Then you find a new premise to work with. That VOY was just a rehash of TNG, that VOY lacked the chemistry among the crewmembers, that they didn't utilize any conflict among the crew, etc. Good grief, haven't we been down this road before? I swear I'm having deja vu. Yes, because limits never help the writing process. Writers under constraints only produce garbage...except TWOK, but marginal exception, I'm sure. They don't have to come back in the middle of the Dominion War. You can take the ship elsewhere, you know?
They tried, and got nothing in return for their efforts. Nevermind DS9 got away with it. You don't have a little of wiggle room with VOY's situation anyways. Yeah, but most of that takes a backseat to "This would've been the ultimate Trek if they've slavishly followed the premise and never ever did anything else!" Even though no Trek series ever did that, including TOS. TWOK wasn't constrained, really. They did. The Dominion War was going on for most of Voyager's airtime. And if they don't go home then where else do they go?
VOY was the flagship of a new network. No wiggle room? Hardly. They didn't try. They relied upon tried and true TNG formula with little deviation. When they did something different, it was for brief, two parters, before moving back to the formula. DS9 at least committed to a change, for good or for ill, depending on your point of view. It would have been a different Trek if they had tried to stick to their premise in some way. They set up their ground rules, then ignored them. Yes, it really was. Read Nick Meyer's book and how he broke union rules to actually get it accomplished. Gamma Quadrant. Beta Quadrant. I don't know, but it's not my job to know. It's a writer's job to take the constraints given and build a story from those constraints. If you can't make it work, then cancel the show. Shows get canceled all the time.
It didn't help that every single attempt at trying something new was met with derision. Best of Both Worlds had more same holes in it than "Living Witness" did, you don't see anyone focusing solely on BOBW's plot holes and let them ruin the whole story for them. Voyager would be destroyed and the crew all dead in a season if they'd stuck slavishly to the premise. They had most of the costumes already leftover from TMP, the expensive sets leftover and plenty of TOS to draw from and make a story with without the audience being ready to write them off from Day One. They did try, repeatedly. And got nothing in return for their efforts. Meanwhile DS9's audience laps up every single last thing the show did without complaint. I'm assuming the Production Staff didn't feel like being unemployed.
I liked them in season 4, hated In The Flesh. It seemed to me they could have done an episode of Voyager making peace with 8472 but they should have had to find a way to communicate with them as their scary alien selves, not in some weird human suit in a simulation they shouldn't have even needed to do.
Every time you attack the complaints about Voyager it's BS slippery slope arguments and strawman attacks, this is no exception. Every single attempt at trying something new was not at all met with derision. The less formulaic episodes like Timeless, Living Witness, Course:Oblivion and Relativity are the ones that got the best reception. The ones met with derision are the ones that come off as cheap ratings stunts like when The Rock shows up to fight Seven. Who the hell focuses on the flaws of Living Witness? Every single Star Trek episode has been nitpicked to shreds, the popular and unpopular ones alike. Living Witness, however, routinely shows up toward the top of every single list and every single poll everyone makes about Voyager. If you say people dislike and disproportionately attack Living Witness, you are flat out lying. And 'people lap up every thing DS9 did', what the HELL are you talking about?! Have you been to the DS9 forum lately? Yeah it's got some major fans, but the Ferengi episodes are attacked all the time. Some people hate the early episodes, some people hate the Dominion episodes, and people off this board disregard DS9 more than they disregard Voyager. Again, you are making a claim that is an outright fiction. You're free to like and defend Voyager, but please stop making the exact same bald faced lies about the other side's position in every single thread. It's just completely full of **** and not at all grounded in the actual criticisms anyone makes.
Scorpion, The Void, Year of Hell, etc. These days, all those episodes are remembered for are the flaws. Anyone who raises a stink over the EMH backup. They let that one insignificant plot point ruin the entire story for them, nothing else mattered. You'd never see anyone tear into "City on the Edge of Forever" like that. "The Visitor" had more flaws in it than "Living Witness" did and no one ever points this out.
Sorry, no. Scorpion was highly regarded, and still is. Also no. Living Witness stands out as a well done episode. Also, no. And no one is arguing a slavish adherence. Also, no. There are people who don't watch TWOK because it doesn't "feel like Star Trek." Also, in case you are unaware, Nick Meyer violated union rules and risked his future career in Hollywood to get that film done. Um, not even close. DS9 was being panned among my circle of friends and family while VOY got watched. That's always a risk in Hollywood and there is always another show. It wasn't a "do or die" affair. So, to sum up this response:
Part One maybe, and only for certain story aspects. Of course, if Scorpion had been a TNG episode I doubt anyone would care about the stuff they didn't like. People wanted Star Trek Equinox. Equinox ended with the ship dead and pretty much everyone dead. That's what would've happened to Voyager if they'd followed that plot. At least, if they didn't employ any kind of cheats the way every other Trek series, NuBSG, SGU, Farscape and Lexx did. All the "It should've been 100% like Equinox or NuBSG!" says otherwise. What are those people talking about, if not slavish adherence? What's the first thing you ever heard about it? The EMH backup plot point. THAT is what sticks out the most. Whereas all the Visitor's plot holes are ignored. What rules, exactly? Doesn't change that he had it easy in most other ways. Funny, VOY was being panned among MY circle of friends and family while DS9 had a 100% adoration rate. Going from a 7 year massive critical and commercial success to something that failed within one season isn't going to do your career all that good. That's the kind of thing that makes job offers dry up.
Nope. Doubt all you want. I can find someone to gripe about any aspect of Star Trek. Scorpion is no exception. Also, no. I've seen arguments for many different ideas, none of them being %100 consistent on anything, much less adherence. No. Meyer did unauthorized rewrites on the script while not being on the official writing staff, which is against guild rules. He could have damaged his career quite badly if things had gone south and the producer hadn't helped him out. Also, he had a much more limited budget than TMP, had to work with prexisting sets and costumes, save for the hero uniforms. But, I'll be sure to let Mr. Meyer know that it was "easy." See? There isn't 100% consensus on anything in Star Trek. Most of my friends were not watching DS9, but VOY. Hollywood is not what you know but who you know. Failure is part of the game. So, also, no.
Yes, essentially the only reason they were created was to come up with a reasonable way to introduce Seven pf Nine to the Voyager crew. The writers didn't seem that they quite knew what to do with them after that.
I just watched Scorpion this week and I was thinking about Janeway's decision to align with the Borg against Species 8472 and I wonder what other choice she had. 8472 were evil, and made threats against Voyager attacking Harry and saying stuff like "The Weak will Parish" and "Your Galaxy will be purged". I can't reconcile that with what happened in In the Flesh, despite the Borg starting the War. It seemed like the writers retconned 8472 to be innocent, but they really weren't. Now that episode would have been a lot better had two important questions been asked: 1) Why did they want to purge the galaxy? 2) Who are you really, as in what is your species without the Borg designation Overall, I loved 8472 because they actually looked Alien and Scorpion and Prey are excellent episodes, but I wish they were written better than a simple retcon.