USS Voyager-Boldly going where-wait-did I say boldy? Whoops

La Forge · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 1:27 pm**

I concur, Founder.

The site may be called "www.startrekVOYAGER.com", but, that doesn't mean we are all VOY fanatics. I hate Voyager. It is a blatant rip-off of TNG. It could have been so much, having the Maquis, a damaged ship, unknown territory...alas...it didn't use ANY of the above to their fullest potential.

I hate VOY. Well...hate may be a strong word, but, it is definitely the worst in the ST Franchise. Here me out. It is still a good show...but...compared to the others...its bad. Pure and simple.

DS9 all the way!

Founder · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:49 pm**

I actually don't hate VOY, despite all of it's monumental flaws. My topic is about the wasted opputunities that VOY had, nothing more. If VOY fans don't like it, they should come in here and debate intelligently. I noticed that most VOY fans don't come into this topic. I guess its hard to argue...

Lord Borg · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:11 pm**

hehe, I read on "YEar of hell" A producer of that ep said that the ENTIRE series should have been like YEar of hell went, getting massive unrepairible damage

teya · Commander Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 423

Founder · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:14 pm**

I see what you're saying teya, but I didn't mean the legend of the Borg were scary. I meant them themselves. Watch them in First Contact. They were fearsome and very disturbing. You could tell that being assimilated was this horrible thing. Picard shot one of his officers for goodness sakes! He made a mercy killing on his ship so that the person would not live as a Borg.

In VOY, they weren't reall disturbing at all. They were just the run of the mill bad guys of the week. It was funny to see the VOY crew crap their pants when the Borg were around, yet they would beat them in the end.

The Klingons and Romulans never came across as scary though. Fighting them was tough maybe, but never fearsome. Especially capture at their hands.

IntrepidIsMe · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:21 pm**

Maybe they were scary in when TOS first aired, or something? It was the 60s, afterall...

Founder · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:23 pm**

What? I'm not well versed with TOS, but I'm pretty sure the Borg were never in TOS.

La Forge · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:24 pm**

The "scariest" enemies in Star Trek, in my opinion, anyways, are the Cardassians. The Occupation and the torture...*shudder*

The Dominion and the Borg are close seconds. Who would want to live as a mindless Borg who assimilate everyone?

Lord Borg · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:28 pm**

Oh, no the Klingons and the Romulans Aaron meant

La Forge · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:33 pm**

Yeah, the Borg were introduced in "Q Who?" a Season II episode of TNG. However, you could say that they were "mentioned" in Season I of TNG, in the finale "The Neutral Zone".

teya · Commander Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 423

Founder · **Thu Apr 20, 2006 11:53 pm**

teya · Commander Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 423

But the thing is, when you have a villain that is simply scary, you can't beat them. That takes your story from science fiction to horror. Trek ain't a horror show and never has been.

Founder · **Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:42 pm**

Ok...we're not on the same page here. When I say scary, I don't mean in a Freddie Kruger/Ring way. I mean, FEARSOME. Like you literally look at the crew and are like "The Borg? Oh no..."

No one felt like that on VOY.

Lord Borg · **Fri Apr 21, 2006 12:48 pm**

Yeah, I catch your meaning. In Best of both worlds, i was SCARED of the borg. Everyone was like "Oh my god....." Now its like "Eh, no biggie fire a torpedo and be on our way"

teya · Commander Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 423

Lord Borg · **Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:03 pm**

Your still not catching it, the Borg are supposed to be fear some, no matter how long they are known. Why? because they adapt, what worked before, wont work again, hence, the fear

teya · Commander Joined: 02 Feb 2005 Posts: 423

And you're not catching my point, so we're even.

How about let's just agree to disagree here?

Edited to add: The Borg's weakness was perfectly summed up by Janeway--the Borg assimilate. What they can't assimilate they don't understand. They don't know how to *investigate* the way humans do, they can't *improvise*. That's their weakness to be exploited.

A villain that you *can't* beat becomes in the end just as boring as one that's too easy.

