Voyager Made It Home Too Early

[Jbarney]

I think one of the things that was so sad about the series was that I never really had the impression Voyager would not make it home. It just seemed like you knew the writers were going to bring Voyager home from the start. It would have been a MUCH better ending to leave them out there.

A couple of things they could have done to expand the series a bit. I think it would have been interesting to take a much more long term view of the series. For example, they didn't have to get them stranded in the Delta Quadrant in the first episode. I think it would have been neat if they had the first 5 or 6 shows unfold in the Alpha Quadrant.

Second, when they got to Delta Quadrant and were stranded there, they wrapped up the tension between the Maquis and Star Fleet much too quickly. While there were problems, yes, it would have been better for the writers to allow the Maquis ship to get through a couple of episodes and then have the two crews come together out of a sense of survival. Doing so what have been a lot better.....

Finally, I know there are concerns with the amount of money it takes to produce a show like trek, but just from a fan or realistic view, seven years was a bit bla. Everything doesn't have to be full of doom and gloom, but grounding the characters in the long term voyage home would have been better.

I guess you can tell I think they should have ended the series with Voyager still trying to get home.

 

[Tachyon]

I agree. They should have stayed in the Delta Quadrant for a little longer.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Hmmm.

Well, they got home 376 years before endgame, but the final episode was i think set 700 years after the era of Endgame, but I adore all your points.

 

[Brit]

The problem with the ending that Voyager never gets home is that there is no illusion of Happily Ever After, that's one of the reasons Endgame is hated by the J/C fandom because it took that illusion away.

The biggest selling genre in fiction (it out sales all other fiction put together almost two to one) has pretty much only one rule. The ending has to have the illusion of HEA.

Brit

 

[spoonunseptium]

They had to immediately establish what the series premise would be. It had to be clear that this wasn't TNG part 2.


Also, having the ship in the alpha quadrant for a few episodes, then suddenly having them stranded in the delta quadrant FOREVER = bad idea.
It just doesn't work when it comes to setting up the audience. We'd spend the entire second season going "wtf?" (even though I kinda did that anyway...but for a different reason).


although I do agree with the Maquis thing. As evidence of the fact that the division was solved too quickly, before I got into Voyager and only had a vague idea of the basic elements of the show, I had no idea that there was an Maquis thing. Before I saw the first episode, I had thought the crew had been comissioned that way from the beginning.

If you miss a very few key episodes, then you end up having no idea there was ever a split or that Chakotay and B'elanna are ex-TERRORISTS


the show had a huge opportunity to be really gritty and dark(and even more involved than DS9)...infact, more like Equinox, but I think the writers fell short. Demands of the station and whatnot.

 

[Gary7]

A majority of people want them to come home. Somehow, some way. Leaving them in the Delta quadrant would be a serious let down. Paramount would never hear the end of it.

And then about a year later... a Voyager movie is made that DOES bring them home.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I'm pretty much the opposite - Voyager didn't get home soon enough. I wanted to know what happened when they got home, not just know that they made it back. I think they should have returned home a good six episodes or so before the final episode and explored what it meant for these people to come home.

Of course, that would have meant that the writers would have had to have been focused on characterization instead of shiny stories with things that go boom at that point...

 

[exodus]

There wasn't going to be a Voyager movie, so there wasn't any point to leaving them in the Delta Quad.

 

[Jbarney]

I understand there was never going to be a Voyager movie. I think it would be a much more interesting conversation right now if fans were wondering how the ship was doing stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

One of the problems with Television is giving the fans exactly what they want....if the fans wanted Voyager to get home that is fine. Leaving them in the Delta Quadrant at the end of the seventh season would not have hurt ratings.....

The show would have been over......

 

[Tachyon]

Leaving them in the DQ would have been a solid basis for good Voyager relaunch books.

 

[exodus]

I understand there was never going to be a Voyager movie. I think it would be a much more interesting conversation right now if fans were wondering how the ship was doing stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

One of the problems with Television is giving the fans exactly what they want....if the fans wanted Voyager to get home that is fine. Leaving them in the Delta Quadrant at the end of the seventh season would not have hurt ratings.....

The show would have been over......

...but it might hurt DVD sales.

