Shortening the journey.

[topcat]

the equinox is how the voyager should have looked... beat to crap.
Seriously, even though the equinox was smaller then voyager, they are basically the same technological level. and the crew is equally competent.
So if one ship is flying a horridly damaged wreck and cant even replace all that missing hull... how can voyager?

 

[Phoenix219]

Having just watched the Doomsday Machine the other day, it makes me wonder what Kirk and Scotty and a small crew could have coaxed out of the Constellation, if they were stuck somewhere in that kind of condition...lol.

 

[Drone]

The crew should've resolved those issues before leaving, this is from bad writing. The entire series suffered from this. Also the ship would take a pounding every week forgetting they're no where near Star Fleet territory. The stories never suited the kind of world the producers wanted to create.

There is a valid point in what you suggest about reconciling differences and not leaving hostility in their wake. However, I would argue that most of the conflict that arose, was due to Voyager dealing with a preponderance of aholes, whose main interest was liberating Starfleet technology, trying to involve our stalwarts in their conflicts, or just showing off their puffed up badassery. For Voyager to leave everyone they came into contact feeling sanguine and singing a happy tune that they had met, would almost certainly have been illusory, and more than likely would have resulted in their meeting with their demise. There were enough races that were left with a positive image of Voyager and the Federation, because what Janeway did to assist them in need or simply that they were open minded enough to see the "Ship of Death" for what it actually was. As for the rest, f*** 'em!!!!

I would point out that there were some circumstances where Janeway did attempt to encourage positive change even with some of the most deadly of enemies. Prodding the Hirogens to break with their nomadic road to nowhere and establish an enduring culture and more saliently, trying to influence the Undine segment that was somewhat more open to considering a further course of action which might preclude the standing order of washing and flushing the galaxy of genetically inferior lifeforms (everyone).

the equinox is how the voyager should have looked... beat to crap.
Seriously, even though the equinox was smaller then voyager, they are basically the same technological level. and the crew is equally competent.So if one ship is flying a horridly damaged wreck and cant even replace all that missing hull... how can voyager?

While they certainly suffered grievously from their almost immediate encounter with the Krowtonan Guard, one also most not forget that the later damage, almost to the point of their destruction, was directly due to their own criminal actions, and would have been avoided by choosing another path when made aware of an advantage that was barred to them in every conceivable way, and yet,they unreservedly picked the path of least resistance.

 

[Anwar]

Once the crew is splintered into different viewpoints, its not a Maquis vs Fed thing anymore.... its different ideaologies on survival, and what it takes to be one. It definitely could have had ongoing conflicts...

Not for 7 years straight.

 

[stardream]

Once the crew is splintered into different viewpoints, its not a Maquis vs Fed thing anymore.... its different ideaologies on survival, and what it takes to be one. It definitely could have had ongoing conflicts...

They did that with Battlestar Galactica. I wish I had quit watching long before I did because I got so tired of the crew infighting.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

If Voyager had taken place in the JJVerse they could have warped from the Ocampa homeworld to Earth in about 20 minutes.

Heck, they could transport straight to Earth.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Not for 7 years straight.

Again with the false absolutes. It's not the imperative between complete agreement and constant bickering you always try to make it into. They can be a cohesive crew and still have philosophical disagreements about approaches to specific situations and debate them amicably within the chain of command.

 

[STEPhon IT]

the equinox is how the voyager should have looked... beat to crap.
Seriously, even though the equinox was smaller then voyager, they are basically the same technological level. and the crew is equally competent.
So if one ship is flying a horridly damaged wreck and cant even replace all that missing hull... how can voyager?

By bad writing. You are exactly right about the contrast between the two ships which doesn't make sense with Voyager. I could've understood Voyager's shape if they were diplomatic through their travels and making friends so when they were in battles with hostiles they could recoup with an alley. Voyager has gone through worst situations than the Equinox but it definitely appeared that crew faced far ferocious threats. Good story telling would've had Equinox be a precursor of threat yet to come like the Hirogen or other threats Voyager ended up facing but that never happened.