Founder · **Fri Apr 21, 2006 1:22 pm**

I understand what you're saying teya. That with the knowledge of your enemy comes understanding. Often when we don't understand the other side, they appear to be this violent, fearsome, and powerful entity that can't be stopped. As the Federation learned more about the Borg through experiances or Picard's assimilattion, they weren't as deadly.

The fact of the matter is, VOY made the Borg to be the baddie of the week. In TNG they were special. Facing them was rare and it meant something bad and big. I'm not mad they ran into them a lot. I mean they were in the Borg's home quadrant. The problem is, it should have been hell to get through them. In fact, more often, VOY should have had to find ways to SNEAK by them, not fight them.

Sonic74205 · **Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:59 pm**

Yeah i understand what Found and Lord Borg are saying. But teya i get where you coming from too, however you have to take in account the fact of the viewers emotions when they watch the show. You see the borg in TNG and even devoted fans who know tons about star trek still get goosebumps when something happens with the borg and still grab a nearby pillow and wrap their arms around it waiting on the edge of the their seat for the next think to happen. When they watch the borg in Voyager they go oooo an epiosode about the borg. This should be interesting. Not OMG OMG OMG the borg!

Lord Borg · **Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:05 pm**

^Yeah, really

I just wanna say two words, and see what kind of reaction I get, some will know right off what i am talking about....

Reset Button

Sonic74205 · **Sun Apr 23, 2006 8:14 pm**

Lynx · **Mon Apr 24, 2006 1:33 pm**

I guess this post will create some controversy among some of the Voyager fans but if we are looking at what some people think went wrong with Voyager, I do have to point out a few things that I liked and didn't like with the show.

In my opinion:

Voyager was a wonderful series in seasons 1-3

A great premise. The best characters ever in any Star Trek series, so much interesting than the others. Lots of great episodes about this crew trying to get home. OK, there were a few things that weren't so good here and there but still a great and enjoyable show.

Voyager was a terrible show in seasons 4-7

No, I'm not gonna bring up "the Kes thing" more than necessary here, I'm not gonna blame Seven Of Nine, if she should be or not should be on the ship. I will simply point out some things I didn't like in seasons 4-7.

Too much focus on Seven. Even if they really had to add the character to the crew, she became too important and more and less took over the show while the other characters, except Janeway and The Doctor were shoved in the background. It actually became a new show, more about Seven's search for humanity than about the ship and the crew trying to get home. Besides that, she became too important and too powerful, everything could be fixed with her Borg knowledge.

The episode "Message In A Bottle" where they did get in touch with Earth, despite being howmany*******lightyears from the Alpha Quadrant. That episode where they couldf contact Earth just like they were phoning from one side of LA to the other definitely killed the whole premise of the show. Not mentioning those episodes where Barclay and Troi (or their holograms or whatever) could come and visit as they pleased. Lost on the other side of the galaxy? Huh?

Too much of The Borg. Instead of new interesting alien species which we should have seen, considering the premise of the show, they brought in The Borg, already turned to velvet villains in the later seasons of TNG. They were not scary anymore and in Voyager they only became annoying. Why not more of Species 8472 instead? But they ruined that species too in that later episode.

Not to mention the Borg kids who came on board. Yuk!

Annoying "recurring characters". They couldn't afford ten main characters. Instead we got Naomi Wildman, Icheb and Vorik (Vorik at least as long as "Big Mama" was one of those in charge). They got screen time none of them should have had. I found them only annoying. I always got the same feeling when Naomi showed up as I got when Troi's mother or Worf's son showed up in TNG. Oh no! One of those episodes again! Wake me up when it's over or when some interesting alien appears!

Too many bad stories, especially those holodeck stories like "Fair Haven", "Spirit Folks" and Janeway's silly holodeck lover. At least an episode like "Threshold" was entertaining. Too many seasons 4-7 episodes were not. There were some non-holodeck stories which were horrible too, most notably "Mortal Coil", "Relativity" and "Tsunkatse".

Not to mention "The Gift" and "Fury"......

