Why the hatred for Voyager?

Ive noticed for quite some time now, that Voyager is by far the most meticulously hated Trek show out there, and, for all its faults, I cannot understand why.

Sure, *everybody* (Except me) hates Enterprise because its outright crap. /sarcasm/ But it seems to me people go out of their way to express their hatred for Voyager as if the ship itself landed on their house and raped their dog.

I mean, EVERY television show in existence has its fair share of faults, TOS had ridiculously over the top campness, TNG probably had too much of a "laid back" approach, DS9 definitely turned a lot of people off because it was so "bleak" and Voyager had its share of crap episodes (along with "Spocks Brain", "Masks" and "If wishes were Horses" as well to name but a few), but the above faults don't stop people from going beyond the realm of sanity in their support for said shows.

The main complaints I hear for Voyager seemingly all the frakin time are "Poor Storylines", "Endless supply of shuttles", "Seven of Nine brought in too "sex the show up" and "Schizophrenic Janeway".

After watching a fair share of Voyager eps lately (mainly in the latter seasons seeing as *I* personally believe (and wont force upon you lot like some other people on this forum) that all "newer" Trek shows got better the longer they went on - my opinion of course) and aside from the "poor storyline" excuse which is arguably poor, all shows have weak points so why pick on Voyager because of this, for example I LOVE new Battlestar and Can admit most mid season 3 eps were utter stinkers by the shows standard, is that going to stop me watching season 4? Hell no.

Endless supply of shuttles. This is a nitpick unique to only hardcore trekkies (would Average Joe give a shit how they're getting from place to place? If you take quibble with this you should also take fault with the Transporter) would take issue with, and when they tried to address it (I saw the Delta Flyer as an excuse for a reusable craft which could take far more punishment than an ordinary shuttle would - thus dealing with the apparent Shuttle problem) many people saw the flyer as another problem!

As for Seven: Sexxin' it up, sure Jeri Ryan was a hottie with a killer body, why on earth would any Television producer NOT use that to your advantage? And for gods sakes, dont use the "its an insult *snoooort* to roddenberrys name!" excuse, as TOS regularly had far less clad women in much more sexually "stimulating" roles. Infact, I have to hand it to the writers for not acting like most people think they did, turning Seven into a crazed sex bot. Seven's development as a human was a funneling of plot points borrowed from Data and Spock, but, unlike Data or Spock, Seven's character actually progressed naturally in the space of the series, unlike Data or Spock who only seemed to "learn" in leaps and bounds in the Feature films.

And as for the "nutty Janeway" syndrome, I cant comment on this as I dont see/remember any Logical basis for it, In every episode Ive seen of Voyager, Janeway usually made a logical decision based on the events that were occurring at the time - typical behavior for an heroic leading character. If you can find specific examples where she blatantly contradicted herself from one episode to the next, by all means call me a Voyager fanboy and insult my mother, after all, im Just trying to Apply logic to Trek fans.

Finally, I would just like to point out that Im not saying Voyager should be regarded as Televisions finest, or even Trek's finest, (I still regard Deep Space Nine to be my personal best), but just try and get to the root of why you "hate" something as trivial as a television show rather than making outlandish claims to further your beliefs.

And, to finish things off, I welcome intelligent disscussion, If I get 20 replies saying "v0y4g3r sukzz0rz" im gonna go Jay and Silent Bob on yo' asses

 

For me it was the lack of the show living up to it's dramatic potential. Given the fact that it was set up to be an epic saga, ending up on the bridge with everyone happy and the ship fine at the end of an episode didn't work for me.

To me the finest hour is the Year of Hell 2 parter, which I wish had been a season. It is a way of making you feel some sense of peril for these people stranded half way across the universe, no resupply, no allies and having to make due.

There were some brilliant episodes, but the lack of any sense of coherent danger and making the show pretty much the same as toodling around the Alpha/Beta Quadrant meant the show ended up having more negatives than positives in my mind. Also have a place in my heart where I almost gave up the show (The '37s) and when I finally gave up the show after yet another Doctor and/or Seven centric episode forgetting half the cast for most of the hour.