 

[RoJoHen]

An episode name on the former still would be helpful, as I'm still scratching my head even with the details you provided.

Same. I have absolutely no idea what episode we're talking about.

As far as I can remember, the only episode where Voyager got their hands on transwarp coils was "Dark Frontier," but that had nothing to do with a ship in a jungle.

 

[stardream]

I remember seeing the coils in a drawer type container but I can't remember the episode.

 

[Anwar]

Again with the false absolutes. It's not the imperative between complete agreement and constant bickering you always try to make it into. They can be a cohesive crew and still have philosophical disagreements about approaches to specific situations and debate them amicably within the chain of command.

Philosophical disagreements and amicable debates are not "conflict".

 

[Sybok Was Wrong]

I hear this idea a lot of the Starship Voyager looking beat up like the Equinox ; I think it would have been a mistake.

Nobody wants to watch a beat up crew with a beat up ship over the long haul.
Thats depressing and negative. Those are less than appealing visuals. It doesnt appeal to the casual viewer. "Voyager" by its structure, tried to appeal to the casual viewer more than say, "DS9".

It was the right move.

Time has shown this. TNG and VOY are still easily found on TV. Not DS9. You know why? For all the yelling and screaming by DS9 fans that DS9 is "the best" and "it's darker"--time has shown that that isn't what appeals to the average viewer. It doesn't have lasting appeal. DS9 is so in its own head with its complexity, darkness and story lines, it didn't have lasting popularity and is forgotten today.

By wanting VOY to be darker, and beat up, that would require darker ongoing storylines. That wasn't the way to go.

People like Ron Moore slammed Voyager for what it was at the time because he was coming off his DS9 high, but time has proven VOY to be the more popular series- and part of that popularity lies in its continuance of the TOS/TNG formulas that were successful, not going dark by having the ship beat up. If they did that, it would have had an even more niche audience and forgotten like DS9.

 

[RoJoHen]

I've always thought that a little wear and tear would have been nice. Not quite Equinox levels, but it would have been cool to see the ship become a little more "lived in" as the seasons wore on. Maybe Janeway could have hoarded stuff in her Ready Room or Neelix could have done some decorating in the corridors.

 

[Scout101]

By bad writing. You are exactly right about the contrast between the two ships which doesn't make sense with Voyager. I could've understood Voyager's shape if they were diplomatic through their travels and making friends so when they were in battles with hostiles they could recoup with an alley. Voyager has gone through worst situations than the Equinox but it definitely appeared that crew faced far ferocious threats. Good story telling would've had Equinox be a precursor of threat yet to come like the Hirogen or other threats Voyager ended up facing but that never happened.

Can't agree with much of that. You HAVE to assume that Voyager made more allies, and we just didn't see everything. Do you believe you saw every second of the journey? "And in this very special episode, Voyager lays up in an alien starbase for 3 weeks while they do repairs. Nothing bad happens, and they move on." Not very compelling. Have to assume it happened a few times, but I don't want to watch it. Could they have name dropped occasionally? Probably, but not exactly bad story telling. They got plenty of fresh supplies, but we didn't see them doing it a lot; I assume repair stops went much the same way.

And how would Equinox be a precursor of things to come? Voyager kept moving, for the most part. If anything, they kept the same bad guys and such far longer than they should have. Equinox had a little more time out there, but was also headed in the direction of home. Unless they changed direction and came back again, how would they have gotten enough information from upcoming threats to be useful? They only had a small head start. Only way that works is if you change how Equinox got out there and blame some shitty wormhole or something that wasn't as stable as they thought. Then you could have had them out there long enough to learn new things. Equinox came here the same way, just a little earlier.

 

[MacLeod]

I hear this idea a lot of the Starship Voyager looking beat up like the Equinox ; I think it would have been a mistake.

Nobody wants to watch a beat up crew with a beat up ship over the long haul.
Thats depressing and negative. Those are less than appealing visuals. It doesnt appeal to the casual viewer. "Voyager" by its structure, tried to appeal to the casual viewer more than say, "DS9".

It was the right move.

