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SG Universe was awful!

Maybe it was better than voyager but god what a drama-fest.

The issue i had with it is with most star trek series is the reset button at the beginning of each episode, and crewmembers dieing left and right without having an impact.

But it had some great episodes and arcs.

Sometimes I feel like a real weirdo, Voyager was and is my favorite Trek series. The first season or two were a bit rough but it got better with time.

Of course, my perspective might be skewed by fond memories of gathering around the tv every wednesday at 9pm with my parents to watch it. We watched TOS and TNG reruns randomly/whenever, and occasionally one-off episodes of DS9, but Voyager brought us together as a family and was something we committed to watching in "real time" - the few times we weren't able to watch it live we would record it to VHS and come together to watch it together at the next available opportunity.

It was a simpler time.

scarletsquig wrote:
Stargate Universe did a better job of the same concept.

And yet didn't perform well enough to, y'know, actually wrap up its story...

 Dysartes wrote:

scarletsquig wrote:
Stargate Universe did a better job of the same concept.

And yet didn't perform well enough to, y'know, actually wrap up its story...

Yeah, because:

 Insectum7 wrote:
SG Universe was awful!

Maybe it was better than voyager but god what a drama-fest.

SG-1: Lighthearted space adventure. Atlantis: Lighthearted space adventure. Universe: Ceaseless misery porn (IN SPACE!).

Universe may have done the lost in space premise better (I wouldn't know, I certainly didn't keep watching), but it was a pretty significant and as it turned out unwise departure from what fans wanted to see in a Stargate show. Know your audience and all that.

For all its flaws, Voyager at least provides more of the same and slots in well with Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. In terms of audience expectations it's simply inoffensive in what it shows. It's hardly surprising that they could keep it running longer.

Ah, Stargate Universe, or as I used to call it "Battlestargate Voyager".

BSG is an interesting comparison since it went very dark and was serialized.

It was a much better show, but went on at least a season too long and showed the problem with pretending you have a plan when you actually don't.

It also shows the problem with going dark, too much misery in a row and the show starts to make the audience feel bad and not want to come back.

It was the Cylons that had the plan, after all… Also the All Along the Watchtower episode was amazing (along with quite a few others). But the constant grinding negativity was quite hard to push through sometimes. It’s the reason I stopped reading and watching game of thrones.

Its important to note that Ron Moore tried to write for Voyager after DS9 wrapped and the amount of pushback he got in it was what spurred him to leave Trek, which ultimately led to the BSG reboot project. You can absolutely see some elements that the Voyager writers were super bitter about (lasting damage, dwindling supplies and personnel) reflected in that show.

And yeah, BSG had a big writers strike, and fell back on misery porn in lieu of workshopping its ideas. I always recommend watching it up to Crossroads Part 2 and let that be the capstone for the series.

So I added Tulix to my rewatch and yeah, holy cow, Janeway straight up murders a dude who was begging for his life.

It's criminally bad writing unless you want Janeway to be the villain of the show. It's like the writers forgot they control the scenario.

You need to put things back, OK, do the episode, include Tulix's Shylock speech ("if I'm happy, I laugh") then we learn the fusion is unstable and either they take them apart or all 3 die. Or put some stakes in it, there's something only Tuvok (or Neelix) can do so they have to separate them to save the ship. Or something!

But Janeway has no reason to kill Tulix, she just liked having them separate better.

Incredible.

Or, alternately, keep Tulix, write out Tuvok and Neelix, make it part of a meta plot about the people on Voyager are being irrevocably changed by their journey.

But no. Let's make our hero a murderer.

It was too soft and mushy in the interpersonal relationships to feel that real. It had an 80's feel good sit com vibe to the cast. The captain was amazing, they neglected the first officer and turned neelix into a bop bag. Not a lot of growth occurred for too many of the crew to be great.

I don't think Voyager was as bad as it's made up in the OP, but it's surely behind TNG and DS9. Still miles above Discovery, but that's easy .

- There were very strong single episodes that are on par with the best Trek has to offer. "Distant origin", for one. Nearly the whole 4th season is a highlight and showed what Voyager should have been. Most episodes are linked in a way that makes sense and you have some proper development in the crew coping with the Borg threat. Unfortunately, from season 5 onwards they seem to have forgotten that there are more people than Janeway, 7, Paris and the Doctor on the ship.

