That one always bugged me. As soon as the episode was done I was thinking "wait, now that you know how to counter the effects why the hell don't you do it!?!?!"
Star Trek Voyager
- Thread starter Luke Skyvader
- Start date
That one always bugged me. As soon as the episode was done I was thinking "wait, now that you know how to counter the effects why the hell don't you do it!?!?!"
Agreed.
I had already quit watching Voyager before they introduced Seven and was appalled by the pandering.
Then they did it again in Enterprise, especially with the "decontamination" scene.
Rotwang
Sr Member
TOS was about red-blooded (or green in one case) Jeffersonian idealists going into space and taking on problems with a bit of fiddling with the warp engines, a good phaser and a ripped shirt, while you had the voices of logic and common human decency to guide you.
TNG was about utopian intellectual idealists travelling on a ship with kids and a shrink on board. They rarely met a problem that couldn't be solved with a bit of dialogue, mutual understanding and a nice cup of Earl Grey.
DS9 was about the utopian idealists confronted by an external lethal threat and the need for Realpolitik vs untenable ideals. In DS9 some conflicts could only be resolved by getting your hands dirty, duplicity, lies and making deals with the wrong people, all for the greater good.
Voyager was set up for internal and external conflict on a ship that was supposed to slowly fall apart as they tried to get home. A vocal portion of Trek fandom just wanted another TNG-style show and we got a tame hybrid. Limited conflict, everybody complying to the greater good that is Starfleet and an unlimited supply of shuttles (later replaced by an indestructible one) Voyager existed in a near permanent status-quo for most of the show, except for a few token episodes where Voyager was supposed to go through a bad patch, but there were no real permanent scars.
Seven of Nine and the Doctor are stock Trek characters. The attractive exotic female in a sexy outfit (Uhura, Troy, Dax ...) and the outsider reflecting on humanity (Spock, Data, Odo ...) But they became too prominent in the same way that Wesley Crusher kept saving the Enterprise for over a season. They then tried to merge both characters into T'Pol with mixed results.
DuneMuadDib
Sr Member
The TNG era shows were supposed to be more ensemble shows. Dexter is supposed to focus on Dexter (which is why it's named after him
), Breaking Bad is supposed to focus on Walter. Voyager skewed more towards focusing on people fairly low in the billing instead of giving the entire cast equal time. TNG has that problem too with Crusher and Troi, but it didn't seem to be as overwhelmingly the "Picard and Data Show" until the movies.
TheDoctor
Sr Member
Voyager was equally about the importance of community - a theme of late 90s politics ("It takes a village..."). I think this is a theme it accomplished quite well.
Personally, I go back and fourth on the issue of Voyager being a survivalist show vs. a TNG show. On the one hand, it would have been neat to have a whole show where Voyager was much more like the Equinox. On the other hand, there's a limited number of stories where that would be "interesting". That would have been good for a season, maybe two, but eventually we would say "This is too depressing to tune into week after week." A second series with the same mood as DS9 (immediately following DS9) would have strayed too far from the "core" ideals of Trek - "To Boldy Go Where No One Has Gone Before". At least with Voyager, we go back to "Boldy Going..."
Voyager's fatal flaw, though, wasn't the underlying premise, it's the writers. If Voyager had consistently good stories that developed the characters, we wouldn't be complaining as much (they had the same problem with Enterprise - only it got worse). I, personally, think they got better from the fourth season on, but there were still too many "bad" episodes.
As for the Maquis conflict, I think that's another storyline that would have gotten boring had they decided to continue it too much past season 2. DS9 started out with the Bajoran/Federation conflict, but I was more interested in the Cardassians and what was on the other side of the wormhole.
TheDoctor
Sr Member
The difference between DS9 and TNG/TOS is that the "unhappy ending" rarely had any "permanent effects". In TNG/TOS the "unhappy ending" was "we tried our best, things got screwed up, but we morn and move on to the next episode where Spock insluts McCoy and Data tries to tell a joke. In DS9, mistakes can last the entire series. Besides, the mood of the entire series was drab and depressing - even in "unhappy ending" episodes, the general mood of the series was upbeat and hopeful.
PrimoOptimoso
Sr Member
Just chiming in to mention that I dated a girl in 2000/2001, when Voyager was in syndication, and literally every night, if 10pm rolled around and we were within spitting distance of a TV, she'd announce "it's Voyager time!". It was an immutable constant, even if she'd seen whichever episode a dozen times already.
As a result, I saw *every* episode. I liked it, though I didn't think I would - in general I never liked the Trek shows as much as the Trek movies. Still it wasn't a bad time even if not perfect. The 'status quo' comment earlier in the thread got it right.
As a result, I saw *every* episode. I liked it, though I didn't think I would - in general I never liked the Trek shows as much as the Trek movies. Still it wasn't a bad time even if not perfect. The 'status quo' comment earlier in the thread got it right.
TheDoctor
Sr Member
Kate Mulgrew gets a bad rap as Janeway (somewhat deservedly so), but it could have been worse...
Nicole Janeway vs Kathryn Janeway 1/2 - YouTube
(I actually liked Janeway, esp. in the later seasons.)
