My friend and I always used to get into arguments over which was better, TNG or Voyager. TNG was my first Star Trek, and Voyager was his, but neither had ever watched the other. Years later, we both watched DS9 and really liked it, so we decided to finally watch each other's favorite series.
He admitted that TNG had a bad start, but ultimately really liked it by the end of Season 2. I recently started watching Voyager. He said "You gotta give it a couple of seasons to get good", and so far I'm near the end of Season 3 and it's still largely forgettable to just plain awful. There are maybe a handful of good episodes or ideas, but it's all just mired down in some of the most lazy writing and unlikable characters in a Trek series ever.
The show seems to have basically tried to coast by on its concept alone. The idea of stranding a ship in the Delta quadrant is interesting on paper, but then the writers just basically wrote generic Star Trek. So many episodes just pan out as half-assed TNG reject scripts.
The biggest disappointment is the characters. Janeway seldom gets any development. 3 seasons in and we know she's stern on the outside, but still warm-hearted, and she likes dogs. Wow. We occasionally get glimpses of her being more well-defined, but rarely. They missed a chance to make her the ultimate, stone-cold pragmatist captain.
I'm not sure how far you are, but I'm at the end of Season 3, and the show still, largely, sucks. I've seen maybe 5 episodes that I would consider "good", and a couple that are some of the worst episodes of Star Trek I've ever seen. The rest are forgettable.
Christopher Clark
Only a few episodes in, but the general feeling I'm getting of the characters is that safe for a few they lack the depth of characters that the main cast of TNG had.
I'm trying to decide whether to continue or ditch it and go for DS9.
Judging from your story I might be better off going for DS9
Eli Robinson
It gets better in the later seasons, but better than complete shit doesn't necessarily = good. If you still don't like it after seven joins the cast, you might never. There are some gems in the series. Why would you go from TNG to voy thou. DS9 is the what one needs after running out of TNG to watch
Jackson Wood
I guess I should hop over to DS9 then, I also still neet to watch the first 2 seasons of TNG because I was told to start at Season 3
William Wilson
It gets a little better when Thirty Six of D replaces Kes.
Sebastian Sanchez
>they lack the depth of characters that the main cast of TNG had I love TNG, but most of the characters there are pretty basic. Not bad, mind you, but apart from Data and Picard, many don't get any real depth. Not that it hurts the show at all.
DS9 is great, apart from it totally dropping the ball in the final season, but it's a fun journey to get there, and the character depth is much better than TNG.
>I also still need to watch the first 2 seasons of TNG because I was told to start at Season 3 >you haven't seen "Measure of a Man" THE FUCK. Never listen to people who tell you to skip seasons of a show. Just watch and judge for yourself. Admittedly most of the bad episodes of the show are in the first two seasons, but with a show as great as TNG, that's not much of a condemnation. There are still plenty of great episodes in there while they were still experimenting with the characters and setting, and like I said, Measure of a Man is one of the best episodes of anything ever. They should fucking show it in schools.
Jordan Thompson
It gets a little better when it becomes "7 and The Doctor's adventures in space", but it's still more miss than hit.
Have you watched DS9 yet first? That comes first and is a lot better, Voyager has a few minor spoilers for it too.
That's the main problem, they were trying to be TNG, even though the premise was that they had no assistance from the Fleet, so resetting at the end of every episode just makes you realise how little they care about the setting.
Alexander Martin
Well thanks lads, guess I'm going to check the first two seasons of TNG and then hop onto DS9
Brandon Anderson
>It's a Janeway chastises a member of the crew for breaking the Prime Directive then does a 180 degree on her opinion and then breaks the Prime Directive herself resulting in the death of the aliens involved >.... episode
Ayden Fisher
it gets better after Jeri Ryan is added and they start getting the story back on them trying to get home.
Jeremiah Nguyen
I thought the two part episode of them going to 90s New York was bad ass
Thomas Cooper
>The only tolerable characters so far are Neelix Nice joke.
Voyager's episode where they meet Neelix should have been like this:
Chakotay: Captain, we're being hailed Janeway: On screen [Neelix appears, rummaging through junk and stuttering like a faggot] Janeway: Tuvok, prepare a trilithium warhead and beam it on to that ship Tuvok: Captain, may I remind you that the explosive yield will disrupt subspace and no ships will be unable to travel at warp speed in this sector Janeway: I'm aware of that, do it. Tuvok: Ready, captain Janeway: Fire. [Continues on to the alpha quadrant]
Charles Gomez
>The show seems to have basically tried to coast by on its concept alone. The idea of stranding a ship in the Delta quadrant is interesting on paper, but then the writers just basically wrote generic Star Trek
>it's a tuvok says somethings logical and attempts to mind meld with it episode
Nolan Peterson
There was DS9 Past Tense which was in New York 2024, the Voyager in the past episode was in LA because they were too cheap to build a set or travel more than half a mile to film.