- However, one main problem lies in the basic approach: They always move in one direction. Yet, inspired from DS9, the writers in season 1 and 2 tried to build up returning enemies like Seska that would appear every couple of weeks while being obviously low-tech idiots. So how could these guys keep up with the Voyager without even actively pursuing the ship? It just didn't make sense. Same problem happened when the Hirogen returned in season 7, 2 seasons after you saw them the last time. Even though that episode about the Holo-rebellion is awesome, it's just far too late to make any sense logically.

- Instead, the series should/ could have been about the crew. But apparently noone in the writing team wanted that. There were, again, singular moments where they played a little with the Starfleet/ Maquis problem, but it never went deep. I remember that quite nice "Lower Decks" episode from one of the later seasons which would have been great if any of the guys of that episode had ever been seen again (or before).

- Too many Borg. Ties in to the problems mentioned already. Scorpion made it sound as if the Voyager had basically crossed the borg territory in that episode already. But they kept coming up again and again while apparently the same Queen that stayed in the same main base followed Voyager whenever she wanted, despite being tens of thousands of lightyears away in the end.

- Some of the "values" or moral problems haven't aged well or were already outdated in the 90's. I remember that episode where the Doctor programs his own family in an extremely sexist 50's USA style which was already out of place 1995, let alone 2020, and let even more alone 2370 .

I’m one of those crazies who liked Voyager better than DS9, and enjoyed Enterprise (except the 3rd season).

Part of that was that I had run a Star Trek (FASA) game where the PCs ship had been hurled far, far away and were having to make their way back to the Federation (through Klingon occupied space), so the journey appealed to me.

However, never really did care for the Kazon, they were so two-dimensional thugs. And I really enjoyed the addition of Seven’s character to the series.

 Stormonu wrote:
I’m one of those crazies who liked Voyager better than DS9, and enjoyed Enterprise (except the 3rd season).

Part of that was that I had run a Star Trek (FASA) game where the PCs ship had been hurled far, far away and were having to make their way back to the Federation (through Klingon occupied space), so the journey appealed to me.

However, never really did care for the Kazon, they were so two-dimensional thugs. And I really enjoyed the addition of Seven’s character to the series.

I think you just summarized my own thoughts exactly! Even getting to not liking the Kazon. To me, they were so forgettable that I always literally forget about them until someone or something brings them up again.

I didn't hate Voyager, but there was no compelling reason to watch it at the time. Was it Star Trek? Sure, but was it compelling? No. Was it inconsistent and meandering? Yes.

Regarding some other shows mentioned:

Stargate: Universe was terrible for a Stargate show. Too many characters, too much melodrama and misery. It only got interesting to me right at the end of season 2 and then it was cancelled because... it threw out what made Stargate fans love Stargate.

Battlestar Galactica was two of the best seasons of TV I ever watched. Then season 3 happened and it never recovered.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So I added Tulix to my rewatch and yeah, holy cow, Janeway straight up murders a dude who was begging for his life.

It's criminally bad writing unless you want Janeway to be the villain of the show. It's like the writers forgot they control the scenario.

You need to put things back, OK, do the episode, include Tulix's Shylock speech ("if I'm happy, I laugh") then we learn the fusion is unstable and either they take them apart or all 3 die. Or put some stakes in it, there's something only Tuvok (or Neelix) can do so they have to separate them to save the ship. Or something!

But Janeway has no reason to kill Tulix, she just liked having them separate better.

Incredible.

Or, alternately, keep Tulix, write out Tuvok and Neelix, make it part of a meta plot about the people on Voyager are being irrevocably changed by their journey.

But no. Let's make our hero a murderer.

The thing is, for basically all the reasons you stated, I think that this was one of the show's strongest episodes.

I get that people feel uncomfortable with the premise and the resolution, but that's the whole point. In so many cases across Trek, people's lives are in imminent danger and they (almost) always pull some McGuffin out of their ass to solve the problem and everyone walks away safe and sound. It's a good thing that the show didn't do this.

In so many other situations, it's very clear what the moral choice of the situation is and the characters (almost) always do the right things and everything comes out sunshine and rainbows. I'm not saying that it should never happen that way, but it happens improbably often. Here is a situation where there is no good outcome, no matter what, someone is dead, and Janeway is given the power to decide whom that someone is. (DS9 excluded from both these examples because it was great and knew how to tell a long running in depth story with character growth.)

There is Tuvix who very clearly is an aware sentient being who wants to live, but should never have existed in the first place. On the other hand, there is BOTH Tuvok who is both their security chief and essentially Janeway's best friend and this point in the show, as well as Nelix who aside from being romantically involved with another member of the crew, was an important guide to the unknown region of space they are trapped in. Both indispensable members of the crew (even if the show often forgets that).

