The Continuity and Serialization of Voyager

[DigificWriter]

So your argument is that any continuity errors in VOY aren't really continuity errors because of some theoretical events taking place between episodes? Really? How convenient.

I never said that, so stop trying to put words in my mouth.

I don't have the time or the energy right now to sit down and document every single time Voyager made a direct or indirect reference or callback to the events of previous episodes outside of multi-parter episodes, but it happened frequently enough that it demonstrated a pattern of continuity that belies the idea that the show was constantly contradicting itself.

Was the show perfect in respecting its own continuity? No, it wasn't, but that doesn't mean it was openly and frequently disregarding things that happened either.

 

[dub]

So your argument is that any continuity errors in VOY aren't really continuity errors because of some theoretical events taking place between episodes? Really? How convenient.

I never said that, so stop trying to put words in my mouth.

Calm down, Digi. He was quoting Anwar, not you.

But people do often use "theoretical events" to explain away inconsistencies. I think some people even enjoy coming up with those things as sort of a hobby or a game. I think the proper term is "in-universe explanation."

I'm into season 4 and I will say that I'm seeing a lot more attempts at continuity/arcs than I remembered when I sporadically watched Voyager during its original run. My short-term memory works better than other parts of my brain , so I can point to "Message in a Bottle" through "The Killing Game" 2-parter as an example. That's 6 back-to-back episodes, which I think is more than we ever saw with TNG. IIRC (I really should put IIRC in every post). Most of those deal with the Hirogen, messages from Starfleet, and/or Seven's problems integrating properly into the crew. And one or more of those carry over into another episode in that set. So I think those 3 storylines tie these 6 episodes together quite nicely. Though I'm still in Part I of "The Killing Game," which so far is quite puzzling to me but I'm hoping it gets better.

 

[Anwar]

The fact that folks care about something as petty and silly as the EMH back-up rather than enjoy what a good story "Living Witness" was, really says more about them than Voyager. You get a great, touching story with good acting, and it all means NOTHING because you can't get over something petty and silly like the Backup.

 

[BruntFCA]

The fact that folks care about something as petty and silly as the EMH back-up rather than enjoy what a good story "Living Witness" was, really says more about them than Voyager. You get a great, touching story with good acting, and it all means NOTHING because you can't get over something petty and silly like the Backup.

I don't particularly care about the EMH back-up TBH, and "Living Witness" is actually my favorite VOY episode and one of my favorite episodes from any Trek series. DigificWriter asked for an example of VOY contradicting itself so I gave him one.

I don't want to come off as being too negative as VOY did have some nice bits of continuity, some of which i'm still just noticing as I re-watch various episodes. A few months ago I was re-watching "Alter Ego" and noticed a weird scene with Tom, B'Elanna, and Vorik on the holodeck that didn't really seem to fit into the episode, it wasn't until I looked at the episode order that I realized they were subtly setting up "Blood Fever".

 

[Harvey]

Actually, TOS responded to fanmail, if they got "enough" positive feed back on a character, like Kyle or Kevin Riley, they were invited back...

The only appearance of either of those characters that was a result of fan response was John Winston's cameo as Kyle on the Reliant in Star Trek II.

 

[Guy Gardener]

This?

PARIS: Oh, me too. Let's find us a spot. This place is filling up fast.
VORIK: I have already taken the liberty of reserving a table, Lieutenant, with a view of the lakeside. You did express a fondness for that particular vista.
TORRES: I did?
VORIK: Five days ago in a conversation we had in Engineering regarding holodeck programmes.
TORRES: I guess maybe I did.
PARIS: Good memory.
VORIK: Of course.

"fondness"

Has Aaron woken up from that coma yet?

 

[Praetorian]

The crux of the matter is that in the end things like continuity and arcs aren't that important when it comes to enjoying a tv show. I couldn't care less if an episode didn't take continuity into account, as long as it was a good show. And when it comes to bad episodes, all the continuity in the world couldn't save those.

