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Spoilers Let’s talk about the destruction of Trek utopia…

I know, it's just really weird to see someone praise Voyager given how vigorously people bashed it back in the day
It depends on whom you hung out with. Certainly my family members and friends enjoyed VOY. It wasn't until the Internet that I discovered I was supposed to hate it-I was just indifferent to it. Never hooked me, and my one's friend near worshipful attitude towards Seven of Nine irritated me to no end.
 
DS9 pretty much abandoned Gene's "vision" and was all the better for it.

In my case it had the opposite effect. The last seasons I only watched because of "Star Trek" in the name of the show. I lost interest in it and many episodes left me frustrated, because I only saw more-of-the-same drama that others already did. DS9 peaked with "Duet" for me.
 
I don't think there's any legitimate reason to call Picard bad for telling a story this way, and I like Picard a lot so far, but it's perfectly legitimate for people to just not like this type of storytelling and prefer DS9, which did it much less.

My one minor quibble with Picard at this point is there's little else besides the serial storyline. But I understand why it is that way. When are they going to do anything else? A typical season of a sci-fi show used to be 20-25 episodes or more. Now you get maybe 12. A lot of little fun stuff is going to fall by the wayside.
 
Which is why I stated earlier that Picard is a centrist character that has occasional swings to either side of the spectrum.

It's easy to forget now, given our current cultural tendency to assign a political "side" to every person, place, event, inanimate object and color we encounter, whether warranted or not - but it wasn't always this way, and writers of a TV show didn't feel the need to make their character walk the straight path of one political divide or another because people weren't such kneejerk idiots about everything under the sun. Now, well....
 
Never hooked me, either. So I stopped watching. (First time ever for a Trek show.)

Voyager is the only Trek show I gave up on. Just didn't care about the characters or plots. It's not an awful show like Another Life, but rather bland and uninspired like Falling Skies. And apparently it was studio-mandated blandness too. Returned for the finale and didn't feel like I missed anything. Also them merely making it home is not where you end the show. Could you imagine of The Pacific ended with Sledge getting off the train?
 
I see Archer referred to very often as a George W. Bush and 9/11 cowboy conservative whose senior officers are also largely cut from the mold of a post-September 11th America even though ENT was developed and its earliest episodes were shot before the terrorist attacks even happened. I can see some of that argument when viewing the devil-may-care, Earth-F**k-Yeah attitude that the NX-01 crew often displays early in the series but at the end of the day when characters display unethical behavior they're still called out on said behavior and some of their humanity is lost in the process of allowing themselves to become more base and anger-driven individuals.

So both arguments hold water. They are a more cowboy crew compared to later crews in the timeline and display more gung-ho, pro-Earth behavior at the expense of other species with which they come in contact but the setting of the series - 100 years after World War III and 100 before Captain Pike and before the Federation and the Prime Directive even exist - sort of demands they be more unrefined and closer to the way early 21st century humans act. We're not progressive angels now and we certainly won't be 131 years from now no matter what happens to mankind between now and then.
 
That's not correct.
There's no indication that Picard was altering the existing treaty covering the entire DMZ.
At least Cal Hudson seems to think that the effort to supplant Federation colonies was a violation of the treaty, not a side agreement.
Cal Hudson had a problem with the Cardassian treatment of planets in the DMZ in general, and not the treatment of the single colony that Picard negotiated a agreement for.
 
It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind...
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(this came out the year Star Trek was cancelled)




(yes, I know where it's really from...)
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But mine's not as depressing
:biggrin:
 
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Honestly, I don't know if that's what I'm looking for. As for sword-waving people, I actually liked "Xena Warrior Princess" but it was also made in another era than this boring century.

If I want to watch some sort of humor series, there's always "The Orville". Not my absolute favorite series but somewhat funny to watch and much better than boring "Discovery".
Neither Discovery nor Picard ever made light of rape the way The Orville did. That episode bothered me 100x more than the gore in Picard. TOS did it too, and it was horrid, but that was 50 years ago and anyone with half a brain should know better.
 
I don't think Picard possessed the authority to modify the treaty. Instead what happen was Picard worked out a entirely separate verbal agreement with a single Cardassian officer.

An agreement that subsequently proved to be worthless.

That's not correct. At least Cal Hudson seems to think that the effort to supplant Federation colonies was a violation of the treaty, not a side agreement.

It depends on whom you hung out with. Certainly my family members and friends enjoyed VOY. It wasn't until the Internet that I discovered I was supposed to hate it-I was just indifferent to it.

Never hooked me, either. So I stopped watching. (First time ever for a Trek show.)

Voyager is the only Trek show I gave up on. Just didn't care about the characters or plots. It's not an awful show like Another Life, but rather bland and uninspired like Falling Skies.

I think the biggest missed opportunity for Voyager was for the crew to have an all out, 5 to 15 minute debate about the Federation/Cardassian treaty and the Maquis.

DS9 actually discussed it, but Voyager strangely enough never had it. It was the elephant in the room the entire time they were in the delta Quadrant. It would had been fascinating.

There's truth and logic to both sides, it's easy to get emotional about it, and it could have gone down as Trek's most memorable scenes.

It just seems like at that point Voyger was back in the story of the week mode, and you can see the results. It felt almost like a non issue after the first season.
 
Voyager had So. Much. Potential. It had a superb cast and the writing staff coming off of a successful run on Star Trek the Next Generation (although, in my humble opinion, the best Next Generation writers went to Deep Space Nine) It could have been a unique entry in Trek lore, exploring storytelling options that no other show could have used. Instead, it became a paint by numbers Star Trek production that felt like a storytelling rehash of Next Generation, but not as good.

It took no chances and never explored consequences. I wanted to really see the hardships of being stranded 75,000 light-years from home. I wanted to see energy conservation and rationing of supplies and makeshift repairs to battle damage because there's no starbase around to facilitate repairs. Despite its numerous battles, the ship always looked Federation-fresh at the beginning of the next episode.The possibility of Voyager becoming a generational ship should have been explored and never was. There was a little lip service to these things paid to an early episodes, but none of them are deeply explored and soon became irrelevant because... Reasons? By the end of the show, there were never any concerns about replicator rations, holodeck time or replicating new parts for shuttle building, ect; Despite the shows promising concept, it never became anything more than Next Generation light. Disappoints me to this day.
 
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but none of them are deeply explored and soon became irrelevant because...
Because syndication.

Yeah, VOY is mostly TNG lite. It takes little risks, has a couple of breakout characters and moves on with little concern for consequences. If we explore consequences there is a Picard style speech about why it is wrong to do so and usually involves time travel. The reset button nearly broke on VOY.
 
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