I think that for me, those are some of the reasons I don't re-watch Voyager except for the odd episode.

 

I know there were other reasons and I'm not surprised it was "make it the same as X". I should have been clearer that I don't "hate" Voyager, I just was never fond of it and admit to abandoning the show in season 6. OTOH I ditched Enterprise originally after episode 7....

 

You make a good point with Year of Hell, one of my favorite eps too, and as for making a whole series out of it, that's a fair comment for improvement, personally, I think it could have worked for a longer arc (say 5-6 episodes), as having a whole season about constantly dwindling resources and set space (damaged sections etc) which conceivably could not be repaired out in the Delta Quadrant would have severely limited story avenues for the shot, and sadly it was made prior to the time when Trek execs had even heard of Story Arcs longer than 2 parts

As for the shows Dramatic potential, I see what you mean, but bear in mind a large majority of Voyager played alongside DS9s Dominion War, and bear in mind THAT was drama that was played out to its full potential. With Two Trek shows on at the same time, both of which are initially based on a concept that portrayed humanity as having evolved and educated itself beyond the need for making reprehensible decisions, if they had used Voyager as a vessel for exemplifying the limits of the human condition and had DS9 dealing with a devastating war with a cold and calculating superpower, wouldn't that have been a much larger "slap in the face" if you will for the "true" meaning of Star Trek?

I see Voyager as having exemplified the evolved human mentality found In the Original Series, which it often contrasted with events found in the Delta Quadrant. In many ways it was about the crew maintaining there Federation Sensibilities without having to continually question if they had to or not.

I suppose a valid point I could make is that Voyager was a template for a Pre 9/11 future. I think a lot of people look back on it as being too "nice" after we've had the worst Terror attack in history and 6 years of Media to reinforce that message.

I don't want to turn this into a political debate by any means, but when analyzing something I believe its best to look at it from all possible views


EDIT: This is a long winded reply to Dan's first post btw

 

At the time, it was the newest incarnation of Star Trek and considered inadequate compared to its two forebears and its contemporaneous DS9. But VOY's been off the air for a while now, and ENT has come and gone, so the hatred seems to have abated somewhat.

You should have seen the VOY forum in its heyday. It was open warfare.

 

Short answer: Voyager wasn't a very good show. At its best, it was a frustrating show that lent itself to mockery. (That's why I watched it.) I've always thought Year of Hell was a perfect example of everything that went wrong: They had set up something cool, promised an epic storyline with consequences, then substituted Seven for Kes and crunched the whole thing into 80 minutes of technobabble and melodrama and explosions with Janeway ramming the ship into a giant spacegoing reset button at the end.

 

Jeri is not attractive.

 

Link plz.

 

In Delta Quadrant, the writers mock YOU.

 

Instead of what? Instead of 18 hours of explosions, melodrama, Lien getting removed anyway, and the Time Ship getting rammed just the same? That could've worked or it could've been a over long flop of a story arc...

 

Hey, I remember 8-4-7-2 chewing me out for criticising Voyager in a thread, because it was threatening a DS9/VOY ceasefire (he, for those who don't know, being a DS9 advocate).

Warfare is the word I'd use.

 

Just how was DS9 "bleak" ?? And Voyager sucks because the show was a HUGE step back from DS9. DS9 had like a 5 year long war and a long continuing story that was awesome, then enter Voyager and it's a crappy TNG clone with the new fun alien of the week with standard ridges on their forehead. And a nice juicy reset button after 95% of the episodes.

And Neelix should die

 

People,

I don't quite understand the hatred for VOY either. Of all the shows, it's my next-to-least favorite -- that spot is uneviably taken by ENT -- but I often find myself watching reruns of eps on Spike and see it was better than I remembered it to be.

What might have made VOY a realy interesting show is if it turned out Janeway was a Maquis sympathizer who had to destroy the Caretaker anyway. She might have turned the ship into a Federation citizen ship, not either a Maquis or Starfleet ship, and decides to throw the rule book out, not even paying attention to the Prime Directive. There wou;d be an uneasy truce between Starfleeters and Maquis.

