My take is that it was just the small number of Kazon on the surface of Kes' planet that had "water issues," and not all the Kazon in general.
Voyager Hate
- Thread starter Sparkle Fabulosa
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Well one of my problems with Voyager is they introduce these cool aliens and never did anything with them. The Hirogen really were cool, I liked it when they developed Malon society giving them more depth than the typical aliens of the week, and the Vaadwaur should have turned up again since Dragon's Teeth practically sets up a potential sequel at the end. More material with any of these aliens would have been great, and I'm sure the show could get by with one less Borg episode to accommodate them.
Except Jabin was seen both scrabbling for water and commanding one of those starships that fight Voyager.
My least favourite, but only seen the first couple of seasons. I liked what Michael Piller was trying to inject (e.g. he recognised that shows like ER were changing a lot of how TV shows were produced and tried to bring some of these elements into the show) but when he left I lost interest.
Lots of stuff mentioned here already I agree with, but I also feel it just had some very, very poorly conceived characters and poor acting to boot.
Lots of stuff mentioned here already I agree with, but I also feel it just had some very, very poorly conceived characters and poor acting to boot.
Actually, most of the characters on Voyager were pretty good characters played by good actors. Granted, as the series went on and the focus became more on Janeway, Seven of Nine and the Doctor it did have a negative impact on the rest of the characters, but even then the whole cast were engaging characters played by likable actors.
Compare that to Enterprise's cast, which literally was just "fill the senior staff positions, have a black person, someone else of ethnicity, someone with a foreign accent and a couple of aliens." Aside from Archer, Trip, and T'Pol none of them had any relevant contribution to the series. Hell, Harry Kim had a lot more character and personality than Travis Mayweather.
Meanwhile, what the hell is up with my internet spell-checker? It flags Janeway and Mayweather as wrong spellings, but accepts T'Pol.
Voyager had an interesting premise but they never followed through with it. You could take almost any episode and drop it into the alpha quadrant like TNG and it would work out the same.
After watching it for almost the entire first season I still did not know most of the characters names- and din't really care to. It was like going to a friends party but there is nobody interesting to talk to.
Voyager did have some good episodes, but I think of it more as a placeholder show instead of one I was looking forward to watching each week.
After watching it for almost the entire first season I still did not know most of the characters names- and din't really care to. It was like going to a friends party but there is nobody interesting to talk to.
Voyager did have some good episodes, but I think of it more as a placeholder show instead of one I was looking forward to watching each week.
[I can't decide if your assumption that THIS is what I meant by "give Jim Kirk a run for his money" is misogynistic, misandrism, or just Kirk-bashing.
I don't know. Was your assumption that Janeway was one big damn hero like Jim Kirk saving worlds and civilisations regardless of the personal danger (obeying the spirit of the PD rather than the letter) then I say she was? I'm amazed that people don't seem to see it.
And if you're referring to Kirk's behaviour towards the opposite sex then I don't think Janeway could have got away with it.
Any indication that the starship was low on water?Except Jabin was seen both scrabbling for water and commanding one of those starships that fight Voyager.
I have to say, I'm not completely convinced by the whole "Voyager was hated at the time" sub-argument that we often hear being thrown about by people. I can't help feeling that it's a severe case of revisionist history rewriting the facts. My remembrance on the feedback about much of Voyager at the time was mostly very positive, even among the broader fandom and the media, but that it only started to get a little more negative nearer the end of the show's run. Which I could just a likely ascribe to a general feeling, leading into it's waning years, that it hadn't as a whole really lived up to expectations.....
Enterprise is the show where I really recall there being nothing but wall-to-wall bad coverage from start to end, from fan circles right through to the more casual viewing audiences. My feeling was that show really started on the wrong foot, and never really got those people back on side again.
Enterprise is the show where I really recall there being nothing but wall-to-wall bad coverage from start to end, from fan circles right through to the more casual viewing audiences. My feeling was that show really started on the wrong foot, and never really got those people back on side again.
Voyager out of all the series is the only one where I actively watched all of the series as it was airing for the first time, so I can say, most people did not like Voyager.
