Would Voyager have been better

[somebuddyX]

I'd vote no for Cardies replacing Maquis in the actual show. But having that happen in a Myriad Universe story or having Gul Evek and his ship turn up in a two parter like "Equinox" would have been pretty cool. Or have it work something like the Hirogen episodes where you meet them in one episode, encounter them a bit later and then several seasons later catch up with them again. I think Evek would be great as a foil to Janeway in that Richard Poe would be a great actor for Mulgrew to bounce off but also in that unlike Ransom or even Chakotay Evek isn't bound by the same code of ethics that Janeway is, but also doesn't need to be a mustache twirling villain. Also you could throw Seska into the mix and have her try to manipulate both ships. Could have been fun.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Losing Seska was one of Voyager's big mistakes. She had so much potential for harm and good on the ship.

 

[Oddish]

Immediate improvement.

While I actually like Janeway, I think Chakotay would have been a better captain in several aspects.
1. He would've promoted people.
2. Less irritating voice.
3. More consistent character.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

3. More consistent character.

If you mean he was so dull he was often outshone by the bulkheads, then I guess so.

 

[Oddish]

If you mean he was so dull he was often outshone by the bulkheads, then I guess so.

Had they not been so focused on having Janeway be everything, Chakotay could have been developed more. He could have been a character to complement her weaknesses, had she been allowed to have any.

 

[at Quark's]

Had they not been so focused on having Janeway be everything, Chakotay could have been developed more. He could have been a character to complement her weaknesses, had she been allowed to have any.

I think more in general the show would have benefitted from a more consistent portrayal of Janeway, and a bit less focus on Seven and the EMH in the later seasons. Janeway being extremely scrupulous about some ethical quandary in one episode, and then quite reckless in the next didn't help. Also, even though I think Picardo was great in his role as the EMH the 'Doc adds some functionality to his program but finds out that can be dangerous' schtick got a bit old by the end, and the same goes for the whole 'Seven (re-)discovers what it means to live with her human-like qualities' thing - a theme which already was rather milked out by the time Seven came along , having Spock, Data, Odo, and even within the series itself, the EMH precede her. Some of that screen time could have been devoted to some less explored characters. For example I think Neelix could have done with more depth- he was great in episodes such as Jetrel, Fair Trade, Mortal Coil or Homeward where we got to see a more serious side of him and I wish that had be explored more. Same goes for a more in depth exploration of Chakotay (beyond his animal guide or whatever), Tuvok, Paris, and Torres.

 

[Oddish]

Sadly, the "Inexperienced newbie" trope had also been heavily used on DS9 with Bashir, Nog, and Jake. So, Harry Kim was also underused. And reduced to a largely one note character.

 

[at Quark's]

Sadly, the "Inexperienced newbie" trope had also been heavily used on DS9 with Bashir, Nog, and Jake. So, Harry Kim was also underused. And reduced to a largely one note character.

I even honestly forgot to mention Harry Kim in my last sentence, that's apparently how much of an impression he made on me

On the other hand, to cut Voyager some slack, I could understand that being the third Trek series within a few years would make it progressively harder to come up with fresh ideas for the crew characters, a lot of low hanging fruit already being plucked away by TNG and DS9.

 

[Oddish]

Harry was fine as a mostly background character. Nine is a few too many main ones, really; six or seven is probably better. They just needed to have him follow a more realistic path. Mainly, he stops being the clueless newbie after a couple of years. To that end, he achieves a rank that makes sense (LTJG in his third year, lieutenant around about his sixth).

 

[at Quark's]

Well, realistic or not, fair or not, I can live with the explanation that there was simply nothing for him to 'advance' into (no open positions) and that his lack of promotion (or almost anyone's, for that matter) reflected that.

In the broader scheme of things (regarding my overall enjoyment of the show), Harry's lack of promotion is just a minor matter to me, there are other things I have more serious issues with.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Harry was fine as a mostly background character. Nine is a few too many main ones, really; six or seven is probably better. They just needed to have him follow a more realistic path. Mainly, he stops being the clueless newbie after a couple of years. To that end, he achieves a rank that makes sense (LTJG in his third year, lieutenant around about his sixth).

Not everyone gets to run a marathon to the end.

I see that Kim wound up exactly where he earned to be.

Although if I was Kes I would have slept with Kim.

One afternoon of middling dreariness Vs. Your son in law.

 

[Lynx]

No, Voyager wouldn't have been better with a bunch of Cardassians or Romulans on the ship.

Voyager could and would have been much better if the series had had a bunch of writers who could come up with good ideas and develope the characters, like it was done with Deep Space Nine.

 

[Oddish]

Well, realistic or not, fair or not, I can live with the explanation that there was simply nothing for him to 'advance' into (no open positions) and that his lack of promotion (or almost anyone's, for that matter) reflected that.

In the broader scheme of things (regarding my overall enjoyment of the show), Harry's lack of promotion is just a minor matter to me, there are other things I have more serious issues with.

What bothers me about it was that one, it was showed an appalling level of stupidity by people who were supposed to be professionals. Two, it was based on a premise that the best seasons of TNG and all of DS9 had debunked.

Third and worst, it was so... simple... to fix. Asking the writers to give characters like Harry and Chakotay (and Travis on Enterprise) a given number of good shows focused on them... that's a tall order. You actually have to DEVELOP characters that you've basically chucked aside in favor of more popular ones. And, you have to take shows away from your bread and butter characters like Seven. It's hard. I get it. BUT, sumply putting a hollow pip on Harry's collar and then sending him back to his support role is very easy. They didn't even have to film a "Janeway sticks the pip on his collar and everyone applauds" ceremony. Just have the transition occur before "Night". Two months have passed, the ship is sailing through the void, Neelix is getting nihiliphobia, morale is crap, Janeway's turned hermit, oh and Harry's a lieutenant now by the way. The rules of the fandom are respected. The viewers are respected. Simple, right?