Nicole Janeway vs Kathryn Janeway 1/2 - YouTube
(I actually liked Janeway, esp. in the later seasons.)
DuneMuadDib
Sr Member
I don't give Kate a bad rap, I give the writers a bad rap. They were trying to write her as feminine but also a strong woman, so she ended up as bipolar because they'd swing to one extreme or the other episode to episode (to Mulgrew's chagrin apparently). With Sisko they just wrote him as the captain without writing him as a black captain. With Janeway they were writing a woman captain, not just a captain.
Tangental to that, it's a shame that as time wore on the writers forgot that there was a reason beyond the Prime Directive that Janeway destroyed the Caretaker array. Voyager was under attack and outnumbered by Kazon when they destroyed the array, it's questionable if the ship would have even survived the fight to be able to use the array. Rather annoying to see people give Janeway crap for that years later when the decision was made for her irrespective of the Prime Directive.
Tangental to that, it's a shame that as time wore on the writers forgot that there was a reason beyond the Prime Directive that Janeway destroyed the Caretaker array. Voyager was under attack and outnumbered by Kazon when they destroyed the array, it's questionable if the ship would have even survived the fight to be able to use the array. Rather annoying to see people give Janeway crap for that years later when the decision was made for her irrespective of the Prime Directive.
JediG60racer
Sr Member
My wife and I liked watching Voyager for the Naomi Wildman episodes. Loved watching her grow up on camera. What's not to like about a freckly ginger child with horns who wants to be a Borg when she grows up after being the captain's cabin-assistant?
Found her much more compelling as a character than Data on TNG.
Found her much more compelling as a character than Data on TNG.
Jannix Quinn
Sr Member
I find her more compelling these days...
Ah, Voyager... the show that spawned the worst episodes in all of Trek. A story about a ragtag group of enemies fighting to get home, led by Captain Kathryn Can't-Find-Her-Way.
Here are some of the worst:
"Drive" - NASCAR in space?!?! REALLY?!?!?!?!?!
"The Thaw" - An episode that fed on the idea of Coulrophobia (the fear of clowns), yet managed to fail to be scary at all.
"Tsunkatse" - WRESTLEMANIA IN SPAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!
And of course... the grand daddy of bad Voyager episodes. An episode so bad that most of the people who have seen it and/or worked on it now have a case of hysterical amnesia...
"Threshold" - Apparently, Warp 10 (long since established as unattainable) can be reached, but doing so turns you into a space lizard with a strange predilection for banging your captain...
Here are some of the worst:
"Drive" - NASCAR in space?!?! REALLY?!?!?!?!?!
"The Thaw" - An episode that fed on the idea of Coulrophobia (the fear of clowns), yet managed to fail to be scary at all.
"Tsunkatse" - WRESTLEMANIA IN SPAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!
And of course... the grand daddy of bad Voyager episodes. An episode so bad that most of the people who have seen it and/or worked on it now have a case of hysterical amnesia...
"Threshold" - Apparently, Warp 10 (long since established as unattainable) can be reached, but doing so turns you into a space lizard with a strange predilection for banging your captain...
I recently watched, "Blink of an Eye" where Voyager is trapped in orbit around a planet who is experiencing time at a much higher rate than Voyager. As such, the weeks Voyager is stuck in orbit is on the order of centuries for the planet. Great concept. Great story. Probably could have been a two-parter, but I'll take it.
Then there's Tsunkatse...The Rock? Oy...
Sean
Then there's Tsunkatse...The Rock? Oy...
Sean
Riceball
Master Member
I agree wholeheartedly, Voyager was all about status quo and, in my opinion, a wasted opportunity. They really could have done a lot more to explore the differences in the Delta Quadrant and the consequences of being stuck hundreds or thousands of light years from home with no support. Instead we get a warmed over rehash of TNG with just a bit of set dressing mostly to differentiate the Delta Quadrant from the Alpha & Beta Quadrants. Being in a completely different part of space with no prior contact with any Starfleet, Klingon, Vulcan, Romulan, or any other familiar tech it's rather amazing how compatible Delta Quadrant tech is with the Voyager and rather convenient that their hailing frequencies were the exact same, and that the universal translator worked perfectly with species that developed completely separately from their part of the galaxy.
The producers really needed to push the whole lost and far from home angle a lot more. They should have had a lot harder time finding parts and they should have at least mentioned if not shown them doing more jerry rigging to get things to work and especially working with each other. You shouldn't be able to pull parts from, say, a Klingon Bird of Prey and stick it in a Galaxy class starship and expect it to actually work and this is with a culture that's had long and regular contact with the Federation; hell, it would be asking a lot to expect, say, a warp coil from a Sovreign class ship to fit and work on an Intrepid. There's issues of size, shape, connections, power output, power limits, and a whole range of other issues that would keep you from pulling parts from one type of ship and sticking it in another, that's why you can't take parts from a Toyota and stick it inside a Honda, it just won't work.
