The One Thing You Could Change, VOYAGER Edition...

Don't care how quickly Ocampans grow up Harry would have been changing her nappies only a few years before and that's just wrong

 

push it forward a few decades and the occampan can change Kim's nappies

 

Would have liked to see.a step or.two towards nu bsg territory and have lingering damage and shortage of.shuttles and torpedos.

In the pilot have them find a few other survivors who come along..cardassian and a romulan

In the 37s..someone should have decided to stay on the planet. There had to be someone with no family to go back to.

Likewise we should have had someone from that planet go along.

Should have had regular background characters pop up. There are 150 crew and no one is transferred off ship. Should have seen lots of semi regular characters even if they don't have significant lines. Carey Vorick, Wildman and others should have been seen a dozen times over 7 years. Same for the survivors of the Equinox crew. Never heard from again. Should have popped up a few times

 

Where's the story? What do you do with them?

 

Not forget Carey was on board and then kill him am episode or two before the end.

 

They deliver lines in the script written for "Engineering Ensign" or "Bridge Officer", unless the writers take lessons from DS9 on how to do secondary characters then it's unlikely they would've had great depth or development given to them, but they can still be present. There was a number of times their names were dropped but they weren't seen.

It all builds the universe, and since the case of Voyager was a very small verse, with only one ship on a long journey, then it should've been far more fleshed out and realised than it was.

 

These people are on board for (what they thought was) their entire lives. There would have been a LOT more coupling up than their was.

Admittedly the idea of soap opera episodes about cheating and breakups is cringe, but it would have been more realistic than people carrying on their jobs and starship lives as if they expected to pull into port after a 5 year mission.

 

Yes! I agree that soap opera drivel isn't what we want, but there should have been an almost immediate increase in pairing off for both companionship and offspring. Practically speaking, they are going to need new crew members eventually.

 

^ Shame there weren't any Ktarians onboard, they could've recrewed the ship with fully matured adults in under ten years by the looks of things

 

Do without the holodecks. I disliked the holodeck episodes in Voyager less than those in TNG, but they are still a distraction.
And obliterate Trevis & Flotter.
In order of increasing tiresomeness:

Naomi Wildman
Q and other Q
Holodeck daftness
Trevis and Flotter

 

For Voyager, I guess if I could only change one aspect, it would be to allow for realistic rank ups. Harry Kim's seven year ensignhood was the most obnoxious example (he should have been a JG by season 3 and had two solid pips by season 7), but let's not forget Samantha Wildman, who might have had some seniority already. If Harry was an ensign for seven years, she might have been one for eight or nine. And B'Elanna should have been a senior lieutenant by the end, as opposed to a junior one.

There are other weaknesses to the show: discarded characters, plotlines that went nowhere, but they are easier to forgive because they're less obnoxiously visible. Whenever someone speaks ill of Voyager's writers, my usual response is something like: "Well these are people who didn't even know that an ensign is supposed to make lieutenant after a few years. You can't really expect competent work from them."

 

One thing I'd change would be to have Ron Moore have stayed on in the show. I think he could have added a lot of dynamic storytelling, continuing Voyagers hot streak from season 4.

 

I disagree. The holodecks were vital to the mental health and well-being of the crew, especially in a situation like this where they're stranded so far from home. Not surprised at all that they'd go out of their way to make sure the holodecks still functioned.

As for the Maquis? Hell, I'm glad they didn't ramp up the tension. The whole Maquis/Starfleet conflict becomes largely irrelevant once the entire reason for the Maquis' existence - the Cardassian/DMZ conflict - is removed from the equation. And as we saw, Chakotay was amenable to becoming part of a Starfleet crew (especially since, unlike many of the Maquis, he actually had a Starfleet career), so the rest of them would of course follow his lead. If he says don't fight, they don't fight.

 

I would imagine that, based on their having rebelled, Chakotay and the other Maquis would be a lot less reverent to the Prime Directive which could have led to reasonable and serious (rather than petty) conflicts about sharing technology and getting involved in other conflicts in the Delta Quadrant.

 

Get them home a year sooner, to allow a proper epilogue as well as more adventure in home territory in their seventh season.

And/or

Save some of season 1's biggies for later on since there's not been enough time to really know or like the crew.

And/or

let the premiere be different illusions to different crewmembers instead of all sharing the same "Hee Haw: The Next Generatrion" shtick. Hey, that reminds me...

 

I came here to say this.

 

There were two great ways to ditch Harry without killing him, too.
1. Non Sequitur. He can't get back. So he accepts this, designs shuttles, marries Libby, MAKES @%#*&-ING LIEUTENANT, and lives happily ever after.
2. Favorite Son. He really is an alien. And the girls on the planet are NOT black widows disguised as hot women. So Harry never makes lieutenant, but doesn't care because he gets unlimited action, and REALLY lives happily ever after!

 

He has to be killed off, that's just what Trek does, first Yar then Dax. Kim's death would also have more impact than him just leaving the ship (until the reset button was hit for the following week and they'd all be "Ensign who?"), or else he might get an awful guest episode like "Fury", though it's not like the dead stay dead for very long in Trek.

 

I don't know if that's true. Of the four main characters deleted from the legacy Trek shows (before 2001), two were terminated (Tasha Yar, Jadzia Dax) and two were non-lethally removed (Wesley Crusher and Kes).

 

Though the deaths had greater impact on characters and plots, which adds so much more. Can you imagine at the end of Scorpion P2, rather than the Janeway/Seven scene in the cargo bay, Janeway instead going to Harry's quarters and looking over his things and the weight of losing her youngest officer, who she felt terrible about when he was abducted by the Caretaker, but now she has no chance of getting him back. As the episode closes have the camera pulls back as she stands in the dark and silently sobs.

Then having the following episode have the crew reeling from their loss and saying their goodbyes to him, whilst also having to deal with Seven not understanding their grief. They could then have a service for Harry on the bridge (like they did with the 21st century astronaut whose name I've forgotten), though this time because its someone we've known for years the scene has far more impact, especially when Janeway bestows a posthumous promotion on him for all he's done for the ship and crew.