Everything went right with Voyager for me. I was hooked on it even before the first episode had finished airing.
Star Trek had finally gotten back to the basics of Roddenberry’s ideals to
“Explore strange new worlds”, “
Seek out new life & new civilizations”, &
“To boldly go where no man has gone before”.
There was real tension & conflict among the crew. It didn’t have feeling of the crew sitting around singing “
Kumbayah” like the crew on “The Next Generation”, nor did the interactions of the crew feel contrived like the interactions between the crew of Deep Space Nine did.
Captain Janeway didn’t allow anyone to bully her around (just like Captain Kirk never let anyone bully him around). Capatin Janeway was an inspiring leader unlike Picard who made you just want to vaporize him with a phaser (Picard was always grumpy, stiff stuffy, and boring). Captain Janeway put her life on the line all of the time just like Captain Kirk (she didn’t need her first officer to run the ship for her & to lead the away missions). Unlike Sisko she didn’t sound like she was giving a sermon every time she spoke.
The speech that Captain Janeway gave at the end of the first episode
“Caretaker” about the dangers ahead, the Starfleet & Maquis crews working together as one crew, the decision to stick to the Starfleet directive to seek out new worlds & explore space, and the dedication to find a faster way on the long journey home was one of the most powerful speechs ever in a Star Trek series.
Captain Janeway never took the easy way out (she chose to destroy the only way home Voyager had in order to save a alien species). Capatain Janeway resisted Q’s offer to send the ship home with a snap of his fingers. Even when Admiral Janeway on the last episode
“Endgame” offered her an easy home she chose to take the risk of destroying the Borg’s transwarp hub in order to cripple the Borg in their quest to assimilate more species instead of just taking the sure route home. Janeway never allowed her morals to be compromised even in the darkest days in the Delta Quadrant.
The Doctor on Voyager was the best doctor in Star Trek since Dr. McCoy (he wasn't a rip off of Bones McCoy unlike the next Generation who tried a blatant Bones McCoy rip off when the introduced Dr. Pulaski & tried to have Data play the role of Spock with her).
B'Elanna Torres was the best engineer in Star Trek since Scotty. I can't imagine being stuck in the middle of nowhere with some less resourceful than her. Voyager brought back the Miracle worker theme with B'Elanna Torres & that made her such a fun character (Scotty was one of the most endearing parts of Star Trek: The Original Series). The Next Generation didn't even have a real Chief Engineer until Geordi La Forge was promoted to the position season 2 (still he wasn't a Miracle Worker, and he never really seemed to be all that resourceful & he came across as a more of a practical by the book engineer). The Miracle Work idea was totally snubbed by The Next Generation writers when they had Geordi La Forge take offense at Mr. Scott suggesting that concept to him. Deep Space Nine didn't even have a Chief Engineer (Chief O'Brien was the Chief Operations Officer & sometime they would let Rom who wasn't an engineer tinker with thing on the station). Roddenberry considered the role the Chief engineer to be as important as that of the role of the Captain (I don't know the exact source, but in a autobiography book that I own he had indicated that the Captain & Chief Engineer really symbolic of the same person due to their pride, love & attachment to the ship that they called their own).
Voyager was a completely original design for a Star Trek ship. I like the ship design much better than that of the Enterprise D. To me the Enterprise D looked that someone had hammered on the hull of Kirk’s Enterprise & kept at it until it had flattened out. Did I mention that Voyager can land on the surface of planets? Also did I mention the warp nacelles moved!
The special effects were great. I was blown away by how natural all of the effects looked on the show. OMG, it is finally a Star Trek show enough of a budget for awesome special effects! The Voyager intro credits really drove the point about special effects home (unlike the Next Generation that had its intro revamped in season 4 because it was so cheaply put together & had such an awful synthesized sound to the theme music. Deep Space Nine had the worst into ever & no amount of revamping was ever able to help it). The only change the Voyager intro credit ever had was removing Jennifer Lien’s name to input Jeri Ryan’s name.
Jerry Goldsmith got the music right on the first try & never had to revamp the Voyager theme music (Star Trek: The Motion picture had its theme music revamped from its original version because it reminded editor Todd Ramsay & director Robert Wise of sailing ships)
The theme music was the best out of any Star Trek series ever. I didn’t like The Next Generation theme music (it was just a faster tempo version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture & The Next Generation had it revamped along with the its credits for season 4).
On Voyager they actually explored worlds instead of exploring the inner depths of their emotions (The Next Generation was too touchy-feely for me (
*puke*). If I wanted to see people explore the inner depths of their emotions I would watch a soap opera!) On Voyager they left the ship instead of just frolicing around on the holodeck like on The Next Generation. Also they had a ship unlike Deep Space Nine which didn’t have a ship until season 3 when they introduced the Defiant to remedy the idiotic decision not to have ship in the first place (the runabout idea was a really seemed like a bad JOKE since it really wasn’t designed for long range deep space exploration nor was it capable of real defense of the space station)
It wasn’t a prequel like Enterprise (I always thought the prequel concept was a bad idea & this did lead to the untimely early demise of the show).
Last but definitely by no means least IT WASN”T ABRAMS-TREK!