[OT] Star Trek: Voyager: was it really that bad? (warning-long post)

[Asmo]

Hello all!

First of all, a little bit of background information:

1. The road to Madness - how I became a Trekker.

A weekend many years ago, I decided to follow some friends of mine to a movie called " First Contact".
I did have some knowledge about this phenomena, but nothing could have prepared me for this shameless love for Cap. Pikard and his crew.
And when the Borg-cube "whhooosed!" in over my head, I was
one in the Collective of devoted followers..

2. The Addiction - must have.

One of my friends - who also saw that movie - was a little bit low on money, so he asked if I wanted to buy season 1 and 2 of a new serie called Voyager. Of course I bought the videos, and at the same time I made a pre-order of all the upcoming episodes from a fantasy store in Stockholm.

I´ve seen a little bit of Next generation (max 10 episodes) and season 1-5 of Deep Space 9 (wich I did enjoy)

So here I´m: Wednesday this week was the final showdown: our little but faithful group of trekkers sat down to watch the final episodes " Endgame, part 1 & 2"After the episodes it was a moment of silence, when reality sunk in: it´s over now.

3. The Aftermath - what lies beyond?

It feels kind of empty. Voyager had some cheesy episodes, but overall I really enjoyed it. Something to look forward to, every month. I can´t help it , but I fell in love with the crew, even with
Harry Kim and the Kes the sidekick.
No more mindmelds,no more of the Maquis hot- head Chakotay. No more of Seven of Nines struggle with her inner self. No more of the charming Tom Parris and his hilarious holodeck episodes where Proton gets his butt kicked. No more of the ever angry Torres and no more of Doc`s enormous ego. And lastly: no more Janeway, my fav cap. of all time.

Neelix? - well, I guess I got used to him in the end, after all.

I miss the show, I truly do.
And yes, I´ve been watching "Enterprise", and it feels solid.
Great characters, but the episodes feels kind of..slow.
I think that season one of Voyager is much better than Enterprise so far.
And compared to DS9 - it´s a close call.

So, what do you say: was Voyager that bad after all?

Asmo

 

[Crothian]

I didn't think it was that bad, however I think I may be the only person who doesn't like seven of nine. IMO the woman who played her is a bad actress and the fact that she was brought in solely for sex appeal seems bad. Sure, star trek always had stuff like that, but never a main character to that extent. She was pure eye candy and had way to many plots about her and screeen time. Personally, I liked Kes better and thought they needed to do more with her. Plus they destroyed the Borg for me. They used them to much and now they are no longer the thing to be filled. THat and those aliens from fluiic space was just dumb.

Those are my complaints about the series, over all I like it a lot.

 

[RaZZer99]

Having watched all of TNG and Voyager (but not DS9), I have to say that Voyager was mediocre and very disapointing as a series. Voyager does have its good episodes. Scattered about its 7 seasons, there are episodes here and there that are truly great works of story telling. But then there is all the other filler episodes that bog the series down. I'd say that about 40% of Voyager was good, and that the rest was wasted effort. Voyager has several main weaknesses. First off they totally ruined the sacred cow known as the Borg. Admittingly, the first two parter involving the Borg were great episodes. Everything else after that only sunk the beloved villians to all time lows. In the end, the Borg seem like hardly a credible threat after all the piles they managed to step in. Secondly, voyager's continuity of journey was not very well thought out. Every episode was a new way home, every episode offered them a way to skip huge distances of space (thats probably where all the interesting aliens were!). By the end, I didn't care. All I knew was they had one season left and I knew they would get home at the exactly the last episode. Thirdly, Voyager was alot of times just bland. They have the perfect opportunity to step out of regular trek constraints and present Voyager with all new extremely alien soceities and life forms. But most of Voyager's encounters were lack luster. Oh, another alien with weird ears and messed up fore head. Frankly, I don't care to see how many combinations of Mr Potatoe Head they can think of. Fourthly, I think Voyager's crew was partly to blame. They sucked comapred to Next Gen. I would have cared more for the series if I had cared more for the crew, but what was to like about them? First off Janeway was the stupidest and most hypocritical captain to ever command a starship. One episodes she's protecting her precious replicators from the Kazon and the next she's using her holographic tech as a gift to the Hirogen. She's very inconsistent. Next, she has only one medical officer left on board, and she has not the smarts to maybe assign a few officers to medical training for their supposed 70 year mission. She risked the EMH far too many times despite any wisdom she may have had. Well enough Janeway...I could go on and on about her. Next there is Chakotay. Ok, he was so under used through the entire series. What did he every do that was important or interesting?! He ended up playing Janeyway's lap dog, and we're forced to be reminded of his so spirirtual indian nature in the few episodes they decide to use it as a plot device. Oh, and in the end, he's somehow partnered up with Seven for the last 6 or so episodes for no aparent reason and with no build up. Blah. There is also Harry Kim, who suffers the same fate. What is there to know about Harry? He was just as flavorless as Chakotay. There is also the cursed Jar Jar Binks of Trek characters...Neelix! I don't need to explain the annoyingness of Neelix as it should be clearly evident. I will mention his obvious cop out in the 2nd to last episode. He spends seven season adventuring with Voyager with dreams of visiting Earth, and what does he do? He leaves Voyager at the last second. Even though he was annoying, it would have been nice to full fill his character development as it had been developing for the last seven seasons! Who is next? Ah, the lovely Seven of Nine. As I'm not attracted to women, I can judge Seven not on the curves of her body. Seven was actually a decent character with her own conflicts, but the writers seemed to want Seven to some sort of badass. The season after she joins the cast, she saves the frickin day every damn episode! The rest of the cast was alright. B'Ellana (sp?) and Paris were pretty good together. The EMH was the best character ever, and well there isn't much to complain about good ol reliable Tuvok. Oh, and Kes was my fav...damn you for writing her off! Anyways, TNG had a much better and interesting mix of characters, but to Voyager's credit, their characters had much more development over the run of the series.

 

[omedon]

Was it really that bad? No. But was it really that good? No.

A pretty mediocre effort in my opinion. You could do worse with your television than watching voyager, but you could certainly do better.

 

[EOL]

I didn't think it was that bad, however I think I may be the only person who doesn't like seven of nine. IMO the woman who played her is a bad actress and the fact that she was brought in solely for sex appeal seems bad. Sure, star trek always had stuff like that, but never a main character to that extent. She was pure eye candy and had way to many plots about her and screeen time. Personally, I liked Kes better and thought they needed to do more with her. Plus they destroyed the Borg for me. They used them to much and now they are no longer the thing to be filled. THat and those aliens from fluiic space was just dumb.

Those are my complaints about the series, over all I like it a lot.

As far as 7 of 9 I heard that she was dating one of the producers (Brannon Braga) I don't know if that started before or after she was cast, but I do feel like it heavily influenced how much focus (too much) that character got.

I wasn't a huge Voyager fan, but my wife loved it, and that's good enough for me.

 

[Psion]

So, what do you say: was Voyager that bad after all?

Yes.

Having followed previous Trek shows, when I heard about some of the ideas for the show, I was interested in the concept.

By after gritting my teeth through half a season in the hopes that the show would find its rhythm, I had to face the fact that it just wasn't going to happen.

I hated the characters. And the cast itself left something to be desired, too. C'mon, Kate Mulgrew? Could have they selected a less charismatic lead? Yak!

I can let my suspension of disbeleif stretch a bit when watching a Trek show. But Voyager took it to new heights of silliness.

On occasions where I visited my true die hard frieds and saw how they were trying to float the show with a diet of Borg and Jeri Ryan, my attitude towards the show turned from disdain to disgust.