The problem with Seven is that she was over-exposed period. It wouldn't have mattered if she looked like a Borg Barbie or an actual Borg, the show still became All About Seven, to the exclusion of every other character--including the Captain herself. All in all, the problem with Voyager wasn't that it was horribly bad, but it was horrible bland, and there were a lot of missed opportunities and flat out sloppy writing. Like the fact that the ship started off with 38 torpedoes and fired off close to a hundred.
There is so much wrong with the show, I don't even know where to begin. I'm sure I've already given my thoughts on the matter a few dozen times during my TBBS days. I don't really want to go over it again. As far as I'm concerned, the show doesn't exist. In my world the final Star Trek television series finished its run on June 2nd, 1999. And the JJ Abrams movie was the first Trek feature film since November 22nd, 1996.
It'd be a shame if future incarnations of Trek ignored the existing library of characters beyond the original series. I get what you're saying yet I don't see the need to exclude them from the Trek universe. Of course I wouldn't be too hung up if the characters did not unfold the way they originally did.
Meh, the Paris/Torres thing was more a process of elimination. Kes was already with Bridge Troll...er, Neelix, and TPTB were never gonna pair Janeway with anyone. To me, it's like the way Harry and Ginny get together. What did get irksome over second viewings was B'Elanna's identity crises. I think just about every Torres-centric episode (excluding the Ponn Farr one--seriously, what were they THINKING?) dealt with her trying to accept both sides of her lineage, being emo about being Klingon or some bullshit, ect. It's a wonder anyone put up with her crap, generational ship or not.
Voyager did and always will suck fucking balls. A couple of years ago, I sat through about a season and a half and it was still horrible. It's like Star Trek for children. Keep everything self contained and nobody will get confused. Truly the lowest common denominator Star Trek. It didn't stay true to it's premise and I can't take it serious at all. Every word in Ron Moore's rant after he left the Voyager staff is dead on. It had alot of potential despite some really bad casting, but it fucked it all up in the hands of hacks. Fuck Voyager.
People were spoiled by the time they got Voyager. Last night, I caught the TNG episode where the little girl's imaginary friend was wreaking havoc on the ship, and only Troi could help her. Who's gonna defend that poopsickle? How vicious would the criticism have been if that was a Voyager episode?
It would have been one of Voyager's best episodes ever. Allow me to quote Sci-Fi God Ron Moore... "VOYAGER doesn’t really believe in anything. The show doesn’t have a point of view that I can discern. It doesn’t have anything really to say. I truly believe it simply is just wandering around the galaxy. It doesn’t even really believe in its own central premise, which is to me its greatest flaw."
What deep political message was in say, "the inner light"? None, it was drama bouncing off of a piece of alien tech. And it's beloved. Trouble with tribbles? Ditto. Every single Trek didn't necessarily have to have "something to say". Oh, it's nice when it did...but, typical episodes didn't. What "grand arc", did TOS have? Besides the opening narration? Yeah, Uncle Albert's right, audiences were spoiled.
I think another factor, and this goes back to my OP, is the times. TOS, it was all about "oh, won't it be so keen when we have race equality, no more 'Nam, and fancy doohikies?" TNG it was about "...well...won't it be great when we have these fancy doohickies?". Voyager it was "well....we've got the doohickies...now what?". So, they were down to "well...what if Kes lived backwards?", "what if the crew found out they were duplicates?", "what if someone had a time eraser gun, and only Voyager witnessed the changes?". Then, 9/11 happened, so Enterprise was stuck with "oh...shit...guess there's still more work to do". Mixed results on the complacent PTB being able to process it...but..well... But, see, I like that. I like seeing the evolution.
I still think Enterprise should have been maybe 3-4 seasons of the Romulan War, then a couple more seasons on the birth of the Federation. No fucking Xindi at all.
Goes back to complacency, they had 3 7 year commitments/runs in a row, they thought they had the time to fuck around, and weren't going to do Romulan War until season 5. Dumb, but they were in their little bubble so...
After the way the Dominion War was handled on DS9 I wouldn't trust the Romulan War to be well handled. You would end up with some super race of aliens imposing a peace treaty on the Romulans and saving Earths asses. It was new and clever way to avoid a "war series" in the 1960s when the Organians did it. But the idea was tired and lame by the time the Dominion War rolled around the the prophets kept the Federation from losing.
