There's actually a decent character in Neelix

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I really missed him when he left. I thought his ceremonial departure was quite touching.

Stockholme Syndrome.

Stockholme Syndrome was never a real thing.

Yeah?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'm looking for the full citation, but basically, one quack came up with it on the spot to explain why these hostage women were less sympathetic to the authority figures than the hostage takers, as embodied by him and the police. The fact is that the hostage woman was acting rationally because the cowboy cops charging in presented a higher threat to her life than the hostage takers did. When the woman explained this, the shrink decided she was crazy.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah I feel compelled to question the emotional fortitude of a yellow journalist's debutant daughter, myself.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

So have we just given up talking about Nelix?

Neelix is just a bad part of a badly done show....maybe the worst. Voyager made a lot of bad calls, and having an alien guide cook goofball is close to the worst, right after "boring new space", "the split crew" and the "always perfectly repaired ship".

Out of those three points, I can only give you the last one, and even on this part, I'm having my problems.
See: Once you've swallowed down the concept, that you just travelled 75.000 lightyears in one instant and need to find a way home - you still fly through space with new aliens, who might be like the ones, you've met before, so it's a day in the office.

"The split crew" might have worked as a concept, but I think, not much people love it, if the characters, whose adventures you're supposed to enjoy, always hate each others guts.

Personally, I think, you don't describe Voyager, but the Destiny of Stargate Universe. Boring new space (check) and split crew (check).

The only thing, that is different on Universe: The ship is not in top-condition every time.
And we see, how boring it is, if the lights are always out, the show is dark (because there is no light) and we can't use the fancy-schmancy stuff on the ship to the fullest, because it would drain power.

Voyager on the other hand: I can't help, I found the stories enjoyable.

Neelix and Kes was also used to be the everyman/viewer. Just look at all the episodes where someone explains something to them...and the viewers at home. This is always a bad spot for a character.

Not always.
Lots of stories have that surrogate character and lot's of them are good.
Over on "Doctor Who", the companion is the viewers surrogate character, SG-1 has Jack, SG-A has John - or McKay, if you're more into quirky characters - SG-U has Eli - and then there's of course Harry Potter, who is next to "prodigy"-character also the surrogate, because all these other people need to explain the wizarding world to him.
So "Everyman / viewer" doesn't always equal "bad spot for a character".

[Zargon]

Of the three points:

1.Boring new space: Voyager is 70,000 light years away...and everything is the same. Most of the stories are typical Star Trek shows, like your watching a "traditional five(er seven) year mission". Except it's new far away space....that is exactly like the space around the Federation. It's like travailing to an very remote and exotic place, and then you order MacDonalds or instead of going to the harvest dance you sit in your hotel room and watch Star Wars for the 207th time.

2.The split crew. This is given a huge amount of pointless screen time in the pilot. Two crews. Then the show stars and they just about completely drop it. The Marque have like maybe three episodes over the seven years (Remember when Tuvok became a teacher after they were all on the ship for years? Really THAT should have been Episode 2 season 1). So what was the point of even having two crews if it was just going to be Immediately Dropped? You could of just had all the crew be all Voyager officers and you would not have changed the show one bit.

3.The perfect ship. Well this goes right back to the your watching a "traditional five(er seven) year mission". On a traditional show like that, the ship will just about always be 100%, because the Infrastructure of Starfleet is just a warp away. But this is again the same problem: Voyager was not made to be that show. Alone, with no support, we should have seen a much more wear and tear on the ship (much more like the reboot Battlestar Glattica).

For poor Neelix is not that he is the cabbagehead everyman: it's more the problem is that is all he is. Jack on Stargate is the leader/hero/everyman/snarky comment guy he does not just stand around until it's time for him to ask "hey why is a star hot?" Most of the good Doctor Who companions are the ones that were characters in other ways others then just screaming and saying "what is that Doctor?"

Neelix has that stats, but they almost never get used. For example, he is a scavenger and makes do with what they can find and cobble together. And this would have fit in great if the ship was falling apart and needed care....but Voyager was always perfect. It only comes up a couple times in seven years. Same way Neelix is a bit of a shady trader, but again this just about never comes up....maybe except for the episode "Fair Trade". Even his role as "ambassador" is treated as a joke. Guess that is way he got the cool job of Babysitter after Naomi Wildman was born(remember when he told all the kids the scary ghost story about the haunting a deck 13 or plaid on the holodeck with Naomi) .

[Madner Kami]

The only thing, that is different on Universe: The ship is not in top-condition every time.
And we see, how boring it is, if the lights are always out, the show is dark (because there is no light) and we can't use the fancy-schmancy stuff on the ship to the fullest, because it would drain power.