Juan Cruz
>Moore says that he recognized VOYAGER’s biggest problem by the end of the first episode. "By the end of the pilot, you have the Maquis in those Starfleet uniforms, and— boom—we’ve begun the grand homogenization. I don’t know what the difference is between Voyager and the Defiant or the Saratoga or the Enterprise or any other ship sitting around the Alpha Quadrant. That to me is appalling, because if anything, Voyager—coming home, over this journey, with that crew—by the time they got back to Earth, they should be their own subculture. They should be so different from the people who left, that Starfleet won’t even recognize them any more. What are the things that would truly come up on a ship lost like that? Wouldn’t they have to start not only bending Starfleet protocols, but throwing some of them right out the window? If you think about it in somewhat realistic terms: you’re on Voyager; you are on the other side of the galaxy; for all you know, it is really going to take another century to get home, and there is every chance that you are not going to make it, but maybe your children or grandchildren will. Are you really going let Captain Janeway rule the ship for the next century. It seems like, the ship would eventually evolve its own sort of society. It would have to function in some way, other than just this military protocol that we repeat over and over again because it’s the only thing we know. You’ve got the Maquis onboard. From the get-go they are supposed to be the anti-Starfleet people. They behave exactly like the Starfleet people with the occasional nod towards B’Elanna making a snide remark about Starfleet protocols, or Chakotay getting a little quasi-spiritual. But in essence, they are no different than any other ship in the fleet. The episodes that you watch week after week are so easily translatable to NEXT GEN that it’s almost a cookie-cutter kind of thing. It’s a waste of the premise.
Daniel Hall
>I also still neet to watch the first 2 seasons of TNG because I was told to start at Season 3
once you do, you will understand the Trekkie cliché of "it takes a couple of seasons to get good".
Jack Taylor
Fuck I just noticed DS9 episodes on Netflix are not HD remasters, fuuuark
Lincoln Allen
i skipped that ep and then suddenly the doctor can walk around anywhere and i learned later that they got some kind of future tech from ed begley jr? wtf
wasn't 90s earth supposed to be a wasteland anyway?
Leo Brown
I always wondered if the Battlestar reboot was Moore saying "Fuck you, this is what Voyager should have been like"
>Damage to the ship is seen to be repaired or still there in the next episode >There is proper rationing where people are actually hungry instead of token mentions of "replicator rations" which are so worthless the crew are willing to gamble with them >There are discernible factions with actual motives that can't be vanished with a fancy speech about Federation Ideals and sticking to your principals >If you watch it out of order, it will make no sense at all and spoil the shit out of you
Anthony Ortiz
>i skipped that ep and then suddenly the doctor can walk around anywhere and i learned later that they got some kind of future tech from ed begley jr? wtf
He got some 29th century technology from a far future timeship.
>wasn't 90s earth supposed to be a wasteland anyway?
by 1996 the Eugenics Wars were over and they didn't affect the west coast of the U.S. apparently. Sarah Silverman supposedly had a model of Khan's ship on her desk as an easter egg.
Bentley Sanchez
wow, hit the nail right on the head. i always wondered why everyone was so sterile and cardboard when they had the opportunity to do whatever they wanted and create an interesting twist on star trek
Adam Howard
The only Star Treks in HD are TOS and TNG which were remastered, and Enterprise and the movies which were filmed in HD. DS9 and Voyager won't get remastered because the TNG Blu Ray sales didn't (or barely) paid for the cost of doing it.
Christian Reyes
UPN wanted a series that can be aired out of order with no knowledge of prior episodes required to know whats going on.
Julian Ross
Those font colors on a black background are awful
Isaac Jenkins
yeah... worth it though
Easton Morris
The DVDs still look bretty good tho
Grayson Garcia
yeah I guess it's tolerable, and well worth it considering what I've heard about DS9
Joshua Edwards
I'm surprised the ship lasted as long as it did. The Mirandas are flying redshirts.
Josiah Mitchell
>Have you watched DS9 yet first?
no because I don't like stinky space hags or stories about a shopping mall in outer space
Ayden Walker
damn DAMN MAJOR BAJOR LOOKS LIKE T H A T ?
Aaron Reyes
>I'm surprised the ship lasted as long as it did. They prepared all those ships to fight the Borg, so it makes sense to be a little tougher.
Hudson Martinez
Their actions are strange, they were definitely attacking earlier, but at this point they're only using a tractor beam, but then destroy it, my best guess is that after they disabled it they were going to assimilate the crew, but sensors reported that everyone was dead or evacuated so they just zapped it to continue the fight.
