Was the Delta Quadrant Just Boring Compared to the Alpha Quadrant?

[exodus]

The dream Aliens were asleep and invading people's dreams, why would they need Voyager's technology? They aren't even awake to use it, so the arguemnt that they wanted Voyager's tech doesn't even work with them and all the villains are going to be lame if they have the exact same motive for attacking Voyager.

In the very episode itself they said they invaded dreams to access the potential threat of passing ailen species. They considered Voyager a threat due to the it having the most advanced and potentially dangerous tactically weaponary. They had the ability to manipulate people telepathically in their dreams. They didn't have to be awake to use it when they can make someone else do it for them.

And you completely my point about the Maquis/Federation, people have pointed out that since Voyager is constantly on the move, means that most of the drama has to come from character interactions, so dropping the Federation/Maquis conflict and having dull characters like Harry kim present, means there is almost no drama there either. Almost no drama from alien civilizations, almost no drama from the crew, where is the drama in this dramatic series supposed come from?

Actually I didn't miss your point, you missed mine.
The Maquis/Starfleet political issue was a conflict in the AQ, not the DQ. So even if there was conflict politically from them on Voyager, what does it have to do with how boring life is percieved in the DQ? It's not a DQ issue.

I did not think the Hirogen very interesting at all, they seemed completely one dimensional being obsessed with "the hunt" and came off as stupid, considering they they let their society stagnant because of "the Hunt". That's not tragic, that's just stupid, I'm not sure why I supposed to feel sorry for people who ruin their own lives because they are being idiots.

So how do you view the Amish? People that hold old world values & traditions over modern culture at the risk of the own society dying out?

 

[Robert DeSoto]

I don't think the Delta Quadrant is more boring. It's just that Voyager is alone there. It doesn't get involved in the political intrigue, wars, border disputes, diplomatic negotiations, etc. that Starfleet ships back home get involved in all the time. Voyager also doesn't get any reinforcements from Starfleet to participate in any large scale military actions.

Starfleet Command will not order the USS Voyager patrol the Romulan Neutral Zone or Cardassian DMZ, prevent a Xindi attack, engage a Klingon or Jem'hadar invasion fleet. And if they see a Borg ship, Voyager can just turn around and head the other way. When the Enterprise sees a Borg ship in Federation space, they have stay and fight them. And the worst case scenario for Voyager is the crew gets assimilated. The worst case scenario in TNG is the entire Federation gets assimilated.

 

[Anwar]

Exactly, the premise itself needed more work so the show could be more flexible and able to tell more exciting stories than "We're low on some minerals, let's spend an episode mining an asteroid!" and they didn't do THOSE episodes either.

 

[exodus]

Exactly, the premise itself needed more work so the show could be more flexible and able to tell more exciting stories than "We're low on some minerals, let's spend an episode mining an asteroid!" and they didn't do THOSE episodes either.

Yep, then folks would be complaining that the episode was boring filler and that they didn't need a whole episode to see them do that. The only other scenario would be the cliche "We're stuck in a mining cave in and only have 3 hours of air left!!!"

 

[CoveTom]

How many long-term story arcs did TOS have? TNG?

How many truly recurring villains did either of those shows have?

How many memorable and enjoyable episodes did those shows do with an "alien of the week" that we rarely, if ever, heard of again?

The problem with Voyager was not that it couldn't have continuing arcs or recurring villains. The problem with Voyager was not that its underlying premise was bad.

The problem with Voyager was crappy writing.

 

[Anwar]

TOS had the Klingons and Romulans. It dealt with the Klingon Cold War as a running plot.

TNG had the Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians, Q, Lore, Duras' family, Sela and some nastier Ferengi. It dealt with Romulan sabotage, internal Klingon matters, Q's "Trials" of humanity, Data's evil brother and the occasional Borg encounter.

VOY...well the way the show was set-up it really had nothing similar to work with.

 

[exodus]

It was just Trek had run it's course under the Berman era, much like how Stargate is running out of steam now. Paramount when from have no Trek but TOS repeats on TV, to having way too much on at one time. You had TOS & TNG repeats, two new Trek shows on TV and a new TNG movie in theaters. It was way, way to much. Due to that, now when Paramount is hurting for new ideas to re-energize the Trek franchiese, they don't have any. Voyager would have been a good show to have put on TV now, after the success of JJ Abrams movie. There was a new interest in Trek again and Paramount did nothing to follow it up.

 

[CoveTom]

I stick to my original assertion. You may disagree. It's just opinion. But I do not believe anything other than bad, lazy writing contributed to Voyager's problems. I don't think its premise, "franchise fatigue" or saturation of the market with Trek, or anything else caused it's problems. I think it simply had subpar writing when compared with other Trek shows, significantly so, and that is what hurt it.

 

[Anwar]

For me, it's a combo of all those things as well as conceptual problems.

For starters, it should never have been a network show. Trek doesn't work on network TV, especially one as bad as UPN. It should have been syndicated or on Sci-Fi, like Farscape and NuBSG were.

With that major shackle gone, they could move onto solving the other major series issues much more easily.

 

[Quinton O'Connor]

Well, it never would have been put on Sci-Fi since that's an NBC Universal item. Syndication would have been preferable but I can't say as I blame Paramount for wanting to use the franchise as a flagship for its new network, considering Voyager launched right after TNG ended and TNG's ratings were still respectable by mainstream standards straight 'til its end.

Not to mention, UPN didn't start off so bad. It got a lot worse, especially after Voyager ended. Its dark side definitely revealed itself even during the show's run with all the network meddling, but I prefer to look at things glass-half-full and be grateful all the screwing with Voyager kept everyone's eyes off of DS9...

