I think allot can be said for Voyager when the title of the show itself, Capt. Janeway & Seven of Nine are still recognized pop icons to this day, while characters from other shows such as B5, Farscape & even Stargate-SG1( just too name a few) are not. I think it shows Voyager wasn't seen to be as bad to the general pubilc if these characters & the shows title as still associated very stongly Star Trek and sci-fi in general.
Whose fault, if any can be given, was it for Voyager not good?
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^ And I think you're a little bit off your rocker. I'm not jumping to the defense of those other shows as having tons of pop icons (though they all do have a few), but I will say that if you talk to an everyman off the street, he's not going to know Janeway from Amway or Seven of Nine from Five and Dime. And even if they do have an edge up on those other franchises in recognizability, it's solely because of their status as being a tiny part of the Star Trek franchise that even fans of Star Trek mostly dislike.
Also, every one of those shows you mentioned was FAR superior to Voyager. They just never had the clout of the Star Trek name behind them to prop them up for 7 seasons. They all had to actually fight for their successes.
Also, every one of those shows you mentioned was FAR superior to Voyager. They just never had the clout of the Star Trek name behind them to prop them up for 7 seasons. They all had to actually fight for their successes.
I think this is true to some extent exodus but:
1.) The fact that Voyager was part of the Star Trek franchise immediately gives it an advantage over the other shows you mention.
2.) I don't think the casual viewer or the non-fans are as critical of a programme as we on the BBS are. Sure, if they think a show is rubbish then they will turn it off and not watch it again but if something is just plain average they may continue to watch it on and off. This method of viewing a show would affect VOY's viewership less than something like Farscape which was far more arc based and was more difficult to follow if one didn't watch every week.
3.) What I'm basically trying to say, in a rather confused manner, is that I don't think the general public regard VOY as being that bad. Certainly not as bad as a lot of people on this forum do. Although I don't think this necessarily accounts for the higher name recognition because I imagine it got advertised more than some of those shows, it certainly ran for longer than some of those shows and the Star Trek franchise had a lot of history.
1.) The fact that Voyager was part of the Star Trek franchise immediately gives it an advantage over the other shows you mention.
2.) I don't think the casual viewer or the non-fans are as critical of a programme as we on the BBS are. Sure, if they think a show is rubbish then they will turn it off and not watch it again but if something is just plain average they may continue to watch it on and off. This method of viewing a show would affect VOY's viewership less than something like Farscape which was far more arc based and was more difficult to follow if one didn't watch every week.
3.) What I'm basically trying to say, in a rather confused manner, is that I don't think the general public regard VOY as being that bad. Certainly not as bad as a lot of people on this forum do. Although I don't think this necessarily accounts for the higher name recognition because I imagine it got advertised more than some of those shows, it certainly ran for longer than some of those shows and the Star Trek franchise had a lot of history.
Some irony, you saying this when you consider how those shows all got away with doing the same stuff VOY got flak for.
Trek fans only make up a very small portion of the mass public.
Folks on message boards & die hard Trek fans aren't the only ones watching these shows.
Fans liking or disliking a show has nothing to do with characters being recognized or pop icon status.
I don't like Madonna, that doesn't mean she isn't a pop icon or not recognized.
"ALF" is a far, far worse show than Voyager. Alf is still a pop icon.
The fact that Voyager & Seven of Nine was prominately featured several times on an even bigger pop icon show like "the Simpsons" cements how recognizable the show and characters are. Jeri Ryan has been featured in MAXIUM, mentioned and shown as Seven in Playboy and is always referenced back to her days as Seven of Nine. She had been plastered all over billboards of every major city as Seven when Voyager was in it original run, featured on every major magazine cover.......
There are very few men alive who are exposed to the world of advertising that don't know who Seven of Nine is.
.......and it's veiwer ratings that keep a show running, not the shows name sake. "Law & Order" has become a name for quality TV detective drama as recognized and as respected as Trek. Not every spin-off show has met with equal success or survived due to the name it carried. Adding or removing Trek for the title didn't help ENT from cancellation. Once again, learn what you're talking about before you speak.
I did say they were strongly associated with sci-fi & Trek as pop icons.
I'm aware or it and did cover all my bases.
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.......and it's veiwer ratings that keep a show running, not the shows name sake. Once again, learn what you're talking about before you speak.
And in the case of Voyager, the Star Trek name is what kept the show in the mediocre ratings it had, which is my point. So, how about YOU figure out what the hell you're talking about before you speak.
Again, since you clearly didn't understand what I was saying, my point is just that if anyone DOES know about these characters outside of fandom it's because it has the name Star Trek tacked onto the front of it. Without that name, I don't think this show would have lasted more than a couple of seasons and certainly wouldn't have had any pop icons.
And just so you know, the few times I've encountered people who know what Janeway or 7 of 9 was, they usually use it in the sentence "Oh, yeah, wasn't that from that Star Trek show no one liked?"... kind of like ALF, while a pop icon, is a joke because of how bad the show was.
Again, having Star Trek attached to ENT. didn't help it any........and it's veiwer ratings that keep a show running, not the shows name sake. Once again, learn what you're talking about before you speak.
And in the case of Voyager, the Star Trek name is what kept the show in the mediocre ratings it had, which is my point. So, how about YOU figure out what the hell you're talking about before you speak.
