Star Trek fans: what do you think of Voyager?

[Vault101]

ok so here's the thing...I have NEVER seen an episode of star trek in my life..never got the chance as it was never on TV or anything

a did watch "First contact" a couple of times, with the Picard guy..I quite liked it

and I did watch the 2009 movie, at the time I also quite liked it (but if you were to ask me I would say I prefer Picard to Kirk)

but moving on,

so last night I see there some star trek on...and wait? this one theres a woman captin (Janeway was it?) and.....its actually good, I was actually enjoying it

the reason I ask this is because unlike the others (Kirk/picard) I had never know about the existance of this series..OBVIOUSLY because Im a noob when it comes to star trek..

but I thourght mabye this series wasnt as well known/popular as the others for whatever reason..(I mean had never heard of Captin Janeway)

so I would like to know how do you feel about it? and how do you think the fans generally feel about it? [/B]

 

[Antari]

The fans in general basically love or hate Voyager. Next Generation (Picard) is generally well accepted. With DS9 and Voyager though I've heard opinions across the board with it. Personally I love all 3. Voyager fell under the reign of Ira Steven Baer (Pink goatee). In its later stages it got a bit crazy as the franchise has since he took over after Gene Roddenberry died. The one series to avoid is Enterprise ... that was Ira's fault, total waste of time. Atleast Gene still had some input on the inital stages of creation for Voyager.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Voyager had that god forsaken episode "Threshold", if anyone dares to remember that one. Though beyond that, I personally enjoyed the endgame shows of DS9 and Voyager more than I did Next Generations (Stewart was still an awesome actor, along with the rest of the primary crew, but the plot was just.. lacking).

Voyager is a very long (or seems long) Star Trek series, in the end. You have a lot of bad or lackluster eggs in the batch, you have some good ones, and you have some awesome ones. All three are inevitable with a series that lasted several years straight-and-true, however.

 

[isometry]

The next generation (TNG), the series with Picard, led directly into two spinoffs: first Deep Space 9 (DS9) and then Voyager (VOY).

All three of these shows lasted 7 seasons. I watched all three series in DVD for the first time just a few years ago, aside from bits TNG that I had seen before.

I think all 3 of the series are good, but VOY is the weakest, and that matches the general fan opinion. TNG has the best acting, and DS9 has the best long-term story arcs.

On the plus side, Voyager is easy for trek newcomers to get into because it takes place in an unknown quadrant of the galaxy, many of the races and encounters don't depend on previous familiarity. It also has some great characters, like Janeway, Tuvok, the doctor, and later 7 of 9. The thing that holds it back from being as great as the other two series of its era, is that when watching several episodes in a row things can get repetitive, and they take some things that are cool and make them "ho hum" by overdoing it too much. Still a great show and worth watching.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Voyager was okay, but the characters were inconsistently written. It had some really good episodes, but also a lot of bad ones, and not very many solid ones that were neither exceptional nor terrible. Voyager, along with Enterprise and Nemesis, is one of the main reasons we don't have a TV series at the moment.

 

[Baneat]

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

Only if you're watching DS9 or Enterprise. For everything else, your best bet is just to check and see if you can catch some episodes on TV, and if not, ask some fans what their favorite episodes of each series are, and look them up online. The entire original series is available for legal streaming on one site or another, although CBS likes to shift around the site that hosts it. Last I checked, it was on a Star Trek specific site linked from cbs.com. Anyway, the reason I say just to catch random episodes when they're on is because the only two shows with significant serialization were DS9 and Enterprise. The original series had very little continuity from episode to episode, and TNG was released in syndication from the get go, so it was designed to be enjoyable just about no matter where you picked up. Do note that the first two seasons of TNG weren't as good as the rest of the series; the third season is generally regarded as the point where the series grew the beard[footnote]a term actually coined by Star Trek fans, since both TNG and DS9 seemed to find their feet right around the time one of the major characters of each show grew a beard.[/footnote] Voyager also has an episodic format, but as you can see from the posts already in this thread, it's not exactly the best loved series in the franchise.

 

[Baneat]

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

Only if you're watching DS9 or Enterprise. le snip

Thanks. I see you haven't recommended I just get season one of "The original series" and work through them, can one go far wrong doing this? The whole thing is extremely confusing, apparently there are spinoffs, stuff to avoid etc. etc. I've found with sites like CBS you need to actually be in the country that the network airs on to view them, so not much luck getting that in the UK.

 

[Chemical Alia]

If the show could make me like something called Tuvok, it couldn't have been too bad.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

Only if you're watching DS9 or Enterprise. le snip

Thanks. I see you haven't recommended I just get season one of "The original series" and work through them, can one go far wrong doing this? The whole thing is extremely confusing, apparently there are spinoffs, stuff to avoid etc. etc. I've found with sites like CBS you need to actually be in the country that the network airs on to view them, so not much luck getting that in the UK.

The first season of TOS should be pretty safe, but you really should check the local listings. The main channel that carries TNG in the US these days is BBC America, so it really wouldn't surprise me if it aired on the actual BBC as well. The season boxed sets of Star Trek are just disgustingly expensive (like, they only recently dropped from $100 a season to $70 a season, while the most you'll pay for just about anything else is $40 a season), and you really shouldn't commit to that sight unseen unless you have money to burn or you know you want the set. I'd avoid the first season of TNG if it's your first time watching a Star Trek series, though; it really did take that show a while to find its feet.

