When did voyager go wrong?

[MacLeod]

Given that VOY was a ship based show it would be compared against TNG, this might not be without foundation as VOY earned the nickname TNG-Lite. Now each and every TV show (no matter the show) has it good and it's bad points. One thing that is often said about VOY is that it had a GREAT premise which it failed to live upto. i.e the ship looked like it had just left Utopia in virtually every episode. A seemingly limitless supply shuttles.

Given the small size of the ship it wasn't unreasnable to expect to get to know some of the other crew members. Now the same could be said of TNG but TNG unlike VOY could have crew coming and going fairly often.

If VOY had been set in the AQ the vast majority of the stories would need little to no change.

Peoples perceptions on VOY might differ depending on the order in which they watched ST. Did they start with VOY and work from their or did they go in order?

VOY had some great episodes but also a large number of poorer episodes. Maybe not a fair comparisson, but S4 if ENT is held up as one of it's best as in that season, and no doubt a fair number of fans if not the majority of them believe this is when it began to live up to what it's premise seemed to be.

 

[Anwar]

One thing that is often said about VOY is that it had a GREAT premise which it failed to live upto.

That's the thing though, the premise itself was flawed and needed more ironing out. The lack of a plot beyond "Lost Ship" being the main thing.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

One thing that is often said about VOY is that it had a GREAT premise which it failed to live upto. i.e the ship looked like it had just left Utopia in virtually every episode. A seemingly limitless supply shuttles.

That was one thing I liked about VOY in the beginning was the idea of being stranded so far from home, but it quickly became apparent that they weren't going to do much more with that than refer to "replicator ratios" every so often. Seeing that they got into a firefight every week, you'd expect there to be some lingering damage. But then again that was the work of the reset button on Janeway's console. A series like VOY should have been more serialised, nothing too strict and rigid, but the feeling that previous events impact on other episodes.

Given the small size of the ship it wasn't unreasnable to expect to get to know some of the other crew members. Now the same could be said of TNG but TNG unlike VOY could have crew coming and going fairly often.

VOY should have had more recurring faces in the crew, so that when one was "tragically" killed and had an episode about them we'd actual care about their loss and the future impacts it would have on the crew (ie Ahni Jetal and the friend of Kim's who was brought back as an alien). One thing they definately needed in the background were more alien crewmembers.

If VOY had been set in the AQ the vast majority of the stories would need little to no change.

Very true, just replace "alien of the week" with Klingon/Romulan/Ferengi/etc. There wasn't much that made the aliens of the DQ stand out other than the fact that 98% of them were evil.

Peoples perceptions on VOY might differ depending on the order in which they watched ST. Did they start with VOY and work from their or did they go in order?

I watched VOY when it first started airing here in the UK and started off liking it. Then Seven arrived and it became little more than shooting at alien ships, weakening the Borg as a big-bad, Seven hogging the screen, dull holographic rights, etc. I missed a lot of season 6 and most of 7, though did catch the final episode (so I was really scratching my head when Chakotay and Seven were a couple, had me going WTF?!?!?!).

VOY had some great episodes but also a large number of poorer episodes.

When they nailed a good script, they did it very well, but I find that you have to pick through a lot of stinkers to get them.

 

[Third Nacelle]

Voyager went wrong the moment the Maquis put on Starfleet uniforms. (In fact I found it sort of ridiculous even the Starfleet crew were still wearing uniforms after the second season or so).

A ship stranded alone in the Delta Quadrant should have relied on internal conflict to drive plot, rather than bland aliens-of-the-week, or worse, spatial-anomalies-of-the-week.

There did not need to be open hostility between Starfleet and the Maquis, but some acknowledgement in the character development that they were different kinds of people from different backgrounds.

The ship also had a fairly small crew complement, so there was no reason we couldn't have got to know everyone. I think the show would have been truly great if they had developed serialized concurrent plot threads in different parts of the ship, and made it a true ensemble cast.

