Why is the Trek community so negative about Voyager?

[2 of 10]

I bring this up today because I just got home a little while ago from the local shopping mall. I walk into a great little store that sells basically everything science fiction. Books, DVD's, T-Shirts, memorabilia etc. So I immediately walk over to the Star Trek section and begin scouring over all the merchandise. I don't think I look like the typical Trekkie because I don't wear glasses, I'm not obese or sickly thin, but I'm muscular, with large arms and a large chest as I'm a competitive weight lifter. So anyway this guy walks up to me and asks if I'm a fan of Trek, I respond without haste, "Most definitely!". He asks if I preferred TNG or DS9. I say "Neither, Voyager is my favorite." He looks me up and down and makes a peculiar expression on his face like I just told him I believe the earth is flat. He says, "Oh, so you're obviously a fan of Jeri Ryan." Obviously he assumes I only watched the show because of her. I say "No, she did a great job with her character, but I just found Voyager the best of all the Treks." He looks at me and says "Oh." Then he just walked away.

I can't be the only one who has noticed the overtly negative perception Voyager has within the Trek community.

Have noticed the same aloofness from some of our fellow Trekkers. I am "into" Voy at the time being, who knows, next week/month...it'll be DS-9 or TNG. At times my fav
trek series is the one I watching at the present time. Each
series stands on it's own merits, each and every one of them has stood the test of time only TOS and ENT failed to
make it to the 7 season mark. I have all DS-9 and Voy entire season so I lucky for me I don't have to wait until some channel decides to show it on at 2:30am...

Resistance is Futile...

 

[Admiral Shran]

Voyager could not go traipsing across the Delta quadrant meeting completely unknown and potentially hostile species looking like a wreck. Their first intro to the Delta quadrant was the Kazon and it was obvious they weren't in a Federation Police State any more. There be pirates in the Delta quadrant. Voyager could not look vulnerable and an easy target. She was a mystery to her opponents and if Janeaway was going to bluff her way across the quadrant the ship had to look strong and potentially lethal.

It was for their own safety that they had to keep that ship from looking vulnerable.

As to the inside of it, I'd imagine Janeway understood the morale issue of not spending decades trying to get home in a trashed ship.

That makes sense; I would want to be in a good looking ship as well, for self-respect and diplomacy reasons. But, that doesn't address how they managed to do it.

 

[6079SmithW]

Voyager could not go traipsing across the Delta quadrant meeting completely unknown and potentially hostile species looking like a wreck. Their first intro to the Delta quadrant was the Kazon and it was obvious they weren't in a Federation Police State any more. There be pirates in the Delta quadrant. Voyager could not look vulnerable and an easy target. She was a mystery to her opponents and if Janeaway was going to bluff her way across the quadrant the ship had to look strong and potentially lethal.

It was for their own safety that they had to keep that ship from looking vulnerable.

As to the inside of it, I'd imagine Janeway understood the morale issue of not spending decades trying to get home in a trashed ship.

That makes sense; I would want to be in a good looking ship as well, for self-respect and diplomacy reasons. But, that doesn't address how they managed to do it.

Well, they had replicators so I figure they might have some "industrial" sized ones that can replicate any part they need provided the raw materials. They could have gotten the raw materials from phasering off chunks of asteroids and beaming them into the cargo hold. Maybe they could send away teams to planets the do some mining with hand phasers

I assume they could have traded for raw materials off screen or got some friendly species to allow them to use a repair facility.

 

[Bishop76]

I love the mental gymnastics people do to try to rationalize why Voyager looked as good as if not better than it did the day it left Fed space. It should have come back dilapidated and roughed up because that would have been far more interesting than the schlock they fed us every week.

 

[Anwar]

Is it just SO hard to believe they found friendly starbases and commerce hubs? I mean, the real reason we didn't see it was because the cost of making all those alien places would have broken the budget. If they waited until DS9 had finished then CGI tech would've been cheaper and they'd have DS9's props to be re-used. In 1995 they didn't have either.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Well, they had replicators so I figure they might have some "industrial" sized ones that can replicate any part they need provided the raw materials. They could have gotten the raw materials from phasering off chunks of asteroids and beaming them into the cargo hold. Maybe they could send away teams to planets the do some mining with hand phasers

I assume they could have traded for raw materials off screen or got some friendly species to allow them to use a repair facility.

