Why Voyager was a Disappointment

[Lance]

"Living Witness" is written off as a failure because of the EMH backup plot point (the audience gets a well-written story with great acting from Picardo and NONE of it matters because of the Backup plot. They let one minor plot contrivance ruin the whole episode for them). Shades of Grey is excused as "Well, there was a strike so they needed a clip show." with little to no complaint.

I can't say I've ever encountered this view-point anywhere before. "Shades of Grey" is one of the most reviled Star Trek episodes ever made, it certainly never gets excused as summarily as you describe. "Living Witness" is an episode that gets a lot of praise. It's one of Voyager's most acclaimed episodes.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Living Witness is praised as one of Voyager's greatest episodes, and it is also criticized for the forementioned continuity problem.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I can explain away any continuity problems, but really Living Witness should be put after Endgame in the next edition, and slippets of Relativity should be spliced into any remastered version of Caretaker.

 

[Anwar]

Fans would have accepted better writing in any form. Serial, episodic, whatever. If the writing was better they would have loved it.

Tell that the Living Witness, Year of Hell, Scorpion, etc.

Those stories could've been TNG or DS9 stories and I doubt anyone would've disliked them.

 

[Lance]

Fans would have accepted better writing in any form. Serial, episodic, whatever. If the writing was better they would have loved it.

Tell that the Living Witness, Year of Hell, Scorpion, etc.

Those stories could've been TNG or DS9 stories and I doubt anyone would've disliked them.

Who dislikes them?

They're Voyager's most acclaimed episodes.

And I've seen people piss TNG and DS9 episodes up the wall too for having bad plot holes etc, so going around saying, "If they'd been episodes of such-and-such other series they'd be more highly regarded than they are as Voyager episodes..." just isn't an adequate arguing point to start with IMO.

They are highly regarded. That's the point. Anything else is just hypothetical.

 

[fireproof78]

Fans would have accepted better writing in any form. Serial, episodic, whatever. If the writing was better they would have loved it.

Tell that the Living Witness, Year of Hell, Scorpion, etc.

Those stories could've been TNG or DS9 stories and I doubt anyone would've disliked them.

Who dislikes them?

They're Voyager's most acclaimed episodes.

And I've seen people piss TNG and DS9 episodes up the wall too for having bad plot holes etc, so going around saying, "If they'd been episodes of such-and-such other series they'd be more highly regarded than they are as Voyager episodes..." just isn't an adequate arguing point to start with IMO.

They are highly regarded. That's the point. Anything else is just hypothetical.

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers? Despite going through this thread, and my own research, I cannot find the evidence for such claims.

Also, VOY is not the only to get such treatment. ENT and suffered a large ratings drop until about the 4th season. ENT gets nitpicked to death due to being a prequel, yet not always lining up with TOS or other shows (Ferengi, Borg, dropped Temporal Cold War, etc.).

I feel like no matter what, the viewing audience gets talked down to because they did not appreciate VOY, faults and all. No amount of explanation of why people find fault with a work is satisfactory because of the disagreement over the work.

 

[Lance]

In my experience, ENT received far worse treatment from both the fandom and the casual audiences alike, both then and now, than Voyager.

I can still remember countless articles, in places like The Onion and others, bagging the crap out of Enterprise before it even went on the air-waves.

Even near the end when it was winding down, I've never seen Voyager receive the kinds of vitriol anything like Enterprise did (and still does, in some circles).

 

[MacLeod]

You know that thing where Janeway is supposed to twitch her commbadge when she gets an idea and how it gets critiqued since she never did that before?

It's another no-win scenario. Either they introduce it then and there and they get "She never did this before! It sucks!" or they introduce is early on and they get "It's a stupid thing she does with her commbadge! This sucks!"

You just can't win, you really can't.

No it's called a character trait sure some might think it's a stupid, but that doesn't diminish the fact it's a character trait. Not all character traits have to be sensible. After all Picard had the Picard maneouver (though that was more down to nature of the uniform than any real planning)

 

[Anwar]

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers?

Go to the DS9 board.

Also, VOY is not the only to get such treatment. ENT and suffered a large ratings drop until about the 4th season. ENT gets nitpicked to death due to being a prequel, yet not always lining up with TOS or other shows (Ferengi, Borg, dropped Temporal Cold War, etc.).

ENT gets excused now because they think "Oh well, they got canceled so they didn't have as much of a chance."

I feel like no matter what, the viewing audience gets talked down to because they did not appreciate VOY, faults and all. No amount of explanation of why people find fault with a work is satisfactory because of the disagreement over the work.

If they have a one-strike policy for the show, they shouldn't be surprised they get the one-strike policy in return.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers?

Go to the DS9 board.

Grossly overstated. Niners will use episodes like YOH to point out places where Voyager writers and producers missed opportunities (or avoided them) to inject the series with greater narrative complexity and continuity. That is vastly different than hatred.

 

[fireproof78]

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers?

Go to the DS9 board.

Grossly overstated. Niners will use episodes like YOH to point out places where Voyager writers and producers missed opportunities (or avoided them) to inject the series with greater narrative complexity and continuity. That is vastly different than hatred.

