Questions about questionable aspects of Voyager.

[Technocide]

Hi there Voyager board, I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan of the series but I do like it for it does manage to do well, provide some decent action, memorable acting and a good sense of humour, but even those attributes can be sparse in some seasons.

Last year I discovered Memory Alpha, the trek wiki, and decided to look up on information about Voyagers production and development (although it only goes so far), and now I wanted to see if any of you fans here can answer some questions I have about the quality of the show.

1.) If Berman or whoever wanted a show similar to TNG with a loose, anthologic (SP?) episode structure without alot of interpersonal conflict on the ship then what was the point of having the show be about two philosophically different groups of people aboard one ship in an unfamiliar and dangerous sector of space, wouldn't the show have been more engaging and entertaining if ship damage, loss of resources and conflict between each side was present between episodes and throughout the show? If you don't want to do any of that stuff then why bother with the premise?

2.) What was up with the shows writing? Who actually thought episodes like Fair Haven, Threshold and even some of the more epic shows like Unimatrix Zero were good premises?
Unimatrix Zero just seemed silly, the idea of a borg matrix is hard to take seriously, theres plenty of more intriguing ways Voyager could have exploited and 'hurt' the collective (okay, as messy as it ended up, I actually found it kind of entertaining)

3.) Why the hell was Q in this series? They should've just left him as an icon of TNG, seeing as bringing him over to DS9 evidently didn't work. I didn't really like any of the Q episodes in this series. For a species with the ability to do or witness anything they seemed like a really narrow-minded bunch in this series, didn't really see how the death of one of their own could drive them into civil war, but that might just be my lack of imagination . Oh and Q2 was one annoying little p***k, would've been funnier if he ended up being more responsible than his childish, apathetic father.

4.) Seeing as Jeri Ryan was brought in to tighten the pants of the male demographic, by how much did the ratings actually go up once she was on the show? I hate any character written to be a space barbie (would've loathed Troi had she not been so hot) but Jeri Ryan did an excellent performance as this character who was cold and professional on the outside yet vulnerable and isolated on the inside.

Sorry if this stuff has been asked to death lol.

 

[Guy Gardener]

1. Ongoing network notes dissolved the uniqueness of Voyager that was introduced in the pilot. Berman started as a Yesman and eventually went to sleep rubber-stamping other peoples work.

2. Over 70 authors for 170 episodes (Sometimes as many as 5 names to a single script. but as mentioned Berman got to rubber stamp everything just if breathed near the script.). The bloke who wrote Unimatrix Zero, Mike Sussman, actually appeared one day as I was decrying that there was every possibility that Unimatrix Zero had been written during a screening of The Matrix. He directed me to an essay he wrote about how the production of Unimatrix Zero was involved and began as nothing like what the finished out product appeared and the first draft significantly predated the 1999 release of the Matrix.

3. Laurence Olivier once said that all actors are whores and you'd be a fool to disagree with him. John needed to feed his family. You knew the kid from Q2 was a DeLancie too right? father and Son, as Father and son? That's pretty cool.

4. See my answer for number one.

 

[firecrackerrrr]

1. Can't answer that one but the fact that they were stuck in the Delta Quadrant and that it was two crews that were technically at war made it more unique and I prefer that over having another TNG. I love TNG but....

2. What was the point of Holodeck episodes in TNG? I mean honestly, I can name more UBER bad episodes of TNG than I can of Voyager. I like both shows equally though. I am meh on Unimatrix Zero.....I actually like Threshold cause it entertained me to no end....and I liked Fair Haven because it's so ridiculous, it's hard not to. The Voy holodeck episodes are better in my opinion than the TNG ones.

3. I love, love, love the fact that Q was on the show. John DeLancie is a friend of Kate's and it also made perfect sense as Q could literally go anywhere. He was on DS9, TNG and Voy. Considering what he IS, it makes perfect sense to have him on the show. And I actually LOVED all the episodes with him in it. Especially Death Wish.

4. No idea about the ratings but the character actually became more than just a barbie. It's one of the best characters in Star Trek for me as far as character development goes. She had this cold exterior but she was so vulnerable and confused. Her actions and the things she said often seemed so childlike. So whatever their true original intent was, it developed into something wonderful.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Originally Berman wanted a bloke.

Network said something like "Put jugs on him."

Network can be so crude sometimes.

So you can see that Voyagers producers had a hard SF idea (or they were thinking Beefcake to bring in a straight-female/gay-male demographic?)which was coopted into a t and A fest for idiot boy children.

Jeri did such a wonderful job acting however that I doubt she even needed her boobs or that catsuit.

 

[Technocide]

Thanks for the replies folks.

Posted by Guy Gardener
1. Ongoing network notes dissolved the uniqueness of Voyager that was introduced in the pilot. Berman started as a Yesman and eventually went to sleep rubber-stamping other peoples work.

2. Over 70 authors for 170 episodes (Sometimes as many as 5 names to a single script. but as mentioned Berman got to rubber stamp everything just if breathed near the script.). The bloke who wrote Unimatrix Zero, Mike Sussman, actually appeared one day as I was decrying that there was every possibility that Unimatrix Zero had been written during a screening of The Matrix. He directed me to an essay he wrote about how the production of Unimatrix Zero was involved and began as nothing like what the finished out product appeared and the first draft significantly predated the 1999 release of the Matrix.

