Why do Star Trek fans hate Voyager? - Link

[MacLeod]

Did VOY have to keep track of every little detail, no of course not. But what about things like crew numbers which seemed to fluctuate up and down from one episode to the next. Which is ok in the TOS-TNG-DSN treks as they could have crew coming and going, VOY couldn't get new crew to replace lost (yes I know they did a couple of times i.e Equinox). But these were rare.

Whilst we are talking about the crew, they had a huge opportunity to built up a cast of re-curring crew members and let the audiance get to know them. Sure we hada the odd recurring character such as Seska and Icheb but I think not having more was a missed opportunity.

Whilst all ST shows have used technobabble to a certain degree, VOY seemed to take it to a new level.

 

[Anwar]

Exactly. This was a tension that could have continued for a couple of episodes, not neat and tidy at the end. Instead we get two or three subplot of Neelix being jealous over Kes

Again, like most of the conflict in Voyager there just wasn't enough to last that long. Paris wasn't even WITH The Maquis very long so there wasn't THAT much animosity between him and Chakotay.

But yeah, it could've lasted maybe half a season.

Different audience, different time, different expectations. It is not apples to apples.

The audience thinks VOY will give them new aliens. VOY gives them new cool aliens that can do cool stuff and gets nothing in return resembling appreciation. Then audience gets PO'ed that VOY decides against further new aliens which was due to their own petulance.

It didn't have to be that way. Also, the plot did not give reason for why the characters did not work.

They were unlucky and hired bad actors in some cases (Robert Beltran and Garret Wang being the main offenders), while other Producers wanted to write a smaller cast instead of a big ensemble.

You keep point back to the Gilligan plot, but that is an oversimplification that could be rectified by approaching it differently.

It's rectified by coming up with a new plot and dropping the "Lost Ship" thing after the first season. Like every other "Lost Ship" show worth remembering from the last 40 years did.

Too bad they got a bad reaction every time they tried a new plot.

The Borg were thoroughly demystified and stripped of their villain status in "Unimatrix Zero" in my opinion. VOY did the Borg no favors having them show up again and again.

If the only thing a villain had going for them was being mysterious and not showing up much, they're a poorly thought out enemy.

7 years is not enough time? Ok, that's just a nonsense statement. They clearly were doing something that kept them going for 7 years.

It was UPN's flagship show and they were willing to let it go on for the 7 year run TNG got as long as they didn't deviate from the TNG formula. That was their addition to all the other constraints VOY was stuck with.

But what about things like crew numbers which seemed to fluctuate up and down from one episode to the next. Which is ok in the TOS-TNG-DSN treks as they could have crew coming and going, VOY couldn't get new crew to replace lost (yes I know they did a couple of times i.e Equinox). But these were rare.

Easy answer, just make VOY a bigger ship with a crew number of several hundred even though they only need 100 to run the ship. That way they had a mostly expendable crew.

Whilst we are talking about the crew, they had a huge opportunity to built up a cast of re-curring crew members and let the audiance get to know them. Sure we hada the odd recurring character such as Seska and Icheb but I think not having more was a missed opportunity

If they had a smaller central cast, it'd be easier to introduce recurring characters without screwing a member of the main cast out of screentime.

 

[Melakon]

The Borg were reduced as a threat as early as TNG: I, Borg for me. That episode, more than anything else, began pulling the teeth and claws out of them as a threat. Some people even go earlier, saying the Borg decline began with Locutus.

 

[Anwar]

If the Borg decline began in BOBW, then the Borg were better off as a one-shot/two-shot.

When you stupidly overpower your foes like that, it's inevitable.

Look at Doctor Who and the Daleks. They managed to stay as a threat because the DW writers didn't overpower them right off the bat.

 

[Melakon]

The impossible Escher-like object that Geordi and Data suggested using as a virus in "I, Borg" didn't make much sense either. If the crew already knew it was impossible, there was no reason to think that the Borg would be terminally confounded by it.