"It is not only what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do."

By not reversing the procedure, Janeway is functionally choosing to let both Tuvok and Nelix die, and by doing it, she is killing Tuvix. There is no moral high ground, no right decision, there is only the least tragic one. Either way, she will bear a burden of guilt and responsibility that she never asked for, thus is the fate of the person in charge when you are lost and on your own.

While I think the show really wasted the potential for some darker stories, (though we still got Equinox which was great) this episode really set a precedent of what the show could be. Something that asked tough moral and philosophical questions of its characters, and by extension the audience.

I still think about this episode 20 years after I watched it, and while I still think that Janeway did the correct thing, I honestly don't know if I could have done the same in her shoes. To me, that is the mark of a great story.

My only real gripe about this is that it's forgotten about after the episode, we never see Janeway having to deal with her emotions and guilt over this decision. However, we do later in the series get a similar story and similar payoff with another character. In Latent Image we see the Doctor dealing with the guilt of having to choose one life over another. I wish we'd seen some of that introspection on Janeway's part instead of her just being the strong captain and moving on as though nothing happened. However, that is the fault of the series and not the episode itself.

scarletsquig wrote:
Stargate Universe did a better job of the same concept.

With all that non-consensual sexing in other peoples bodies crap?

Nah. I'll watch the worst episode of VOY any day over that mess.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
So I added Tulix to my rewatch and yeah, holy cow, Janeway straight up murders a dude who was begging for his life.

It's criminally bad writing unless you want Janeway to be the villain of the show. It's like the writers forgot they control the scenario.

You need to put things back, OK, do the episode, include Tulix's Shylock speech ("if I'm happy, I laugh") then we learn the fusion is unstable and either they take them apart or all 3 die. Or put some stakes in it, there's something only Tuvok (or Neelix) can do so they have to separate them to save the ship. Or something!

But Janeway has no reason to kill Tulix, she just liked having them separate better.

Incredible.

Or, alternately, keep Tulix, write out Tuvok and Neelix, make it part of a meta plot about the people on Voyager are being irrevocably changed by their journey.

But no. Let's make our hero a murderer.

I mean... you could look at it that way.
But I mostly remember the episode as gak fake melodrama. Its an accident, fix it and don't kill your two crew members and pretend they have no agency. The end.

The fused being has no real connections or presence in anyone's life, including its own. The individuals have history, relationships, meaning and (in the case of Tuvok) depth. There's zero reason to flush them because 'oops, technobabble.'

That episode was better than it had any right to be. Mixing two people up in the transporter seemed like a stupid premise to me, but after the first time watching the episode I was left speechless. It really did ask some uncomfortable ethical questions, and that is one mark of a great Trek episode.

I don't think Voyager was quite as bad as has been hinted at in this thread. It definitely wasn't DS9 good, but still not horrible.

I think the series would have been better with just a few tweaks.

I'd have likes to see Voyager change over time. Mounting damage and scars on the hull, even if they had a few episodes where a "nice alien race" donated a shipyard for a few weeks just to help them and reset the look of the ship to a newer state.

It was shown that Janeway was open to the idea of using alien tech to improve Voyager, even wanting to mount a mega-cannon on the nose. That concept would have been great for a growing storyline. Adding in a new background piece of non-Federation tech every once in a while.

The crew. I'd have liked to see at least one or two main cast members die. Also, I'd have liked to see them get reinforced by volunteers, or even the moral dilemma of inducting crew member's kids when they got old enough. In The 37's episode I'm surprised not one human wanted to go with them.

In the last season and a half they should have been skimming the back-corners of the Beta Quadrant. It would have been cool to see more stragglers from races introduced long ago, kind of like that episode with the Klingons.

While not really feasible, it would have been interesting to see them have 10 year jumps in time between seasons. They supposedly had 75 years before they got back to federation space, so if they spread it out we could have seen what they tried to do with aging crew and raising a generation or two of kids along the way.

Voyager was kinda doomed from the start, witch what they wanted to do.
It was concieved as a spite show to DS9, Braga didnt like the darker more mature stories it was telling but still suceeding despite him. so he wanted to get back to more light hearted Trek with simpicity, so he made voyager, but they knew the dominion war was coming so they had to have voyager in another place free off that.
But with the idea of straning them in the quadrant there, they then created another problem. What now, how do they do light hearted "Get Home" in a hostile place like that.
They just couldnt. It never made sense. it got repaired every week somehow, crew replacements where not a problem, nothing.
It was all around a shitshow
Ill also never understand why they did have the issues they did, why couldnt replicators work? Why was there power issues at all but not fuel problems? NOTHING

My understanding is replicators don’t make something from nothing. Rather they have banks/vats of raw materials stored elsewhere and they pull from that and rearrange the molecules into your requested item/food. They were unable to easily restock those raw materials away from their support system.