3. Laurence Olivier once said that all actors are whores and you'd be a fool to disagree with him. John needed to feed his family. You knew the kid from Q2 was a DeLancie too right? father and Son, as Father and son? That's pretty cool

1.) Yea he stamped just about everything sent to Enterprise :P.

2.) Go figure, it was aired so soon after Matrix, although its amazing who you can meet sometimes. One guy said he met the guy who wrote the screenplay for Battlefield: Earth, but he refused to kill him ffs.

3.) Already knew about the father\son thing lol.

Posted by Firecracker
1. Can't answer that one but the fact that they were stuck in the Delta Quadrant and that it was two crews that were technically at war made it more unique and I prefer that over having another TNG. I love TNG but....

2. What was the point of Holodeck episodes in TNG? I mean honestly, I can name more UBER bad episodes of TNG than I can of Voyager. I like both shows equally though. I am meh on Unimatrix Zero.....I actually like Threshold cause it entertained me to no end....and I liked Fair Haven because it's so ridiculous, it's hard not to. The Voy holodeck episodes are better in my opinion than the TNG ones.

3. I love, love, love the fact that Q was on the show. John DeLancie is a friend of Kate's and it also made perfect sense as Q could literally go anywhere. He was on DS9, TNG and Voy. Considering what he IS, it makes perfect sense to have him on the show. And I actually LOVED all the episodes with him in it. Especially Death Wish.

4. No idea about the ratings but the character actually became more than just a barbie. It's one of the best characters in Star Trek for me as far as character development goes. She had this cold exterior but she was so vulnerable and confused. Her actions and the things she said often seemed so childlike. So whatever their true original intent was, it developed into something wonderful.

1.) I agree, Voyager needed to have something over TNG and it still does manage to feel quite a bit different thanks to the higher quality of the special effects and the unique characters.

2.) I agree with this one too, TNG had a ton of s****y episodes, don't understand why people call it 'ground-breaking' or 'stellar', not to say I didn't like it but it does have quite alot of flaws.

3.) Thats the problem with Q, due to his abilities he can just be shoe-horned into any show or episode without a second thought. I must admit Lancie's acting saved the episodes he was in.

Posted by GuyGardener
Originally Berman wanted a bloke.

Network said something like "Put jugs on him."

Network can be so crude sometimes.

Yes, yes they can, did you ever hear what happened to that Babylon 5 spin-off? Why it was cancelled? Tragic story.

 

[Guy Gardener]

We some how got all of Crusade on VHS some time before it was aired even in the states and were told that it was precanclled... We all cried.

Saw Gary Cole on The Good Guys Today.

That fellah is always working.



Surprise me with some behind the scenes horror.

What really happened?

 

[Technocide]

Well from what I heard (big J himself said this I think) the TNT executives wanted Crusade to be similar to the rest of their programming schedule of the late nineties. Now I don't know what that was but apparently Babylon 5'ers wern't watching anything else on TNT which peeved the executives off. So they broke their contract with J and when he tried to get the show sponsored by other channels TNT set the asking price too high so Sci-fi wouldn't pick it up (which it wanted to).

A real disappointing mess there.

BTW I don't know anything about Legend of the rangers (yea J really wanted to do a show about the rangers, with Crusade being his first attempt), so if you know anything about that please fill me in.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It was shit.

That about sums it up.

The new movie from 2 or three years back, Babylon 5 Tales (whatever?) were supposed to be a series of Anthologies answering a whole bunch of questions... It's almost like JMS can't get along with no one.

 

[Technocide]

Its just tough luck really, for him and the fans.
TV seems to be a harsh, unforgiving business purely based on speculation of what people want. Doesn't matter how good or bad an idea is, if it sells it stays, Babylon 5 is costly and doesn't seem to get the desired ratings.

 

[Anwar]

1) It wasn't Berman who wanted the TNG-lite series, it was UPN that did. He wanted to wait until DS9 was done and THEN do VOY so the extra time could be spent on smoothing out the premise and the characters.

2) Showrunners being replaced, no real vision for the series, recycling scripts from other shows.

The Borg are just too boring to write several stories about, frankly. Stories that are directly ABOUT the Borg anyways.

3) Ratings, this show was far more dependent on them than TNG and DS9 since they were syndicated and not a network show like VOY. It's why they kept bringing in TNG guest stars as well.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

I may have misjudged you, Anwar. I thought you were a 'staunch Voyager defender', but you're pointing out its wrinkles. From one tries-hard-to-be-fair poster to perhaps another, I bow to your decency.

 

[Anwar]

If I liked EVERYTHING about VOY I wouldn't have done an entire series rewrite (I'm on Mark III of it right now).

I just think a lot of the complaints we hear around here are rather silly.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

And you might be right about that in my eyes, as well. Can't say yet. The more I think about it, though -- and with a little friendly suggestion from people, too -- the more I'm deciding after my DS9 reviews are over and done with, I might just tackle Voyager...