Instead, we got the Janeway/Seven/The Doctor hour, where you get a brand new ship every week, and all your problems can be solved at the end of the episode by reconfiguring the deflector dish.

 

[Melakon]

I still think it's unfair to criticize the pristine ship look. Many of Voyager's beauty shots were of the physical miniature, which couldn't be easily altered. I don't know when it began using cgi ships extensively, though battle damage would still have meant several versions being built with successive decay, which means new renders and effects, which costs more money. The biggest obstacle was UPN wanting episodic rather than serialized format. Small, three story arcs would have helped in some storylines.

 

[lennier1]

I still think it's unfair to criticize the pristine ship look. Many of Voyager's beauty shots were of the physical miniature, which couldn't be easily altered. I don't know when it began using cgi ships extensively, though battle damage would still have meant several versions being built with successive decay, which means new renders and effects, which costs more money. The biggest obstacle was UPN wanting episodic rather than serialized format. Small, three story arcs would have helped in some storylines.

Small refresher for better understanding:

S1 was physical models with CG effects thrown in. S2&3 were the transition from physical to CG and from S4 onward the occasional rare stock footage of Voyager's physical model was the only remnant of the show's physical roots. Everything else had already gone digital by then.

The lions share of CG effects for Voyager and DS9 was done by Digital Muse (originally intended to become DS9's main supplier) and Foundation Imaging (Voyager's intended counterpart). The latter being the company which had revolutionized the use of CGI in television with their work on the first two seasons of Babylon 5.

While the companies were originally intended to each take care of their own show, in the end they constantly supported each other in order to shoulder the massive amount of work.

 

[MacLeod]

^Well if UPN want an episodic show, why go with an idea which leans more to serialisation. If you set up the shows premise as bening far from home without access to new crew/ starbase repair facilites etc.. It's not unreasonable to expect the audiance to expect to get to know some of non-main crew members/ the ship to start to look less pristine etc.. For all the crew knew Voyager might have been their home for the rest of their lives, if you believe that this is going to be where you might spend the rest of your life you would expect a few more personal touches.

 

[Melakon]

. . .blah bla-blah blah. . .

. . .S1 was physical models with CG effects thrown in. S2&3 were the transition from physical to CG and from S4 onward the occasional rare stock footage of Voyager's physical model was the only remnant of the show's physical roots. Everything else had already gone digital by then. . .

I think the best we could have hoped for then, beginning with Season 4, would have been the gradual introduction of successively deteriorated models during sweeps weeks, which happened two or three times per season. Though it would have necessarily delayed some effects work until that new model was available.

 

[Third Nacelle]

While I would have preferred a more serialized show, there's nothing wrong with episodic television if the episodes are good and original.

Most of Voyager's episodes seemed to follow one of two patterns

1) Ship encounters anomaly that puts her in danger -> crewmember has personal problem that parallels the anomaly problem -> crewmember has Big Realization that somehow applies to both problems -> The Day Is Saved with technobabble

2) Mean forehead aliens remind Voyager she's in a bad neighborhood -> Janeway & Co. have a talk -> high-minded Federation ideals come into question -> just before our ideals are abandoned somebody comes up with some technobabble that Saves the Day.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I still think it's unfair to criticize the pristine ship look. Many of Voyager's beauty shots were of the physical miniature, which couldn't be easily altered. I don't know when it began using cgi ships extensively, though battle damage would still have meant several versions being built with successive decay, which means new renders and effects, which costs more money.

What about internal? Sets can be dressed to look like they've had the crap kicked out of them over time.

While I would have preferred a more serialized show, there's nothing wrong with episodic television if the episodes are good and original.

Most of Voyager's episodes seemed to follow one of two patterns

1) Ship encounters anomaly that puts her in danger -> crewmember has personal problem that parallels the anomaly problem -> crewmember has Big Realization that somehow applies to both problems -> The Day Is Saved with technobabble

2) Mean forehead aliens remind Voyager she's in a bad neighborhood -> Janeway & Co. have a talk -> high-minded Federation ideals come into question -> just before our ideals are abandoned somebody comes up with some technobabble that Saves the Day.

