Why does everyone hate Voyager?

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 3:59 am

This is a serious question.....well as serious as a Trek related question can get! :-p  Granted, I haven't really seen everything beyond the 3rd season.  But I've recently started watching from episode 1 and I'm a little into the first season and I have to say, its pretty good and true to Trek as even TNG (please don't kill me for saying that! :-p ).  Episodes have good story lines.  Effects are good.  Good main characters.  I don't remember too many bad episodes.  Now, granted, I admit seeing some bad ones (I started working in my late teens as people tend to do and that was about when the 3rd season was ending! :-p ) here and there, but I can't imagine the show getting that much worse from where I "left off."  Someone give me a synopsis of why its regarded so bad.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 4:19 am

I personally love voyager its my fav one , i think its because they introduced lots of new races etc , so i dont see why everybody else dislikes it myself lol

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 4:28 am

I think the main reason is because they stretch SO many rules of physics and come up with SO many ways of getting out of their situations.  That's Trek in general, but TNG and DS9 had an overall storyline that those things could be a part of.


  TNG and DS9 also had very well established characters that had interesting storylines after Season 3 that we genuinely cared about.  Because Picard and Sisko still fell under the jurisdiction of Starfleet Command, they often had a habit of taking the "official road" instead of taking the moral or the easy one.  Janeway tried to do that at first, but then started getting lazier as time went one.  

 Too much time travel in Voyager, too many Borg Cubes expoding after we had accepted them as such a malevolent enemy, too many times that Voyager just seemed to be coasting along fucking with everyone and suffering nothing.  There were just few characters for whom I gave a shit.

 Neelix = Jar Jar Binks of Star Trek
 Tuvok = Less interesting than Spock because Tuvok was full Vulcan and rarely found the time to explore emotional paradox's like Spock did.  Tuvok was a foil, something that never changed.
 Seven = Eye Candy, but at least a character that grew and experienced new things.  She was like Data in the sense that she was a fan-favorite, drew the best ratings, and had the most to learn out of the crew.  She came equipped with a warped set of morals because she was Borg.  Bingo.
 Chakotay = the Foil to Janeway.  I always liked Chakotay because sometimes he'd surprise you and come up with an idea or a position that seemed to make a lot of sense.  Plus the tattoo and the Indian gimmick made him cool.
 Harry Kim = my least favorite character.  The Asian Virgin forever.  He learned nothing.  He and Tom Paris were kind of like Warf and Geordi or O'Brien and Bashir: they had their little friendship and that was supposed to be enough for us to care.  I gave up caring pretty quick.
 B'lanna (can't even remember how to spell it) was sort of interesting but really I just saw her whine about how she couldn't do stuff.
 The Doctor = the most interesting character on the show if you ask me.  He grew a lot, had very funny moments of imagining himself in rediculous positions and yet also had very serious moments of moral contemplation.  I liked his character the most and KNEW that when they gave him the mobile emitter it was because he was a driving force on the show's moral barometer.
 
  And finally:

 Janeway:  I actually thought she was a really fun character.  She could break the rules and preach them as well.  That reminded me of Kirk, except that she had this tendency to choose the situation against what I'd choose.

 Ally with the Borg:  HELL YEAH!

 Strand your crew to "maybe protect the Ocampa"?:  FUCK YOU!

  The Caretaker gave a tear-jerker speech in the pilot about how his life work was to find a match in genetics to save the Ocampa.  Too fucking bad!  You failed I guess!  Send Voyager home and set a self-destruct!  The only reason he was trying to destroy the Ocampa was so that the Kazon couldn't do it.  Nice guy ... totally worth saving the Ocampa...  Set some time-delayed charges, send yourself home, wait five minutes and BOOM.  Everyone wins.  Game over.  Series ended.


  That's why people don't like Voyager: their tendency to overstep what's "allowed" in Star Trek, their dumb storylines, lack of REAL CONFLICT AND LEARNING, and stupid waffling of values.

  Given that, there were some very cool things that Voyager gave us.  They gave us the Prometheus, they gave us PROOF that the Feds built more Defiant class ships for combat than just the Defiant and the ones you BARELY see in DS9, they gave us lots of Borg info (even though they made the Borg look like Pussies), and they had some really cool episodes that even the haters can still like.


"Scorpion, pt. 1 and 2" were still cool.  Ya gotta admit:

"The Year of Hell" was a cool 2-parter as well.

"The Void" where they have to form alliances within a stellar sinkhole was a really neat idea if you ask me, as well .

 There were lots of cool episodes out of the series that stand out like gems, but Sooooo many of them just put shame on the series.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 4:59 am

I think with Voyager an episode was either really good or really bad where's with the other series' there's a lot of middle ground as far as faults and excellencies. I think Boggz hit the main issue though.... they really stretch physics and solutions to overdrive...  that and there's so many "Deus Ex Machina" moments that after the first few seasons everything just felt really cliche and predictable.

