What would have improved Voyager?

[Kegek]

If it wasn't on UPN, it wouldn't have the meddling that caused many of the show's problems. I'm not saying that channels don't meddle, but Sci-Fi seems content to let BSG get away with more intensive plot arcs, darker conflicts and far more risque material than VOY's writers had ever dreamed of doing.

I think that would have been a good tradeoff for a smaller budget.

 

[Angel4576]

exodus said:
Voyager is the type of show you pop on if you don't want the heavy intellectual drama of TNG or the dark moody feel of DS9. It was made for a sci-fi crowd that liked Xena, which was all the rage at the time. Voyager was designed to capture a crowd that normally found Trek boring & humorless.

Is it so wrong to try and make Trek cool?

Star Trek that appeals to the Xena crowd, wasn't that Andromeda?

I take the original point though. TNG's first two seasons really do it no favours. Whilst there are some episodes of Voyager that I like though, there's nothing approaching the likes of The Offspring, Measure of a Man, The Inner Light etc. Voyager, to me, mostly seemed to be quite bland, occasionally raising itself above it's average, and occasionally dipping to trawl the depths.

 

[exodus]

Kegek said:
If it wasn't on UPN, it wouldn't have the meddling that caused many of the show's problems. I'm not saying that channels don't meddle, but Sci-Fi seems content to let BSG get away with more intensive plot arcs, darker conflicts and far more risque material than VOY's writers had ever dreamed of doing.

I think that would have been a good tradeoff for a smaller budget.

I'm not so sure.

Outside of NuBSG and maybe Eureka,the Sci-fi Channel isn't foreunner in original quality programming. Nearly everything they do is so cheap quality, badly produced bottom of the barrel B-Movie style sci-fi. Hell, we hardly even talk about anything the Sci-Fi channel does on this site. I think that's saying allot.

 

[Kegek]

^
This boils down to the talent behind the shows less than the shows themselves. They were quite content to let the people behind Farscape and Battlestar Galactica do their own variety of space opera; I wouldn't be surprised if they had the same leinency if they had Star Trek: Voyager - and the Voyager staff weren't half bad, especially compared to some of their other programming.

Angel4576 said:

exodus said:
It was made for a sci-fi crowd that liked Xena, which was all the rage at the time.

Star Trek that appeals to the Xena crowd, wasn't that Andromeda?

No. It's the Star Trek film coming out this fall, written by former Xena showrunners Kurtzmann and Orci.

And, actually, I don't think Voyager owed much to Xena (aside, perhaps, from the idea of a character like Seven of Nine). It was largely intended to be as TNG-like as possible, but with more action and, sadly, often less intelligence. Voyager actually did do its fair share of engaging, thoughtful episodes, just not as much as TNG or DS9.

 

[exodus]

Angel4576 said:

exodus said:
Voyager is the type of show you pop on if you don't want the heavy intellectual drama of TNG or the dark moody feel of DS9. It was made for a sci-fi crowd that liked Xena, which was all the rage at the time. Voyager was designed to capture a crowd that normally found Trek boring & humorless.

Is it so wrong to try and make Trek cool?

Star Trek that appeals to the Xena crowd, wasn't that Andromeda?

I take the original point though. TNG's first two seasons really do it no favours. Whilst there are some episodes of Voyager that I like though, there's nothing approaching the likes of The Offspring, Measure of a Man, The Inner Light etc. Voyager, to me, mostly seemed to be quite bland, occasionally raising itself above it's average, and occasionally dipping to trawl the depths.

I think "Latent Image" comes very close to "The Measure of Man".

Honestly, I can't ever remember now what "The Offspring" was about. Is that the one with Data's daughter?

In all fairness, how many spin off shows ever come close to be equal to the original? The Jefferson's, Maude & Good Times were all good but didn't compare to the following All In the Family had. Same goes with M*A*S*H* and Trapper John or the CSI's & Law & Orders.

After 7 years of TNG & DS9, the writers were just to burnt out.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ That's a fair point.

I can't think of many examples. I must say, of the Law & Orders, Criminal Intent is the only one I can watch.

The only other one I can think of is Boston Legal, which is a better show than it's predecessor The Practice.

There's also nuBSG of course

Edit: I forgot Frasier. Doh

 

[exodus]

Kegek said:
^
This boils down to the talent behind the shows less than the shows themselves. They were quite content to let the people behind Farscape and Battlestar Galactica do their own variety of space opera; I wouldn't be surprised if they had the same leinency if they had Star Trek: Voyager - and the Voyager staff weren't half bad, especially compared to some of their other programming.

Well, just like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootie Pop, the world may never know.

 

[misskim86]

TNG is a lot better than Voyager, the characterization alone is hundreds of times better

 

[exodus]

misskim86 said:
TNG is a lot better than Voyager, the characterization alone is hundreds of times better

Me personally, if they were real. I think I'd rather hang out with Tom & Harry than Data and Geordi. Plus I found more depth & culture in characters like Be'Lanna & Tuvok than in Troi or Crusher

 

[Angel4576]

Picard > Janeway
Riker > Chakotay
Worf > Tuvok
Geordi = Torres
Data > Paris
Troi < Neelix
Crusher < EMH

IMO.