When I saw Caretaker I was super-excited about the series, then talked to my friends and found they didn't feel the same way. They already didn't like it and most of them had given up some time in the first two years. If you look at the Neilsen trends they very much reflect that. A few of them were temporarily more interested when Seven joined but that went away quickly.
When I saw Caretaker I was super-excited about the series, then talked to my friends and found they didn't feel the same way. They already didn't like it and most of them had given up some time in the first two years. If you look at the Neilsen trends they very much reflect that. A few of them were temporarily more interested when Seven joined but that went away quickly.
The concept of Voyager was crying out for a serial show, where events would have consequences in the future. Instead we ended up with a show where the big red reboot button was used all the time, and a ship that was all but shot to pieces in one episode looked fresh out of spacedock the next, in an area where they had no Starfleet support. Also, pretty much all of the characters were too bland for me to care about their fate. And Voyager pretty much ruined the Borg for me.
Voyager is my least favorite Trek show...
Voyager is my least favorite Trek show...
Well I don't hate Voyager, actually it's my favourite of all the Trek series.
Janeway is a person who makes decisions, right or wrong, but decisions, which is needed when in positions of responsibility. That's why she's hated, because people don't like the decisions she makes, but others in her place would not make a decision, linger on for days hesitating to make a move for fear of "alienating" themselves.
Better a bad decision than no decision at all? I think yes.
Janeway might have been wrong in the beginning but her decision making opens up new scenarios not initially considered. She keeps business moving forward.
So I rarely watch the original Trek series (I don't hate it, I just don't watch it) because I can't identify with the characters, maybe it's too old and dated. And while I don't mind watching a TNG episode the problem with these series is that 4 out of 5 episodes suffer from very poor script writing, some episodes are just plain boring.
On the other hand Voyager has a funny, clever and well written character which is the doctor. Had it not been for the EMH, 7 of 9, and Tuvok, maybe I would not be a fan of Voyager
Janeway is a person who makes decisions, right or wrong, but decisions, which is needed when in positions of responsibility. That's why she's hated, because people don't like the decisions she makes, but others in her place would not make a decision, linger on for days hesitating to make a move for fear of "alienating" themselves.
Better a bad decision than no decision at all? I think yes.
Janeway might have been wrong in the beginning but her decision making opens up new scenarios not initially considered. She keeps business moving forward.
So I rarely watch the original Trek series (I don't hate it, I just don't watch it) because I can't identify with the characters, maybe it's too old and dated. And while I don't mind watching a TNG episode the problem with these series is that 4 out of 5 episodes suffer from very poor script writing, some episodes are just plain boring.
On the other hand Voyager has a funny, clever and well written character which is the doctor. Had it not been for the EMH, 7 of 9, and Tuvok, maybe I would not be a fan of Voyager
So, what you're saying is:
People who complained about a woman being captain are sexist.
People who didn't complain about a woman being captain are sexist.
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For my part, I really enjoyed Janeway/Mulgrew, and thought she was both tough, in charge, and had great line delivery.
I don't get all the Tuvok/Tim Russ dislike I'm reading. He was absolutely my favorite character in this show. I just loved his almost never-ending sourpuss. My only complaint vis-à-vis Tuvok is that he was way underused.
Also, Voyager introduced the (to me) very interesting not-quite-humanoid CGI Species 8472. It absolutely made sense to me that, eventually, the Borg would bite off more than they could chew. (I choose to assume that, by now, Species 8472 has re-encoded its DNA [or whatever its info-carrying molecule is] to once again kick nanoprobe butt. My impression was that their super-genetically-dense cells were to some extent under their direct, conscious control. if not, they probably had the tech to do it.)
And overall, I enjoyed Voyager immensely.
Scorpion is definitely one of Voyager's great triumphs.
I like Tuvok but he seems like the most riskless character in the show. He's got the demeanor of Spock only instead of McCoy ribbing him playfully he had Neelix belittling his seriousness.
