CH: Make Voyager a Good Series

[Killer300]

Okay, keep in mind, I don't mean for it to be the best series,(too subjective even by artistic standards) but rather to be universally held to be at least okay. Possible? Or is this an artistic ASB?

Keep in mind, I haven't seen Voyager. I'm just curious about this, because I thought it would be a nice break from the usual alternate history scenario.

 

[Derek Jackson]

I liked Voyager a lot. I think some of the themes might have gone on like the two Belanas

 

[wietze]

no changes needed then, it was a good series in my opinion.
ok it had its weak moments, but no series can be good all the time.

although the holodoctor was annoying. maybe add a little inspiration from babylon 5 on the darker sides of life. and you have a top notch series.

and to make it the best ...it meets a blue phonebox somewhere in space and together with its occupants it fights the borg

 

[pompejus]

Just let them keep the original premise: a starship stranded 80 years from home without easily new supplies and repairs and a crew made out of two different factions that have to cooperate even though they used to be enemies. And thus avoid making it Star Trek TNG part 2 with a weaker cast and writers than the original.

 

[Fearless Leader]

The biggest thing IMO would be for them to abandon the "episodic" nature of the show in which everything returns to normal by the end of the episode and instead focus on the larger story-arc like Moore and some of the other writers wanted to initially.

 

[double7double]

make voyager goosd series

No depspace nine then the writers can put all their energy in voyager. i saw less of voyager because by then i was burned out by star trek.

 

[Devvy]

No depspace nine then the writers can put all their energy in voyager. i saw less of voyager because by then i was burned out by star trek.

Noooooo! I loved DS9 - was my favourite series by far.

My thoughts for Voyager - make it less episodic. When they rescue aliens and then drop them off at their home planet, make the trip to their home planet last 3-5 episodes to give a fresh person on board and fresh perspective on things. Give it storylines that last at least half a season, if not a season or two.

And I have to say, I thought the best things about Voyager were the Doctor and Seven of Nine. Their offbeat comments, experiences and intertwined journeys towards humanity were the most interesting.

 

[Kalvan]

1. Have a series bible with an actual story arc. Star Trek: Voyager constantly rambled first between the Vidiians and Kazon and then the Hirogen and Borg.

2. The divisions between original crew and Maquis should last longer and their integration should take longer. Also, Chakotay's position within the Maquis side should be more in doubt, especially after Janeway keeps vetoing shortcut after shortcut.

3. Given that Chakotay is a Ute name, make him and his father recognizably cultrally Utes.

4. While there are at least three times where violations of the Prime Directive came back and bit the crew in the ass, not counting that "swapping stories" episode, none of those except that last were actually the ship or its crew's fault. That needs to change.

5. Get Jennifer Lien into drug rehab between seasons 1 and 2 ASAP.

6. The ship needs more down time to refine deuterium and tritum for the impuse engines and generate antimatter for the warp engines. Which means more episodes with either shore leave or searching for commerse planets.

7. There need to be more stowaways than just Neelix and Kes as time goes on. And there need to be people who for whatever reason decide to leave ship. Harry Kim should have turned out to be part alien after all, and the choice to stay should not have jeopardized his life.

There's more, but this is off the top of my head.

 

[Fearless Leader]

Another idea: Remove 99% of the replicator use. I always felt like this was a cop-out. Over the course of the series have the USS Voyager begin to show it's age. This doesn't necessarily have to make the show super dark, but it would be interesting to see the ship and it's crew have to adapt by adopting new technology to get the ship home.

 

[anotherlurker]

keeping janeways personality consistent would improve it by 50%

 

[Spengler]

Probably reduce UPN influence, increase the budgets slightly. Also make an effort to concentrate on everyone besides the Doctor and Janeway. While Picardo and Mulgrew are fine actors the other actors are there as well and their characters were largely underused. Also kick Berman upstairs and reduce Braga and Jerri Taylors influence. Bring on Ron Moore as head writerand Manny Coto for show runner. Finally dump the Kazon entirely, a very bad opening enemy race they were based on the crips.

1. Have a series bible with an actual story arc. Star Trek: Voyager constantly rambled first between the Vidiians and Kazon and then the Hirogen and Borg.

2. The divisions between original crew and Maquis should last longer and their integration should take longer. Also, Chakotay's position within the Maquis side should be more in doubt, especially after Janeway keeps vetoing shortcut after shortcut.

3. Given that Chakotay is a Ute name, make him and his father recognizably cultrally Utes.

4. While there are at least three times where violations of the Prime Directive came back and bit the crew in the ass, not counting that "swapping stories" episode, none of those except that last were actually the ship or its crew's fault. That needs to change.

All great ideas.

 

[Corjomc]

Replace the Maquis with a Cardassian crew, the Maquis and Fed crew got along way too quickly, way too easily.

I also agree about the increasing wear & tear on the ship, USS Voyager should be limping across the finish line at Series end and fall apart like Jake and Elwood's Bluesmobile when they finally stop.

They should have stuck with Paris being Nick Locarno, Small thing but details count.

