Why does everyone hate Voyager?

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 11:32 am

well the slipstream and transwarp worked but slipstream was to unpredicatable and transwarp wasnt fully compatable wit fed tech, u cnt really have a full series were the crew keep fighting amongst themselves otherwise u mightaswell do a series in the mirror universe (cud be intresting), the delta quadrant races were fine (very hard to come up with tonnnes of new races so give them a brake), e'blanna (however its spelt) is a good engineer but u cnt expect her to be great at everything its like expecting a f1 car designer being able to create a fighter jet not gonna happen hence why you have specialties. they did look into installing hologenerators everywere but took too much power (remember wen the hunter race tried they kept blowing relys they ship was just not designed to be a big holoship plus they were not exactly overwhelming with resources so yh not gonna happen. and the charactors were fine a nice healthy mix of diversity. chakotay's tribal background was shown enough but he did renounce most of it because he thought that they needed to move with the times and they refused to do so.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 11:45 am

You got to unload on those mirror-mothers in 'Elite Force.'  Along with a plethora of other unsuspecting (and suspecting, not that it saved them from my portable photon launcher) killable in-game objects.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 2:34 pm

There was an episode called Threshold that is cause for particular hate. And i dont like the inconsistencys  and unlike the previous author i have something to back it up with Ex Astris Scientia - Voyager Inconsistencies
I liked the DR. and Chakotay but other than that everyone else was kinda meh.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 3:11 pm

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

See that's what I thought but still....the show, for what I saw, was half way decent.  I didn't like what they did with the Borg.....but then there were some pretty cool Borg moments.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 3:57 pm

There was an episode called Threshold that is cause for particular hate. And i dont like the inconsistencys  and unlike the previous author i have something to back it up with Ex Astris Scientia - Voyager Inconsistencies

That's what this article is about. "Threshold". And that's it.
I agree that this episode was pretty weird. But what we're talking about is the series and not one episode in particular.
And if there should be people out there bashing VOY because they didn't like "Threshold" they are at least as weird as this episode is.

Regarding the mentioned inconsitencies the article is right. Especially if there are manuals and guides for the writers one could expect that they actually USE them. Obviously they didn't.
But does it make a series bad if some things (aeroshuttle) aren't used, some things aren't explained on screen or numbers vary? That's ridiculous.
VOY is not a movie it's a series with several seasons written over several years. And they didn't have JMS (B5) to take care about it.

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

Old Man, Those aren't really rebuttals.   :ermm:
C'mon.....

You can't just rubber stamp everything with "lack of elaboration" just because it's easy for you to do so.  You failed to understand the context, as it was clear that the author was not looking to make long elaborations about it.  That's why he only wrote a sentence or two for each point.  So do you see how it's silly to knock someone for something they did intentionally?  It was meant to be brief! :fish:

I like your  response to #12.  That happened to Tuvok all the time!  Have you not watched those episodes where it happened?  Or perhaps you forgot?

Borg101 asked for reasons why people did not like Voyager.  He was not asking for full blown professional essays complete with abstract and supported with triplicate references to each point to "prove" their opinion.  He simply asked for a synopsis.  I decided to link him a brief one.

But I don't know how this should prove that VOY "sucks".

No one was out to prove VOY "sucks".  Before you try really really hard to deconstruct a post, make sure you understand what it is you're disconstructing!   And no one is bashing Voyager, by the way.  You don't have to take it so seriously!

Someone give me a synopsis of why its regarded so bad.

This is what Borg was asking for, not some big long thing proving it sucks.  Most people on this forum really enjoyed Voyager, and I felt that it definitely had some good points.  I liked the early seasons.  However, it was too campy, to preachy, and wasted too much potential in my opinion for me to consider it a good show.  I'm sure that will get deconstructed as well with the "lack of elaboration" rubber stamp.  So I'll just add a few reviews that you can read instead.

