Why do so many people hate Voyager?

[Eternalknight]

Personally, it got me into the whole Trek thing, so I may have a soft spot for it, but I can't understand why people bag Voyager so much. It had the Borg, the EMH, Seven of 9, some good stories, etc. Please explain.

 

[drowdude]

I just couldnt stomach Voyager... although, I have to admit that I did watch it... well... after Jeri Ryan joined the cast anyways...


DS9 all the way!!!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Many stories were solved with "Tech Babble", and followed the same, primitive pattern. That was a real weakness.
"We have a [TECH] on sensors." "[TECH] Failure". "If we find the [TECH], we send [insert one of the main characters] to do [TECH] and just hope that [TECH or Villain] doesn`t do anything about it..."
As a sideplot: "Harry likes woman, Woman turns to be a monster/criminal/holograpic figure"
As an episode entry: "Shuttle gets lost / crashes"

There were interesting Stories, yes, but they often could not compensate the weak ones.

The character development was very poor in many cases. Think of Chakotay or Harry Kim (is he still Ensign?).
The Holodoc was made nice, seven, and we saw some changes in Janeway behaviour.
The development we saw was not always that interesting.

Hey, they had a crew of two different ships that orignally were enemies, and what happens? Nothing!

They are far away from the Federation and Starfleet, and do they ignore their rules, or bend them? No! Not even the old Maquis, who "rebelled" against the Federation because of some stupid laws and rules.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Miho]

I'm not too sure why I hate Voyager so much. It just never really grabbed my attention like Next Generation or DS9. Plus I took an instant dislike to Janeway, again, not too sure why. I think maybe she was just such a let down as a female captain.

They should have made Seven of Nine captain of the ship. Now there is a fantastic female character. The only redeming features of the series were her and the holodoc. He always made me laugh, and the romance story line between him and Seven was really nicely done.

I think at the end of the day I just didn't care what happened to any of the other characters. And I found too many of them downright annoying. I haven't watched enough of the series to remember their names but there was at least four or five in the first few episodes I couldn't stand. Not a good start to a series. I only really became interested enough to watch any episodes quite a long way in.

 

[Furn_Darkside]

Because the show was poorly written?

Salutations,

First, the show was just poorly written.

Second, a list of the common problems:

1) They would introduce major plot revelations, but never touch them again.

2) The doctor would do something irrational and almost get the whole ship destroyed/captured, but in the end Janeway would just pat him on the shoulder and say he is just becoming more human.

3) 7of9 became the center of the universe- oh, excuse me, her breasts became the center of the universe. I guess it helps to sleep with a producer/writer of the show- a shame it could not make her act.

4) Any time the vulcan security officer would start to strut his stuff- it would turn out he was having mental problems or he needed someone else to solve the issue at hands.

5) From the movie first contact: The Borg are dead!
Next week on Voyager: Long live the borg!

6) Made Q a pathetic joke.

7) The Maquis/Starfleet tension disappears unless it is needed for a story.

8) They are out in the middle of nowhere- where no one has gone before, but they run into something from their quandant quite a lot.

9) Janeway was the poorest character of the bunch, and probably should have been removed from command multiple times for her instability- the biggest being when she fell in love with a hologram.

10) The morons who produced/wrote this show are on Enterprise. Making sure that Star Trek does not improve- and they prove it with every episode.

11) Had a "Lost In Space" 1960's feel of every story being so close to going home, but it just slipping through their fingers once again.

Reasons to like Voyager:

1) Barkley

2) .... it is not on the air anymore to gut the Star Trek universe.

FD

 

[Umbran]

I didn't "hate" Voyager at all. I just found it disappointing.

From what I've been able to determine (from statements by the actors and writing staff), the show had a policy - the alien characters are the focus of the show, the human characters are there to put them in contrast. Worse, generally they chose to focus on only two of the "alien" characters.

That's it, in a nutshell. They left most of the characters flat in order to act as contrast for only a couple. They had a whole cast of soild, promising character concepts, but developed only a couple of them. The cast was made up of fine actors all, but most of them were used as window dressing.

If they had used that ensemble better (as they did in DS9, for example) I could look past most of the other minor flaws.

 

[RatPunk]

Re: Because the show was poorly written?

3) 7of9 became the center of the universe- oh, excuse me, her breasts became the center of the universe. I guess it helps to sleep with a producer/writer of the show- a shame it could not make her act.

This pretty much sums it up for me.

Actually, I didn't hate Voyager and think they actually did quite a few really good episodes.

But in the last 3 seasons, the show was too focused on one character, that being the aforementioned 7 of 9. Even when she wasn't the main character of an episode, she was usually so integral to the plot that she had as much to do as the main character (and often times even saved the day). With a cast as talented and unused as the show had, that's just a crime. They forgot the meaning of the word "ensemble".

And the whole return of Kes episode in the final season was just WRONG.

Just my $.02

 

[JacktheRabbit]

What to hate about Voyager.

1. Janeway was a moralistic, dictatorial b*tch who couldnt understand being a leader if it took a dump on her.

2. Poor premise. FAr from home but stopping every second to screw with the neighbors.

3. The worlds most pathetic vulcan.

4. Is this a starship or an orphage for every dumb alien they meet without a home.

5. What the heck kind of lame name for a ship is "Voyager" anyways?

6. The show made the Borg dumb.

7. The show made Q even dumber.

8. Even as the crew took casualties you never it put a strain on keeping the ship operating.

 

[Henry]

I'm not touching all the flames with a ten foot pole. However, I will touch on the most disappointing thing for me for the whole Voyager series: lack of continuity. As one poster mentioned, they would often introduce ship-shaking revelations, only to patently ignore them the next episode. I can understand airing something out-of-sequence every once in a while, but frankly there were many instances where it became ludicrous. One notable example was Tom Paris stealing the Delta Flyer to save someone, being captured and court-martialed, and then bumped down to rank ensign. The very next week, and indeed for the rest of the season, no mention was made of this event! Only once in a later episode was he referred to as "Ensign Paris."

Many other examples are there for the finding. But as a whole, it was too disjointed for me to enjoy thoroughly, and the "reset button" was too often hit for me to enjoy it. ("The year of hell" episodes, anyone?)

 

[Cor Azer]

I don't hate Voyager, but it's definately my least favorite Trek series. As someone else said, the lack of consistency, both in plot developments and character developments. Certain characters weren't really touched (Chakotay and Harry), and too many (Paris) would suddenly develop hobbies when it was important to the story. The writers never really had a firm grip of Janeway's character - they couldn't seem to decide if she was a combat captain or a diplomatic one.

And too much time travel... Done well, it can be cool, but Voyager used it too often and usually, not very well.