Take the X-Files for example. The DVD's like Trek were very expensive, that's strike 1. Leaving them stranded would give the audience a far more incomplete ending than what we already got, much like the X-Files. Due to the ending being so bad and leaving the audiences hanging combined with price, the X-Files DVD's sold far less that the studio hoped for. They lost money on them. Paramount already lost allot of money on Voyager due to a declining fan base and lousy network, they couldn't afford the loss of sales by having the ship not get home & give the fans some of what they asked for.

Plus it's a huge gamble to assume that a majority that watched the show are going to continue with the relaunch books. The decline in viewership showed not allot had a vested interest to go that far.

 

[TheGodBen]

Voyager wasn't like TNG, Voyager's whole premise was to get the ship home. TNG's premise was to put a group of people on a ship exploring the galaxy, and its ending lived up to that premise. DS9's premise was to put a group of people on an isolated space station during a politically unstable period, and its ending lived up to that premise. Voyager was a story with a beginning, middle and end, and to stay true to its premise meant the ship had to get home by the end of the final episode. I think that the middle was unfocused and the ending was a catastrofuck, but they were correct to at least try to finish up the show's premise.

 

[exodus]

Voyager wasn't like TNG, Voyager's whole premise was to get the ship home. TNG's premise was to put a group of people on a ship exploring the galaxy, and its ending lived up to that premise. DS9's premise was to put a group of people on an isolated space station during a politically unstable period, and its ending lived up to that premise. Voyager was a story with a beginning, middle and end, and to stay true to its premise meant the ship had to get home by the end of the final episode. I think that the middle was unfocused and the ending was a catastrofuck, but they were correct to at least try to finish up the show's premise.

Exactly.

 

[TheGodBen]

^ Hey, we agree on something at last.

 

[Jbarney]

I do see what you are saying. I just think it would have been much more bold for them to roll the dice and leave them their.

Jason

 

[mirandafave]

No they had to make it home in some sort of conclusive manner for the series finale. DS9 could not have ended with the war still raging. These shows had set these plot arcs up and had to apy off on them.

Yes the tone should have at times been darker and more stark to portray the reality the huge risk and danger they were in.

As for seven years being too short, they could have played the last season out more so not chronologically fitting a year but a greater time frame of a couple of years.

 

[Guy Gardener]

What if they faked us out?

They get home.

Meet their familes, hug, cry, and laugh off the talks of a Court martial, but then a few seconds before the ending credits roll, we something that might make it clear that they might be on a fake Earth of some kind for some reason and then there is never ever any more stories told about Voyager.

You saw the DaVinchi Code, there is no way the Voth would let them get all the way back to earth. These humans were just giving their catch a little slack on the line before they were reeled in.

 

[neogothboy74]

I'm pretty much the opposite - Voyager didn't get home soon enough. I wanted to know what happened when they got home, not just know that they made it back. I think they should have returned home a good six episodes or so before the final episode and explored what it meant for these people to come home.

Of course, that would have meant that the writers would have had to have been focused on characterization instead of shiny stories with things that go boom at that point...

I agree. I felt exactly the same way when the ending aired. As it stands I've mostly made my peace with it. It is what it is. It's very Voyager.

I was also very upset that the Maquis storyline disappeared after such a short period of time. Especially when it was built up over various Next Gen & DS9 episodes only to go mostly nowhere.

Voyager has some AMAZING episodes. There's just so much untapped potential there that it kills me. It was actually painful to watch sometimes.

 

[neogothboy74]

that's one of the reasons Endgame is hated by the J/C fandom

Brit

Would another reason be the horror that is the Seven / Chakotay romance? Because I count myself as a J/C shipper and while I was able to tolerate them not coming together (pun not intended) - the Seven thing just felt insulting.

 

[Jbarney]

Maybe it would have been better to keep the run of the series at 7 years, but the writers should have spaced out the episodes a little more. They could have kept it at seven seasons, but what if season one actually depicted 18 months in the Delta Quadrant? They could have then had seasons two, three, four, five, six and part of seven show a decade or more of time as Voyager struggled to get home.

Take some of the suggestions here....bring them home half way through the seventh season and show some of the stories with them attempting to grapple with being back in the Alpha Quadrant.