Here's another, similar one.
http://en.allexperts.com/e/s/st/star_trek:_voyager.htm

Here's one where not everyone "proves" their opinion (How do you prove an opinion? )
http://www.bautforum.com/showthread.php/70465-Star-Trek-Voyager-was-Horrible(Spoilers)

This guy's pretty annoying, but makes some good points about the writing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHboxuzOeDg

I'm surprised no one has commented on the Janeway that almost was?  It actually makes me glad that Kate Mulgrew got the role.

Anyway, opinions are opinions.  If people liked Voyager, that's great!  Like all shows, it was meant to be liked by people.  But if people did not like Voyager, that's ok as well.   Hopefully this gives enough elaboration to satisfy.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 5:36 pm

There was an episode called Threshold that is cause for particular hate. And i dont like the inconsistencys  and unlike the previous author i have something to back it up with Ex Astris Scientia - Voyager Inconsistencies
I liked the DR. and Chakotay but other than that everyone else was kinda meh.

 
  But but but but but but .... this guy also claims that the Romulans and the Klingons are "Beta Quadrant Powers".  He points out a lot of other good inconsistencies in VOY, but stating that the Romulans and Klingons are primarily Beta Quadrant powers is just ... well it just seems silly to me.  The Alpha Quadrant could not be traversed as quickly as it is in ALL OTHER SERIES while including action in the Beta Quadrant for these other primary races.  It's  ... just not possible.

posted on April 2nd, 2010, 5:56 pm

@ Mal:

First of all I have to say that I love the "lack of elaboration" stamp 
I'm just sick and tired of people shouting all over the internet that something sucks because they think so. And that guy is really good at it, coming up with bad acting, bad writing bad whatever. If VOY was soooo bad it should have been easy for him to give at least one example for bad acting but he didn't. What he did was bashing.

I like your  response to #12.  That happened to Tuvok all the time!  Have you not watched those episodes where it happened?  Or perhaps you forgot?

Maybe I forgot that part

Borg101 asked for reasons why people did not like Voyager.  He was not asking for full blown professional essays complete with abstract and supported with triplicate references to each point to "prove" their opinion.  He simply asked for a synopsis.  I decided to link him a brief one.

That's my point. "VOY sucks!" is no reason and throwing in more opinions without giving examples doesn't make an argument which is none an argument. But most people never come up with more than that. Boy, that sucks!! 

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 1:14 am

The question of why everyone hates Voyager is one that I'm always curious about too. Personally I loved it, quite literally grew up with it and don't see many of the things people have objection to. I gather that the reason most people dislike it is because there are a lot of "inconsistencies" which get thrown out there. I think people forget that we don't know everything about every little detail of the Star Trek universe and thus make assumptions about the gaps so that we can reconcile that universe with our own. There is nothing wrong with this, except that most of the time the assumptions about the gaps are made based on this universe and what are our norms rather than the in show universe. This gets complicated further by the assumption that the Trek universe is static until a character explicitly says otherwise, at which point that piece of information becomes the new static state.

With Voyager, I think people tend to forget that this ship and crew are not in "normal" circumstances, but rather stranded at the edge of the universe in unexplored territory, around alien races who have developed under different circumstances from those of the Alpha/Beta quadrants. People tend not to like Janeway for throwing away morals and established rules and for the ability to pull rabbits out of her ass. As far as I'm concerned, none of this is out of place. They're stranded, there is no way in hell that playing things by the book as if they were on home soil is going to save them. They will come across a situation in which the rules will get them killed and they will have to break them. The show is about when and how you break the rules not if you will.

Take now, point 7:

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

This statement ignores the fact that half of the Maquis are ex-Starfleet or Federation citizen who found themselves (or rather their planets) on the wrong side of a treaty arrangement. Why shouldn't they all be able to get along, the Maquis don't "hate Starfleet" per-se; some just felt that abiding by Starfleet's rules (or rather the Federation's) would not solve their problems. It's a bit like Miles O'Brien said, "It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you." Although in this case it's more like "It's not you I hate, Maquis. I hate what you stand for."