 

[exodus]

Angel4576 said:
Picard > Janeway
Riker > Chakotay
Worf > Tuvok
Geordi = Torres
Data > Paris
Troi < Neelix
Crusher < EMH

IMO.

I would think Data = Seven, more than Data being compared to Paris.

 

[Angel4576]

^^ I strongly suspected that I'd forgotten someone. How could I forget Seven?

In which case, yes, Data = Seven.

Bit stuck on the ol' Paris = Wesley one though.

Paris beats Seasons 1 & 2 Wesley hands down, but I preferred Seasons 3 & 4 Wesley to Paris.

have to be;

Wesley = Paris

 

[exodus]

I hated Westly in every season he was in.

God, if I could only reach thru the TV and give him a backhanded slap!

I frankly prefer wise-ass Paris over I wouldn't know a good time if it licked me Westly any damn day of the year.

 

[Angel4576]

I couldn't stand him in the first couple of seasons, but the character matured by the time the third year kicked off. It's a shame that they wrote him out when they did, the character was working pretty well at that point.

Of course there's also bad attitude/chip on his shoulder/fat bastard Wesley who appeared in season seven's Journey's End as well. Oh my

 

[exodus]

Angel4576 said:
I couldn't stand him in the first couple of seasons, but the character matured by the time the third year kicked off. It's a shame that they wrote him out when they did, the character was working pretty well at that point.

I blame fan hate mail for that.

It's one of the shames of being a Trek fan IMO. Many times fans take stuff to personally, too the point where they even sent the actor himself threatening hate mail. He was just a kid, how bad does it look on us knowing that adult fans sent a child actor hate mail just because of the character he plays?

Many believe that Trek fans are intelligent and are of a better class of people, that just proves that we clearly aren't and we should be ashamed of what we put that young man thru.

 

[startrekwatcher]

exodus said:
Rewatch TNG. It's equal to Voyager on how many bad or forgettable episodes it had.

I disagree. TNG was far more consistent in quality especially from seasons 3-6. For me, I realize this will be different for others, TNG had established a track record where I knew each week I would most likely get at least a good if not great episode.

And for me even if the episode was iffy the fact that I had come to care for these characters made up for it usually because I just liked seeing them.

TNG had a nice mix of stories and of all the series I'd say TNG produced the best high concept stories, a lot of which were penned by the unfairly maligned Brannon Braga.

I really wanted to enjoy VOY but it did have quality all over the place. Probably the most consistent season in terms of quality was season four.

Voyager is the type of show you pop on if you don't want the heavy intellectual drama of TNG or the dark moody feel of DS9.

I'm not averse to mindless popcorn action as long as it was entertaining but sometimes it wasn't. They assumed throwing action in would make the show work.

It was made for a sci-fi crowd that liked Xena, which was all the rage at the time.

I couldn't stand Xena and thankfully VOY wasn't bad like that show.

 

[Angel4576]

I don't think there's any doubt that Star Trek fandom certainly has its 'fringe' element that takes the show far too seriously.

At the end of the day, it's just a show, and anyone who takes it sufficiently serious so as to generate hate mail clearly has a screw loose.

 

[exodus]

^^desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.

Voyager tried to be intellectual with high concept stories during the first few seasons and veiwership was still declining. They gave us "Scorpion", with the Borg and action and for a brief moment the viewership increased. They tried every trick in the book to get us to watch while still having to answer to their slave masters at Paramount.

Trek fans feed back was too erratic for them to really understand what type of show Voyager should be. For every 5 fans that liked it, there were 5 more that didn't. Who do you listen too? B&B did the best they could do at the time, they listened to their gut. Did it work? We still don't know because some Trek fans are rediscovering Voyager now and liking it better than before while others still don't.

Voyager was a show that wasn't going to make everybody happy no matter what they did. So the show had little choice in becoming whatever it became.

 

[misskim86]

Angel4576 said:
Picard > Janeway
Riker > Chakotay
Worf > Tuvok
Geordi = Torres
Data > Paris
Troi < Neelix
Crusher < EMH

IMO.

That looks like you're just comparing them with their rank and position.

Still after 7 years of TNG the characters had evolved immensly, we had started to care and like them, I LOVED Data, I want to strangle Neelix.

I will give credit though, Tuvok was very good

If I were to try and compare them which I think is sorta pointless since they aren't made to be compared it would be sorta like this.

Janeway < Picard (they were pretty similar
EMH/7of9/Kes < Data
Neelix < Wesley
Harry < Geordi
B'Elanna < Worf

I can't really compare the others

 

[exodus]

Angel4576 said:
I don't think there's any doubt that Star Trek fandom certainly has its 'fringe' element that takes the show far too seriously.

At the end of the day, it's just a show, and anyone who takes it sufficiently serious so as to generate hate mail clearly has a screw loose.

Yes & no.

I think shows like Trek require a certain type of feedback from it's fanbase to see what is working for it & what isn't to some degree. However, it's when that feedback comes in the form of harrassment then we've got a problem.