What would you include and take out
For me more damage, gritty, less campy or in fact no campiness (what are you happy about you are 75 years away from home).
I would say I partially agree. I would like it to be more realistic, but eventually they have to get to that happy place.
It was rather ludicrous for the entire ship to be one big happy family by episode 5 - and more or less stay that way. Once the events of Caretaker are over with, I'd like to see things pretty easy going for a few episodes. Call this the honeymoon period where everyone, stuck together out of circumstance, are trying to make this hybrid crew work. Then the natural resentments come out and there are major discipline problems. The Maquis are not officers, and not all of them are going to be able to adapt to Starfleet life. For many of them, it was never a life they chose or wanted. The conflict with those crew members eventually has to come to a head and a resolution. This probably means that Voyager will be run mostly (but not quite) like a Starfleet vessel. Those differences should be highlighted and accentuated in an episode or two mid season 1 or early season 2.
Another big misstep in this regard for Voyager is not showing the psychological effects of isolation on the crew. We should have seen a range of emotions and reactions among them that changed over time. While one can certainly argue that Troi wasn't very useful on TNG, Voyager is the one hero ship that could've used a character like that.
What about watching Harry Kim go from hope to despair over their predicament for example, for example. Others displaying character (or lack thereof) traits they never would have in the Alpha Quadrant. (i.e. Why should I care? No one back home will ever see me again.)
It would be nice to see everyone not reacting more or less the same way and taking a long time for some of the more mentally fragile crew to adjust and find a new mental equilibrium.
Given even the most extreme situations, if you're in them long enough, I would have to imagine it becomes your new normal - and you take happiness in what you can. I find it hard to believe they're not going to have a hard time smiling at the beginning. I have an equally hard time thinking that they spend all seven years brooding.
make Tom a REAL no care womanizing bad boy,
This works early in the show, but I think one of the things they did more or less right was show a maturation of Tom Paris into a family man.
Chakotay tough which he was in the first episode only, Torres sound and act more Klingon rather than jsut a hot head, focus on minor characters also, get out of the uniforms, be at each others throats more often, have season long arcs, less bipedal aliens that we have seen time and time again, form alliances, make Janeway the original first officer and have the Captain die in the pilot or 2nd episode, not apply to federation rules, do whatever is need to survive which include pillaging weaker vessels (The Void), have the alien crewmembers speak in their native tongue to one another from time to time (Bajoran, Vulcan, Betazoid, Bolian, etc) even crewmembers from other countries, move the show to beyond the watershed that way you can get real dity cursing, sex scenes, etc
So how about you?
A lot of this I can get behind, except the cursing, sex scenes, etc. I have no problem with more implied romantic relationships among the crew, but unless you want to take a huge risk by messing with the demographic of those that can and do watch Star Trek, this really isn't feasible IMO. Star Trek isn't NYPD Blue and shouldn't play in that space.
