Was Voyager better?

[USS Kongo]

I was watching some episodes of TNG, and when I then watched Voyager, I noticed something. Voyager seemed to have a better sense of community than TNG. The characters on Voyager were more friendlier and more comfortable towards each other than on TNG, where they were oftetimes seemed very stiff and formal.

This may be due mainly to the fact that Voyager is a lost ship that's off by itself, creating more of a sense of camaraderie among the people aboard. What's your take?

 

[R. Star]

The TNG command clique was very standoffish towards anyone outside their little social circle. Look at Jellico, Barclay and Ro Laren for perfect examples. Inside it, they were reasonably loose with the exception of Picard, but he's the CO so distancing himself a bit can be expected. Voyager? Really the first three seasons just centered heavily on Janeway, with the rest of the characters being glorified support characters. Seasons 4-7, it became a trifecta with Janeway, Seven and the Doctor. As for how they got along? Janeway ruled with an iron fist, Chakotay had to have been castrated to explain his transformation from someone who might have been interesting after the pilot, everyone loved to make fun of Harry, the Doctor and Neelix at various points. Torres was never friendly at all really. Seven was openly hostile to most everyone. Kes and Neelix really were the only genuinely friendly ones and Neelix was so in your face about it you just wanted to punch him. The TNG crew may have been standoffish towards outsiders, but they were never at each other's throats like the Voyager crew was at times.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Smaller ship, more need to build the idea that they were family (something Janeway excels at) since they were quite likely to never see their families again. The Enterprise was a like a huge office building doing the work of a big corporation. Voyager was like a small business with an exciting vision for the future. Budweiser vs a craft beer.

Simple things like the actors standing closer to each other than they do in TNG. Far more humor, less taking itself seriously. Liveliness. I find a lot of TNG scenes fairly stiff whereas with VOY you get the EMH's hyperbole, Janeway's touching everyone and very expressive face, Neelix bouncing around.. they had some excellent actors who interacted with a lot of body language, playing off each other rather than reciting lines.

 

[Guy Gardener]

They didn't have toilets on the Enterprise D,

Imagine holding it in for 7 years?

 

[R. Star]

They didn't have toilets on the Enterprise D,

Imagine holding it in for 7 years?

They did too. There was one. The lines didn't improve crew morale though.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I think it has something to do with TNG being bound by the Roddenberry Box and not Voyager. Roddenberry had a strict edict not to have interpersonal conflict within the crew. Heck, even when Worf refused to save Crusher's patient's life they barely referenced it later except through one throwaway line. Without the interpersonal conflict, they couldn't have those bonding moments after the conflict was resolved.

Also over half the main cast was really, really introverted. The only extraverts in the cast were Riker, Troi, Crusher and O'Brien.

Introverts? Picard Data Worf Geordi Ro Barclay Pulaski Wesley. Roddenberry really liked quiet geniuses. Pretty much all the recurring characters except for O'Brien.

 

[USS Kongo]

The Enterprise was a like a huge office building doing the work of a big corporation. Voyager was like a small business with an exciting vision for the future. Budweiser vs a craft beer.

I like that. Well stated. Voyager really does strike me as being a little more relaxed than the usual starship crew, which is part of what's drawing me to it now.

 

[JohnChod]

But isn't that one of the problems with Voyager? The pilot set us up with two very different crews and suggested the real possibility of conflict within the crew, which would have been a good source of drama. Then, that potential was very rarely tapped.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Pilot didn't suggest that there would be conflict, it yelped that that their continued unity was astonishing. It was a riveting accomplishment that nothing happened!

 

[lurok]

I think those godawful TNG uniforms probably contributed to stiffness/awkwardness as well

And Janeway is far slinkier than Picard.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I think those godawful TNG uniforms probably contributed to stiffness/awkwardness as well

And Janeway is far slinkier than Picard.

In one of the interviews on the DVD's Stewart said they had to change to the 2 piece uniforms because of his back. Constantly pulling the actors up right. Allegedly they had people with steamers to come on before scenes to get rid of the wrinkles and keep the slender look of season 1 and 2 TNG uniforms. Hilarious really.

 

[Bishop76]

But isn't that one of the problems with Voyager? The pilot set us up with two very different crews and suggested the real possibility of conflict within the crew, which would have been a good source of drama. Then, that potential was very rarely tapped.

I agree - the unity of the crew was one of the drawbacks of the show because we were told there would be strife and it was never delivered.

Also, I can't agree with the basic premise just based on the fact that the characters on Voyager were less interesting than the paper they were written on. That's not to say the TNG characters were rolling in depth, but even the actors from Voyager complain about how bland their characters were.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Voyager > The Next Generation. The crew had a chemistry that the Next Genners lacked.

 

[BillJ]

Voyager > The Next Generation. The crew had a chemistry that the Next Genners lacked.

But Next Gen didn't have shitty retread scripts and a captain who yo-yo'd from one extreme to the other on a weekly basis.

Definitely going to say that Next Gen was the better show, but Voyager had its charms.

 

[sonak]

I assume this is a question based on camaraderie and not just an overall comparison of the shows.

I agree that the TNG senior staff characters, especially early on, could come across as very stiff. But I don't think that holds for later seasons. Sure, you had Picard and Worf who were more aloof and distant, but overall the characters were pretty tight-knit by the later seasons.

Voyager tried to have an early DS9 feel to it with the characters, with them not getting along and the Starfleet vs. the non-Starfleet interests. But they dropped that early on in favor of the "we're all a big family" theme, which was just not very realistic considering their being stranded and split between the two crews.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Yes, the Voyager characters were friendlier, but I don't think it was the right option for the show.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If Tom from early season one is anything to go by... "Harry, we have to get as much tail as possible before everyone pairs off."

The first couple months must have been a non stop orgy for everyone of the rank of lieutenant and under.

You know, and then they started relationships and got boring.

 

[zarkon]

They were trying some weird "future human" thing at the beginning of TNG weren't they?

If you compare later TNG, where that notion seemed to be forgotten and everyone is a lot more relaxed to VOY, I don't think there's a great deal in it. As has been said, VOY should be naturally friendlier in a "we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang seperately" kinda way.

 

[lurok]

I think I'm going to scream the next time someone brings up the hoary old 'but there should have been more friction! '

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Well there obviously should have been.

Anyway, yes, the Voyager crew did have a pretty good rapport but the DS9 crew undoubtedly had the best rapport. Voyager was almost always about business, fitting in a story to 43-45 minutes and that often didn't leave much time to just watch the crew in their natural habitat which was unfortunate. If we'd had a slower paced, more story-driven show we really could have seen these characters truly together and get to explore the dynamics between them. Nonetheless I enjoy watching them and am even starting to think I might like Voyager more than TNG at least with regard to the later TNG seasons.