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Voyager revisited - this time it’s Neelixy

Brian?

In a similar manner to DS9, I’m rewatching Voyager and will randomly post thoughts here.

Season 1 finished, thoughts:

Neelix is alright actually. I hate Tom Paris. The doctor is really good in season 1. Kes excellent

I remember the start being much weaker, but I actually think season 1 of Voyager is stronger than season 1 of DS9.

The conflict with the Kayzon was dropped too quickly. Now in season 2 it’s picked up again, but they have travelled months away from where they started. It’s like the writers realised they missed an opportunity.

The planet run by horny Belgians was the low point of the season, Beowulf a close 2nd. I enjoyed the gel packs getting sick episode a lot and the dead aliens on the asteroids was pretty good.

Anyway, feel free to disagree.

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AllForIt

Did a scan on my sat box and found a new channel, Sky Mix HD. Fee to air too.

Voyager was on today at 7.00, up at season 3.

Just though I'd warn those who thought it rubbish.

https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/sky-mix-hd-freesat-premium-channel/

Greyjoy

I've reached the point in Season 2 with the 'kazon collaborator' storyline and there's a minor crewmember called "Jonas". They keep using his name so often I've now got this song from Guitar Hero stuck in my head :

https://youtu.be/CJI0jOQUOIg?si=OLNCGjlEJ0Mp63L5

Brian?

Season 3 Episode 1

The crew of Voyager have been stranded in the land before time by the Kazon.

Its not looking good lads.

Brian?

Anyone remember Sarah Silverman as an astronomer in 1997? I did not.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121492331#Comment_121492331

I remember reading in the Star Trek Encyclopedia about that episode, where the Okudas (who wrote a lot of it), fess up that the 90's-era LA shown in "Future's End" was a continuity mistake. They had managed to forget about the Eugenics Wars, and shot contemporary California as if it hadn't happened.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121514049#Comment_121514049

Yeah. That never even occurred to me!

Greyjoy

Reached a point in my voyager rewatch with an episode that had a guest star of "Howard" from "Better Call Saul". It's the episode where Harry Kim meets the planet of horny alien women. Took me a moment or two to recognise Howard at first - his voice was so familiar but then I got a good laugh when I realised who it was.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121561968#Comment_121561968

Typical Harry Kim luck. Finally about to hook up with a woman (3 at once for that matter), only for the sex itself to actually be fatal on the wedding night.

The only other time he gets lucky with a woman he catches a space STD. Our Perennial Ensign just can’t catch a break, can he?

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121561968#Comment_121561968

We’re almost aligned. Watched that 2 days ago. What a brutal episode.

Brian?

I’m to season 4. No 7 of 9 yet

If you’d asked me who was in Voyager longer Kes or 7 I would absolutely have said 7. But I’d be wrong.

Stark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121577150#Comment_121577150

Huh? Seven of Nine was there from the first episode.

Just went to watch it again. Thought she was in the last episode of season 3 but looks like she first enters at the 9 minute mark in 4x01.

Kes had 3 seasons plus about 3 episodes from later seasons. 7 of 9 had 4 seasons.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121577227#Comment_121577227

Kes had fully seasons 1-3 and part of 4. 7 had 4,5,6,7. So you’re right. I miscounted

Brian?

7 was in 101 episodes, Kes was in 70. So I was miles off.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121577284#Comment_121577284

It almost feels like we got 7 Seasons of….Seven, and while we had Kes for 3, but you’d forgiven for feeling like she was just a special guest character in the first couple of seasons.

The difference is that they actually used Seven and got some character development with a decent amount of focus on her. Kes on the other hand barely got anything. In some episodes it almost looked like they were cooking up scenes for her as an after-thought in order to her give her at least one line per episode. I think there was one instance where her only line in the episode involved giving coffee to someone in the mess hall.

I think this was a rule in Trek production at the time for the head-lining actors, that everyone got at least one line per episode. On TNG that was easy to fix in the Conference Lounge, but on VOY & DS9 they had characters who wouldn’t fit into that. They even did it for Quark on DS9 if there was no good reason for the story to go to Quark’s bar. Suddenly Quark would turn up a someone’s door with an order, which wasn’t completely beyond what he’d do, but it kind of smaked of «Crap, we didn’t give Shimmerman a line this week. Quick…he’s delivering (spins wheel)…Andorian Diamonds…to (spins wheel) Sisco….ok then…» Main diference between Quark & Kes being that Quark was already a fleshed out main character by the end of Season 1, while they failed to do this with with Kes even after 3 seasons.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121581883#Comment_121581883

Kes was criminally underused alright. She was only ever the doctors assistant or Neelix’s girlfriend. They could have really run with the telepathic powers earlier, instead of forgetting about it and bringing it back for her departure

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121581936#Comment_121581936

They could have easily gone down the route of trying to get her to train to be a Starfleet medic. None of this «Doctor’s assistant» messing about, but her actually trying to earn a blue uniform. Then you could build on her training with Tuvok & Janeway to pass the Academy exams and eventually get up to a point of her earning a Provisional Ensign tag and that uniform. You could even cook in the personal challenge of her knowing that she’d never live long enough to see the Federation but still wanted to join Starfleet Medical on principal.