Indeed. I have been on a variety of Trek boards and while there are always some who express their opinions in hyperbolic hatred towards their intended target (VOY, ENT, Abrams, etc) I have not seen that as a majority opinion, even towards VOY.

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers?

Go to the DS9 board.

Also, VOY is not the only to get such treatment. ENT and suffered a large ratings drop until about the 4th season. ENT gets nitpicked to death due to being a prequel, yet not always lining up with TOS or other shows (Ferengi, Borg, dropped Temporal Cold War, etc.).

ENT gets excused now because they think "Oh well, they got canceled so they didn't have as much of a chance."

I feel like no matter what, the viewing audience gets talked down to because they did not appreciate VOY, faults and all. No amount of explanation of why people find fault with a work is satisfactory because of the disagreement over the work.

If they have a one-strike policy for the show, they shouldn't be surprised they get the one-strike policy in return.

Nope, I can't agree with that statement, even a little bit. There is no evidence that the audience would give up on VOY in one strike. It also is a gross oversimplification of how the actual TV writing process works. The writers, of any show, do not have the time to review last week's numbers to base the next story on. They simply grind them out. The problem is not the audience, no matter how much it is claimed to the contrary.

As for ENT, I have seen that show getting panned, and panned it myself, because it was, in my opinion, 1 dimensional, and would often show a lack of consistency. VOY had least had some characters who would break out beyond the superficial, but ENT didn't even have that. I have not seen ENT get any excuses, even in comparison to VOY.

Hey look, some else that was disappointing besides VOY

 

[Lance]

Seconded. Who dislikes these episodes to the point of hatred, and exists in such larger numbers?

Go to the DS9 board.

Grossly overstated. Niners will use episodes like YOH to point out places where Voyager writers and producers missed opportunities (or avoided them) to inject the series with greater narrative complexity and continuity. That is vastly different than hatred.

Indeed. I have been on a variety of Trek boards and while there are always some who express their opinions in hyperbolic hatred towards their intended target (VOY, ENT, Abrams, etc) I have not seen that as a majority opinion, even towards VOY.

Absolutely.

Frankly, I've never seen the episodes Anwar listed being dissed by anyone, ever, Voyager fan or otherwise. They're widely regarded as Voyager's greatest instalments, and in my experience are the episodes which are held up to relatively high acclaim even by those who might not be Voyager fans.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Voyager was a pretty good show with a few dozen really good episodes, a ton of mediocre ones and a couple dozen stinkers.

It is criticized because it is Star Trek,because it made promises it didn't keep, and because it wore its ratings-consciousness a bit too obviously on its sleeve.

Don't know why we need to make it more complicated than that.

 

[eyeresist]

Indeed. I have been on a variety of Trek boards and while there are always some who express their opinions in hyperbolic hatred towards their intended target (VOY, ENT, Abrams, etc) I have not seen that as a majority opinion, even towards VOY.
...
As for ENT, I have seen that show getting panned, and panned it myself, because it was, in my opinion, 1 dimensional, and would often show a lack of consistency. VOY had least had some characters who would break out beyond the superficial, but ENT didn't even have that. I have not seen ENT get any excuses, even in comparison to VOY.

Hey, there's some hyperbolic hatred right there

 

[fireproof78]

Indeed. I have been on a variety of Trek boards and while there are always some who express their opinions in hyperbolic hatred towards their intended target (VOY, ENT, Abrams, etc) I have not seen that as a majority opinion, even towards VOY.
...
As for ENT, I have seen that show getting panned, and panned it myself, because it was, in my opinion, 1 dimensional, and would often show a lack of consistency. VOY had least had some characters who would break out beyond the superficial, but ENT didn't even have that. I have not seen ENT get any excuses, even in comparison to VOY.

Hey, there's some hyperbolic hatred right there

See, I can do it too

That was more hyperbolic to make my point. You know, for science

 

[eyeresist]

Crotchpunch - for science!


The things that go through my head sometimes....

 

[Anwar]

Frankly, I've never seen the episodes Anwar listed being dissed by anyone, ever, Voyager fan or otherwise.

I had a big argument with Newtype_Alpha a few years back wherein he claimed it ruined the Borg completely by showing there was a single alien species out there that they couldn't defeat. Nevermind all other Treks repeatedly showing us such beings.

They're widely regarded as Voyager's greatest instalments, and in my experience are the episodes which are held up to relatively high acclaim even by those who might not be Voyager fans.

Like I said, Living Witness gets written off entirely because of that EMH Backup plot point (nothing else mattered, not the story or the acting or anything else) and Scorpion gets written off as ruining the Borg.

I don't know why VOY had such a hyper-critical reaction, compared to how easy all the other Treks had it (aside from ENT).

 

[eyeresist]

^ I think, as has been said before, viewer fatigue had a lot to do with it. (Also producer fatigue.) If Trek series happened one at a time, with a year's break in between, we might still have something on the air now.

As for hatred now, well, some people derive a lot of pleasure from hating, apparently.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yes, like the Emperor Palpatine.

You haters, you're as bad as the Emperor!

 

[eyeresist]

Don't cross the streams!