Moore is less
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Probably, but Moore would never have gotten his way, UPN would never have allowed it.
Braga wanted the show to be grittier and have story arcs too, in fact his original concept for Year of Hell was to have it last all of season 4 with no reset-button at the end. UPN shot it down because they wanted the show to be lighter and episodic. By the time that Moore joined the staff in season 6 the likes of Braga had already been broken by UPN, and they were willing to produce the show that UPN wanted rather than stand up for the type of show they wanted to do.
Michael Piller left as head writer at the end of the second season for a similar reason, he was tired of the old Trek formula and wanted to make Voyager grittier and serialised, so he pushed for the Kazon arc. UPN didn't like it, some other people in the writing staff didn't like it, and many of the fans didn't like it (because the Kazon were pretty stupid as villains) so Piller left and Jeri Taylor took over. She supposedly didn't want Voyager to be serialised, so she rewrote Basics Part 2 to kill off that storyline and turned season 3 into "TNG in the Delta Quadrant". By the time that Braga took over the show in season 5 it was too late to change Voyager, it was what it was.
Moore thought that he'd be able to change it, he thought that Braga would back his attempts to make Voyager into a more serious show, but Braga rolled over and made the show that UPN wanted. So Moore walked. In my opinion, he was dumb for going to Voyager in the first place, he should have just left the franchise like all the other staff-writers from DS9 did.
Indeed, out of Voyager's crew of 150, only 20-30 were Maquis. Mind you, the characters frequently say "half the crew" were Maquis, which is very inaccurate.
About 35 by my guess.
19 Maquis were mentioned by name.
In Repression, it is pretty clear that there were 30 surviving Maquis (it is the source of the quote that the Maquis were "almost a quarter" of the crew, and when the rebellion consisted of seven former Maquis plus Tuvok, Chakotay says there are 23 crew who had yet to join them.
35 by the time of season 7 seems a bit much. I could accept there were 35 on Chakotay's ship at the beginning of Caretaker, it wasn't that big a ship. But presumably a few of them were killed when the Caretaker pulled them into the Delta Quadrant, and then a few more over the seven years serving on Voyager.
But then the figure on Voyager's crew was always given at 150 or close enough to it, despite the fact we know a handful were killed over the years.
But then the figure on Voyager's crew was always given at 150 or close enough to it, despite the fact we know a handful were killed over the years.
Yeah. I don't think Voyager (or Enterprise) were entirely Braga's fault. I think there was a lot of interference from UPN there. I would have loved to see his season long take on the Year of Hell (maybe ENT season three is him finally getting to do his long-dreamed-of season arc).
Jeri Taylor was bad for Voyager, I agree. She wanted VOY to be TNG.2. Apparently, she wanted Suder dead because 'he couldn't possibly be redeemed, and fit in with the other characters'. Conflict makes good drama! I would have loved for Brad Dourif to continue on the show.
It's a shame Moore left. He could have helped VOY a lot. His episode Survival Instinct was very enjoyable IMO.
Braga actually did write some very good episodes, and while most of Voyager's flaws were UPN's fault, Braga doesn't walk away from all the blame. He did rely too much on time travel/alternate timelines/reset buttons and weird psychological dramas even in the earlier years of Voyager (and his time on TNG for that matter). As Voyager went on, he seemed to switch to action adventures, which were pretty good despite being handicapped by UPN's interferance. And Voyager had some pretty cool ideas which were never really properly utilized. Particularly the Hirogen and the Malon I feel could have made compelling recurring aliens. It really is unfair to villify Braga based on his Voyager work, as he tried to present something good but had an interfering network telling him to follow their odd idea of good.
However, when it comes to Enterprise, much of Braga's work there leaves much to be desired, and I don't think we can blame this on UPN. It was an unrealized series filled with bland characters who simply filled in positions on the starship as opposed to contributing to the show in a meaningful way, and most of the episodes are just retreads of episodes from the previous shows.
Then there's the Temporal Cold War mess. Introduced in the pilot episode we all thought this would be a central arc throughout the series, yet only a handful of episodes touched upon it, and even those never really explained anything about it. The story was eventually dropped with Braga himself admitting they never really had any idea what to do with it, or even thought through important things like the identity of the mysterious "Future Guy."
Yes. I disagree.
Sorry, I should have been cleared: 35 Maquis at the end of Caretaker, 30 in season seven.
About 155 total at the end of Caretaker, about 140 in Endgame.
I counted 22 people killed on screen or mentioned as having died (post-Caretaker). I could be wrong about that. They also gained Naomi Wildman, 5 crew from USS Equinox, Seven of Nine, and Icheb, and lost Seska, Kes, and Neelix, so a net loss of 17.
The TCW wasn't a bad idea, if it had been done well then it might have prevented the feeling of prequel-itis from the fans; that sense that none of this matters because we already know that the Federation will be formed in a decade. The idea that factions from the future are trying to prevent the future we all know could have added some unexpected twists to the show, and it would also have allowed a greater deal of emotional investment from the fans, because the entire show is about preserving the universe we love. The problem was that it was implemented in such a poor and self-contradictory manner, and none of it amounted to anything.
Moore would never have introduced an antagonist with no background and no idea as to what their motivation would be.
Does anyone want to claim now that this guy isn't trolling?
Well, it's not as though Braga or any of the other writers had any other ideas, given nothing else of any relevance happened on Enterprise until the Xindi were introduced, which was another studio-mandated storyline.
Ron Moore didn't create the Cylons!
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