Again, since you clearly didn't understand what I was saying, my point is just that if anyone DOES know about these characters outside of fandom it's because it has the name Star Trek tacked onto the front of it. Without that name, I don't think this show would have lasted more than a couple of seasons and certainly wouldn't have had any pop icons.
And just so you know, the few times I've encountered people who know what Janeway or 7 of 9 was, they usually use it in the sentence "Oh, yeah, wasn't that from that Star Trek show no one liked?"... kind of like ALF, while a pop icon, is a joke because of how bad the show was.
The few people you've encountered doesn't equate to the larger mass public.
So what?
The point was the name associated with it didn't help it.
VOY gets criticized for doing "Alien of the Week" stories, but those other shows (Stargate, Farscape) do the same thing and no one cares.
Farscape is similarly a show about one ship on its own with no help, but rarely ever did a "the ship is damaged and stays damaged" story. Only once or so in the show's entire run did they do that and it was only for 2 episodes. It also gets no external support but no one whines about it as much as VOY.
All shows had recurring alien enemies who kept showing up despite either not knowing where Earth was (Stargate) or the protagonists always being on the move (Farscape). But when VOY did the same thing all it got were complaints that bad guys shouldn't keep showing up.
VOY gets complaints over how the ship is having too big an impact on galactic events, but Farscape and Stargate do the same thing having a huge impact on their Universes and no one cares.
I'm sure there's more, but the matter is that VOY suffers from double standard and too many no-win scenarios with the audience.
EDIT: Then there's the Borg criticism as well, that was another no-win scenario/double standard thing with VOY: Despite TNG showing it was possible to even DAMAGE a Borg ship, VOY's audience couldn't handle it happening and felt that the second a Borg ship was shown with any damage to it whatsoever the Borg were utterly ruined to them.
Because it was too late to help it. It's ratings were already under a 3 share. Voyager was an official Star Trek show from day one and people stuck with it, hoping it would get better through the whole run. Not a lot of people, mind you.
They named Enterprise without the Star Trek title initially because they wanted to distance it from Voyager and try to give it it's own identity as people were already getting really sick of Berman Trek. After 2 seasons of continuing to fail, they tried (notice this word, it's important) to save it by adding the Star Trek name, but it was too late. See, even the studios realized by season 3 that adding that name might stop the bleeding. But again, too little, too late.
They named Enterprise without the Star Trek title initially because they wanted to distance it from Voyager and try to give it it's own identity as people were already getting really sick of Berman Trek. After 2 seasons of continuing to fail, they tried (notice this word, it's important) to save it by adding the Star Trek name, but it was too late. See, even the studios realized by season 3 that adding that name might stop the bleeding. But again, too little, too late.
I guess a lot of that wasn't stuff I gave Voyager flack for. I gave it flack for having uninteresting characters, bad writing, boring aliens of the week, and ignoring it's premise entirely.
See, the promised premise of Voyager was that they were stuck in an area of space where they didn't know anyone and would have to struggle to survive and, oh yeah, they had to take on the Maquis survivors who hate Starfleet. That was a great setup. They never lived up to ANY of that. The Maquis was pretty much integrated after 3 episodes and it's not interesting to watch a ship trying to survive when really, there's no indication that they're having a hard time of it other than the occasional episode that tells me they're having a hard time of it (which again, is just bad writing). If you're going to start with that premise, be prepared to show some damage to the ship, some hodgepodge uniforms, don't be afraid to slowly wreck your sets over the seasons... All of this would have made for a much more compelling show. Also, if they had to ACTUALLY make a tough decision now and again that affected them, that would have been much better too.
Also, it would have helped if they hadn't written the characters by committee. Just a boring bunch of folks.
If that were true, (which it is partly) then no amount of letter writing would have brought it back for a 4th season.
The fact is Paramount felt they recieved enough feedback that the show might be able to continue, thus bringing it back for a 4th season. If Paraomunt felt it was too late, they never would have invested time and money in it again.
None of what you said was the fault of bad writing, honestly.
All of that you spoke of was under the orders of Paramount to make the show less controversial and more family friendly like TNG. DS9 didn't pull the audience from TNG like Paramount wanted and they figured (going by that), they felt TNG formula is what the public wanted more.
They brought it back & spent more money on it, didn't they?
I agree that there were too many characters (Kim, Neelix, Kes and Torres should've been recurring characters and not centrals), but that bit about the premise is wrong. The premise was never really what most detractors thought it was to begin with.
It was a flawed and rather sexist premise: The first time in Trek where we have a crew that the Captain can't control, they'd all hate one another and plot to backstab and mutiny all the time with the Captain unable to smooth things out.
And said Captain is a woman. Real great message there.
At least in Farscape they weren't a crew, but rather just passengers on a ship that didn't need them. And they were all violent criminals/true enemies (except Crichton) so tensions made sense.
The Maquis weren't the Feds enemies either. They were Cardassia's enemies first and foremost; they also never bothered developing the Maquis into the opposing force they were meant to be or just what the "Maquis Way" was and how it differed from Starfleet.
If the second crew had been Romulans, then it would be a better premise since they are the genuine enemies of the Feds (longer than ANYONE else), have genuine differences and ideals/values than them, etc. A Gold mine for conflict.
The TOS Enterprise was supposed to be on its own for 5 years, and never had real problems. So I fail to see how a vessel 110 years more advanced would suffer more, especially since it was made clear that they ran into friendly aliens often.
The only way NuBSG got the "No support" thing to work was to have the humans and Cylons be the only life in the Universe. That simply wouldn't make sense in Trek.