Pretty much all the Trek captains are decisive. Janeway had this way about her though that seemed intolerant toward dissent and unwilling to take advice from her senior staff when she's set her mind on something, like she took disagreement with her command decisions as a moral deficiency, even made in private through the proper channels.
I like Tuvok but he seems like the most riskless character in the show. He's got the demeanor of Spock only instead of McCoy ribbing him playfully he had Neelix belittling his seriousness.
Pretty much all the Trek captains are decisive. Janeway had this way about her though that seemed intolerant toward dissent and unwilling to take advice from her senior staff when she's set her mind on something, like she took disagreement with her command decisions as a moral deficiency, even made in private through the proper channels.
If you add those names to your dictionary, they won't be flagged anymore.
Exactly. Way back in the '70s, David Gerrold wrote in one of his books that Star Trek stories should be about "Kirk makes a decision." Set up the problem, the consequences of the possible choices, and let the decision be made as to how to resolve the problem - for better or for worse. Sometimes Kirk made the right decision, and sometimes he screwed up royally.
It's the same with Janeway. She had a problem to solve, she looked at her choices, made a decision, and sometimes it worked out great. Sometimes it didn't.
Janeway may not have seduced as many men as Kirk did women, but at least when it came to blowing up the ship, she didn't bluff and have the aliens call her on it. When she decreed the ship blow up, it did.
The difference is that Tuvok completed Kolinahr, whereas Spock didn't. That, plus the obvious trait of being fully Vulcan instead of hybrid, meant that Tuvok didn't come with built-in emotional issues that would affect him.
NuBSG fell apart after only 2 seasons, because that's all the "Lost Ship" plot is good for.
NuBSG only got THAT plot point to work by having their Universe be devoid of any extraterrestrial life. That wouldn't work in Trek.
Also they cheated by giving NuBSG a huge armada with all the stuff they really needed (refinery ships, storage ships, etc).
The Maquis hadn't been defined as having any unique traits by the time VOY started. They were a lousy fit anyways. The show would've been better off having them take on a lot of DQ aliens for their second crew instead. It would've connected them more to the DQ.
The whole "Lost Ship" thing wasn't a complete premise anyways.
It doesn't help that VOY's premise was something done by TOS and TNG repeatedly already and that the audience was already out to view the series with disdain when it started.
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It's like I've said before, the biggest indictment against the whole Maquis thing is the simple fact that it was conceived specifically for Voyager, which was the series they had intended to use them for the most strongly as a matter of the show's whole damn concept..... but it was Deep Space Nine that actually debuted the Maquis (and which arguably ended up getting all the mileage out them anyway), and even their single The Next Generation outing made a much better use of them than anything Voyager ever did in seven years.
IMO a big problem was all the characters being former Starfleet. I think there would definitely have been interesting places to go if people like Chakotay and Be'lanna were brilliant in their field, but were civilian citizens of the Federation that were simply judged qualified for their positions on the crew based on their individual merits, not on former Starfleet training (which was true even for Torres, albeit in a more limited way). So I think it wasn't *just* the fact that those characters were assimilated into the crew so early on that killed the Maquis idea stone dead, it goes all the way back to a flaw made in Voyager's very beginnings: I think so many of them having been drawn as being formerly Starfleet specifically from the get-go is what hung the Maquis concept out to dry even before the first page of "Caretaker" had ever been written.
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It's not just that. The Maquis and Feds weren't even real enemies. They preferred not to have to fight if they could avoid it and their only major point of contention was the DMZ thing.
In Voyager, the DMZ was now decades away as were the Cardassians. The only things that kept them fighting were no longer present and aside from that they had no other major differences.
Whatever conflict they had with one another was never going to last long, and they didn't have much to fight over in the DQ to begin with.
They'd have been better off having the "second crew" be DQ aliens, or Romulans, or people with REAL differences with the Feds.
In Voyager, the DMZ was now decades away as were the Cardassians. The only things that kept them fighting were no longer present and aside from that they had no other major differences.
Whatever conflict they had with one another was never going to last long, and they didn't have much to fight over in the DQ to begin with.