Time has shown this. TNG and VOY are still easily found on TV. Not DS9. You know why? For all the yelling and screaming by DS9 fans that DS9 is "the best" and "it's darker"--time has shown that that isn't what appeals to the average viewer. It doesn't have lasting appeal. DS9 is so in its own head with its complexity, darkness and story lines, it didn't have lasting popularity and is forgotten today.

By wanting VOY to be darker, and beat up, that would require darker ongoing storylines. That wasn't the way to go.

People like Ron Moore slammed Voyager for what it was at the time because he was coming off his DS9 high, but time has proven VOY to be the more popular series- and part of that popularity lies in its continuance of the TOS/TNG formulas that were successful, not going dark by having the ship beat up. If they did that, it would have had an even more niche audience and forgotten like DS9.

I beg to differ I can easily find DSN on TV it's currently airng on not 1 but 2 channels in the UK

SyFy
CBS Action

But some of Ron Moores comments are valid, the premise of the show leaned towards more serial approach. With a limited amount of crew and no replacements surely we shouldn't have gotten to see more of the crew i.e Carey who was in the first few seasons and then forgotten about only to be brought back to be killed off.

As for VOY being more popular remind me again but didn't DSN nearly always score higher ratings in the USA? i.e it was more popular. And part of VOY and ENT problems lie in it's continuation of the TOS/TNG formula that formula was getting old towards the end of TNG. Most fans agree the last two seasons of ENT were it's best esp S4. What story approach did use a more serialised format So if the formula was so great why did ENT change to the more arc based that they used in DSN?

And you don't have to go dark in terms of story telling, but would it really have been too hard to show the ship slowly being reapired over the course of a few episodes rather than it almost always look it had just left the Utopia yards? Or drop a line or two of dialouge to explain things away VOY at times suffered from sloppy writting i.e we only have 38 photon torpedeos and NO WAY to replace them yet they use far more than that. All that had to do was something like Captain's Log, Engineering reports that it will be able to replenish our Photon Torepdeos. What's that 2-3 seconds. As a viewer they writers drew my attention to it, it's not wrong for me to expect them to address the situation in some fashion rather than simply ignore it. The number of crew seemed to vary from episode to episode up and down i.e We would be told one episode that they had 140 Someone would get killed and a few episodes later we would have 142 crew. And yes all shows have their flaws.

But we all like different things, for many VOY had a great premise was let down by it's execution. After all VOY has been reffered to TNG 2.0 if people are being generous and TNG-lite if they are being less generous in the later case it's like TNG but not as good.

Other factors can also come into play with peopls perceptions, which was their first Trek show if it was VOY it might seem new for those that had watched TOS/TNG and DSN it might seem tired and repetative.

 

[stardream]

DS9's ratings might have been higher than Voyager's but barely, that is if the charts that I have seen floating around are correct. I'm sure an expert will weigh in on what the numbers really mean.

Speaking personally I have never seen DS9 in syndication and I have lived in several different regions of the country. I'm sure it has been shown but I just personally have never seen it and believe me I would have watched it if it had. I have seen TNG rerun over several channels and I 'seem' to remember Voyager being shown at least once somewhere but can't remember the details. Haven't seen Enterprise in syndication either.

The usual disclaimer is The Next Generation and DS9 were not hamstrung by a network the way Voyager and Enterprise were.

 

[STEPhon IT]

Can't agree with much of that. You HAVE to assume that Voyager made more allies, and we just didn't see everything. Do you believe you saw every second of the journey? "And in this very special episode, Voyager lays up in an alien starbase for 3 weeks while they do repairs. Nothing bad happens, and they move on." Not very compelling. Have to assume it happened a few times, but I don't want to watch it. Could they have name dropped occasionally? Probably, but not exactly bad story telling. They got plenty of fresh supplies, but we didn't see them doing it a lot; I assume repair stops went much the same way.

There's a lot of assumptions you bring up for Voyager's reasons to stick. When I watch television shows, I'm not watching to assume scenarios and make excuses for plotholes the writers missed, in particular for their stories and the continued, flawed mythology.

