"Star Trek: Voyager" (1995)
10 June 2013
The Original Network Trek Show, aka "Star Trek" (1966) was a success as a show but a failure for the network which Hosted it. Or so they Thought, it was NBC's loss, and a big one. Syndication provided a way for it to be resurrected in Movies and two Hugely Successful Syndicated TV shows - But never again had it been bought by a Network.
Enter UPN - "Dramatically Different" was their original Tagline, and of the all of the Dramatically Different shows they started with in 1995: Deadly Games, Nowhere Man, Marker, Legend, and Voyager - Only Voyager was kept. In the second year of UPN, all of the Dramatic shows save Voyager were dropped unceremoniously and replaced by Ethnic Comedies. I have said in another review, Ethnic Comedies are not a problem for me, but BAD comedies are, and to replace all of some interesting Dramatic shows with Bad comedies was UPN's first huge mistake. But Keeping Voyager in the Delta Quadrant, was UPNs only success.
So for the first time in 29 years, Trek finally became a NEW Network show- For the company that produced it- Paramount and the Network they created specifically to host new Trek shows.
What was Bad about Voyager? There were a few things:
New Technobabble was created and shoved into the mouths of Kate Mulgrew, Robert Duncan MacNiel, Roxanne Dawson, Jennifer Lien (More about her later), Robert Picardo, Tim Russ and Robert Beltran and other actors as if they were Soap bars given them by their parents when they were misbehaving kids. Only Robert Duncan MacNiel and Tim Russ had been exposed to both ST:TNG and DS9, so it was more believable coming from them. But from Garret Wang and Roxanne Dawson and Captain Kate - Well, it took them a while to start doing it right.
New "Starfleet" Uniforms - The DS9 Uniforms were supposed to be the new Fleet uniforms too, but for the fact they looked unflattering and sometimes just plain bad. Eventually, in DS9, these uniforms became only the Station Uniforms while the TNG uniforms were brought back for Starships and Starfleet Command. But Voyager was stuck with them until Season 4, they were slightly updated to look better before given the "First Contact" Uniforms.
I'm sure there are other things I didn't like - I hated these new Kazon enemies, but Voyager needed new Races that could cause them Grief - Like Viidians. But as Voyager started moving toward home, new interesting Races had to be thought up, plus, Old ones like The Borg - We knew, Voyager would eventually run into the main Hive. And then new ones, like the Hirogen, who were a great Predator-Type Race, and Honorable like Klingons and Predators.
What was Good about Voyager? Plenty of things. Remember it took Next Generation at least one year to find it's stride - Voyager took almost two and a half years, despite some very good initial episodes. But we have to remember, this show was not syndicated and therefore not immune to Cancellation and therefore Micromanaged by it's Parent Network, UPN. So each week, I could see this struggle between the Trek Creative Teams and Network Beancounters and Pencil Pushers, a struggle which the Creative force eventually won starting about 2 and a half years in.
But my main complaint was that there was this one great Character - Kes. At First I thought she was rather Silly, but as I saw the range of Jennifer Lien finally being accessed, especially in episodes like "Warlord" and even "Before and After" which pointed to "The Year of Hell" - I knew she was much better than being given credit for. I never knew why the Character was taken out so abruptly, but when I found out that they yanked her Unceremoniously, I was livid. They basically fired her, although she was the strongest new Actress of the show - If you don't believe me, watch "Warlord" which shows some dynamic acting on her part.
Despite this huge mistake, Voyager entered Borg Space and took on a needed new passenger, Seven of Sixty-Nine, a Sexy Borg - Who was able to accomplish what Kes did for the Year of Hell, and the Krenim storyline explained this wonderfully.
You will always see Temporal Causality Loops in Trek, it's just part of the fabric of Trek Reality, and Voyager was able to put new interesting twists into these kinds of stories- Even keeping changes which were introduced during some of the more Major Time stories. But they also explored all kinds of interesting things - A Race that attacked Voyager in their Sleep, a Woman who created a Holodeck Character and falls in love with Tuvok - Even Neelix and Tuvok being joined into "Tuvix" in a Transporter accident.
It took me a while to start enjoying this show, but I agree it was weak in it's first season - So was Next Generation. BUt when all these shortcomings were ironed out- I liked it as much as Next Gen and DS9.
Comments