The TNG technical manual highlighted that replicators are very energy intensive; they’re OK for producing small items, but not large components. They were at pains to point out that shipyards were still conventional fabrication facilities, not giant replicators. Starfleet is willing to pay the energy cost on ships, because it means their supplies can be much more efficient (the bulk chemicals AduroT mentioned), rather than having to store every item you might ever need, and in normal circumstances they can just keep the ships fuelled up.

It also stated that there are certain materials / components that were too complex or esoteric for replicators to produce correctly.

Latinum is of course one example of something which cannot be replicated. Dilithium too, if memory serves.

But hey. At least we got Battlestar Galactica out of it, in a round about way. And that is largely brilliant.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I don’t think this is true. Voyager came out around the same time as Space Above and Beyond, and that show got crapped on mercilessly once they used their pilots as frontline ground pounders. Even Babylon 5 got a lot of hate for the first two years. People had high standards for Sci Fi despite there being very few Sci Fi shows of excellent quality.

I did like Space...

The multirole crew makes perfect sense... if you have a resource constrained logistics and deployment system. If getting PAX to target area is difficult, but equipment is not as difficult, or the costs of doing so are great so you only send the brightest and best it makes sense.

Example is the excellent Forever War (I force all Sci-Fi fans to read it and lament there has never been an awesome film or TV series of it). You can send limited people, so they are highly intelligent, highly trained and multirole.

Sadly they then threw in marine boot camp level training and giant spaceships that had enough space for infantry and aerospace experts that would allow more specialisation in each.

I rewatched S:AAB a couple of years back out of nostalgia and it held up remarkably well. Your post got me thinking; it would have been great if they’d done that series with an A team and B team set of characters (maybe make two of them brothers or something), one in the air wing and the other with the ground forces.

Unless it was meant to be a satirical take on every marine a rifleman...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
But hey. At least we got Battlestar Galactica out of it, in a round about way. And that is largely brilliant.

Galactica is interesting in this discussion because save for a few episodes of Roswell and a failed Dragonriders of Pern pitch, it was Moore's next big project after leaving Trek and being let off the leash shows us a lot of expansion of ideas from DS9 and a lot of clear parallels to Voyager's premise (one would argue inescapable parallels since a lot of them are drawn from the original BSG, but they're there) - and I think it shows us what Voyager could have been like, tonally, if it had been his baby instead of Berman's.

Berman sold the networks, and the audience, through the networks, on the 'stranded ship, far away from home' concept with the implicit promise that there would be struggle against bad odds and pulling together - and argued vehemently against delivering on that promise for years (only a season or two of the show proper until the writers basically seemed to give up arguing with him) based on his own misgivings about what the audience wanted. In this regard, BSG is an answer to Voyager: Moore arguing directly with Berman that sci-fi audiences want (and more importantly, are not too stupid to understand) a serialized story, an argument vindicated by serialized stories becoming the standard over the ensuing decade.

The_Real_Chris wrote:The multirole crew makes perfect sense... if you have a resource constrained logistics and deployment system. If getting PAX to target area is difficult, but equipment is not as difficult, or the costs of doing so are great so you only send the brightest and best it makes sense.

I have not seen S:AAB beyond a couple of episodes I may have caught as a kid while channel surfing, but this is something BSG and Star Trek also did which doesn't make sense to me. Pilots are a massive training investment, and even assuming that training somehow also makes you a good ground-pounder (something most operators would highly contest, I think), any one of them is going to do more for the ground war effort by transporting troops to the field or providing close air support than they can ever realistically provide on the ground.

Jadenim wrote:I rewatched S:AAB a couple of years back out of nostalgia and it held up remarkably well. Your post got me thinking; it would have been great if they’d done that series with an A team and B team set of characters (maybe make two of them brothers or something), one in the air wing and the other with the ground forces.

Definitely a solution to the above problem. Probably prohibitively expensive for a show like S:AAB was, or even Voyager or DS9 at the time. A recurring ground-combat element would basically require you to pay two sets of starring actors, or relegate one to a recurring guest role.

It'd be expensive either way, but I'd love to a see a show do that too.

I loved the Dragon Riders of Pern books. Would definitely check out a show based on those.