As Maximus Decimus Meridius said: "Are you not entertained?"
When it comes to Voyager, my answer would be a resounding yes about 60% to 70% of the time.

The other 30% to 40%? Continuity wouldn't have mattered at all. If anything was holding Voyager back was a tendency to play it safe, and the overuse of treknobabble.

I'm not saying that more continuity, specially in the field of characterization consistency, or some arcs playing in the background wouldn't have made me enjoy the series even more. Probably it would.

But when watching excellent episodes such as "Living Witness" or "Scorpion" the last thing on my mind was the existance of a EMH backup or the number of torpedoes fired. I have watched many series with great continuity that couldn't hold a candle to Voyager.

Edit: Oh, and Voyager did have some continuity. Someone said that "The Swarm" was one example of a lack of it. However, a couple episodes after the Doctor did mention he had had some memory issues. Was that the best way to approach the issue? Possibly not, but it was not forgotten. Much worse is Janeway saying that Starfleet is 70,000 light years away so it's okay to violate the Prime Directive. Hence my mentioning of a somewhat serious lack of charactization consistency on Voyager.

 

[MacLeod]

They made a backup of the Doctor in between episodes, and then lost the backup similarly between episodes and couldn't make another one.

So your argument is that any continuity errors in VOY aren't really continuity errors because of some theoretical events taking place between episodes? Really? How convenient.

Yes "Living Witness" was one of VOY better episodes, but that doesn't it excuse it from a lacof continuity.

Even if we accept that they made a back-up copy of the EMH inbetween episodes, then it is reasonable to think if they can do it once they can do it again. If you can't, story telling 101 says you inform your audaince as to why something which you could do previoulsy (even if you want to go down the inbetween episode route) can't be done anymore.

A better way would be to drop a line of dialouge into an episode before hand saying smething along the lines of "We've manged to construct a module that will allow us to back-up up the Docotr, however we won't be able to make another."

You don't have to neccessarily say why you can't, and it's far better than magically being able to make one but not two without informing the audiance that you can't.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Alexander Enberg came out of the coma months ago, haven't seen any new updates other than a pic in sept. Seems to be a long road still.

 

[Anwar]

Yes "Living Witness" was one of VOY better episodes, but that doesn't it excuse it from a lacof continuity.

Exactly as I said. Good writing ultimately ignored because of something petty.

Even if we accept that they made a back-up copy of the EMH inbetween episodes, then it is reasonable to think if they can do it once they can do it again.

The Mobile Emitter was built using super advanced tech from hundreds of years in the future. It's pretty easy to believe that if somehow they made a duplicate, it wasn't something easily done.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The only reason they couldn't make copies, is so that no one would try to weaponize it.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm watching Learning Curve right now, and wanted to make an observation regarding Tuvok in the episode. Tim Russ has gone on record stating that he felt that Tuvok's strict adherence to and emphasis of Starfleet protocols was in contradiction of his actions in Prime Factors, but I have to say that I disagree for a couple of reasons:
1) Being the Vulcan - and individual - that he is, it makes perfect sense that he'd 'rededicate' himself to upholding Starfleet protocols after having broken them to the degree that he had in PF
2) He was trying to help Dalby, Henley, Gerron, and Chell be better able to do their jobs, so it makes sense that he'd be ultra-stringent when it came to behavior and stuff like dress codes

I did notice one thing that didn't entirely make sense, which is that he told Gerron to remove his earring, but that's more of an issue as it concerns overall Star Trek continuity and whatnot than it is with the episode and Voyager in particular, but, at the same time, it isn't really that big of a deal in the long run and is only being mentioned at all because it caught me off-guard.

Another thing that caught me off-guard was Chakotay cold-cocking Dalby, but it makes perfect sense with regards to his character as established both prior to and following the episode.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Learning Curve should have been episode 5.

Not two years down the track.

Ditto for Good Shepherd.

And we should have checked back in on the night classes from time to time untill eventually some to all of the Maquis "graduated" from Tuvok's "accredited" Starfleet Academy Annex.

