Star Trek Voyager

[Eliseu Gouveia]

I´ve finished watching a Star Trek Voyager marathon.

I had watched seasons 1 & 2 more than 10-12 years ago but this time I managed to follow through seasons 6 and 7 and give my first viewing some well deserved closure.

I´m going to start with the bad.



ACHTUNG!
SPOILERS!!

I HATED the ending.
Not that they finally managed to get to earth but *how* they got to earth.

So, Janeway from the future travels back in time and kicks some borg ass.
Talk about god ex machina... I´m amazed she didn´t bake some cookies for them while she was at it. Or made their beds. Perhaps chew their food for them.
WTF kinda ending IS this?


Now, onto the good.
There´s a lot I liked about this series.
I liked the characters. The only ones I didn´t care much for were Tom Paris and B´lana Torres and funny enough, they managed to get together. And funny thing, once they became an item, I found myself if not liking them, at least tolerating them a bit more.

I didn´t care much for Neelix either. Sorry, just no. He´s almost as irritating as Jar Jar Binks. Except for his farewell episode, I liked him in that one.

Having missed seasons 3 , 4 and 5, I wonder whatever happened to Kes, she had potential there. 9 years lifespan... damn! That´s very.... short.

Doctor, Starfleet, Tuvok, Chakotai, all the remaining characters were reasonably likeable.

I have to say I LIKED Janeway. I never understood the fans´ hatred toward the character, she seemed as good a captain as any of the boys, Picard, Cisko..................... Kirk....
She was a bit on the petite size, yes, not very imposing physically when standing next to some of the other actors but she always gave me the feel of someone solid, robust, commanding and decisive. Her decision process was reasonable, her motherly aura often reassuring, she had guts, heart and a brain.
Seems like a winner to me.
And she was pretty too!! I often found myself wondering what she looked like in her earlier years, she must have broken boys hearts across the entire town.
So, yeah, I´ll never get why some folks were so ticked off at her.

Seven.
Oboy. I loved Seven. I´m sorry, I adored her.The episode where the Doctor hid inside her cybernetic neural implants made me laugh from beginning to end, seeing Jeri Ryan replicate Robert Picardo´s maneurisms. Her awkwardness on all things emotion was just pure sheer fun to watch, even more than Tuvok. We get it, vulcans hide their emotions really well. But it was fun to watch how badly Seven hid her - or worst, tried to dismiss/discard them-.

It´s true that her form fitting suit was very distracting at first but after a while it was just.. there.. It´s like talking to someone with pretty eyes, after a while, you pay no mind to it.
A couple weeks (months?) ago, I saw someone post something in the line of "I could never buy Seven as a smart girl because of her giant knockers".
WTF?
What does one thing have to do with the other, does your brain stop functioning above a certain cup size?


One thing that annoyed me throughout the series was how inneffective the technology seemed to be when it was needed the most. Sometimes, it seemed they did it just to advance the plot and I hated how obvious it was.

A ship escapes. You try to pursue it. You can´t . They masked their warp signature. One time it´s cute, 10 times it´s boring!
Someone needs beaming up. Can´t. Interference-of-the-week is messing transporter lock.

Also, Janeway´s response time sometimes got on my nerve. She´s calm and collected, yes, I got it the first 10 times. How often did we see her just standing there as some unknown vessel of the week fired on them?
She would just wait until their shields had been significantly lowered before returning fire. WTF... this is the delta quadrant! You have no backup! They fire at you, you fire back immediately, not wait until shields are at 50%.

Also... I was surprised how pristine Voyager was at the end of the journey, compared to, say Galactica.

All in all, I didn´t hate it.
The writing wasn´t always stellar but it delivered a couple so-so episodes and several very enjoyable ones.

Not Andromeda-cool or DS9-brilliant but a decent enough viewing when The Wire is not on.

[bert]

as soon as they introduced 7, they should have killed off Tuvok and Chakotay.

seroiusly, this one character replaced them both, and they both just faded into the background in the last 3 sesasons.

[Mach5RR]

Uggggh, Voyager.

I'm sorry, that's just a lot of suck there. It always struck me as the show the hardcore Trekkers penned exclusively for themselves.

Yeah, Tom Paris was a horrid character. Especially when you realize he was meant to be this really cool, Han Solo-ish, rogue style character; and instead came off as some uber-nerds idea of what cool people do. "Ooooh, he'll build a Mustang on the holo-deck, how rogue-ish!". Sheesh, at least Garibaldi built a real motorcycle on B5 to ride around the promenade (And looked way cooler building it/riding it)

The treknobabble was almost inexcusable. "Initiate a carrier wave"? It took me a couple of minutes to realize they were talking about keying the mic on a radio. Bad, bad, bad.

And Janeway. The writers had this nasty habit of having her do/say something monumentally stupid, and then having the cast rush to her defense by exclaiming how wonderful/great she was. I can say this as a 19 year Navy man. I've served under several female CO's and almost always had a woman in my chain of command. Some I couldn't stand, and others I'd follow into Hell itself. Janeway is one of the former. There were moments where one of her subordinates were just effed up royally, and she would do something to make it 10 times worse, with her patented "Oh, Chakotay, I didn't think!", and the subordinate just excusing her for her ineptitude. This is nothing against Kate Mulgrew, who I think is a fantastic actress, I just believe the character was badly written.

