What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[Oddish]

I don't care about Archer being male, I care about the tech being practically identical to the 24th century version. The only thing they really got right was replicators (when they found them on the Dead Stop station, the crew were pretty wowed) and the tractor beam: the Vulcans had it, the humans didn't (but were interested in it).
There should have been...
* No shields. Critical areas are armored.
* Plasma cannons and spatial torpedoes.
* Grappler instead of tractor beams.
* No transporters. When other species beam in and out, it spooks humans because they can't do it yet.
* Force fields just being developed (like in Vox Sola), but Starfleet still mainly reliant on physical barriers.
* And T'Pol dressing like a Vulcan for the first two seasons, and wearing standard uniform for the last two. That's not technology, but still.

 

[Sci]

Seems like some people wanted Voyager to be Battlestar Galactica, all grimdark and edgy. I'm glad it wasn't that.

I would not have wanted VOY to be as dark and edgy as BSG, but I do think there's a fundamental disconnect between the series it set itself up to be and the series it became. The characters fundamentally do not act like they believe they face a realistic possibility of spending decades, or the rest of their lives, on the ship; they act like people on a tour of duty who expect to get home in a couple of years. The ship is entirely too well-maintained; it does not feel like a ship that's by itself, cut off from support infrastructure. The characters are too static at an era when the modern Golden Age of Television was just getting started. It feels like a show whose writing is trapped in the 1980s, like they're trying to just be TNG Lite.

 

[eschaton]

VOY is pretty much only consistently good, IMHO, when it had "character focus" episodes which allow for a particular member of the cast to shine. Which makes sense, because every time they tried to do something else (big action episode, allegorical message episode, etc.) it just came across as something TNG had already done better. At least the episodes which focused on the characters brought something new and interesting to the table.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

* No transporters. When other species beam in and out, it spooks humans because they can't do it yet.

Either that, or no one else can do it, and humanity is the species that brought that particular technology to the Alpha Quadrant. It's a bit of a shame I reckon that everything humans invent in Enterprise is something someone else already has.

 

[XCV330]

It's not ironic to me. Elephant in the Room: The Captain of the NX-01 has a Y Chromosome. I'm sorry, but that plays into it at least to some degree. How Burnham is treated by these fans, even after she became a Captain, only reinforces this in my mind. Janeway and Burnham have both always been more harshly criticized than Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Archer, and soon Pike.

Also, the initial shock of "That doesn't look like how I imagined Pre-TOS!" wore off a long time ago.

With a male lead and the issue of how ENT looks no longer being a problem, all these fans would be left to complain about is it feeling like warmed-over Trek a lot of the time and now that they're nostalgic for the Berman Era, that's not going to be a problem anymore either. So ENT is now "Acceptable Trek".

To top it all off: With Season 4, they think ENT tied things in neatly with TOS. "But then Discovery came along and messed it up!" So they probably see SNW as a course correction to get things "back on track".

Janeway is a fine character. She's one of the bright spots in a not particularly great cast, for Voyager. I would have much preferred a character like her, or Erika Hernandez to Archer. Archer is unquestionably my least favorite captain/lead on any star trek series. A better captain would have helped the show but that was just one of many leaks on that boat.

 

[Vger23]

I don't think I had any expectations of VOY being grimdark or nuBSG...but I do think they missed a significant opportunity to differentiate themselves as a series by having more lingering and long-term consequences of their journey. I think the other two "missed opportunities" (and they're well-documented, so I'm not adding anything amazing here) are:

1. Tension between the Maquis and Starfleet crews
2. The opportunity to show off some far more unique and truly alien lifeforms and societies in the Delta Quadrant

What I will say, though, is that I find VOY to be much better than I gave it credit for during its initial airing. It does not have the strength of characters that TOS, DS9 and TNG had...and that didn't help it. I'd say that it doesn't have nearly as many "great" episodes as TNG or DS9, but it also very rarely (if ever) is BORING...which is something I cannot say for TNG. So, I find it very consistently entertaining and I am enjoying my watch-through of it. It's a good-looking series that often leans more toward action / adventure and less toward dull moralizing, and I do appreciate that.

It's not ironic to me. Elephant in the Room: The Captain of the NX-01 has a Y Chromosome. I'm sorry, but that plays into it at least to some degree. How Burnham is treated by these fans, even after she became a Captain, only reinforces this in my mind. Janeway and Burnham have both always been more harshly criticized than Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Archer, and soon Pike.

Also, the initial shock of "That doesn't look like how I imagined Pre-TOS!" wore off a long time ago.

With a male lead and the issue of how ENT looks no longer being a problem, all these fans would be left to complain about is it feeling like warmed-over Trek a lot of the time and now that they're nostalgic for the Berman Era, that's not going to be a problem anymore either. So ENT is now "Acceptable Trek".

To top it all off: With Season 4, they think ENT tied things in neatly with TOS. "But then Discovery came along and messed it up!" So they probably see SNW as a course correction to get things "back on track".

Janeway is my least-favorite captain in the franchise, but it doesn't have anything to do with her chromosomes. I just don't vibe with her style. I love Burnham as a character, but I can honestly and truly see how she'd grate on some people as written...again, not sure I'd specifically assign that to anything other than how she's written or played. I'm quite sure there are exceptions, but I don't think it's as universal as we like to pretend. Sometimes a crappy character is just a crappy character.

 

[Phil123]

Worf shouldn't have been on DS9. I never bought his relationship with Dax.

I would have disagreed in the past, but having rewatched DS9 along with Mission Log I have to agree.

 

[Oddish]

feels like a show whose writing is trapped in the 1980s, like they're trying to just be TNG Lite.

They were.