You forgot after Season 4 there was another option:

3) Seven is either the cause or resolution of a story due to: a. her exploration of humanity; b. nanoprobes or implants; c. vast encyclopedic knowledge of other races; d. her intimate understanding of Borg technology; e. misunderstanding with another race who have bad experience with the Borg.

 

[Melakon]

. . .blah. . .miniature. . .blah. . .

What about internal? Sets can be dressed to look like they've had the crap kicked out of them over time.

You're right, I was thinking all the criticism was aimed at the outer hull. They did do damaged corridors pretty well, but the janitors must have always gone through before the next episode.

 

[MacLeod]

Well of course it is possible we see sections that have been repaired in the episode. But it comes back to the point is that they were supposed to be low on resources. So surely it's a waste to replicate new wall panels all the time.

 

[Third Nacelle]

Well of course it is possible we see sections that have been repaired in the episode. But it comes back to the point is that they were supposed to be low on resources. So surely it's a waste to replicate new wall panels all the time.

That's exactly just the thing. How hard would it have been to leave a few burn marks in the corridors a while after major damage happened? I understand UPN wanted an episodic show in the same vein as TOS and TNG, but there still should have been more than just a nod toward continuity now and then. There should have been some evidence that the events of one episode had consequences for the next.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes and you could have a couple of extras in the background repairing various items as our main characters walk past. There are lots of little things they could have done.

 

[R. Star]

That was one thing Enterprise did get right. If their ship got damaged, they usually made some effort to show they were fixing it and there was continuity from episode to episode. I like how that alien space station detected that Trip crashed the shuttle into the hull during the pilot.

 

[Anwar]

They should've done what Berman wanted, and waited until DS9 was finished before doing VOY. By then, they'd have CGI right from the start instead of models and other shows of a similar nature (LEXX, Farscape) would've already begun to show to the Producers to say "See, this is what we want to do!".

I have no problem with a smaller cast focus. I mean, TOS was all about Kirk, Spock and McCoy and no one cared.

The internal tensions wouldn't have lasted more than a season or a season and a half, especially given how the whole point of the Maquis/Fed conflict was no longer present and neither truly hated the other to continue the conflict.

A major problem was the show not really having a plot beyond "Going Home". It really should have had one. An external plot, I mean.

 

[MacLeod]

That was one thing Enterprise did get right. If their ship got damaged, they usually made some effort to show they were fixing it and there was continuity from episode to episode. I like how that alien space station detected that Trip crashed the shuttle into the hull during the pilot.

Perhaps part of that was listening to fans complaints about VOY shortcommings in that area.

 

[Anwar]

That was one thing Enterprise did get right. If their ship got damaged, they usually made some effort to show they were fixing it and there was continuity from episode to episode. I like how that alien space station detected that Trip crashed the shuttle into the hull during the pilot.

But shows like LEXX, Farscape and Stargate Universe got away without ever having to do constant maintenance on their ships.

 

[R. Star]

I'm not saying they should be fixing the ship half of every episode. Just some small bit of continuity. I always hated when the episode ends with the Enterprise or Voyager heavily damaged, but next episode they're right as rain, no explanation doing something different. DS9 did this too very noticeably once with that pylon getting blown off in To the Death. How hard would it have been for DS9 to just use that stock shot they already had of the pylon gone next episode with cleaning up the floating debris just to show hey it isn't instantly fixable?

 

[Melakon]

They easily could have left one of the side hallways off the main corridor set with "damage" dressing, which could have been seen during full-length walk-and-talks. One episode I watched had Janeway and Seven start at the far end of the corridor near the cargo bay set, and wind up just outside the unseen engineering set. Either UPN's nosebutting prevented it, or they simply didn't think of it at the time.