The sad thing is, the Janeway character -does- work for me in one way, but they will never have the opportunity to follow it up in a way I'd prefer. You see, Janeway is basically one of the greatest villains in the ST universe, just waiting to be unleashed. See, it's been demonstrated time and time again (pun intended) that Future Janeway and the crew of Voyager will toss away their timeline in favor of re-writing their past. Which means at one point, Current Janeway will also come to the same conclusion. I don't know if she decides she can save the entire Voyager crew from the Pilot Episodes first battle, or what. But her character has been defined as someone who will throw away her here-and-now in the hopes of re-writing the past.

[Draconomicon]

I think Robert Beltran can say it better than anyone else.
He was very vocal about what didn't work with Voyager (Hint: The writers gave a damn about the show).

Actual Authentic Robert Beltran Gripes:
(Collect all 872)

(Gripe #482) Robert Beltran on his scenes -
"When you're given these throwaway scenes with not much thought put into who's saying it and its importance to the whole story - and I'm talking mostly about seasons five and six here - it just makes me feel like the writers don't care. Therefore the producers don't care, therefore the show isn't that important, therefore why am I busting my ass trying to make this stupid scene worth anything?"

(Gripe #543) Robert Beltran on his character -
"Although they come up with a scene here or there that's tolerable, I think the character has not progressed since season four. In fact, he may even have regressed a little."

(Gripe #037) Robert Beltran on his character again -
"I just felt let down, ignored and insulted. I think they did a grave disservice to what I thought could have been an interesting character."

(Gripe #667) Robert Beltran on the destruction of Kes in "Fury" that caused much fan outcry -
"What they asked her to do with her character, I didn't understand. I think our writers are that far from brain damaged. I don't get them. But we were happy to have her. She's great. We love Jennifer. I wish she had never left the show; she's a really fine actress. But it was just the same old indication of our writers and producers having their head firmly up their collective ass. Sorry, kids. You see, this will all get back to them. That's why I'm saying it. That's fine. Maybe they'll let me go by the middle of the season. I'll be a regular on ER or something."

(Gripe #245) Robert Beltran on his scripts -
"I wouldn't say I had a bitter taste about the show, but it makes me a lot less caring about the show when the writers don't seem to care about all the cast. When that happens, I check out right away and give as little as possible emotional involvement as I can. So I would have to say, honestly, that for probably the last two or two and a half years, I haven't quite read a full Voyager script. It's not necessary, because I already know what's going to happen. I don't want to put myself to the aggravation."

(Gripe #802) Robert Beltran on the series finale -
"This is what we're going out with?"

(Gripe #769) Robert Beltran on the series finale again -
"I was right, [the writers] are idiots. So I feel vindicated but unfortunately, you're going to have to sit through it."

(Gripe #798) Robert Beltran on the series finale again -
"Frankly, I don’t think [the writers] really cared what happened at the end. Voyager has been the ugly step-child of the Star Trek family, and that’s the way we’ve been treated. We’re also the only show that’s had to carry a whole network [UPN]"

(Gripe #827) Robert Beltran on the series finale again -
"[...] The ratings are down because it’s not being seen by as many people in the world who could see "ER". Then they took it out on us by saying 'This show’s no good. Let's get it over with as quickly as possible so we can fix it for the next one."

(Gripe #806) Robert Bealtran on the series finale again -
"I was very disappointed. [...] From mid season onwards I kept waiting for them to start making a move towards wrapping up some of these story arcs, but they didn't.[...] [This] was meant to be about nine people on the ship, trying to get through some really extraordinary circumstances. Frankly, I'm not sure what it ended up being about."

(Gripe #812) Robert Beltran on the series finale again -
"[They] had a whole year to prepare, but they waited until the final two episodes to fix things. To me, that’s just a symptom of their uncaring cavalier attitude towards the show."

http://www.firsttvdrama.com/funstuff/beltran.php3

[Reverend Smooth]

Originally Posted by Eliseu Gouveia

A couple weeks (months?) ago, I saw someone post something in the line of "I could never buy Seven as a smart girl because of her giant knockers".
WTF?
What does one thing have to do with the other, does your brain stop functioning above a certain cup size?

I have giant knockers. I applaud you, sir. :P

[Linkara]

Internet reviewer SFDebris does really excellent reviews of Voyager episodes that help explain what's so frustrating about the show, Eli.

Essentially it comes down to a few things - one, they played it safe. This is about a ship stranded 70,000 light years away from home. And yet, despite no allies, limited supplies, and being able to encounter many hundreds of hostile life forms on their way back to the Alpha Quadrant, the ship looks pretty damn pristine by the time it gets back and the crew changing very little.

What makes it worse is the Maquis part of it. There were few, if any, opportunities taken to explore the idea of integrating two crews with radically different ideas about how to operate. Janeway comes off as almost insane in her strict adherence to Starfleet principles and protocols. Now don't get me wrong - I do like Janeway. I think she deserves that Captain chair and is a great leader... but a lot of times the writing on her was terrible.