 

[Anwar]

Just be prepared to accept that (partially due to budget and FX constraints) there isn't going to be much in the way of ship damage or resource collection.

For starters.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Oh yeah, I know. I watched it during its original run, as a kid. Believe me, people have shoved the show's flaws and pseudo-flaws down my throat ever since!

 

[stj]

1.) If Berman or whoever wanted a show similar to TNG with a loose, anthologic (SP?) episode structure without alot of interpersonal conflict on the ship then what was the point of having the show be about two philosophically different groups of people aboard one ship in an unfamiliar and dangerous sector of space, wouldn't the show have been more engaging and entertaining if ship damage, loss of resources and conflict between each side was present between episodes and throughout the show? If you don't want to do any of that stuff then why bother with the premise?

Having the Maquis meant having a bunch of characters who wouldn't be eager to go back to jail. Which is to say, having characters who could be years going home but not down in the dumps about it. Everybody all despressed and despairing would be a downer of a show.

Maybe they thought they could write the characters sexier is they were bad ass Maquis, too.

Michael Piller seems to be the one who really believed that garbage about how conflict between Maquis and Starfleet over who knows what would actually be interesting. See The Dead Zone to get a good idea of Piller's capacity.

Every word about lack of resources and damage to the ship is nonsense. With replicators, either the ship is warping along all fat and happy, or everything's busted and they're dying in space. Rationally speaking, that is.

2.) What was up with the shows writing? Who actually thought episodes like Fair Haven, Threshold and even some of the more epic shows like Unimatrix Zero were good premises?
Unimatrix Zero just seemed silly, the idea of a borg matrix is hard to take seriously, theres plenty of more intriguing ways Voyager could have exploited and 'hurt' the collective (okay, as messy as it ended up, I actually found it kind of entertaining)

I have no idea what standard finds a Borg matrix more unbelievable than the concept of the Collective. If you think of Unimatrix Zero as a bug in the program, it seems more believable I would think.

Fair Haven's premise was about art's effect on life, a repeated theme in Voyager, which I surmise is why people are don't just say it wasn't funny. Apparently it cuts too close to the bone.

Threshold was a bad idea from the get go, because it was a Tom Paris episode and Tom Paris was a failed character. But people don't see it, so Threshold should be regarded as a good premise. The salamander thing was a joke at scifi's ideas of evolutionary perfection. It didn't fit the story, but the Paris story was schlock anyhow.

One of the biggest problems with the writing was ignoring science as technobabble. Some of the better episodes at least used print scifi ideas, episodes like Distant Origin or Blink of an Eye.

3.) Why the hell was Q in this series?

Crossover appeal. The DS9 Q episode was total garbage. Death Wish was actually good, and the dialogue in The Q and the Grey was hilarious. See "Chuckles," just for one.

4.) Seeing as Jeri Ryan was brought in to tighten the pants of the male demographic, by how much did the ratings actually go up once she was on the show? I hate any character written to be a space barbie (would've loathed Troi had she not been so hot) but Jeri Ryan did an excellent performance as this character who was cold and professional on the outside yet vulnerable and isolated on the inside.

Ratings didn't go up much, if at all. Ratings consistently declined at a relatively constant rate since the peak of TNG, if I recall those rating charts some posters made.
But Seven of Nine wasn't written as a space barbie. Sometimes, she barked like a dog out of an abundance of Borg pride. Other times she quivered like jello and moaned like a wounded buffalo. What is this vulnerable and isolated on the inside? You never, ever knew which version of Seven was going to star in an episode. Which is why I laugh at anyone who dares babble about Janeway being schizophrenic.

Sorry if this stuff has been asked to death lol.

Don't worry. The usual suspects when cornered will say they never said anything extreme, then the same old crap pops up. The questions are not asked to get answers. They're more like cues to sing the old campfire song yet again.

 

[kimc]

Oh yeah, I know. I watched it during its original run, as a kid. Believe me, people have shoved the show's flaws and pseudo-flaws down my throat ever since!

No one can tell you more about the show's flaws than a Voyager fan. Believe me, we know what they are! It's the pseudo-flaws (good way to put it) that get folks riled up.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Oh yeah, I know. I watched it during its original run, as a kid. Believe me, people have shoved the show's flaws and pseudo-flaws down my throat ever since!

No one can tell you more about the show's flaws than a Voyager fan. Believe me, we know what they are! It's the pseudo-flaws (good way to put it) that get folks riled up.

Hm, yeah, great point.

 

[froot]

Sometimes, she barked like a dog out of an abundance of Borg pride. Other times she quivered like jello and moaned like a wounded buffalo.

I had to re-read that line a few times before it made sense to me. Then I couldn't stop laughing.

 

[Kai Winn]

BTW I don't know anything about Legend of the rangers (yea J really wanted to do a show about the rangers, with Crusade being his first attempt), so if you know anything about that please fill me in.

you can watch it on youtube, all the b5 movies are there. be warned, it's not worth the time.

whatever perceived flaws voyager might have, it's still a lot better than sgu. looks like they want to wreck the venerable stargate franchise. is there a fundamental problem with the premise lost in space and trying to get home?