To the issue of limited supplies, this statement seems to assume that Voyager never made pit stops. I'm sure they found plenty of chances to obtain fuel and supplies. It's like driving across the U.S. and not coming across a gas station. Torpedoes can be replicated. As for replicator rationing, it's more of a preventative measure; they ration so that they won't suddenly find themselves low on replicator matter. As for replenishing the replicators, they could visit the nearest post-industrial planet, beam up a couple hundred kilos of garbage, and break it down via "reverse" replication.

As for Kes' life span, how do we know that Ocampa are actually limited to 5 years. What if that was something that the Caretaker some how imposed, perhaps through the food or water as a form of population control. Or perhaps when they reach a certain age they begin manifesting telepathic abilities but some ambient energy field suppresses their brains ability to do so resulting in death. Living as they did would necessitate such a measure.

4. Inconsistency 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.

Why does his tribe have to be a pre-existing one. It's the 24th century, new tribes arose, old ones disappeared. He's of tribal (presumable Native American) descent, but that doesn't mean the tribe has to be an existing one.

11. Holodeck tech makes no sense - how can Doc leave the ship when his medical data banks 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)?

This assumes that 24th century computer programs are in any way like Microsoft Word. We in fact know very little about computer technology of Star Trek. Most likely the EMH, along with all other holograms, are programs which have a holographic image as their visible interface. Part of the program obviously contains data on the outward appearance, like textures and mesh files in modern computer games. That outward appearance is then backed by some very complex code, which in fact may be nothing like the computer languages of today. This also assumes that a "holomatrix" refers to the storage medium when in fact it probably refers to the display matrix. It's like saying "I downloaded it to my computer", well no, you downloaded it to your hard drive and you're looking at it via your display. As for the number of copies of the program, it's likely that due to the unique nature of the EMH only one copy of him can exist. If you limit him to a single instance then there is no need to reconcile different memory states, and we do know that there are dedicated back up modules. As for him being able to leave the ship but still have access to the database, part or all of it may be included in his program. Also his mobile emitter probably has a subspace transceiver and can access the ship's data banks much like a tricorder.

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.

Most of the races of the Delta Quadrant have probably had their development arrested or limited due to the Borg. The Alpha/Beta quadrants have had the large, benevolent presence of the Federation for three, four hundred years allowing for comparatively stable development. Their existence has probably quenched several conflicts between some of the smaller and larger power of the region which could otherwise have resulted in the same ever-shifting power balance of the Delta Quadrant. Unlike the Federation which promotes development, the Borg squash it and simply absorb species after species seeking their own "perfection". Many Delta Quadrant races have probably been forced to relocate or rebuild due to the Borg or live in fear of developing too much lest they become targets. Thus, if the aliens seem "awful" or stock its probably because that species chose two take one of the two alternatives, be mellow and uninteresting or be extremely agressive and overpowered. As for confusing cultures, when can it ever be said that culture is simple. I'm sure that any alien would go loopy trying to figure out any one human culture, let alone ever culture that humans have created.

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

6. Bad science.

This is no more true of this series than it is of any of the others. Science has been stretched from the very first episode of the Original. Hell, most of the stuff in that show could never have been thought possible in the 1960s. As for the writing, come on, it's SciFi, hell, it's television; good writing is hard, any writer will tell you that.

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 4:31 am

The Old Man, I completely understand where you're coming from about a lack of support in most internet posts.  I think you're right about that first link I had.  I should have posted those other links first, as they're supported.  I just thought a quick list would be good, but now everybody and his brother is citing it.  They must have not read your posts (or mine)!

And yeah, the stamp thing just reminded me of my old high school literary teacher, who was a crotchety "old man", and I could imagine him with a rubber stamp putting that phrase on term papers.  It made me smile.  

Atlantisbase:  Hey man, if you want people to read your posts, then you can't make them a great big wall of text.