Now of course I wouldn't like a show about a group of Starfleet officers who became thugs and evil in order to get back home - but we should have had more scenes of the crew questioning whether they were going about things the wrong way, or scenes of Janeway agonizing over perhaps breaking a small principle in order to protect the lives of her crew, especially in earlier episodes against the Kazon, who wanted very little when you consider it.

Second - the writing was just downright lazy sometimes. After the pilot episode, the first alien species they encounter? THEY LOOK EXACTLY LIKE HUMANS. This is supposed to be 70,000 light years away - you can get away with that kind of nonsense when it's in your own neighborhood, but not on the other side of the galaxy.

For that matter, give us better enemies. The Kazon were crappy; they were essentially angrier, less interesting, and uglier Klingons. Hell, even the Borg classified them as "unremarkable." Now, the addition of the Borg as an enemy was good, even if a little unbelievable that they'd survive given the sheer overwhelming force. But the Borg became crippled as a result of that, seeming less scary than they had been seen in the Next Generation when Voyager could consistently outclass them.

The Vidians were an okay idea, but a lot of the time the stories with them just weren't that great. The Malon were eyeroll-worthy.

The Hirogen were actually pretty damn good and interesting, but they lost some of their coolness as time went on when we saw less of them in their masks and they stopped showing them as so physically imposing.

Species 8472 was creepy, powerful, and a worthy successor to the Borg as the scariest badguy ever... but that went out the window in their third appearance when they were just like us, boy golly, and were just a scared of us 'cuz we were mean to 'em.

Third, Robert Beltran's statements pretty much sum it up - they just didn't care. They weren't interested in presenting a new kind of Star Trek story, of taking things in new directions, to truly play around with the creative concepts at their disposal... it just seemed like they didn't care. There was little, if any, characters development, and it's hard to distinuish them that much from when they started.

Enterprise ended up being more of the same... at least until seasons 3 and 4, when they actually brought fresh blood onto the series who DID want to play around with the concepts available, showing that it really helps if you just give a damn.

[Red Jack]

Zeu.

Find a copy of the DISTANT SHORES anthology.

I think you'll get a big kick out of it.

[EMeadow]

Originally Posted by Red Jack

Zeu.

Find a copy of the DISTANT SHORES anthology.

I think you'll get a big kick out of it.

And the post series novels. Those you'll REALLY enjoy!

[MacQuarrie]

The show was Gilligan's Island in space. Every week, some new guest strolls across the deck of the ship. It's always made clear that the guest star could help them get home. For some reason, they don't. Come back next week for more adventures with our zany castaways.

I totally expected the Harlem Globetrotters to show up at some point.

[the4thpip]

In the first season, the writers didn't get the concept of the show at all when they kept bringing back villains from previous shows.

Um... they Voyager was like the fastest ship in that sector, heading home the direct way. How would people they left behind be able to show up again??

[Tobias March]

Originally Posted by MacQuarrie

The show was Gilligan's Island in space. Every week, some new guest strolls across the deck of the ship. It's always made clear that the guest star could help them get home. For some reason, they don't. Come back next week for more adventures with our zany castaways.

I totally expected the Harlem Globetrotters to show up at some point.

One thing I like about Voyager. All the gripes about the state of the ship, the lack of friction between the disparate groups and any real feelings of the part of the crew at being stranded out in the vast reaches of space - all led to Battlestar Galactica.

BSG is evidently a product of Moore's frustrations with the creative cabal behind Voyager.

[kingdom2000]

Eh I watched all of Voyager but it still ranks last in all of Star Trek series. Including Enterprise but only because that 4th season finally showed the possibilities and potential (mostly because they got book writers involved) but by then it was damage done. The best of the whole lot remains Deep Space Nine (and the post books are excellent to boot).

Side note, just saw Jeri Ryan on Leverage, I swear that woman is not only better looking but she could play Seven of Nine without hardly appearing to have aged a day.

[MPagar]

Ugh. Voyager. Far from my favorite Star Trek series, and I really tried liking this one. Some episodes were entertaining, but a couple of those were rehashes of older Trek episodes.

[Eliseu Gouveia]

Like I said, this is no DS9 but there are quite a few enjoyable episodes.
I vaguely recall seasons 1 and 2 from 10 years ago and I missed 3, 4, 5 but 6 and 7 managed to entertain me.

I wouldn´t call it bad, maybe just... lazy, sometimes.
You guys already numbered some of the gripes, some of which I hadn´t even noticed until you mentioned them but yeah, I´d have loved to see them a little more phased by the circumstances they were in.

In BSG, for instances, there is a scenne where Starbuck is assigning pilot duties and says something like:"- This is the last toothbrush paste in the universe. It goes to the first one who finds a planet."

And it really was. Not only their last toothbrush paste but the last toothbrush paste in the universe.

Voyager could use little details like that.

[MPagar]

Replicators made that difficult, even if they had to ration things out. I also remember that they handled energy as if it was a rare thing(not to the extent of BSG, but still...) along with shuttles, but down the line it seemed like they were just recovering from any lack of resources and making a new shuttle every few months.