to get supplies is bad?
When stories like "The Void" or "Living Witness" get nothing but negativity, you know its hopeless to even bother trying.
And you really think any of this would go over well? They traded and worked things out in "The Void" and got nothing to show for it.
I don't get the GILMORE GIRLS reference, as I have never seen it.
DRDs were shown doing maintenance many, many times. Just look at the drds with tools attached performing various things in almost any given episode.
Regarding VOYAGER getting weapons, the problem, as has been mentioned before, was them not sticking to the torpedo count. Either don't mention having one, or just do a quick second of dialogue saying they solved the limitation.
When has anyone ever said Voyager getting supplies was a bad thing? It was necessary and realistic, and frankly could have occured more often, even if only a background story.
"THE VOID" and "LIVING WITNESS" have consistently been shown as among the best of the series... they are both among my favorites. I don't know where you are hearing negativity about either episode, but if it exists, I'd bet good money it's a very small minority of the fanbase.
Every episode said "Special Guest Appearance from Edward Herrmann", he was in every episode in the series (IIRC).
Yeah, and did they explain where Pilot got the resources he needed to keep the DRDs running and working? No, how Moya handled structural maintenance and internal maintenance on the DRDs was never explained.
Uh-huh, and in NuBSG did they ever say how many Nukes they had and keep a count on it? No, somehow that resupply from Ragnar Anchorage lasted them the entire series and at NO POINT was their ammo count brought up.
Anytime they were shown working with someone else, like in "The Void" and they'd be getting resupplied, the response was negative. That means them getting supplies is (somehow) seen as a bad thing. Don't ask me why, but it is.
Sure, NOW they're recognized as such. Not when the show was on they weren't. All anyone cared about back then were the flaws, not the strengths.
Regarding the drds, it was mentioned in season 1 that drds were built as the Leviathan grows. Since they were built by Moya, they probably got a recharge by Moya herself, in a similar fashion as a mother breastfeeding a baby. She was a living ship, after all.
Regarding the ammo count on BSG, that was the better route... don't put a number on it if you are highly likely to contradict it later or not address it, like VOYAGER what did. I think Tyrol had a munitions factory created on one of the hangar decks, though my memory is fuzzy on that one and likely took care of mainly pistols and such. When Pegasus was around, some of the ammo may very well have been shared, because I know THAT ship had its own munitions plant.
"LIVING WITNESS" was always well received, from its initial airing to today. I am not sure if the same is true for "THE VOID" at the time of airing, but I do know that for many, many years, it was well received.
Exactly. Just a passing reference to trading with a species that used compatible technology. Less than ten seconds of dialogue.
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