Most of the races of the Delta Quadrant have probably had their development arrested or limited due to the Borg. The Alpha/Beta quadrants have had the large, benevolent presence of the Federation for three, four hundred years allowing for comparatively stable development. Their existence has probably quenched several conflicts between some of the smaller and larger power of the region which could otherwise have resulted in the same ever-shifting power balance of the Delta Quadrant. Unlike the Federation which promotes development, the Borg squash it and simply absorb species after species seeking their own "perfection". Many Delta Quadrant races have probably been forced to relocate or rebuild due to the Borg or live in fear of developing too much lest they become targets. Thus, if the aliens seem "awful" or stock its probably because that species chose two take one of the two alternatives, be mellow and uninteresting or be extremely aggressive and overpowered. As for confusing cultures, when can it ever be said that culture is simple. I'm sure that any alien would go loopy trying to figure out any one human culture, let alone ever culture that humans have created.

This entire text wall is conjecture and completely unsupported.  Where's my rubber stamp.   In fact your other responses are just like this.  This is exactly the kind of thing that The Old Man was talking about.  You can't just write "Well, it was probably this, so it must be true."  That's a logical fallacy, my friend.  Go read the other articles I linked as they aren't quick lists of 1-2 sentences.

As for the writing, come on, it's SciFi, hell, it's television; good writing is hard, any writer will tell you that.

Why are you making excuses for them?  Did you ever ask yourself why Ronald D. Moore, veteran Star Trek writer of 10 years left Voyager?   Don't take my word for it, take the word of someone who was actually a part of the writing staff.

Again, the point of this thread was simply to ask people who didn't like Voyager why they didn't like it.  The point was not to have us defend against every fanboy who has a beef.   This feels like Deja Vu, but let me explain again.  It's great that you like voyager.   By the end of the series, there were still something like 3 million people who still liked it (These are U.S. ratings, of course.  I have no clue how it did in other countries).  There were many more millions like me who stopped watching it while it aired.  And billions on the planet who have never seen an episode.  So in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter.  Hell, even Chakotay hated the show.  In the end, it's a matter of taste.  The people who loved the show will keep setting their course for home.  Those who didn't care for it will continue not caring.  Neither will see eye to eye, making debate on it fruitless, not to mention silly.

And will someone please comment on Geneviève Bujold being Captain Janeway?!  I'm really curious what people think on that.  

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 5:26 am

Voyager was good, but it wont compare to DS9 or the TNG, but for someone like Beltran to mock something that he"s being paid for doesnt help the Voyager cause. Voyager had a strong moral bnackground, and strong feelings but i couldnt warm up to a first officer who had his ex affliation stamped on his face. The deal with the borg was hard to stomach.

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 10:40 am

What I don't like about Voyager is the infinate Shuttles (they lost about 15 out of the 4 a ship that size should have) and the fact that they never ran out of any resource except the one that is infinate.

It's like Battlestar Galactica, except it failed the 'stranded from home' idea by making Voyager seem like the Enterprise from TNG; resupplied, repaired and repainted after each episode that wasn't a two-parter.

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 11:26 am

  In one of the articles from one of Mal's links I read this :
"One obstacle that the show faced was that Voyager was the first Trek series to air on a single television network (rather than be syndicated) since the original series. This factor stripped Voyager's writers and producers of a certain amount of creative control. UPN wanted the show to feature more action than previous iteration of Star Trek, and ongoing storylines were discouraged."

I guess that this pretty much explains a lot of the oddities from Voyager. Anyway, I for one enjoyed Voyager very much, it had lots of very good episodes. Like someone said before me, with Voyager episodes you either hate them, either love them. 

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 1:17 pm

I too grew up on Voyager.  Though it is not the most accurate, its all fake, and I liked it because it was entertaining.  It had good characters, no stupid Wesley character, and their closest thing was nelix the hedge hod, who was really more of a quark character than anything.  Its stories were great, and in didn't re use old races nerely as much as other shows.  And even inacurate tech is cool   As I said, it is inaccurate, but since when was startrek tech acurate?

Anywho, thats my $0.02, and really I don't care to debate opinion.

posted on April 3rd, 2010, 4:09 pm

and really I don't care to debate opinion.

You and me both, Z.  You and me both.

Ok, I've made it easy to watch.  I just thought it was interesting to see that they chose her first.



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