Janeway is my least-favorite captain in the franchise, but it doesn't have anything to do with her chromosomes. I just don't vibe with her style.

Which one? She had more than one.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

I'm about halfway through Voyager on my rewatch and honestly Janeway's seemed fairly consistent so far. Maybe I'm just not great at noticing when people are acting out of character. Also Kate Mulgrew is consistently great.

 

[Farscape One]

VOYAGER season 1 deserves credit for trying to be different, in terms of what and who they encounter.

The Vidiians were an excellent idea, and are still my favorite species from that show.

Space itself was almost alive, since they find a living nebula, lifeforms living in a star, energy beings in a nebula (TNG did do this, but these were much more villainous.), space dwelling lifeforms, and a living twisting anomaly. (While the episode itself was a dud, I will credit it with being a unique idea.)

I think the show suffered from two main problems... too many network notes, and changing the head writer too often. The latter definitely is a big reason why Janeway was so inconsistantly written, in my opinion.

If you take those two reasons, it's the exact reverse of DS9... they were left largely alone by the network, and only one changeover of head writer.

 

[trekfan_1]

I dislike all mirror universe stories and think its a bad concept.

 

[Sci]

Janeway is a fine character. She's one of the bright spots in a not particularly great cast, for Voyager. I would have much preferred a character like her, or Erika Hernandez to Archer. Archer is unquestionably my least favorite captain/lead on any star trek series. A better captain would have helped the show but that was just one of many leaks on that boat.

Agreed completely. I'm sorry, but Scott Bakula was a complete wet blanket and I never once believed this guy was a leader. Connor Trinnear was much more compelling as commanding officer when Trip was forced to take command during the Vulcan Reformation arc.

Kate Mulgrew is an amazing actor whose Janeway transcends the bad writing she was given. I love Janeway even as I get so, so tired of most of VOY.

I don't think I had any expectations of VOY being grimdark or nuBSG...but I do think they missed a significant opportunity to differentiate themselves as a series by having more lingering and long-term consequences of their journey. I think the other two "missed opportunities" (and they're well-documented, so I'm not adding anything amazing here) are:

1. Tension between the Maquis and Starfleet crews
2. The opportunity to show off some far more unique and truly alien lifeforms and societies in the Delta Quadrant

Yep!

I forgot about the Maquis thing. (That's okay, so did the show!) The Maquis characters do not act as though they are people with fundamental differences in ideology from Starfleet and the UFP. The show doesn't depict the two crews finding a compromise -- it depicts Maquis as conforming to Starfleet standards and becoming good little officers.

A really obvious way to improve VOY would have been to depict the Maquis as saying to the Starfleeters: "Listen, you need us to get home. Your ship won't run without us. One-third of this combined crew is gonna be Maquis; that means we deserve a proportional say in how the ship is run. Instead of running this ship as a Starfleet ship, we run it as a joint Starfleet-Maquis ship; instead of Voyager just having a commanding officer and executive officer, we want an elected council to whom the C.O. and X.O. must report and to whom the C.O. and X.O. are accountable after a crisis is over, with the authority to make major decisions when the ship is not in an emergency."

What I will say, though, is that I find VOY to be much better than I gave it credit for during its initial airing. It does not have the strength of characters that TOS, DS9 and TNG had...and that didn't help it. I'd say that it doesn't have nearly as many "great" episodes as TNG or DS9, but it also very rarely (if ever) is BORING...which is something I cannot say for TNG. So, I find it very consistently entertaining and I am enjoying my watch-through of it. It's a good-looking series that often leans more toward action / adventure and less toward dull moralizing, and I do appreciate that.

I have found that to be true in my re-watch, although in fairness I am avoiding most of the bad episodes.

 

[Phil123]

I dislike all mirror universal stories and think its a bad concept.

save the very first I totally agree. And it’s not all that good it’s just a fun one off.

 

[XCV330]

I would normally say that, but I think Terra Firma was a good sendoff to the Mirror Universe. There, it's done. The only being I ever want to see from the MU is Prime Lorca.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

I'd agree that something about season 6 seems off. Kate Mulgrew's performance shifts to make Janeway more of the bipolar caricature she's all too often depicted as, away from the much more nuanced performance she gives in earlier years. I can only assume this reflected the problems behind the scenes, and the fact that she was dissatisfied with her role increasingly boiling down to "tell Seven she's wonderful" or "tell someone else that Seven is wonderful".

Like how Shatner's more nuanced performance in the first season changes as the show wore on.

Although, I suspect in the third season that had much more to do with the lackluster scripts than anything else. He was doing what he did in "The World of Suzie Wong" to keep the audience from leaving, being extra.

 

[Sci]

I would normally say that, but I think Terra Firma was a good sendoff to the Mirror Universe. There, it's done. The only being I ever want to see from the MU is Prime Lorca.

My only interest in the Mirror Universe would be if they found some way to adapt David Mack's really wonderful Mirror Universe novels The Sorrows of Empire and Rise Like Lions.

 

[cooleddie74]

ENT was the last Trek to do the Mirror Universe well.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

DS9 was the only Trek to do the Mirror Universe poorly, and only later on.

(Okay fine, I may have had a few issues with how Discovery used it too.)

 

[cooleddie74]

"Crossover(DS9)" is my favorite MU episode outside "Mirror, Mirror(TOS)" and ENT.

 

[Vger23]

ENT was the last Trek to do the Mirror Universe well.

I thought that DSC's first season painted a picture of a very oppressive, scary universe. Sure, the execution may have had some flaws...but I honestly felt the paranoia and danger in every scene. I think it was better than DS9's portrayal by a fair shot, and not quite as good as ENT or TOS.

YMMV of course.