Most episodes pretty much boiled down to "Oh no we are facing a disaster, quick pull out a totally unbelievable solution! Can't think of one? Wait five minutes and some completely random outside force will save us!"

They also had a habit of introducing really awesome concepts and then revisiting them and making them lame later on. Species 8472 for example was a ridiculously awesome new menace that was introduced in Scorpion. I was finally glad to see a super-alien non humanoid force getting ready to exterminate the galaxy and what do they do to them later on? Humanize them and make them peace loving pussies...

Oh well, still beats Enterprise. 

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 5:44 am

Watching paint dry for hours on end would be better than watching Enterprise.

I would list all the reasons I don't like voyager, but then I realized that someone on the internet has probably already done that for me.

Oh, and you have to watch this.  The first line written completely encompasses my view of Voyager.  The clip is fun to watch, too.

Meh.  I had more to say, but writing about voyager is about as motivating as watching it.  I just feel like I'm wasting time.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 6:12 am

you forgot kes 

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 7:01 am

Well, I think Voyager wasn't that bad. Okay, it was worse than TNG or DS9, but still a good show. There wes quite a lot of good episodes in my opinion, but it lacked an epic story arc like DS9 had.
Of course this was a mistake in the concept of the series already, you can't link episodes if you are moving away all the time, the effort to do it nevertheless became ridiculous, too(the Kazon empire must have been larger than the Klingon one  ).
I neither like the concept of a "species of the week" but again this goes back to the basis of Voyager, which was a problem in my eyes.
Especially the last seasons in Voyager had more and more good episodes(as always in ST series, they should always start with a 4th season  ).
Concerning the crew ... Data was cool, 7 not, Picard was great and wise, drinking Earl Grey, Janeway was only a coffee addict confused about time travel, Chacotay was alright, though a bit soft for a commander, Tom was Kirk, Kim Wesley, Tuvok Spock, Kes... well she was a bit Deanna and a bit unique. Neelix lacked good jokes, otherwise I would have liked him. The Doc was great.
All in all Voyager was a step back regarding DS9, that was my problem with the series. It lacked new ideas.

Hey and Enterprise... well, again the 4th season was very well, perhaps the series would have even improved after that. Watch the first 3 seasons of TNG and Voyager and you will see, Ent wasn't that bad, just fulfilled a ST tradition . TOS was worse.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 8:24 am

"Why does everyone hate Voyager?"

I think it takes a lot more flak than it deserves, even though it still deserves some of it.

The Jargon:  Anything more complicated than a McDonald's commercial is cerebral Kryptonite to your chronic television viewer, (plummeting test scores and skyrocketing obesity rates withstanding) and then they added more on top of that.  Excessive?  Yes.  But that's like using more rat poison than you need.  The job's still getting done anyways.

DS9:  The special Olympics of star trek.  It's in a league of its own, and nobody can really make fun of it, because, you know, that's just wrong.  They're trying too, but if you make comparisons with the regular athletes, you're just being an ass-hole.

Enterprise: ...hadn't started yet.  So there wasn't that to compare it to.

And some other stuff.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 9:01 am

I grew up with Voyager, and I believe Seven of Nine was my primary reason to keep watching it 

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 9:13 am

voyager was my favourite, ds9 imho didnt get intresting until the dominion war kicked off, i liked enterprise (wudda been better as an other sci-fi instead of a star trek show due to the messup (and worse ending eva) and i think i mightta been 2 young to get into tos or tng (altho watching reruns of tng its pretty good)

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 9:14 am

  Boggz, about the "Year of Hell"

The ending solution was cheap as hell, worst ending that a movie / show from a series can have.
I don't see how you can like that, but oh well.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 9:49 am

Well the ending sucks, yes, but the idea as a whole is pretty cool and I thought that the boundaries were stretched pretty well and hard choices were made.  I like that it also ecompassed a long period of time.

  The ending is the same "Deus ex Machina" that Nephalim mentioned = whereby something miraculously happens to save the day.  It's also one of those "this was all a dream and none of it happened" kind of endings that basically nullifies EVERYTHING that's happened.


  So up your ass with broken glass, Serenity .  The episode kicked ass, the ending just blew ass.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 9:52 am

Hehe Boggz  true, true.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 10:48 am

I would list all the reasons I don't like voyager, but then I realized that someone on the internet has probably already done that for me.

Those aren't really reasons.  :ermm:
C'mon...

1. Unlikeable characters. The Powers that Be were sick of the conflict-free crew shtick from TNG, so they tried create grounds for contention between characters. They only succeeded in making some of the crew very unlikeable. Watching early Neelix was like listening to nails scratching slate, and Tuvok was written as petty and inept. Paris in Season 2 was a real jerk, and Janeway most of the time is not someone I would want to serve with (or be in the same room with).

