Why the need to crack the whip?
- Thread starter Danja
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I agree that VOY had a lot of issues, but Mulgrew's portrayal of Janeway wasn't one of them in my eyes. I always interpreted early Janeway being still insecure in her new role, and then suddenly being thrown to the lions when transported to the DQ, and overcompensating for that by assuming a larger-than-life presence (She Who Must Be Obeyed, overly militaristic and so on), but secretly fretting about her responsibilities (cf. the promise she makes to her own double in Deadlock, her nightmare in Waking Moments about not getting the crew home in time, and her depression in Night when she runs out of stuff to actually do). You see her becoming more comfortable in her role as captain and consequently relaxing a bit over the first few years.
There were serious issues with the character of Janeway, I think, but those were more a result of how she was written than how she was portrayed by Mulgrew. As for Bujold, it's a bit hard for me to imagine how that would have played out in the long run.
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Voyager's issues did not stem from weak characters. Rather, they were the result of characters who weren't well used.
There's a video that talks about which characters on assorted Trek series has the most wasted potential. Regarding DS9, they struggled to find one, finally settling on Ezri (because she only had one season) and Ziyal (a relatively minor player). When it got to Voyager, they said that except for Seven and the Doc, it was pretty much all of them.
There's a video that talks about which characters on assorted Trek series has the most wasted potential. Regarding DS9, they struggled to find one, finally settling on Ezri (because she only had one season) and Ziyal (a relatively minor player). When it got to Voyager, they said that except for Seven and the Doc, it was pretty much all of them.
Mulgrew didn't want the romance with Chakotay (sorry, JC people).
She thought that it would've been inappropriate for the Captain to be romantically involved with her first officer. The producers kept shoving the affair with Chakotay in her face.
You don't have to apologize to me. Though I really liked the Janeway/Chakotay chemistry, I recognize that a romance between the two would have been decidedly problematic. Whoever nixed the idea of a J/C romance during the show's run did the characters a favor.
On the other hand, whoever came up with the idea of C/7 should be tied to a chair and made to watch a Teletubbies marathon.
I agree here.
The problems weren't the characters or the actors. The problems were the inconsistent writing.
I can agree with Mulgrew here. But I couldn't understand why they didn't give the J/C people what they wanted when the ship arrived home.
Was there an episode set after the ship arrived home????
They didn't do much of anything when Voyager arrived at home, aside from giving Janeway a movie cameo as an admiral. It wasn't until recently that other Voyager characters were seen again. And only Seven's been really developed.
Indeed. The characters had great potential but extremely inconsistent presentation in the stories. The stories limited them too much.
To compare how two Trek series in comparable times (20th and 24th century alike) got character development right and wrong, just take a look at Nog on DS9 and Harry Kim on Voyager. Both of them had a vast number of significant and often traumatic experiences over the course of their respective 7-year journeys. One went from an assistant barkeep and juvenile delinquent to an experienced and capable Starfleet officer. One switched from playing the clarinet to the saxophone.
No, unfortunately not.
It should have been. It's really sad that the writers were too lousy or didn't care to come up with a decent end episode.
We can also compare with NCIS and the character Tim McGee who was a rather inexperienced and almost clumsy computer nerd in the first seasons, more and less the "whipping boy" of the series but who has developed into a skilled agent and important member of the team during the years.
I quite enjoyed Mulgrew as Janeway. Best part of the show by a long shot even after Seven and The Doctor became a thing.
I was very disappointed at the time that VOY really didn't commit to a lot of the potential of what it set up. Watching fandom debates, however, has given me a better sense of the needle they were trying to thread and why, ultimately, Trek shows of that era that started out with really interesting and original-seeming premises wound up playing it safe. That was VOY's problem in retrospect (much like ENT's): the "making it feel like Trek" effect. I've largely forgiven it since, especially given the role that sacred cows among the fandom played in the whole dynamic and that despite this, a lot of what they produced -- even if it wasn't as cool as the show that could've been -- was still fun.
(That said, I'm glad the current era of Trek doesn't have such constraints. No Berman-era show would have dared touch the things that DSC and PIC have done... and if new shows were still working within those limitations, I probably wouldn't now be watching them.)
True: they got together in the novels, which were the only place we saw immediate post-Endgame adventures of the crew.
My favorite character is Wesley from Angel. Who went from clumsy "Roque demon Hunter" to an experienced team member
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