 

[MacLeod]

Exactly. This was a tension that could have continued for a couple of episodes, not neat and tidy at the end. Instead we get two or three subplot of Neelix being jealous over Kes

Again, like most of the conflict in Voyager there just wasn't enough to last that long. Paris wasn't even WITH The Maquis very long so there wasn't THAT much animosity between him and Chakotay.

But yeah, it could've lasted maybe half a season.

Different audience, different time, different expectations. It is not apples to apples.

The audience thinks VOY will give them new aliens. VOY gives them new cool aliens that can do cool stuff and gets nothing in return resembling appreciation. Then audience gets PO'ed that VOY decides against further new aliens which was due to their own petulance.



They were unlucky and hired bad actors in some cases (Robert Beltran and Garret Wang being the main offenders), while other Producers wanted to write a smaller cast instead of a big ensemble.



It's rectified by coming up with a new plot and dropping the "Lost Ship" thing after the first season. Like every other "Lost Ship" show worth remembering from the last 40 years did.

Too bad they got a bad reaction every time they tried a new plot.



If the only thing a villain had going for them was being mysterious and not showing up much, they're a poorly thought out enemy.



It was UPN's flagship show and they were willing to let it go on for the 7 year run TNG got as long as they didn't deviate from the TNG formula. That was their addition to all the other constraints VOY was stuck with.

But what about things like crew numbers which seemed to fluctuate up and down from one episode to the next. Which is ok in the TOS-TNG-DSN treks as they could have crew coming and going, VOY couldn't get new crew to replace lost (yes I know they did a couple of times i.e Equinox). But these were rare.

Easy answer, just make VOY a bigger ship with a crew number of several hundred even though they only need 100 to run the ship. That way they had a mostly expendable crew.

Whilst we are talking about the crew, they had a huge opportunity to built up a cast of re-curring crew members and let the audiance get to know them. Sure we hada the odd recurring character such as Seska and Icheb but I think not having more was a missed opportunity

If they had a smaller central cast, it'd be easier to introduce recurring characters without screwing a member of the main cast out of screentime.

DSN manged to have plenty of recurring cast members who we got to know despite having a principal cast roughly similar to VOY and the principal cast didn't really get screwed out of screentime.

But they didn't have a bigger ship with a larger crew, but a larger ship might nned a larger crew to operate so it might need 200 instead of the 100 VOY needed. So having a bigger ship wouldn't get rid of the inconsistant crew numbers.

The Vidians were an intersting villian and perhaps out of all of VOY villians they might be the ones they could have enountered more despite how far they had journeyed as the Vidians searched for a cure to the Phage, the Kazons perhaps unkindly were a poor mans Klingon.

Doeds every Trek fan like the Romulan's or the Klingosn or <insert alien race>? So even in the other sshows there might be a perentage of fans that disliked a particualr alien race.

 

[Anwar]

DSN manged to have plenty of recurring cast members who we got to know despite having a principal cast roughly similar to VOY and the principal cast didn't really get screwed out of screentime.

DS9 had access to the pre-existing Trekverse that TOS and TNG had spent years building up and a lot of their characters were either pre-existing characters or were tied to pre-existing characters. Also, they were in one place so it made sense to see the same people throughout the series.

VOY had no such luxuries.

So having a bigger ship wouldn't get rid of the inconsistant crew numbers.

It would mean that having them die wouldn't affect the ships' functions.

The Vidians were an intersting villian and perhaps out of all of VOY villians they might be the ones they could have enountered more despite how far they had journeyed as the Vidians searched for a cure to the Phage,

The audience thought it was dumb to keep seeing the Vidiians after "Phage", their first episode. There was no hope for them.

Hell, they even gave us a well-done Vidiian in Denara Pel and the audience still didn't care.

The whole "Always on the move" thing was a big constraint. They should've crippled the ship so they couldn't leave and had to spend the entire series in one area of the Delta Quadrant.