 

[MattII]

My thoughts for Voyager - make it less episodic. When they rescue aliens and then drop them off at their home planet, make the trip to their home planet last 3-5 episodes to give a fresh person on board and fresh perspective on things. Give it storylines that last at least half a season, if not a season or two.

I like this idea, because that always got me about Star Trek (and Stargate for that matter), the utterly episodic nature of the programmes.

 

[Emperor Norton I]

• Make Maquis/Crew schism more pronounced. This was brought up then dropped off the bat.
• Take lack of supplies seriously. It was the original idea that everything was finite, making everything precious. So if you launch one torpedo, you aren't getting it back. If something blows up and its too complex to replicate, you aren't getting it. They ignored that, and handwaved a kagillion torpedoes whenever they needed one so it didn't matter. They needed to make a checklist, and once something was gone, understand its gone.
• Federation in the Delta Quadrant idea. I believe it was an early concept that Voyager would focus on creating a Federation-like body in the Delta Quadrant in lieu of focusing on Earth.
• Don't accept fan scripts.

 

[Deathsheadx]

Tuvix.

Tuvix is an example of all that is right, and all that is wrong with voyager.

It had a great story and a great dilemma, which they resolved in the most piss poor way imaginable because of the incessant need to reset the status quo at the end.

what would fix that mess is if they spread the tuvix plot over several episodes, cranking up the scope of the dilemma, and if they for whatever inane reason do go along the same resolution there needs to be serious in universe repercussions. the fact the whole crew besides the doctor stood by and let it happen in the canon version just didn't jive with me, there should of been more protest, there should of been distrust and fear, that if janeway could Off, what some acknowledged as a sentient being to get two crew members back, is their a chance she would rationalise doing something similar to the rest of the crew in future?

 

[sarapen]

5. Get Jennifer Lien into drug rehab between seasons 1 and 2 ASAP.

Is that what happened to her? I just did a Google image search for her and damn, she let herself go.

Anyway, it's not like a serialized format is necessarily superior to an episodic one when it comes to storytelling. Voyager wasn't consistently crap, there were good episodes like the Vietnam one where the aliens talk funny ("Do you fathom the nemesis?") and brainwashed Chakotay or the one where the team that went on an extended trade mission start getting post-traumatic flashbacks about covering up a massacre. Or hey, what about the one where an archaeologist digs up a backup copy of the Doctor and we find out the distorted historical record from the aliens of what was basically an encounter-of-the-week for Voyager. That alternate crew was pretty bad-ass what with Chakotay's Maori tattoos and the ship's complement of Borg drones.

Which is to say that you can still keep Voyager as an episodic series as long as the writing remains decent.

 

[MerryPrankster]

More Species 8472 would have been cool. Maybe a splinter fleet pursues Voyager after the Borg force the rest of them back into fluidic space.

There was a later Voyager episode where they encountered 8472 having created a fake Starfleet Academy in order to infiltrate Earth, but the 8472 arc could be so much more.

Also, maybe there could have been more resistance to assisting the Borg? The Battle of Wolf 359 wasn't all that long ago IIRC and there'd be a lot of Federation people who would be just glad to see the Borg annihilated.

And by all means get rid of the episode in which some characters get turned into salamanders.

 

[NORGCO]

Also, maybe there could have been more resistance to assisting the Borg? The Battle of Wolf 359 wasn't all that long ago IIRC and there'd be a lot of Federation people who would be just glad to see the Borg annihilated.
.

Definitely.

Some variation on what an American senator said when Nazi Germany invaded Stalin's Russia "It's a shame they can't both lose."

There would have had a lot of people thinking like that, Starfleet people who lost friends or ships they had served on once, or who just realise that the Borg could send a hundred cubes if they wanted so it is US or THEM time. People who would argue that if saving Voyager requires saving the Borg than maybe that is too high a price to pay for survival.

 

[MattII]

I think we should have seen more of the Hirogen, maybe learned a little more about them apart from their bloodsport pursuit, maybe two tribes almost come to blows over the best trophies of a particularly difficult hunt and Voyager has to mediate or something.

 

[The Spitfire017]

I love the Voyager concept, mainly because I always thought it was like Homer's Odyssey in space. But, in reality, it didn't really work out that way because of the "creative" producers.

For example, an episode where the crew are thinking of just colonizing a planet, or losing their identity as Alpha Quadrant residents (Starfleet or Maquis), which was a theme in the Odyssey as seen in the lotus-eaters.

Story arcs in the series. More moral issues, such as breaking the Prime Directive. Maquis retaining their uniforms for at least the first three seasons.

A big one would be to keep Ron Moore on the production team (and get rid of Braga). He had some great ideas for the show, but they clashed with Braga's ideas. With Moore, the show would have become more realistic, more gritty and more dirty. For instance, an episode similar to BSG's episode "33" where Voyager has to keep running away from the Borg for days, and how it strains the crew mentally and physically. And the ship would not magically look brand new every episode.

(However, it could probably butterfly away BSG-2003)

Also, don't have Voyager defeat the Borg almost every week. Keep them scary and unstoppable. They were the ultimate villain until Voyager got their hands into them.