The show's job was to air what was needed to tell the kind of stories they wanted to convey. The crew acted and proceeded as if they were the Marshals anywhere they were in the Delta Quadrant, as if they were in the Alpha Quadrant; they fought and battle alien races in their territory or pretty close to their space alone and with no assistance every week.
Those kind of scenarios failed plausibility, especially when Voyager was established as a small ship. Showing progress and making friends should be a prime directive if the crew wants to survive. I don't mind an occasional battle from time to time with assistance from allies they've helped, but the ship actually sustained a head on battle with the Borg, and Kazon ships 4 times Voyager's size by itself.
The writers didn't have the chops or didn't care about the concept; they wanted to write TNG kind of stories how ever it suited them, even when it contradicted the crews' situation being lost in space. I will not assume or make excuses for that show, delivering a track record of incoherent stories which had crumpled the concept of the series.
What Voyager displayed should be true, but every episode I watched defined it not to be.

 

[Anwar]

And you don't have to go dark in terms of story telling, but would it really have been too hard to show the ship slowly being reapired over the course of a few episodes rather than it almost always look it had just left the Utopia yards?

Let's be fair here. If Voyager had been in some huge battle with the Borg they manage to win even though the ship was damaged and people were injured, they found a Repair Station and Medical Station and then there was a time skip to about a month later when the ship was fixed and injuries were healed...

...It would still be condemned as a reset button.

 

[hux]

Time has shown this. TNG and VOY are still easily found on TV. Not DS9. You know why? For all the yelling and screaming by DS9 fans that DS9 is "the best" and "it's darker"--time has shown that that isn't what appeals to the average viewer. It doesn't have lasting appeal. DS9 is so in its own head with its complexity, darkness and story lines, it didn't have lasting popularity and is forgotten today.

This is beyond ludicrous.

If they did that, it would have had an even more niche audience and forgotten like DS9.

I remember DS9. It was that Star Trek show that was much more interesting than all the other ones and made it difficult to go back to the tired, bumpy-headed alien of the week established template as well as the patronising and laughable notion that we're only decades away from evolving into Wesley - I've moved onto a different plain of existence - Crusher.

 

[Drone]

There's a lot of assumptions you bring up for Voyager's reasons to stick. When I watch television shows, I'm not watching to assume scenarios and make excuses for plotholes the writers missed, in particular for their stories and the continued, flawed mythology.

The show's job was to air what was needed to tell the kind of stories they wanted to convey. The crew acted and proceeded as if they were the Marshals anywhere they were in the Delta Quadrant, as if they were in the Alpha Quadrant; they fought and battle alien races in their territory or pretty close to their space alone and with no assistance every week.
Those kind of scenarios failed plausibility, especially when Voyager was established as a small ship. Showing progress and making friends should be a prime directive if the crew wants to survive. I don't mind an occasional battle from time to time with assistance from allies they've helped, but the ship actually sustained a head on battle with the Borg, and Kazon ships 4 times Voyager's size by itself.
.

I enjoyed the show a great deal, for its sense of family, its high quotient of humor, and occasional stories that were compelling. I don't think any facets of Voyager warrant suggesting that it created, maintained, or passed along any manner of mythology,We're not talking about some epochal rendering of something new and distinctive in the realm of SF storytelling here. TOS developed a mythology, Voyager was just along for the ride.

As for your contention about the crew's acting like lawmen throughout their journey, and coming off like the antagonists against myriad peace loving DQ natives, I took a look at the roster of the first two seasons (I didn't really feel compelled to do more). Fighting battles every week, eh? How about a maximum, with a bit of fudging, of 8 episodes out of the first 42? The contention was baldly fanciful at the first reading and an actual review of a representative number of the productions seems to confirm that. I won't refute that the percentage was likely somewhat higher in later seasons, especially after the Borg came on board, but your hyperbole is reminiscent of a certain Scandinavian poster who, while his knowledge of Trek and ability to construct contentions that usually make sense, put you in the shade, has the same tendency to inflate the occurrence of certain events that similarly tar the franchise as a militaristic machine. Now that's mythology!!!!.