Yet they never once referred to an industrial replicator on the ship, they never mentioned doing mining and they were almost never shown trading. In fact, they go out of their way in the early seasons to say that replicator power is limited and so have to use replicator rations (only to be forgotten about in later seasons).

Those are all valid ways to get around the problems I have. If they had only used them within the show itself, I wouldn't object. As it stands, they're just rationalizations. Good rationalizations, yes, but rationalizations all the same.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Is it just SO hard to believe they found friendly starbases and commerce hubs? I mean, the real reason we didn't see it was because the cost of making all those alien places would have broken the budget. If they waited until DS9 had finished then CGI tech would've been cheaper and they'd have DS9's props to be re-used. In 1995 they didn't have either.

If it's not a large jump to believe that that was what was going on, why couldn't they include it in dialogue?

 

[Bishop76]

It's still a large jump to believe that the ship never changed appearance. If you're grafting alien tech onto your ship from whatever friendly ports you come across, it's probably not going to integrate seamlessly. Now, I understand that for the first several seasons they were using a model still and it was tough to do major changes to that model. But they should have just slowly, over time, done more and more damage to the model as the show progressed. Damaging the ship and making it look like it went through the wringer is GOOD FOR DRAMA. It makes it look more like these characters are having a rough time of it. They always talk about how tough it is, but we never actually see it being tough for them. Television and film are about SHOWING, not constantly telling.

 

[Shatnertage]

Bishop76 has a point there. In general, Voyager tended to be static. For the first three years, they were always 70,000 light years from home. After that, they were 60,000 light years from home. There was never a real sense of traveling--it was like they'd just stay equidistant from Earth until--pop--they were home.

Having just finished "In the Flesh" I thought of a two things they could have done to shake things up at that point:

1. Have 8472 give them passage back to Earth, but naturally there's a complication, and they end up in, say, the far reaches of the Beta or Gamma quadrant, with a whole new set of problems

2. Take a wormhole to get back to Earth, but end up a million years too early or a million years too late, when the Alpha quadrant is completely different. They then have to search for another wormhole to get them back to their "present"

It would have just been nice to turn the premise from "Voyager is stuck in the same place for seven years" to "Voyager is really wandering the cosmos." In reality, we probably would have gotten more of the same anyway, but it's interesting to think about.

 

[Anwar]

The premise should've been "Voyager is stuck in one region of space inhabited by several empires and get sucked into the crossfire between them since the varied crew have something that these aliens all want, until they find a contrivance to send them home and then Starfleet sends them back as part of a Starfleet diplomatic mission."

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Is it just SO hard to believe they found friendly starbases and commerce hubs? I mean, the real reason we didn't see it was because the cost of making all those alien places would have broken the budget. If they waited until DS9 had finished then CGI tech would've been cheaper and they'd have DS9's props to be re-used. In 1995 they didn't have either.

I know several times Janeway offhandedly refers to having just left some friendly planet where they stopped for repairs in her Captain's log.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Bishop76 has a point there. In general, Voyager tended to be static. For the first three years, they were always 70,000 light years from home. After that, they were 60,000 light years from home. There was never a real sense of traveling--it was like they'd just stay equidistant from Earth until--pop--they were home.

I think it's the sheer distance. Shaving ten years off your journey of 70 years doesn't really feel like traveling. I wonder if it had gotten over the 10 year mark in the Delta quadrant if they would have made plans for a Generational ship, having children to continue the voyage like in ENT's E2.

Having just finished "In the Flesh" I thought of a two things they could have done to shake things up at that point:

1. Have 8472 give them passage back to Earth, but naturally there's a complication, and they end up in, say, the far reaches of the Beta or Gamma quadrant, with a whole new set of problems

Would have been interesting to see them dealing with races who talked about the Dominion.

2. Take a wormhole to get back to Earth, but end up a million years too early or a million years too late, when the Alpha quadrant is completely different. They then have to search for another wormhole to get them back to their "present"

A million years.. well all you would have is more unknown species in ships, really wouldn't have been that different. Now if they had gotten back in the TOS era and you could play around with that for a season that would have been fun. Or if they could go forward in time just enough to end up in

Spoiler: shatnerage isn't up to this yet!

