How To Make Voyager Better

This is for you Star Trek junkies out there.
It is a consistent fact that when the series are rated Voyager comes out on the bottom every time.
There are many reasons for this, people who hate Neelix, hate Kes, hate Samantha Wildman, hated the mental illness scripts, hated the torture Harry Kim scripts, or thought Janeway's voice was annoying to the point of distraction (that was Jadzia's problem).

My problem was the writing in general and the many wasted opportunities.
There were problems with the show could have been fixed easily and with simple character dynamics.
A good friend of mine has been trying to slog through the second season and we've been discussing what could have been done to make the show work from the git go.
Any suggestions on your part that don't involve just dumping characters would be great.

One of the biggest problems was the relationship between Neelix and Kes.
They were supposed to be a couple and yet there was never a moment of affection shown between them.
If they had been shown cuddling together, talking about these strange people they'd been allied with I think that would have gone a long ways towards making the characters real and make the viewers more invested.
For all that people thought that Kes was a waste she made the Doctor a more human character and I think that she would have served with Neelix as the ships councilor instead being dumped like she was.
It would have for a better show in the long run to keep her.

Seska was an interesting character who turned into a soap opera.
If they had kept her on the ship as a Cardassian who was never truly trusted but actually had the ships best interests at heart she would have served as a perfect foil to Janeway.
The show needed someone who wasn't in love with the Captain. She could have been the Garik for Voyager and always kept people on their toes.
Also would have been interesting to see how she would have reacted when they got back having pretty much become a member of a Federation crew.

I have other ideas but what do you think?

 

I would have done a Tasha Yar type of ending for a major character (as in bring them on the show to kill off at the right time), and make the death meaningful unlike the awful way Denise left TNG.

 

The major character kill of Kes, was done later after she had been written off the show and the episode was absolutely awful.
And when they killed off Seska it was anti-climatic, pretty much a waste of a character.

One of the other ideas I was going to talk about was Janeway dealing with a relationship.
I'm sure they thought it would make her a weaker character or it would be too difficult to write but I think that's lazy.
They had multiple opportunities to show that a strong woman can balance a job and a relationship.
Chakote might have been problematic because of his rank but I think the most likely person.

On the sex and gender side of things why would Seven of Nine a cis female?
I think they missed a good opportunity to make her a lot more interesting by making her willing to check out woman as well as men.

 

Jennifer's character coming back as a vengeful demi-god was a weak story. Martha Hackett played a promising character but they messed up on that one as well.

 

I would have enjoyed am alternate ending in which they did not make it home and found a hospitable planet to colonize. Almost making a new presence in that quadrant for the federation and allowing other shows in the future to link into that storyline by finding them. (Haven't really fleshed that idea out but you get the picture )

 

In Enterprise there was an episode during the time when they looking for the Xindi home world in the Delphic Expanse where because of the warps caused by the spheres they meet their ship from the future.
It's run by their children and has had alien tech grafted on it so it looks pretty cool.

That was one of the other ideas we came up with.
They don't make it home but their grandkids do and the ship looks nothing like the one that we think of as Voyager.
The results of multiple cross species mixes, the attempt to keep the Federation alive no matter what, it would have been a lot more interesting than just getting home.
And it might have been an opening for a new show.

 

Yeah, that would've been great. I couldn't get into the Enterprise series though. I just couldn't buy into the characters. The idea was solid but I would've enjoyed something in the future rather than the "past-future".
Maybe better writing for that too? Now I'm thinking of adding this to my list of "to-write" fan-fiction.

 

I rewatched it recently because I had missed a lot of the last seasons.
It held up really well.
Once you get past the first season, the show gets better.
The Andorian Captain Shran was a great character and the explanation for the Klingons from different generations of Star Trek was nicely handled.
The last episode was awful but that's another thread.

 

I really liked Voyager. It wasn't as good as TNG, but I had very few complaints about it.

It has been a few years since I have watched it, but I will watch it again sometime.

 

But you can watch the hell out of them finding things, that's exploration.
Or dealing with being a weird mix of people instead of the standard crew.
Or how to make the ship work when you don't have the supplies and nifty tech to fix things (they really didn't do that much).

 

I actually liked STV. My biggest gripe was Voyager the spaceship wasn't equipped for full battle (I'm not enough of a ST nerd to know its classification or to look it up), yet it managed to survive many major scrapes.

Reading this thread makes me realize something interesting: Other than Janeway, I can't easily recall any of the characters. I would need to see photos &/or vids to trigger "Oh yeah, now I remember suchnsuch."

 

1) Janeway - Of course

2) Chakotay

3) Tom Paris

4) The Doctor

5) 7 of 9

6) Neelix

7) B'elanna Torres

8) Harry Kim

9) Tuvok

10) Kes

11) Seska

12) Naomi Wildman

 

Thanks, redravin, those images tiggered my memory.

I had forgotten that the Seven Of Nine character (Jeri Ryan back when she was totally hot) was carried over from TNG. And I really liked Robert Picardo as The Doctor (can't remember if his character also carried over from TNG).

 

On the subject of making the show better there is the final shows.
Using the Borg in a weak manner made the last shows finale the worst ever.

I think they missed a great opportunity by not bringing back species 8472.
If they had used the sideways universe to get home and come screeching back with 8472 right behind them it would have made for a great show arc.
Think about it, they would have been showing up right after the Dominion War with aliens that no one else knows how to fight.
They won't have time to be happy to be home because they have to hunker down and kill.
Make the last shows something to remember, show the characters being badasses.
Show how 8472 really are one of the scarier aliens that Star Trek created.


--- merged: Apr 14, 2015 12:50 PM ---

Actually Seven of Nine was a completely new character for Voyager.
And yes, she was incredibly hot.
Picardo shows up as a delay for the Borg in the TNG movie First Contact.