 

[CoveTom]

For starters, it should never have been a network show. Trek doesn't work on network TV, especially one as bad as UPN. It should have been syndicated or on Sci-Fi, like Farscape and NuBSG were.

On this we can agree. Though I would find syndication preferable to SyFy, given their history of how they treat good shows.

The sad thing, though, is that Paramount should have known better with UPN. Here they were just coming off the absolutely phenomenal success of TNG, a show in which the studio interfered very little. And they were wanting to bolster their new network, UPN, with their new Trek show. They should have been confident in the team behind TNG, and its success, and let them have the creative freedom to do what they needed to do, instead of reverting to "standard network mode" and dictating all the rules they had to make the show by.

 

[exodus]

For starters, it should never have been a network show. Trek doesn't work on network TV, especially one as bad as UPN. It should have been syndicated or on Sci-Fi, like Farscape and NuBSG were.

On this we can agree. Though I would find syndication preferable to SyFy, given their history of how they treat good shows.

The sad thing, though, is that Paramount should have known better with UPN. Here they were just coming off the absolutely phenomenal success of TNG, a show in which the studio interfered very little. And they were wanting to bolster their new network, UPN, with their new Trek show. They should have been confident in the team behind TNG, and its success, and let them have the creative freedom to do what they needed to do, instead of reverting to "standard network mode" and dictating all the rules they had to make the show by.

They did, it was called DS9.
DS9 was loosing the TNG audience.
So all the creative freedom & confidence wasn't bring in the returns they expected. Some Trek fans turned it off because they weren't on a starship. Casual viewers found it too slow next to TNG. So it was good business technically to take over and go back to the formula that brought in the highest audience. However, the audience had moved on to such shows as Xena. Trek wasn't the in thing anymore.

I stick to my original assertion. You may disagree. It's just opinion. But I do not believe anything other than bad, lazy writing contributed to Voyager's problems. I don't think its premise, "franchise fatigue" or saturation of the market with Trek, or anything else caused it's problems. I think it simply had subpar writing when compared with other Trek shows, significantly so, and that is what hurt it.

I do disagree.
Hercules & Xena had a lower production cost, not nearly as dramatically written as Voyager because they were purposely campy, yet it was pulling in higher ratings. They because the new TV fad that replaced Trek. Trek wasn't the "in" thing anymore. IMO if dramatic writing was only what the audience wanted, DS9(or B5) would have been a bigger success to more than just it's fans.

 

[CoveTom]

They did, it was called DS9.
DS9 was loosing the TNG audience.

DS9, especially in the first two years, was not being written by the TNG team. Yes, you had Berman and Piller at the helm, but that was about it. Others on the TNG staff, like Ronald D. Moore for example, did not make the move until after TNG had ended. No, by and large, you had DS9 being run by a group of people, in particular Ira Steven Behr, who didn't care much for TNG and its format, who thought it too bland, and who wanted to take DS9 in a different direction. DS9 was not an example of letting the TNG team continue to have creative freedom in a new series.

However, the audience had moved on to such shows as Xena. Trek wasn't the in thing anymore.

Nonsense. TNG was still pulling in huge ratings at the end of its seventh season. The audience for Trek was still there; it was the audience for DS9 that wasn't there. At least not in nearly the numbers as they had been for TNG.

Hercules & Xena had a lower production cost, not nearly as dramatically written as Voyager because they were purposely campy, yet it was pulling in higher ratings. They because the new TV fad that replaced Trek. Trek wasn't the "in" thing anymore. IMO if dramatic writing was only what the audience wanted, DS9 would have been a bigger success to more than just Trek fans.

Did I say Voyager lacked 'dramatic' writing? I said it lacked GOOD writing. Would it surprise you if I put forward the notion that Hercules and Xena had better writing than Voyager? Their style was quite different -- as you say, much more campy -- and wouldn't have worked for Voyager. But just like TOS was campy and still put out good quality stories, so did Hercules and Xena. That's what Voyager lacked. Not a particular style of writing, not stories that were more 'dramatic,' but just basic quality writing.

 

[exodus]

DS9, especially in the first two years, was not being written by the TNG team. Yes, you had Berman and Piller at the helm, but that was about it. Others on the TNG staff, like Ronald D. Moore for example, did not make the move until after TNG had ended. No, by and large, you had DS9 being run by a group of people, in particular Ira Steven Behr, who didn't care much for TNG and its format, who thought it too bland, and who wanted to take DS9 in a different direction. DS9 was not an example of letting the TNG team continue to have creative freedom in a new series.

The point was, the audience that TNG had still didn't come back even when DS9 had the full creative team or the addition of Worf to the cast.

Nonsense. TNG was still pulling in huge ratings at the end of its seventh season. The audience for Trek was still there; it was the audience for DS9 that wasn't there. At least not in nearly the numbers as they had been for TNG.

Sounds like TNG audience wanted to see how it ended. Sounds like after it was over, some of them didn't care to stick around. If folks just wanted good writing, why wasn't DS9 holding TNG audience? How is moving on to Xena nonsense?

Did I say Voyager lacked 'dramatic' writing? I said it lacked GOOD writing. Would it surprise you if I put forward the notion that Hercules and Xena had better writing than Voyager? Their style was quite different -- as you say, much more campy -- and wouldn't have worked for Voyager. But just like TOS was campy and still put out good quality stories, so did Hercules and Xena. That's what Voyager lacked. Not a particular style of writing, not stories that were more 'dramatic,' but just basic quality writing.

So again, how is it nonsense that Trek isn't the in thing anymore and the audience moved on to something else?

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

U would have to say that some part of the DQ was boring,but most of the time it was interesting,here they were in a new part of space where no federation memebrs have been before,just like the early years of starfleet,the alpha quadrant have been explored yet.