 

[Farscape One]

I think there is only one thing that would have helped the show... have the writers take some lessons from the DS9 writing staff.

Doing this would almost instantly change the series to be greater than it was. I like VOYAGER and enjoyed it a lot, but it's possibly the one STAR TREK series that frustrates me the most because it didn't really get the mileage out if its premise like the other shows.

The one thing that DS9 did the best out of all the others was create characters that felt real. And they did this right from the pilot, and they kept that up the entire time. VOYAGER's pilot was really one of the best of the franchise... in some ways, the best. I truly believe that. But after that, it felt like they lost some fire, for lack of a better term.

I'll give you a more concrete example. Nog from DS9. He started out with very few scenes. But they were well done scenes, and this led to such a growth of the character that he really was a big part of the show by the end. And they did that with just some scenes peppered in here and there for years. It wasn't until much later that he got entire B stories or full on episodes about him. VOYAGER could have done that with their less used characters, like Chakotay, Tuvok, Neelix, and Kim. They did this a few times in their early seasons. But that was mostly abandoned by the time Seven came. You don't need to have a set amount of episodes for each person each year to make their characters real or more rounded. A little really goes a long way. Nog, Martok, Winn, Damar, Weyoun, Rom, Ziyal, Dukat, Garak... the list goes on. They all started with just a little, got some more, and became so fully formed and real characters that you forget entirely they are not part of the leads in the show.

VOYAGER could have done that with their actual leads of the series. This, more than anything, would have made a huge difference.

 

[Oddish]

DS9 is hard and shoulders above any other series in character development. Even take a tier 2 character like Rom. You can describe him as.
* Mechanical genius.
* No talent for business, kind of clueless in other ways, too.
* Loving and supportive father who protects his own.
* Ditto with his mother. Betrays his brother every now and then, mainly when it's funny.
* Fond of hew-mon food.
* Finds his way out of his brother's shadow and lives the life he wants.

Were tier-1 characters on Voyager or even TNG or TOS developed this much? And don't start with Enterprise! Like, Travis Mayweather...
* Space boomer.
* Uhhh...

 

[at Quark's]

Doing this would almost instantly change the series to be greater than it was. I like VOYAGER and enjoyed it a lot, but it's possibly the one STAR TREK series that frustrates me the most because it didn't really get the mileage out if its premise like the other shows..

To be honest, Enterprise disappointed me even more in that respect. An era that could be the theater of grand story telling and I was hoping to see the circumstances and developments that would give birth to the Federation, possibly the Romulan War. What did we get? For the first two years, mainly isolated 'episodes of the week' and a temporal cold war that never really got into focus. After that, it gradually became better but by then it was too late and the series was cancelled.

That's not to say I don't simply enjoy it for what it is, though.

 

[Farscape One]

I agree with you about ENTERPRISE to a point. The first two seasons were riddled with episodes of the week, but at least it more or less stayed true to its vision of humanity's first big steps into the universe. This is why we got Archer kind of bumbling fairly often. It was a big learning curve, especially sobering for Archer as he said to Captain Hernandez about having to defend themselves against hostiles sometimes more often than actually doing exploration.

I think the biggest mistake that show made was making the technology too close to Kirk era. They had transporters despite it being new, phase cannons/pistols instead of lasers as was mentioned in other shows when talking about weapons of this era, photonic torpedoes, time travel, etc.

I think having the tech be more primitive would have opened up more story possibilities. I know that was more UPN's involvement than anything, so I don't really blame Berman and Braga for that. What I do blame them for is the lack of development of half the cast. Travis, for example. He was out in space more often and longer than virtually the entire crew except T'Pol. That could have been mined better. (Though to be fair, he was badly miscast. My honest opinion is he was not just the weakest actor on that show, but of all the leads across all STAR TREK shows.)

And we did see the beginnings of what would become the Federation, so they delivered on that. I still am most frustrated by VOYAGER in terms of unfulfilled potential and premise upholding.

 

[Oddish]

Agree about the tech... maybe wait until Season 3 or 4 to beam anyone anywhere, and only in extreme situations. Maybe even have them experimenting with transporting biomatter and having it die. If they really had a hard on for killing Trip, maybe have him emergency beamed, then die a piece at a time because he didn't rematerialize quite right. By S4, it seemed like transporters were becoming routine.

And YES, the photonic torpedoes came too soon, given that Starfleet then effectively used the same weapons for 220 years. They should have stuck with spatial ones.

 

[FederationHistorian]

VOY could have had the main cast serving on a Cardassian ship or Romulan ship too.

The main issue was that VOY was TNG-lite, but without the character development of some of the cast i.e. Chakotay & Kim. By the second half of the series, VOY was becoming like TOS in focusing on three main characters - Janeway, Seven, & the Doctor.

 

[Oddish]

VOY could have had the main cast serving on a Cardassian ship or Romulan ship too.

The main issue was that VOY was TNG-lite, but without the character development of some of the cast i.e. Chakotay & Kim. By the second half of the series, VOY was becoming like TOS in focusing on three main characters - Janeway, Seven, & the Doctor.

TNG wasn't that much better. Troi and Crusher kind of got ushered into the background. DS9, by comparison, was great at spreading the attention around.