Relativity's time that would be FABULOUS. I love time travel eps, going to the future especially!! A season or arc that far in the future would be great stuff.

It would have just been nice to turn the premise from "Voyager is stuck in the same place for seven years" to "Voyager is really wandering the cosmos." In reality, we probably would have gotten more of the same anyway, but it's interesting to think about.

I do think the sheer distance and unfamiliarity of the Delta quadrant comes through strongly.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

I do think the sheer distance and unfamiliarity of the Delta quadrant comes through strongly.

That to me was the show's biggest failing - they may have been in the Delta Quadrant on the other side of the galaxy but more often than not it felt like Earth was just around the corner so to speak.

I look at the TNG episode Q Who - which established a sense of equal parts danger and awe about an unexplored and distant area of space in just a few minutes - and wonder why Voyager was unable to do the same over seven years.

The early emphasis on alien-of-the-week episodes - which never really worked on any of the Trek shows - really didn't help to flesh out the Delta Quadrant as a place that was unique either. It just felt like business as usual for the crew of Voyager - and it really should not have in the circumstances.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The Delta quadrant is not "unique", the drawing up of quadrants is all about kilometers, not cultures. All four quadrants are pretty much the same, differing planets with different degrees of tech and with coalitions/federations of certain groups of said planets.

 

[Tulaberry whine]

The Delta quadrant is not "unique", the drawing up of quadrants is all about kilometers, not cultures. All four quadrants are pretty much the same, differing planets with different degrees of tech and with coalitions/federations of certain groups of said planets.

You're right - and it seems the creators of Voyager agreed with you. Why go to the effort of setting the show in an interesting and unique area of space when you can just stick new wigs and foreheads onto old ideas.

 

[froot]

The Delta quadrant is not "unique", the drawing up of quadrants is all about kilometers, not cultures. All four quadrants are pretty much the same, differing planets with different degrees of tech and with coalitions/federations of certain groups of said planets.

You're right - and it seems the creators of Voyager agreed with you. Why go to the effort of setting the show in an interesting and unique area of space when you can just stick new wigs and foreheads onto old ideas.

The organ-stealing Viidians were a rather unique culture. So were the 8472s, (well, unique to Star Trek anyway) the Hirogen, the Krenim, those cute poo-poo aliens with their space-cubicle lifestyle, and those one-shot aliens who lived in fast-forward. If there was anything that wasn't unique, it was all the hungry/angry/otherwise cranky nubulae VOY kept running into, not the forehead aliens.

The Borg were already established as being the major Delta Quad denizens. That is a familiar culture they simply could not have avoided at least mentioning.

 

[Anwar]

It would have been a better idea and just not mention WHERE they are at all, that way they would've had truly free reign to come up with anything they wanted and wouldn't have had to fall back on the Borg because they'd have no idea if the Borg were around. Plus it would better justify them sticking in the same areas for longer.

It worked for Farscape.

 

[Cyke101]

It would have been a better idea and just not mention WHERE they are at all, that way they would've had truly free reign to come up with anything they wanted and wouldn't have had to fall back on the Borg because they'd have no idea if the Borg were around. Plus it would better justify them sticking in the same areas for longer.

It worked for Farscape.

I think the difference, and I'm not sure how relevant this would have been back in 1995, would be that even today, astronomers and computers can map out positions in the galaxy because of star mapping. If Voyager was thrown anywhere in the galaxy, they'd instantly figure out where they are, simply because today's scientists could do it with much, much more inferior technology.


As it is, I don't think having the Borg show up was necessarily a problem (if Trek is big on canon and name dropping, then it's only natural that they'll show up eventually), it's how they were used/defined after the first few episodes on Voyager. Having Borg space be so vast, for example, makes for a great feeling of initial dread, but coupled in with the science of Trek (warp speed and distance), then suddenly writers are trapped.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Actually, the Borg were never definitively stated as being from the Delta Quadrant until Star Trek: First Contact, which premiered when VOY had already been on the air for a few seasons.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Actually, the Borg were never definitively stated as being from the Delta Quadrant until Star Trek: First Contact, which premiered when VOY had already been on the air for a few seasons.

How have I never absorbed this fact?!

Does TNG ever suggest where they come from?