Too many inconsistent things, like the shuttles and the photon torpedoes they wasted like they had a never ending supply, the screwing up of established Star Trek timelines (according to reports they did that in "Homestead", I never watched that episode), the dissapearance of the Hydroponics Bay (no more food problems or..).

Finally there were too many things that wasn't necessary for the show, annoying things that ruined it for me: Kes "leaving" in "The Gift" and the destruction of the character in "Fury", Lt Carey's unnecessary death, Paris-Torres romance (not as annoying as many other things but, let's face it, no chemistry at all), Neelix "leaving" C/7, the whole "Endgame" episode.

Not to mention that my favorite character was gone........

But.......

For some strange reason I still love Voyager, at least for all the fun that was in seasons 1-3. I still have an affection for the characters (I could probably have accepted Seven better if Kes had stayed), the premise for the show, the ship itself and such. I can still watch the early episodes and read the books with pleasure. Re-watching "Caretaker" and get the same kick as I got when I watched it the first tame, hearing Kim saying those magic words "We're on the other side of the galaxy" and remember the feeling I got when I watched it the first time, "Now the adventure really starts".

Isn't it amazing that I can still like a series which made me so dissapointed?

Voyager as a concept was great. The series had so much potential and could have been much better than it was. And it must be some credit to Voyager that even many of the most dissapointed fans stayed on until the end because of the affection for the characters and the show itself. If the greatness of a series is measured by the loyalty of the fans, then Voyager is the greatest series ever.

But Voyager isn�t gone. It will live in our hearts and memories. It will continue to exist in books and fanfiction, maybe with better stories than the �official� series.

Waverider9.9 · Lieutenant, Junior Grade Joined: 22 Aug 2002 Posts: 72

First, I'll start by saying I think Voyager is the best Star Trek series out there.

I did like that idea about making the equinox a "in/out" enemy, and have it pop up in a few episodes afterward. Same goes for the "Season of Hell" scenario where voyager over an entire season gets knocked about like a cat in a drain pipe. Interesting viewing.

However, as a fan I too have some gripes about it. Some of which have already been mentioned in this topic.

The Borg...are dangerous, powerful and really should be avoided at all costs. Any other federation ship at detecting borg or a transwarp signiture would ahead stern and flee at maximum warp. Not Voyager, oh no - "Captain, we've detected a Borg ship totally ignoring us and going about it's own business." "Really? Let's go and attack them!" Stupid.

Power Conservation...is almost a side issue. At the end of "Fair Haven" Voyager has transfer all it's power to the deflector beam - "Give them everything we've got, Life Support, Enviromental Controls, Scrape the residual ions off the sonic showers if you have to!"
The beam works, they survive and voyager continues on it's way. Wait a sec here, there's energy from the warp core, reserves, secondary systems, primary systems, emergency systems etc How were they able to continue after a drain like that?!

And finally - Endgame...I don't think I need say anymore. Alright then, good ep, but again with the borg and far too rushed once they return to the alpha quadrant. (It gets about 3 minutes of screen time)

Still love the show, got all of 'em on Video and watch on a regular basis - just airing my little niggles.

Founder · **Mon Apr 24, 2006 6:58 pm**

Speaking of Endgame.....

You know the point has been brought up about how only 3 minutes were devoted to the Alpha quadrant. I think it was less then that actually.

I think what would have have been interesting and BOLD if VOY had reached the Alpha quadrant via some anomaly or whatever. They make it back to the Alpha quadrant and you see them live there life, day to day. Unfotunetly, the VOY crew is split up, the ship is set for decommission and they realise that this is not working. They return to a battered Federation from the Dominion war. All of their loved ones have moved on. The Federation does not regard the EMH as a sentient being and Seven of Nine dissapears because either S31 or SI takes her for study. Janeway, Chakotay, and the others realize that home was never the Alpha quadrant, but it was VOY. They then go TOS style and regroup, stealing the VOY out of space dock and rush to save the EMH and Seven of Nine. They end up doing it while beating some bad guy and find a way back to the Delta quadrant. Then it would be left kind of open about their fates. Although I know the obsessed VOY fans would be furious with that scenario...