The last paragraph, which is the only one containing your actual thoughts on the series, describes TNG in a nutshell. TNG was worse, in fact, in that more than half of the aliens on TNG were Human Aliens. A couple of these showed up on Voyager too, but not nearly as many.
So unless you hate TNG as well, I have to say this wasn't a particularly persuasive review.
I was going to point out that he paragraph includes the fact there were only 3 interesting characters and in a show with a recurring cast of 10, that's pretty damning.
But then I counted for TNG and that's only as high as 4-5 out of 10. Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi. And then maybe Worf or one of the doctors depending on taste (but by the same metric Paris or maybe Janeway might get squeezed in on Voyager).
So I guess you're right, the failings of Voyager would lie in something deeper than the count of interesting characters.
Voyager was the first Trek series I watched in its entirety, and of all of them it suffered the most from poor writing. The characters were wildly inconsistent and coordination among the writing staff appeared to be nonexistent. It was clear from early on that the writers had no idea what to do with half of the massive cast- Harry Kim and Tom Paris were essentially the same person, Chakotay gradually merged into the scenery, Tuvok appeared to exist to fulfil quotas. An alarming percentage of the episodes relied on the same old hackneyed plots TNG had worn into the ground- humanity on trial, the moral dilemma of upholding the Prime Directive vs. intervening to prevent a calamity, characters trapped in dream worlds. Occasionally the program devolved into something outright asinine, such as when Native American Chakotay developed literal magic powers via "spirit walking".
That said, a number of the actors did a respectable job given the material they had to work with- Jeri Ryan and Robert Picardo stand out in particular (which is good, since their characters dominated the later seasons). A few episodes were genuinely excellent, such as the one where the Doctor encounters an alien museum dedicated to demonizing the crew. Most were watchable, though not necessarily memorable.
Still, it more often than not came across as a bad copy of TNG, and TNG was hardly television gold to begin with.
^Maybe, but when TNG struck gold, it hit the mother lode. Honestly, DS9 was probably the most consistently good show, but it's highs just didn't quite measure up to TNG's. I have to agree with everyone here about VOY, though, it was TNG Season 7 stretched out over 7 years. Fresh blood was needed to make the show work, but it was all going into DS9, leaving VOY out in the cold.
I'm a geek.
True enough about TNG. I found that it was like kind of a reverse 24- any episode which involved the crew being tortured was invariably excellent.
I read somewhere (Darren Mooney's blog) that VOY was basically an attempt to replicate TNG "with a more economical cast." I can't think of a more succinct description! Even when TNG misfired, you had a classically-trained cast to make a diamond from coal. (I've now jetted through the entire run of TNG, and while by no means is it as bad as the spinoffs, I concede that most of VOY's mistakes had seeds on that show.) The problem with VOY was that too many of the actors (particularly the men) weren't as cut out for dramatics.
Anyway, since someone pointed out that I didn't really explain my feelings but rather just bitched, I have revisited VOY and reshaped my opinion. Seasons 1-2 remain bad, like a rake in the face. Seasons 3-7 were frothy and fun, took the piss out of its own writing on a regular basis... If I like an episode enough to watch it again in my spare time (a rarity), that is enough of a success for me. I particularly Seasons 5-7, especially "Workforce" (there are other episodes, but none spring to mind right now. Oops!)
This is not a serious Trek show, it is a Trek tribute band with two or three great actors and a bit of meaningful drama. If I have a criticism, it's that the show somehow feels expensive and low-rent at the same time, which is an odd feeling.
I'm a skeptical squirrel
"the show somehow feels expensive and low-rent at the same time"
That makes sense. It is supposed to be more "economical" (no just the cast, but the scripts as well), but it is also the fourth series of a highly successful sci-fi franchise which ensures that it won't look cheap.
Lazy and pathetic.Leave a Comment:
Still lazy after all these years
Speaking as an offhand fan of Trek (I have only seen Deep Space Nine in its entirety, and avoid TOS the same way I avoid MASH — too much hype). And I think VOY is the litmus test of whether you're a real Trekkie. Real fans can overlook mild annoyances, others move on.
The series premise was a smart move on paper. If done right, the franchise could have continued evolving with each new iteration. I even enjoyed the pilot, "Caretaker". The problem lay squarely with the writers, who wrote a check they couldn't cash. They even have children and a cutesy mascot onboard the ship. It's just the same old formula, and it got so tiresome that you can smell the resentment coming off the screen. The writers went through the motions, openly scornful of this hackneyed product.
The second episode of the series has Janeway and Paris on an alien planet which looks like Bel Air, surrounded by rubber foreheads (Actually, they didn't even bother with foreheads this episode) who all wear the same ugly, Texaco gas attendant outfits. Well, imagine a whole show like that. It's creaky as all hell. The show had its moments with the Vidians, Torres, and The Doctor (Tuvok never grew on me — he was a proto-T'Pol, all humorless boredom and furrowed brow). But nobody really stands out in my memory except Jeri Ryan, who busted her purple-clad behind to elevate the material.