Would there have been seven seasons if there were no Seven?

[exodus]

I like Bry's question.

"IS 7 THE TRUE SOURCE OF VOYAGER'S SUCCESS?"

Thanks

For me Seven really ruined the series. The character concept was interesting, but too much emphasis was placed on her, at the expense of the other characters (save Janeway and the Doctor, but they became more sidekicks to Seven).

As a gay man, Seven as sex appeal was never going to work for me, but I can appreciate an attractive woman. Jeri Ryan is good-looking, with a very curvy figure, but when you have someone like that parade around in catsuits it kinda cheapens the character and continues stereotypes of "sexy sci-fi chick".

Trek should have done something a little better, rather than just giving into fanwank

The Halloween Parade in NY East Village is full of gay men that dressed up as Seven during the years that Voyager was in production. Many gay men appreciate the appeal of diva-esque sex appeal and the camp of the sexy sci-fi babe, if they didn't we wouldn't have "Ru Paul's Drag Race" or men in drag calling themselves "Heada Lettuce" or "Aqua Netta".
Seems like Seven didn't cheapen anything for them but rather made them feel empowered.
Wasn't it Gene Roddenberry's idea to have green naked women as sex slaves?A virus that causes everyone to get naked? An entire planet where nearly any sexual act is legal? Anybody remember the citizens of "Angel One". Kirk's implying in "Gamesters...." how sex can overcome slavery? How even within the series, that Troi's leotard was called inappropriate attire for the bridge? I don't see how Seven's catsuit cheapened things but rather just continued the idea that sexuality was always a big part of Trek's universe as established by the shows creator.
We just fooled ourselves in to believing Trek is more high brow than it really is. Trek may have a message but it's still entertainment, first and foremost.

If the rest of the audience gave a damn about the rest of the cast, the ratings wouldn't have fallen during s1-3 to require bringing her on in the first place. Honestly, I've never seen fans say; " I tuned in every week for Tuvok....or Paris.....or Chakotay." If they did, he show wouldn't have needed the soft reboot it got.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Gay men respect high heels.

The higher the heels, the more respect.

It's no way to govern a society, but they have their universe and I have mine.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

We just fooled ourselves in to believing Trek is more high brow than it really is.

The mistake is in thinking something can't be full of sex and high brow.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Girls comes to mind.

Californication.

House of Lies.

Sex plus fantastic and weird writing.

Although the only thing that comes close to sex + spaceships + class is Lex.

Why are we talking about sex and Voyager?

Voyager was sexless and sterile.

Beautiful people in sackcloth smocks with ingeniously well hidden zippers.

Hardly any one frakked and when they did we didn't see diddly.

 

[Sindatur]

If Seven wasn't introduced in order to ensure Voyager ran for Seven Seasons, they wouldn't have named her Seven

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

:: slaps sindatur ::

You're bad.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Gay men respect high heels.

The higher the heels, the more respect.

It's no way to govern a society, but they have their universe and I have mine.

Some gay men might

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

This is why I will never be a gay icon.

 

[Guy Gardener]

It's a trick by gay men not to look women in the eye.

If all they can see is the underside of a chin on any woman they are talking to from way down there, it's practically as if women don't exist.

Which is such a peaceful calming thought.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Then again Kylie Minogue is a gay icon and she is my height.

hmm..

 

[Guy Gardener]

And that's why the two of you could be twin sisters.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Oh yes, and the jelly pool and..

 

[DeepSpaceWine]

Simply put. Yes.

I have the ratings for every single episode, even the nigh-impossible to find 9/12/01 rerun. If you analyze the ratings from Season 4, besides seeing that it was down over Season 3 you'd see a big drop down from Fall 97 to Winter 98 and when you parse the ratings out further, you can see what really happened.

Ratings for new eps in Fall 1997 were up +0.28 over Spring 1997 (+6%), but ratings fell -0.90 in Winter 1998 (-18%). Take out "Scorpion, Part II" and you get +0.12 & -0.74 respectively (+3%, -16%). Take out "The Gift" too and it drops to just +0.4% for Fall 1997. What does that mean? The boost was Scorpion, not Seven. And if not for Scorpion, the fall block of Season 4 severely underperformed the average of all fall blocks (when I mean fall blocks, I mean the episodes airing through November or early Dec). Some may argue Seven prevented a bigger ratings plunge and she may very well have, but the plunge in Winter 1998 is so bad (and followed up by a down Spring 98 too), that would suggest otherwise.
[I gotta post all the ratings data & analysis for Star Trek series and other shows sometime]

For context, the only times Voyager's ratings grew block over block were Fall 1996, Fall 1997, Fall 1998, Winter 1999, Fall 2000, Spring 2001. Both Voyager & DS9 had a problem with their ratings in spring.

And I'm not sure what's behind Winter 1998's drop. It looks bigger than competition with the Winter Olympics at Nagano and the loss of the Milwaukee market (anyone watching Voyager in the Milwaukee area probably remembers that time) would suggest.


Voyager was UPN's top-rated show til 1999 and 2nd highest rated show thru 2001. WWF SmackDown! was the highest rated show in Voyager's last 2 seasons but Voyager still led among all real scripted dramas & sitcoms. And it was no contest. The next series was a distant 2nd or 3rd. They would have been foolish to deep six their flagship series.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I've seen the graphs. The only marks that matters is the first and final show of each series.

http://www.madmind.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/startreknielsenrating.jpg

The first episode of Voyager was 5 points lower than the last episode of TNG, and the penultimate episode of Voyager was 4 points lower than the First episode of Enterprise.

That shows that a chunck of the TNG audience didn't want to give Voyager a chance, and 7 years later they can back to see if Archer was worth their time, and from the looks of those ratings, it wasn't.

 

[Dream]

I've seen the graphs. The only marks that matters is the first and final show of each series.

http://www.madmind.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/startreknielsenrating.jpg

Your link doesn't work.

That shows that a chunck of the TNG audience didn't want to give Voyager a chance, and 7 years later they can back to see if Archer was worth their time, and from the looks of those ratings, it wasn't.

DS9, VOY and ENT had huge ratings for their first episodes, many people did give them chance, but the problem was that the audience didn't stick around after seeing the debuts.

VOY was always "safe" since it always got good ratings compared to the rest of the crap on UPN.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Who are these lazy people who don't know you have to grit your teeth through a first season?

 

[mos6507]

"Who are these lazy people who don't know you have to grit your teeth through a first season?"

The TNG-era shows had it easy. TNG took 3 seasons to hit its stride, where TOS was canceled after 2 and barely made it back on the air for the 3rd. A certain amount of survival pressure is a good thing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Dream, some sites are assholes and don't let you link to them directly, it's probably to stop the hotlinking of images, but if you copy and past the link into a fresh tab, it will work.

 

[Dream]

The TNG-era shows had it easy.

Don't forget ENT, dead after 4 seasons.