Why do so many people hate Voyager?

[Ranger REG]

*shrug*. Well, even the "tech manual" line of books has been seen to have a great number of inconsistencies with what's actually seen in the show. It's hard to figure what's "acurate" for the Star Trek universe. Given Universal's lack of commitment to developing a solid body of canon information, I suppose RPG data is about as reliable as web-site data designed for only moderately geeky folks.

It's Paramount, not Universal.

They used to ... until Berman & Braga came along. Now they just discarded continuity.

My point is that it doesn't call it a scout ship, light or otherwise. They call it "one of the most powerful ships in starfleet".

In a way it is. But it doesn't have the latest technology that Enterprise-E has, most especially the Quantum Torpedo ordnance.

Design-wise, I personally like it. It is sleek with an arrowhead-shaped primary hull that looks like it is moving fast, even when it is stationary. It is also capable of atmospheric flight and planetside landing, too. But this is a small starship, about the same scale as the original Enterprise, and we've come a long way from the 23rd to late 24th Century.

 

[Umbran]

They used to ... until Berman & Braga came along. Now they just discarded continuity.

I hate to interrupt your B&B bashing, but that's not true. Roddenberry wasn't exaclty a continuity god either. Or do the words "Organian Peace Treaty" mean nothing to you? Or the fact that the original Star Fleet Tech Manual has Starfleet HQ and Academy on a starbase, rather than in San Fransisco?

 

[Tsyr]

LOL. Gods alive that book is funny sometimes. I have that manual, actualy... bought, believe it or not, for the uniform designs... But man is that a screwed up book.

One of the worst continuity breaks in the "cannon" star trek history is Zepheram Cochrane... In the TNG/Movie universe, he comes from post-WWIII earth... in the original storyline, he was from Alpha Centauri, where humans happened to venture first without warp drive.

 

[Mallus]

A few thoughts...

To restate the obvious:

People dislike Voyager because it was dull. Genuine idea-heavy sci-fi extrapolations and musing were replaced by the dreaded technobabble. A situation which seemed at first to be rife with conflict and tension, was reduced to level of an office at a small tech company. No, I take that back. Most small tech firm offices positively seethe with human drama compared to Voyager. The writers on Voyager deplyed a facinating array of techniques apparently designed to strip the drama out of every script. Hobbling the Borg pales in comparion to how they flattened the emotional lives of the regular players. Only the computer-generated hologram had any spark; and the scripts continually had to punish him for aspiring to be more than the uber-future office drone that every other sentient being on the ship was. Voyager was the first sci-fi show I've ever seen with a sentient AI --who passes the Turing Test with flying colors-- which argued, for a while in favor of treating him as a non-person.


N

 

[Chimera]

One of the most serious problems Voyager had from a Writing stand-point was that they would expend large amounts of episode time on useless or pointless stuff, then hurriedly wrap up the episode in the last 30 seconds.

"The 37's" (with Amelia Erhart) is always my primary example, but almost any ep from the last season will do as well. In that episode, they spent a bunch of time being held at gunpoint by one Japanese soldier (I kept screaming "just take it away from him!"), then had an irritating "and they took us back to their city and we got to know their civilization" Captain's Log ending.

But my most serious problem with Voyager was Janeway. I absolutely hated that character because of the way it was written. It changed every week and she was just flipping insane.

 

[Ranger REG]

I hate to interrupt your B&B bashing, but that's not true. Roddenberry wasn't exaclty a continuity god either. Or do the words "Organian Peace Treaty" mean nothing to you? Or the fact that the original Star Fleet Tech Manual has Starfleet HQ and Academy on a starbase, rather than in San Fransisco?

What about it? The Organians were right. Eventually, the Federation and the Klingon will find peace, despite the lack of enforcing the said peace treaty.

 

[reapersaurus]

Here's the thoughts from someone who literally couldn't watch many episodes of Voyager:

Voyager's first strike for me was the first episode.
As I remember, the entire premise why they got flung into this unknown quadrant was because they were STUPID, and made a bad decision.

So I got no sympathy for their plight from the beginning.

Other problems in the eps i tried to stick it out for:
Major changes being glossed over.
Techno-babble substituing for science.
Janeway - yep, she was frustrating to watch, and never should have been in charge.
Boring -I could not make myself sit thru a whole episode. There was absolutely zero drama, or tension to the episodes, unlike DS9 or TNG or TOS. No reason to come back from the commercial.

 

[Ranger REG]

Actually, I enjoyed the Voyager's first episode. Besides, how could they know beforehand to avoid getting transported to the next quadrant?

I just didn't enjoy when Braga took over as the show's executive producer. There were a handful of good episodes out of the 4 season he took over.

 

[Staffan]

Actually, I enjoyed the Voyager's first episode. Besides, how could they know beforehand to avoid getting transported to the next quadrant?

I believe the stupid decision referred to was to blow the array up rather than use it to go home. The *smart* decision would have been to modify a few proton torpedoes to work as time bombs, send themselves home with the array and then the bombs do their dirty work.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Yes. So, who was responsible for having the Klingons, and Romulans there? IIRC, who wrangled with the Cardassians so well to drinve one of them to the brink of madness, let loose a Pah Wriath, and get the wormhole closed, cutting off the Alpha Quadrant Founders from home?

How many events did that war pivot on that didn't directly invovle Sisko and his crew? Wins in story arcs are often not single events, but chains of events.

The Founders advanced into the Alpha Quadrant without Sisko doing a damn thing. They were subsequently poisoned without Sisko's knowledge, which effectively won the war right there.

Sisko helped to bring together everyone (and it wasn't solely by himself in either case), but Sisko didn't fight every battle alone. By this logic, you may as well say Sisko's mother is the savior of the Federation, because she gave birth to him.

Lyta did not start the movement. She inherited it from Byron (who didn't start it either, resistance to the Psi Corps is as old as the Corps - go read the Psi Corp trilogy by J. Gregory Keyes, based on an outline by JMS, it's good stuff!)

She (effectivley part of sheriden's crew, a main character) inherits the movement, because Sheriden had the audacity to allow the telepath colony. And who does Lyta eventually get the power to defeat the Psi Corps from? Garibaldi! The ground troops in that fight may not have been the main characters, but the setup was all them

I have read it. Before Lyta, the resistance was nothing but a fly on a horse's back. Lyta obtained money, Lyta organized everyone, Lyta had power to resist the Psi Corps, and she won. Compare to Byron, who pretty much ticked everyone off, and killed himself.

Lyta all but forced Garibaldi into helping her.

And if you're going to claim Sheridan started the Telepath War, then hell, you might as well say everyone did. Sinclair left, the Black Star captain fell for Sheridan's trick, the Minbari spared Earth, the Babylon project was started... on and on you could go, the fact is that Lyta is the direct cause of the Telepath War, NOT Sheridan, and not anyone else.