 

[Antari]

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

Only if you're watching DS9 or Enterprise. le snip

Thanks. I see you haven't recommended I just get season one of "The original series" and work through them, can one go far wrong doing this? The whole thing is extremely confusing, apparently there are spinoffs, stuff to avoid etc. etc. I've found with sites like CBS you need to actually be in the country that the network airs on to view them, so not much luck getting that in the UK.

The first season of TOS should be pretty safe, but you really should check the local listings. The main channel that carries TNG in the US these days is BBC America, so it really wouldn't surprise me if it aired on the actual BBC as well. The season boxed sets of Star Trek are just disgustingly expensive (like, they only recently dropped from $100 a season to $70 a season, while the most you'll pay for just about anything else is $40 a season), and you really shouldn't commit to that sight unseen unless you have money to burn or you know you want the set. I'd avoid the first season of TNG if it's your first time watching a Star Trek series, though; it really did take that show a while to find its feet.

I was a monumental addictive idiot and collected them at $150 a pop. But I was getting the shakes.

 

[Vault101]

Voyager had that god forsaken episode "Threshold", if anyone dares to remember that one. Though beyond that, I personally enjoyed the endgame shows of DS9 and Voyager more than I did Next Generations (Stewart was still an awesome actor, along with the rest of the primary crew, but the plot was just.. lacking).

Voyager is a very long (or seems long) Star Trek series, in the end. You have a lot of bad or lackluster eggs in the batch, you have some good ones, and you have some awesome ones. All three are inevitable with a series that lasted several years straight-and-true, however.

I actually read on TV tropes there was an episode that was "disowned" almost imedietly after it was aired or somthing...for being so bad. Perhaps thats the one? what was so awful about it?

I was thinking of making a star trek thread, but this one seems to be related directly to what I wanted to ask, where would a completely new viewer start with Star Trek? The very first aired episode and onwards?

even though I'm a startrek noob I would recomend the movie "First contact" its pretty cool and even if you dont know much it doesnt leave you feeling completley lost, I mean I got the general Idea of who kirk and picard were through secondhand info on the internet

Voyager was okay, but the characters were inconsistently written. It had some really good episodes, but also a lot of bad ones, and not very many solid ones that were neither exceptional nor terrible. Voyager, along with Enterprise and Nemesis, is one of the main reasons we don't have a TV series at the moment.

why is that? because they are "bad"?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Voyager was okay, but the characters were inconsistently written. It had some really good episodes, but also a lot of bad ones, and not very many solid ones that were neither exceptional nor terrible. Voyager, along with Enterprise and Nemesis, is one of the main reasons we don't have a TV series at the moment.

why is that? because they are "bad"?

Pretty much, yeah. Regardless of what you or I may think about them[footnote]personally, I think Voyager was okay but inconsistent, Enterprise would have been decent if it had been something other than a Star Trek show, and Nemesis was enjoyable in the moment, but definitely not something that you want to think about too hard[/footnote], the fact is the majority of the fans hated them, and Paramount decided to pull the plug on the franchise for a while, ending Enterprise early and putting out no new shows or movies until the JJ Abrams re-imagining[footnote]reboot is too weak of a word. He didn't make Star Trek; he made Star Wars with characters and situations based on Star Trek, which again made for an entertaining movie, but one that really should have been called something aside from Star Trek.[/footnote].

 

[gorfias]

Until 7 of 9 showed up, I thought Voyager insufferable. I object to many of the later seasons: if you don't like how things turned out, just time travel and fix'em.

But, Voyager had a few episodes on par with anything else within the Star Trek series. I liked some of Enterprise, but cannot say the same of that series.

Favorite episode: don't recall the name, but long story short, a Voyager and crew are trying to get to Earth as they discover: they are imposters. Protoplasm formed into a replica of that crew.

It was cruel, harsh, and unflinching in its judgment of the nature of existence. Brilliant.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Sometimes bad, sometimes enjoyable. I hate Neelix but the Doctor is a lot of fun. The writing is sporadically bad but I enjoy most of the cast so I like the show in general. I'm not a massive Star Trek fan though.

 

[gorfias]

yikes. This is it http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795288/

Season 5 episode 17. Oblivion. Shattering.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Voyager had that god forsaken episode "Threshold", if anyone dares to remember that one. Though beyond that, I personally enjoyed the endgame shows of DS9 and Voyager more than I did Next Generations (Stewart was still an awesome actor, along with the rest of the primary crew, but the plot was just.. lacking).

Voyager is a very long (or seems long) Star Trek series, in the end. You have a lot of bad or lackluster eggs in the batch, you have some good ones, and you have some awesome ones. All three are inevitable with a series that lasted several years straight-and-true, however.

I actually read on TV tropes there was an episode that was "disowned" almost imedietly after it was aired or somthing...for being so bad. Perhaps thats the one? what was so awful about it?

http://www.jammersreviews.com/st-voy/s2/threshold.php

Essentially, read the above. It more or less describes most of the inconsistencies and general fuck-ups with the episodes plot in general.

Although in a tl'dr version: The plot was inconsistent and outright contradicting of established Star Trek lore on warp travel and the warp threshold (breaking warp 10 is otherwise known as transwarp speed, and in no other instance with transwarp being a factor in a starships travel did anything like what in this episode ever occur). And to add insult to injury.. reptilian Janeway and Tom getting on and having little reptile babies.

Just.. it was disowned by both fans and writers afterwards for good reason.

 

[Vault101]

.

that was very...WTF indeed....

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

Never watched past Deep Space Nine.

Although, I haven't finished that series yet, so I will have to get back to you.