The issue was that they never got them to fit right and they went through dozens of prototypes. They looked poor on screen which is why they were abandoned.
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Actually, what they should have done on VOY was to do away with Starfleet uniforms entirely and just have the crew wear their regular clothes.
I would have had them start off wearing Starfleet uniforms but by season 2 or 3 have them drop them. I would have also changed the sets a little by seeing them incorporate alien tech in the ship that is replacing Federation tech since they would be getting lots of supplies and tech from aliens they meet on the way.
Having the characters drop the uniforms would make sense if there were only a handful of them left and any sense of formality had gone out the window (like with the Maquis), but there were 140 of them working as a crew, with all the regular routines, ranks and regulations remaining in place. Even if they felt like they couldn't represent Starfleet anymore, they probably would've come up with a Voyager specific uniform... during a good week when the replicator energy reserves were high.
Robert Picardo Talks Playing 900 Year-Old Holographic Doctor On ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’
"They've taken me out of holographic mothballs."
trekmovie.com
And that's the problem. It was still just TNG-lite. Having the crew move away from the standard of what we're used to seeing in a Star Trek show would have gone a long way toward making the show more unique.
That would've definitely made it unique, as I can't think of a single other sci-fi show, or even navy show where they dropped the uniforms, whether the ship was lost, or there was a nuclear apocalypse, or a virus, or they turned against their own side. Actually I suppose Red Dwarf would count, though even then it took years for Lister to stop wearing a uniform.
Voyager could've gone in very different directions and I personally think that some other directions might have been more interesting than what we got; the show's biggest problem was not living up to the potential of its premise. But I also think TNG-lite wasn't the worst choice. 'A Starfleet crew holds together on the other side of the galaxy' is just as valid as 'A Starfleet crew falls apart', and arguably more true to Star Trek's philosophy.
Plus even if the writers had admitted they were out of ideas after two seasons and brought the ship home for generic TNG adventures, I would've still watched it. I love TNG adventures, and it wasn't like I could get them anywhere else.
That's because for a time, Batman aired twice a week on the network.
In the 60's, wasn't 26-30 episodes the standard?
In the 90's, it was 26 episodes.
In the 00's and 10's, it became 22 episodes.
In the streaming era, lucky if you get 10.
ENT's first two seasons had 26 each, then it dropped to 24 for the Xindi arc season and in the final year was cut back even further to 22.
The drop-off was at Scott Bakula's request too.
Shame he didn't think to request that they drop off the bad episodes.
Actually most 90s shows only averaged 22-24 episodes. The Star Treks were the only shows which were consistently putting out 26 episodes every year.
The 2000s and 2010s is actually when 10-20 episode seasons became common, particularly among cable shows such as Game if Thrones (10) or The Walking Dead (16).
I admit to some disappointment that they’re implying this is the original Doctor, rather than the backup copy from “Living Witness” (whom I think would have reached Federation space right around the 32nd century, so when Picardo was first announced I assumed it had to be that one). Oh well.Robert Picardo Talks Playing 900 Year-Old Holographic Doctor On ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’
"They've taken me out of holographic mothballs."
No reason he can't turn up as well. Star Trek has always loved having an actor play two characters in the same scene and Robert Picardo has had more practice doing it than most.
Netflix launched the idea of 10-episode seasons (they saw no reason to pay for the traditional 26 episodes).
The rest of the TV landscape followed suit.
Right, but the show came out in 2001 from TV producers who just got done producing 3 mostly 90's era shows where 26 episodes were the norm. S3 was 24, cut 2 episodes short, because budget. S4 was 22 episodes, because Scott Bakula thought it was a better work schedule for the cast. Most other shows by then were also doing 22 per year.
True enough, but still examples of seasons with 26 episodes that saw number cuts in later years. ENT would have easily broken the 100-episode mark had the trims never happened, but at least Bakula was part of the reason and it wasn't all corporate politics.
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