We would see Janeway torn more between her two adviers: Chakotay, who steadfastly preents the Maquis viewpoint, and Tuvok, the stalwart Vulcan dedicated to Starfleet principles, who despite his logic is unsettled by Janeway's abandoning the pure Starfleet path.

This approach might have yielded a less predictable show. And can you imagine Janeway ditching her Starfleet outfit for a leather jacket and pants, all in black with some splashes or red? Mmmm!

Red Ranger

 

I don't care for the characters much at all. I find most of them boring or irritating, and none of them fascinating, so the cast is a big strike against the series for me. But there's no point in belaboring that since it's simply a matter of preference.

"Year of Hell," however, epitomizes one of my main problems with this show: I watch two hours of this crap, and then at the end the reset button is pressed, and voila! The preceding episodes are inconsequential to the series.

I actually think that's how Endgame ought to end the show (I haven't seen it yet): Janeway should wake up and be shocked to see The Caretaker coming out of her sonic shower. It was all a dream...

Either that or they can have Voyager land on a wintry planet, and slowly draw the camera back to reveal Naomi Wildman sitting in a 21st-century apartment, looking at a starship in a snowglobe...

 

Actually they did play a bit with the tension between Chakotay and Tuvok as Janeway grew to trust Chakotay and take his advice. The two-parter "Basics" shows this a bit. I wish they had done more with it though. It could have been interesting.

 

Shades of "Dallas" and "St. Elsewhere"! -- RR

 

My problems with Voyager were:

First and foremost, the previously mentioned complete lack of tension between the Starfleet and Maquis crews. Bad enough they all got into their nice matching uniforms by then end of the pilot, but to have them all coexisting as a happy family in half a season was an insult. These two crews were fundamentally different. Diametrically opposed. Or at least, they should have been.

It was also wildly annoying that the crew lived in luxury. The ship went back to looking exactly the same at the end of every episode--pristine. They never had to incorporate some new alien technology into the ship's design, no changes to the internal arrangement, never once did we see panels left open or sections in the background under repair during an episode. And whenever something needed to be fixed, a tool or replacement was magically replicated. (What I wouldn't give to have seen the lid from a cargo container used to patch a hole in a corridor.) Everyone had big, beautiful quarters. Holodecks ran 24/7, which alone was enough to make me hate the show. Endless supply of shuttles and torpedoes. And the replicator rations were a joke. The crew had it made! Who'd want to be in a rush to get back to Earth when you can serve on an intergalactic cruise ship?

So many more things. The Borg became the ultimate punchline--I'm surprised there wasn't an episode where one of Voyager's escape pods defeated a Borg cube.

The characters were schizophrenically inconsistent. One minute Tuvok is rigid and inflexible and devoid of humor, then suddenly he's using sarcasm, then back to not joking. The Doctor is considered a normal member of the crew, then suddenly he's subservient when it's a "holographic rights" story, then back to an equal. B'Elanna's got this wild temper, then she doesn't, then she does.

There was no supporting cast, just the 7 leads and a revolving door of extras, except for maybe Sam Wildman and Joe Carey. On a small ship with no chance of crew being rotated in and out with other vessels, we should've been seeing familiar faces. And getting to KNOW them. Ayala stood on the bridge for 7 years and never got a first name.


What I wish Voyager had been: the Maquis don't wear uniforms for the first year or two since they haven't finished Starfleet training. The two crews barely intermingle, socially, at first. Fights and tension are common, but through their struggles they begin to see virtues in each other and build a sense of trust and community. The ship should've been in disarray for weeks after big battles, new technology should've been constantly introduced, and there would have been no holodecks or replicators, or any other ridiculous wastes of power. People would have missed meals and worn dirty uniforms during the tough times, and they would have been appreciate and celebratory during the good times. Most importantly, we would've gotten to know the whole crew, and come to understand the characters, and empathize. When someone was lost, it would hurt, and when someone was rescued, it would be exciting. There'd be no comforts of the master reset button to assure the viewer that, no matter what happens for the next 45 minutes, at the end of the episode everything will be just as it was at the beginning.