Doeds every Trek fan like the Romulan's or the Klingosn or <insert alien race>? So even in the other sshows there might be a perentage of fans that disliked a particualr alien race.

Nobody who watched TOS or TNG or DS9 hated EVERY single alien species in the show.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes but unlike TOS-TNG-DSN, VOY had no access to replacement crew members, no access for crew to transfer out to another Starfleet vessel/starbase. So they had ample opportunity to develop a group of recurring crew members. They did start a bit with the likes of Seska, Carey (who I think they thought they had killed off), Icheb. Despite the Delany sisters being mentioned several times we saw them what a couple of times?

 

[BruntFCA]

That lazy crutch is how ALL the Treks made their enemies threatening.

Except ENT which didn't lose any crew members during it's first two seasons.

 

[Anwar]

Yes but unlike TOS-TNG-DSN, VOY had no access to replacement crew members, no access for crew to transfer out to another Starfleet vessel/starbase. So they had ample opportunity to develop a group of recurring crew members. They did start a bit with the likes of Seska, Carey (who I think they thought they had killed off), Icheb. Despite the Delany sisters being mentioned several times we saw them what a couple of times?

Like I said, their main cast was too large to develop that many secondary characters without forcing someone in the main cast of their screentime. DS9 got it to work because of their big galactic war storyline and having most of them be pre-existing characters.

And even then, DS9 had to make some central give up their screentime for the secondaries.

If the main cast had been smaller (Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor) then there'd be more room for Secondaries.

Except ENT which didn't lose any crew members during it's first two seasons

They had plenty of pre-established allies to kill off instead.

 

[MacLeod]

Let's examiine DSN's recurring cast

Dukat - New
Damar - New
Weyoun - New
Brunt - New
Zek - New
Founder - New
Garak - New
Winn - New
Bareil - New
Leeta - New
Rom - New

Gowron - Existing
Keiko - Existing
Molly - Existing

I could go on but the vast majority of DSN's recurring characters weren't exisiting characters but created within that show.

 

[Anwar]

Dukat, Damar and Garak were pre-existing alien species.

Brunt, Zek, the Founder, Leeta and Rom were tied to a member of the Central cast (Quark).

Bareil and Winn were tied to Kira.

The only one that's totally independent is Weyoun, and he was tied to Odo.

 

[MacLeod]

Yes but unlike TOS-TNG-DSN, VOY had no access to replacement crew members, no access for crew to transfer out to another Starfleet vessel/starbase. So they had ample opportunity to develop a group of recurring crew members. They did start a bit with the likes of Seska, Carey (who I think they thought they had killed off), Icheb. Despite the Delany sisters being mentioned several times we saw them what a couple of times?

Like I said, their main cast was too large to develop that many secondary characters without forcing someone in the main cast of their screentime. DS9 got it to work because of their big galactic war storyline and having most of them be pre-existing characters.

And even then, DS9 had to make some central give up their screentime for the secondaries.

If the main cast had been smaller (Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor) then there'd be more room for Secondaries.

Except ENT which didn't lose any crew members during it's first two seasons

They had plenty of pre-established allies to kill off instead.

You're shifting the goal posts, first you say pre-existing characters now it's species.

 

[Anwar]

Dukat was tied to Kira and Sisko, Garak was tied to Bashir and Odo (and Dukat) and Damar was tied to Dukat.

There.

 

[MacLeod]

So you're saying VOY couldn't develop characters like, for example the Transporter Chief, just like TNG did with O'Brien? Many of DSN's recurring characters were antogonists, VOY had an opportunity to develop plenty of secondary characters from the crew..

How about this for another wasted opportunity, in the episode "Ashes to Ashes" they introduced the character of Lyndsay Ballard as a crew member killed at some point prior to that episode. Why not bring back Ahni Jetal from "Latent Image" for that role.