I don't get his point. Maybe it's because of a lack of elaboration. What is his point here anyway and how does he (or maybe she) come to the conclusion that VOY's characters were "unlikeable"? Because he thinks Paris was a "real jerk" in season 2?  :rolleyes:

2. Inconsistent tech - do the transwarp and quantum slipstream work or not? Is the holodeck on the same power as the rest of the ship or not? (Why you couldn't divert holodeck power to the rest of the ship in the first place is really beyond me, unless Torres isn't all she's cracked up to be).

Why shouldn't they work? As far as I remember they simply decided not to use it, lost the tech on the way or became salamanders because of it. Why is the tech "inconsistent" then?

3. Whole episodes carried by weak actors, like Garrett "I'm lost" Wang and Robert "sleepwalking" Beltran, as well as some really bad guest actors.

Lack of elaboration.
"I don't like your haircut! Because it's so I-don't-like-it. Crappy barber!"

4. Inconsistancy and vagueness with regard to Chakotay's tribal identity. I thought because it was Star Trek that the writers would try to do an authentic job. Boy, was I wrong.

Maybe. I don't know. But I don't really know what he's talking about either.

5. Bad, derivative, clichéd writing. Hey guys, you're burnt out - step aside and let some fresh blood do the writing.

6. Bad science.

And that's because of....?

7. Ignoring initial premises, like Maquis crewmembers not fitting in with Starfleet, lack of support, limited photon torpedoes, replicators rationed, Kes' short lifespan and consequent rapid development, etc.

The basic problem was that VOY would have been something like Battlestar Galactica if Ronald D. Moore could have done his job the way he wanted to do it. But how would people with issues and dissolving moral guidelines fit into the ST-verse? So they didn't show us the episode when Janeway finally beamed Starfleet's rules and ethics into space and they didn't show us how Voyager lost its plating, energy weapons and whatever like you would and could expect it to happen. They tried to find some sort of compromise here which unfortunately didn't really work.

8. Awful aliens - Kazon, Malon, Hirogen, foreheads of the week. Either their culture makes no sense, or they're so by the books they don't even get a name. How about ALIEN aliens, since we're here in the Delta quadrant. Not just black hats and white hats. Had my fill of those back in TNG.

So the aliens in VOY aren't any different from those we know from TNG. Meaning that "either their culture makes no sense, or they're so by the books they don't even get a name". Why isn't TNG crap then, too?

9. Brannon Braga, chief hack.

If it's him, if maybe he could have seen one episode of it, we MUST hate VOY!!!

10. Lack of ethical principles. Is this really ST anymore? No one seems to understand the prime directive. Janeway's morals change from week to week. Hey, B5 had some immoral and even evil characters, and Sheridan gets pretty shady after his death, but at least they were consistent AND there was a sense of greater moral truth, in spite of human corruption.

That's the point. VOY wasn't supposed to follow ethical principles. They were a lifetime away from home and most of them could expect to never survive until they would come even close to the Alpha Quadrant. Janeway's morals were supposed to change from week to week because time goes on, too. If you'll ever get lost on an island without a way to get back home I want to see you arguing about killing an animal because that would be considered damage to property in most of the countries.

11. Holodeck tech makes no sense - how can Doc leave the ship when his medical databanks are in the ship's computer? How the hell do you "download" a computer program into a holomatrix anyway? And if you do download it, wouldn't you have a backup automatically, (albeit with a seperate memory of events past the download)?

Did the holodeck ever make sense?!  :sweatdrop:
But the Doc is not the way to prove that. His portable device was from my point of view not impossible tech and it came from the future. So what?

12. Vulcan-bashing, etc. The Klingon-bashing is (somewhat) understandable because of Torres' mixed feelings about her Klingon heritage, but insulting Tuvok on account of his race (this happened a *lot* in the first three seasons) seems really over the line.

13. Triskadekaphobia. Hah, hah, just fooling. The final reason is: they ruined the Borg!

That's a point. At last. And they did.
But I don't know how this should prove that VOY "sucks".

Guys, you have to do better than that.  :assimilate:

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 11:27 am

Hmmm... I have been reading what some of you have been saying. Now personally, I love Voyager. And I still do, but I think you lot of valid points. Like how the Borg get NERFED epic style. Your right, if one cube could massacre an entire fleet of ships, then there is no way in Grethor that ONE Intrepid could destroy a TACTICAL Cube. I think that is the worst bit. I mean, cmon, they went to the Delta Quadrant, so there were bound to be Borg episodes, but your right, they should have made episodes with Borg, just they dont kill tac cubes willie nillie. :-P