5 years later we see Chell, and then he takes over Neelix's kitchen.

I have a theory.

The command staff, the characters we follow week to week, are all assholes who the rest of the 130 odd crew chose not to associate with unless they really really really have to.

 

[DigificWriter]

I don't see any problems whatsoever with the 'timelines' of Learning Curve or Good Shepherd, although I do think we should've seen Dalby, Henley, and Gerron again or at least had references made to them. I'm not going to fault the show too harshly for the missed opportunity of not reusing the characters, though, because it didn't really adversely affect things as a whole.

 

[Guy Gardener]

These four ####ups chose to stay on Voyager instead of staying on the 37's planet.

They knew they weren't cutting it, and they would eventually be demoted to cleaning toilets, yet they stayed waiting for the blade to fall.

Meanwhile in Basics... When the entire crew was marooned... Did you see them trying to make fire?

Ditto, ditto for the Good Shepherd Kids.

 

[DigificWriter]

It was a missed opportunity not to re-use the characters, just as it was a missed opportunity to not have John DeLancie make more appearances as Q, but that's all that it was: a missed opportunity.

Also, we did see Tal Celes again after Good Shepherd, and she was also referenced following the events of that ep.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Her name was Celestial.

That's hilarious.

She was coming back.

It almost didn't matter that the actress was gorgeous.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes "Living Witness" was one of VOY better episodes, but that doesn't it excuse it from a lacof continuity.

Exactly as I said. Good writing ultimately ignored because of something petty.

Even if we accept that they made a back-up copy of the EMH inbetween episodes, then it is reasonable to think if they can do it once they can do it again.

The Mobile Emitter was built using super advanced tech from hundreds of years in the future. It's pretty easy to believe that if somehow they made a duplicate, it wasn't something easily done.

Perhaps I should have expressed my self differently. Yes "Living Witness" was one of VOY's better episode but that doesn't mean it can't be reviewed in a crtical way.

It is possible to both like something and find fault with it. Pick up a paper and you'll find book reviews, moview revies etc.. Where criticspoint out the strengths and/or faults within a particualr work.

So just as I said it was one of VOY's better episode, I can say at the same time it had a lack of continuity with what had previoulsy been establsihed.

How is that being unfair? Where is the flaw in my statement. It is regarded as a good episode, yet prior to this episode they didn't have a back-up of the EMH which had been used as a plot point at least once. If they hadn't made a plot point regarding the fact they didn't have a back-up copy, that particualr critisim would not exist. The burden is upon the creative team to establish the rules upon which a work operates. It is not upon as the viewer/reader to full in the blanks. You can't blame the reader/viewer for calling you on breaking your own rules when you don't inform them as to why that restriction no longer applies.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm watching Projections, and it's brought to my attention something that I can't quite figure out how to rationalize from either an in-universe or real-world perspective. I wouldn't call it a continuity error per se, but it is something I find odd (especially since by the time the issue crops up, the writers had already established a pattern of either directly or indirectly referencing previous events): When Barclay guests in Seasons 6 and 7, the Doctor should've recognized him from Projections (even though its events weren't 'real'), but he doesn't, and I can't help but wonder why.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Becuase they suck at continuity.

TORRES: Anyone know this Barclay?
EMH: I took the liberty of reviewing his personnel file. He's had a rather colourful career, not to mention an unusual medical history. He's recovered from a variety of maladies, including transporter phobia and holo-addiction.
JANEWAY: Well, whatever his problems, he certainly came through for us.
CHAKOTAY: Starfleet should give him a promotion.
SEVEN: I've finished analysing the data Mister Barclay sent. The hyper-subspace technology is promising. I believe we can look forward to future communications with Earth.
NEELIX: Well, that calls for a toast.
JANEWAY: Care to do the honours, Tom?
PARIS: To my Dad. It's nice to know he's still there. And to the newest honorary member of the Voyager crew, Reginald Barclay. Whoever you are.
JANEWAY: To Mister Barclay.