It would have fit the story both from Kim's point of view and it could add in the fact that the Doctor wasn't able to save her. But no easier to introduce a character we've never heard of before than bring back someone who we had seen killed and the consequences of that death on the crew.

Oh and BTW I enjoyed both "Latent Image" and "Ashes to Ashes" they were among VOY better episodes.

 

[dub]

Like I said, their main cast was too large to develop that many secondary characters without forcing someone in the main cast of their screentime. DS9 got it to work because of their big galactic war storyline

(in other words, great writing)

...and having most of them be pre-existing characters.

I'll add to MacLeod's previous post:

Nog - New
Martok - New
Kasidy - New
Admiral Ross - New
Eddington - New
Vic - New
Joseph Sisko - New
Ziyal - New
Ishka - New
Sarah Sisko - New
Opaka - New
Enabran Tain - New
Sloan - New
Jennifer Sisko - New
Morn - New

But yes, I do get what you're saying about being tied to existing characters and species. And you're right, that does help the other series. But it doesn't (or shouldn't) put a halt on creativity. There were still methods for the VOY writers to come up with recurring characters. For instance, the VOY writers could have:

• had the Voyager stranded on a planet for an extended period of time (multiple episodes), obviously offering the opportunity for recurring characters.
• had the Voyager stranded in a system for an extended period of time (multiple episodes/seasons) with the inability to use their warp drive, or the inability to use higher warp.
• had various characters of interesting new species to join the crew as recurring characters (as Neelix and Kes and Seven did as permanent cast)
• had interesting species ally with the Voyager for a certain amount of time (multiple episodes) in exchange for help of some kind either as members of the crew or as ship escorts.
• shown flashbacks for each character with loved ones back home on a recurring basis to add background and depth that viewers can experience with the characters. This can be done as actual flashbacks or using the holodeck.
• a group of Maquis characters could have profoundly disagreed with the happy union at the beginning of the series and flown off separately. I could imagine Janeway saying "let them go." There are all sorts of possibilities for recurring characters with that scenario.

Those are just off the top of my head. Admittedly, many of those scenarios were done in VOY as single or two-part episodes, but they could all have been done as multi-episode or season-long arcs to really get more dramatic bang for the buck. I'm sure talented writers could come up with more interesting ideas.

And even then, DS9 had to make some central give up their screentime for the secondaries.

...so, it can be done!

By the way, I'm not arguing that VOY was awful. I'm just pointing out what could have been. Dreaming about "what could have been" can be done with any series. It's all a matter of what you as a viewer enjoy most. And some people would put VOY at the top of their list of Trek. And they probably wouldn't change a thing, or wouldn't change very much. There's something to be said for that.

 

[Anwar]

A story idea I thought up was that instead of the Maquis, Voyager should've been pulled to the DQ alone and pick up a bunch of DQ aliens who were on the Array and these guys make up the second crew (they'll help in exchange for being returned to their homes).

Not just Neelix, I mean dozens of these guys.

This added connection to the DQ would make fleshing out the DQ easier.

Also, the Caretaker was holding groups of Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians, Ferengi, etc on the Array and when the Array goes up they all escape on their own ships. So now there's more of home brought with Voyager for them to encounter repeatedly.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Voyager folded it's ancillary cast subbudget into it's cgi/spfx subudget after season 2.

Explosions and cool ships were more important than people.

Which is why they didn't hire new people to replace Seska and Culla.

After season 5, Voyagers overall budget increased (Matching inflation? No more DS9?) so they hired those Borg kids and Naomi to wander around now and then.

 

[dub]

A story idea I thought up was that instead of the Maquis, Voyager should've been pulled to the DQ alone and pick up a bunch of DQ aliens who were on the Array and these guys make up the second crew (they'll help in exchange for being returned to their homes).

Not just Neelix, I mean dozens of these guys.

I definitely like that idea!

 

[Anwar]

Yeah, not much point sticking them in the DQ if you're not giving them any connection to the area.