Good morning. Glad you so easily display that you haven't watched much of the show. Energy stopped being a problem by episode 5, once the crew learns how Destiny is powered. Though it does becomes a plot-point lateron again, as a recurring villain blockades their normal means of recharging/refueling. You know, good coherent story-telling and advancing a consistent plot in a persistent world.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I've seen the show about 2.75 times and really I didn't remember all that, just to be frank.


It's super hard for me to pay attention to or care about the first episodes of a show for some reason. I mean like even if I've gone so far as to have seen it already. It's so hard for me to grasp what the Caretaker situation is about, speaking specifically.

[CaptainCalvinCat]

1.Boring new space: Voyager is 70,000 light years away...and everything is the same. Most of the stories are typical Star Trek shows, like your watching a "traditional five(er seven) year mission". Except it's new far away space....that is exactly like the space around the Federation. It's like travailing to an very remote and exotic place, and then you order MacDonalds or instead of going to the harvest dance you sit in your hotel room and watch Star Wars for the 207th time.

So, what could one have done differently? If Voyager was so dull, then you might have an idea, how to fix that? "new far away space" is a nice buzzword: What are you going to do with it?

2.The split crew. This is given a huge amount of pointless screen time in the pilot. Two crews. Then the show stars and they just about completely drop it. The Marque have like maybe three episodes over the seven years (Remember when Tuvok became a teacher after they were all on the ship for years? Really THAT should have been Episode 2 season 1). So what was the point of even having two crews if it was just going to be Immediately Dropped? You could of just had all the crew be all Voyager officers and you would not have changed the show one bit.

Dunno, I'm not one of the writers - I could explain it, however. I'd say: Well, we have two different crews and we show, that they work together in relative harmony - and with that, we want to show, that a) when push comes to shove, these people will work together and b) in the future, there is no space for these "mimimi, I'm a member of the Federation, I'm sooo much better than you!"-fellows.

3.The perfect ship. Well this goes right back to the your watching a "traditional five(er seven) year mission". On a traditional show like that, the ship will just about always be 100%, because the Infrastructure of Starfleet is just a warp away. But this is again the same problem: Voyager was not made to be that show. Alone, with no support, we should have seen a much more wear and tear on the ship (much more like the reboot Battlestar Glattica).

I give you that one.

The only thing, that is different on Universe: The ship is not in top-condition every time.
And we see, how boring it is, if the lights are always out, the show is dark (because there is no light) and we can't use the fancy-schmancy stuff on the ship to the fullest, because it would drain power.

Good morning. Glad you so easily display that you haven't watched much of the show. Energy stopped being a problem by episode 5, once the crew learns how Destiny is powered. Though it does becomes a plot-point lateron again, as a recurring villain blockades their normal means of recharging/refueling. You know, good coherent story-telling and advancing a consistent plot in a persistent world.

Oh. Energy stopped being a problem? Cool - must've happened during one of these episodes I dozed off on watching and couldn't bother to actually rewind the damn thing on my video recorder.
And I fell asleep on this show a lot, because it was so frakking boring and so full of "I hate you, you hate me".

You know, you can say about Voyasger whatever you want - but it was never boring.

[CharlesPhipps]

Ron Moore was very clear that the biggest problem with VOYAGER'S writing room was that the vast majority of the writers actually hated the premise. It was passed down on them from above and they actively resented the idea of, "New aliens, Low Supplies, Getting Home." They had been writing Trek for over a decade by that point and really just wanted to write more TNG as well as Earth stories. Which is why they constantly had Voyager encountering stuff from the Alpha Quadrant.

It didn't help that Moore has also said that UPN wasn't happy with it either. They said, "Just make it as much like TNG as possible. We don't want something different from Star Trek. We bought you for more Star Trek."

https://trekmovie.com/2008/06/21/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-fighting-the-trek-cliches/

[CaptainCalvinCat]

Ron Moore was very clear that the biggest problem with VOYAGER'S writing room was that the vast majority of the writers actually hated the premise. It was passed down on them from above and they actively resented the idea of, "New aliens, Low Supplies, Getting Home." They had been writing Trek for over a decade by that point and really just wanted to write more TNG as well as Earth stories. Which is why they constantly had Voyager encountering stuff from the Alpha Quadrant.

It didn't help that Moore has also said that UPN wasn't happy with it either. They said, "Just make it as much like TNG as possible. We don't want something different from Star Trek. We bought you for more Star Trek."

https://trekmovie.com/2008/06/21/exclusive-interview-ron-moore-fighting-the-trek-cliches/

Well, Moore got his chance to show, what he could do, with NBSG and - although it was a good show, it only lasted 4 seasons and people are saying, that the ending was very weak. Basically: Like Star Trek: Enterprise.

Funnily enough: Voyager - the thing, that people obviously hate - managed to be the last series (to date) that had seven seasons - as TNG and DS9. And I have to be honest: I'm not a big fan of the "low supplies" stuff, either, so I'd probably be one of the authors, who had said: "Okay, let's do that, but let's do it in the more traditional trek way."