They'd have been better off having the "second crew" be DQ aliens, or Romulans, or people with REAL differences with the Feds.
There are a handful of episodes in Season 2 that illustrate why many ST fans were disappointed with Voyager and fairly labeled it TNG-lite. Just when Voyager should have been getting its sea legs as an established series and boldly going where no ST series had gone before, we get regression and repetition.
1. "Threshold" The much-derided salamander episode is just a rip-off of the TNG episode "Evolution".
2. "Projections" Welcome back, Barclay for the 1st of 6 times throughout Voyager.
3. "Death Wish" The return of Q and a cameo by Riker. Why are the producers so determined to remind us that we're watching Star Trek? You think we don't know?
4. "Prototype" and "Dreadnought" are only four episodes apart and are basically the same B'Elanna learns about herself while saving the day from self-aware machines episodes. In both cases, the threat is unwittingly her fault. In addition to the blank-faced lack of creativity, we see that, instead of the nonconformist, don't-tread-on-me, aggressively defensive B'Elanna promised in Caretaker, we get a frequently chastised adult-child desperate for Janeway's approval. Janeway (a pedantic, lecturing, authority figure) should be the exact personality B'Elanna recoils from in disgust and contempt. Instead, she tucks herself under Janeway's wing. The most combative B'Elanna can manage is mild sarcasm and sullen brusqueness and never toward Janeway who she treats with obsequiousness.
These episodes, while lacking in creativity, also demonstrate the final nail-in-the-coffin failure of the idea of ongoing Maquis/Federation conflict as an essential source of drama to distinguish and propel series and, with it, the abandonment by the producers at any real attempt to establish Voyager as anything other than a thinly veiled remake of TNG. This surrender is finally bluntly admitted at the beginning of Season 4 for by the departure of one Delta Quadrant character (Kes) and the pushing of the other (Neelix) into the background in favor of introducing a "reformed enemy" character from a TNG species, The Borg.
1. "Threshold" The much-derided salamander episode is just a rip-off of the TNG episode "Evolution".
2. "Projections" Welcome back, Barclay for the 1st of 6 times throughout Voyager.
3. "Death Wish" The return of Q and a cameo by Riker. Why are the producers so determined to remind us that we're watching Star Trek? You think we don't know?
4. "Prototype" and "Dreadnought" are only four episodes apart and are basically the same B'Elanna learns about herself while saving the day from self-aware machines episodes. In both cases, the threat is unwittingly her fault. In addition to the blank-faced lack of creativity, we see that, instead of the nonconformist, don't-tread-on-me, aggressively defensive B'Elanna promised in Caretaker, we get a frequently chastised adult-child desperate for Janeway's approval. Janeway (a pedantic, lecturing, authority figure) should be the exact personality B'Elanna recoils from in disgust and contempt. Instead, she tucks herself under Janeway's wing. The most combative B'Elanna can manage is mild sarcasm and sullen brusqueness and never toward Janeway who she treats with obsequiousness.
These episodes, while lacking in creativity, also demonstrate the final nail-in-the-coffin failure of the idea of ongoing Maquis/Federation conflict as an essential source of drama to distinguish and propel series and, with it, the abandonment by the producers at any real attempt to establish Voyager as anything other than a thinly veiled remake of TNG. This surrender is finally bluntly admitted at the beginning of Season 4 for by the departure of one Delta Quadrant character (Kes) and the pushing of the other (Neelix) into the background in favor of introducing a "reformed enemy" character from a TNG species, The Borg.
It's interesting that you bring this up. In my current attempt at re-watching Voyager, I was scratching my head as to these two episodes, purely on the titles. I was sure one of these involved a robot race, but couldn't for the life of me remember which was which.
I don't know what it was with the (almost) constant use of one-word titles. I'm not suggesting every episode go with something like Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, but you could practically make up titles for phony Voyager episodes and create whole seasons that never were, and probably fool people. I'm tempted to try it.
I didn't watch Deep Space Nine very much, but I can remember the ones I did see from the titles alone. I don't understand the thinking that went for this approach in Voyager. I find it almost impossible to get them straight.
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