The other thing that they should have done was to make the show more serial instead of episodic, build on everything that happened in previous episodes more. Show the Voyager getting more and more beat up looking, more run down, systems not working or not working at optimal levels. because there's no way that a starship stuck thousands of light years from home without access to a Starbase for spare parts, regular maintenance, and not to mention repairs, could stay in such good shape.
Lastly, has anyone ever done a calculation of all of what I call "free rides" where they get these big boosts that cut hundreds or more light years off of their trip the Voyager got? I've always suspected that the writers never kept track of the free rides and it wouldn't surprise me if we added them up and found that the Voyager should have been a lot closer to home than they said they were or even all the way home well before the end of the show.
I think one of the best examples of Janeway proving her profound dedication to protecting her crew comes from the episode "Phage". The crew find a planet with Dilithium on it and decide that since we can't have replicated food BUT non-stop use of the holodeck, it's worth checking out. Once inside, Neelix gets attacked, his lungs stolen and is left to die.
Was this attacker a creature that instinctively shoots beams at other creatures and removes their organs out of pure instinct? No, that would actually be the only way we would have any kind of sympathy towards what we're about to get. No, this was an intelligent being with a ray gun designed to harvest organs and transplant them into themselves, meaning we have just witnessed an attempted murder towards Neelix and a declaration of war on Voyager. How does our fiercely dedicated Captain react after the bad guys are caught?
Janeway: So I see no alternative......... but to let you go.
:facepalm But it gets better.
Janeway: Take a message to your people. If I ever encounter your kind again, I will do whatever is necessary to protect MY people from this.... harvesting of yours.
Now you're probably thinking "Oh, Janeway just got real! Her bad side is a horrible place to be!" But her dumb side is an even better place because...
the organ stealing Vidiians come back, play all sorts of nasty expirements on the crew with one killing a bona fide Voyager crew member and grafting his face onto his to make him more 'appealing' to a full klingon Torres. And what does Janeway do after hearing about this atrocious act from a race she gave a clear warning to?
NOTHING
They simply grab Torres, beam out and leave. All the Vidiians including the one with that one guy's face are still there with that member's organs ready for pillaging. And in a surprise that shocks no one, they still go after Voyager!
Was this attacker a creature that instinctively shoots beams at other creatures and removes their organs out of pure instinct? No, that would actually be the only way we would have any kind of sympathy towards what we're about to get. No, this was an intelligent being with a ray gun designed to harvest organs and transplant them into themselves, meaning we have just witnessed an attempted murder towards Neelix and a declaration of war on Voyager. How does our fiercely dedicated Captain react after the bad guys are caught?
Janeway: So I see no alternative......... but to let you go.
:facepalm But it gets better.
Janeway: Take a message to your people. If I ever encounter your kind again, I will do whatever is necessary to protect MY people from this.... harvesting of yours.
Now you're probably thinking "Oh, Janeway just got real! Her bad side is a horrible place to be!" But her dumb side is an even better place because...
the organ stealing Vidiians come back, play all sorts of nasty expirements on the crew with one killing a bona fide Voyager crew member and grafting his face onto his to make him more 'appealing' to a full klingon Torres. And what does Janeway do after hearing about this atrocious act from a race she gave a clear warning to?
NOTHING
They simply grab Torres, beam out and leave. All the Vidiians including the one with that one guy's face are still there with that member's organs ready for pillaging. And in a surprise that shocks no one, they still go after Voyager!
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SFDebris on Torres' well earned position as Chief Engineer.
"Tuvok starts speculating on the origins of the space ring thing, bot Torres just jumps down his throat, saying that it's a waste of time trying to figure out what it is. They should just worry about stopping it. Yeah, knowing what it is definitely wouldn't be help in that direction. And with that kind of attitude, it sure is obvious why Janeway would constantly put Torres in charge of solving scientific problems, isn't it? You'd really want to put it in the hands of somebody who says "Studying? Waste of time. Where's a bomb?" Because yeah. That's basically her plan."
"Tuvok starts speculating on the origins of the space ring thing, bot Torres just jumps down his throat, saying that it's a waste of time trying to figure out what it is. They should just worry about stopping it. Yeah, knowing what it is definitely wouldn't be help in that direction. And with that kind of attitude, it sure is obvious why Janeway would constantly put Torres in charge of solving scientific problems, isn't it? You'd really want to put it in the hands of somebody who says "Studying? Waste of time. Where's a bomb?" Because yeah. That's basically her plan."
DuneMuadDib
Sr Member
Quick google search came up with Voyager covering about 45k lightyears from the free rides and their conventional warp drive before future Janeway violated the Temporal Prime Directive to keep Seven alive.
Sadly that little snarky comment reminded me of another reason to hate the finale. Screw the people who died when Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant or who died along the way, Seven of Nine was more important to Janeway.
This weekend I saw the episode where Voyager rescues some Borg kids. Interesting idea, but the very next episode we're back in Fair Haven on the holodeck. No mention of Borg kids, and Janeway puts Harry and Tom's lives on the line to preserve the holo-characters instead of just pulling the plug. If that wasn't reason enough to remove her from command, I don't know what is...
Sean
Sean