Evade

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121581883#Comment_121581883

I think the SAG rule is actors in the opening credits get paid either way so they try to fit them in. But Cirroc Lofton only appears in about half t the episodes of DS9, even once he became an adult. There's also a rule that you can't be main cast in two series at once so if they don't use the actors they might leave.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121582009#Comment_121582009

That would have been worth watching and kind of what they did with the rescued Borg kids later in the show.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121423484#Comment_121423484

Yes that is such an annoying episode that.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121582264#Comment_121582264

Oh don't mention them. So annoying and the Borg baby that just disappears.

Greyjoy

Just watched the "Year of Hell" two-parter and it sort of sums up the good & bad of Voyager in a nutshell. It's got a good premise and interesting villains. It's shocking to see images of the ship stagger along and the crew barely keeping it flying. But for a story that's supposed to take place over the course of an entire year squeezing it into a two parter feels very rushed. It's the kind of story that needed maybe an entire season arc to play out though maybe that just would have been too depressing for 90s Trek audiences. To cap it all the series gets reset back to square one in the end and the characters aren't even aware of what happened in the alternate timeline so it's all just a bit meaningless. It felt like the writers were trying to get ideas such as the ship degrading over time out of their system but still had the 'escape hatch' of the timeline reset so that there would be no lasting consequences.

Update -> just read that the writers originally wanted to develop the YoH story over an entire season but guess who nixed the idea? Thats right...Rick Berman. In the words of Red Letter Media "F* you Rick Berman!".

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121591481#Comment_121591481

Kind of linking back to Kes, Year of Hell even got forshadowed in the episode featuring Kes jumping through time thanks to the Doctor trying to extend her life with Kronotons. We get to see the Krenim and even the torpedo hitting Voyager in YoH is a direct reference.

Kind of intesting that Janeway didn’t heed Kes’ warning about the Krenim, but I guess if she did the episode couldn’t have happened.

Trek production was nearly at the point where I think they could have tried a longer Year of Hell. This was a year before the multipart ending of DS9, but also coming right after the multi-part beginning of the Dominion War arc. Both of those were excellent, but I suspect that Berman was still so set in his ways that he didn’t want to risk his TNG Clone with what he probably saw as some kind of gamble.

If not a season, Year of Hell deserved at least a multi-episode arc, as well as finishing without the Reset Button. The Year should of been allowed to leave an impression on the crew and the show as a whole.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121595140#Comment_121595140

It’s mad, I remember the concept of the year of bell, but absolutely no details.

‘Im fining it’s consistently this way through Voyager. I vaguely remember episodes but can’t really remember what happened in them. This didn’t happen at all for DS9.

I think Voyager may actually be just boring a lot of the time.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121595164#Comment_121595164

Pretty much alas. Voyager actually has some really excellent episodes, but even those are a little weighed down by the show's own shortcomings. Year of Hell for example has some very good moments that resonate more that a lot of what we got on a regular Voyager episode. Things like a blind Tuvok trying to hold onto a normal life after loosing his sight. Seven of Nine having to share quarters with normal people and the "Odd-Couple" comedy you'd expect is happening off screen there.

And of course Janeway becoming more and more like Capt. Ransom as time moved on (which just adds my annoyance of her behaviour to the Equaniox would be a season later).

Much of Voyager lacked this sense of "scarcity", so much of which was ditched in Season 1. Everything becomes so very vanilla outside of these event episodes where the ship is spotless and pretty much everything works. They even have reasouces to throw at a huge Astrometrics Lab and a fancy new Super-Runabout (with custom Flash Gordon controls). I feel this why it's so forgettable. It's TNG, but not as good.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121595215#Comment_121595215

The real annoyance for me was the switch from “we need to save every drop of energy in case we starve” to “let’s leave the holodeck on 24/7 and replicate whatever we want”.

Past S1, replicator rations are only mentioned as a gambling tool. There was a real opportunity to do something different, but I feel they chickened out in favour of new shiny things. Even 7 was under utilised, her human v Borg struggle lasted 1 episode really.

GreeBo

I have a lot of time for Janeway as Captain. In the beginning I wasn't sure at all, but she grew on me.

Kes I just found intolerable. A yellow-pack Troi.

McFly85

I think there’s a lot to like about Voyager, pretty good crew, some great episodes and it gets better as it goes along, but everything that could’ve made it stand out or really be unique was abandoned before the show even started.

Was there ever an episode where they felt genuinely f*cked because starfleet wasn’t there, or Janeway felt like seriously compromising her morals to save her crew? I can’t think of any. Really, you could set the majority of episodes in the alpha quadrant and wouldn’t have to change anything.

Rawr

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121602747#Comment_121602747

I don’t think they ever managed to create a decent sense of Voyager being screwed without Starfleet support beyond maybe Year of Hell and Basics. Morals-wise they never seemed to make their mind up with Janeway. Some weeks she’d be solid “Starfleet way or no way!” Then other weeks she’d be “Ensign, We’re 75000 light years from the Alpha Quadrant. We need to bend the rules sometimes”

I guess bargaining with The Borg is probably the trickiest thing she’s done morally beyond Tuvix and torturing Equinox crew members.

Otherwise I guess the only main difference between TNG and Voyager is that if a local belligerent wrecked the Enterprise they’d be inviting a visit from a Starfleet Task Force in the near future. Voyager never had that luxury.

Stark

As an aside I do have a soft spot for "Scorpion" as it's the last we see of the Borg before the queen concept was introduced.

AMKC

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121595215#Comment_121595215

Yes and Voyager could and should have been so much better. The one thing that really bugged me about TNG was nearly at the end of every episode they woukd go back to a starbsse for repairs even when the ship barely took any damage at all.