Often the subject of disagreement, Voyager is talked about poorly by some and praised by others. Seeing plenty of posts about it here. Well ya know - I think Voyager is underrated.

That show took risks. They ran some stories that were just risky in terms of writing and production - sometimes it was a hit, sometimes a stinker. That’s why it has some amazing episodes and some really really stupid ones, because they were willing to take a chance on something uncertain. And I respect that, too many shows these days feel like the same recycled crap because television has become so risk-averse and they’re not willing to take a chance on something that might turn out dumb.

So we got ones like the infamous warp 10 episode, and those are remembered as cases where the show got really dumb. But as an example, Seven of Nine could’ve completely bombed that show. Yes it looked like they were bringing on a bimbo for sex appeal, and they absolutely could’ve went that route with her. Fans might’ve hated the change no matter what. I mean, that’s a big deal, losing a main character and adding a new one - shows don’t always survive that.

 

Also there are things I notice from a production standpoint. From reading about the making of TNG, one thing I remember is them talking about never wanting to damage the costumes or get them dirty, or damage the set. That increases their production costs, cheaper to just not do that.

But Voyager does this all the time. Uniforms are always getting burned and torn, Neelix spills things on his shirt, the bridge is shown being blown up or completely transformed. All the times they have smoke inside there, there’s something with water, parts are broken off - that’s something they had to clean up for the next episode. If they show burn marks on the captain’s chair, that means they’ll have to be cleaned or the whole prop replaced, at the risk of it not being identical or impossible to fix.

 

So the point is - respect for taking those risks. Didn’t always land, but plenty of them did.

  • FatalChessInjury@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Voyager was “my” Star Trek growing up. I live in a country where we didn’t get things as they aired, so we were behind in the broadcast seasons, 1 season behind, from memory. I was too young to really appreciate TNG, but I really liked the feel of Voyager, even as a kid. I always thought that the Enterprise was never too far away from a Federation starbase, but Voyager being all alone really struck a chord with me.

    Also I was 13/14 when Seven of Nine came on board, so of course that ratcheted up my desire to watch the show a million percent.

    But going back and watching it later, with older sensibilities, god DAMN was that a good show overall. Yes, some episodes were terrible, and some of the writing really fell flat, but The Year of Hell particularly stood out for me. I haven’t seen anyone mention The Doctor in the comments so far, and I have to say that Robert Picardo was the perfect choice for that character. The Doctor had one of the best character arcs I’ve seen on TV. He never got “flanderised”, his character was consistent and always entertaining to watch. Chakotay as a character was poorly handled, he was very milquetoast, never really did anything interesting to stand out, he was always just…there.