I couldn't ask you to have a better cervix.

[dolari]

You wanna know why Voyager sucked? And why Enterprise is having a huge struggle to gain an audience?

Deep Space Nine.

I've been watching reruns on DS9 on Spike TV. And it's AMAZING how even it's bad episodes are a HUGE cut above anything seen since.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I actually liked the pilot for "Enterprise", and I thought it would hearken back to the old serials of the 20's and 30's, ala Superman, Flash Gordon, and the like -- which I thought would be interesting, and would nicely balance the original's camp, the politically correct Next Generation, Voyager's vaguely western "wagon train across the stars" feel, and the often gritty personal drama of DS9.

So I was geared up for some two-fisted superscience action, where the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys were despicable... and then, somewhere along the line (at least for me), Enterprise... just kinda fell flat. Perhaps it tried too hard, too early. Perhaps there was a great deal of pressure put upon the show to be "The Show That Will Carry Star Trek Into The 21st Century" shtick. Perhaps I read the show wrong.

But it still seems to limp on in the ratings.

To quote Dennis Miller, "But that's my opinion, I could be wrong."

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Voyager was so bad that I stopped watching the show. I simply couldn't handle how badly it was plotted, the Reset Button every week, and how Nothing Ever Went Wrong and Harry remained an ensign for seven years.

Enterprise had a neat idea, and neat premise and a neat pilot (like Voyager). And I actually think that it's a very good series (even BEFORE they re-wrote the premise and went after the Xindi). I just wish they didn't shoehorn Horny Vulcans into show at every available opportunity.

But DS9. It's just straight up a classic. :)

[chrysalis.livejournal.com]

To me, the problem with the two shows is that they didn't make the plots believable for a Star Trek universe (which goes to show you how BAD it is!)

I like some of the Voyager episodes and 1st season Enterprise episodes, but only because of their topics and not because of the execution. There are characters I like in both shows.

My final straw was during the 1st season of Enterprise, when the crew had pissed off another race and they were beaming down to "apologize" at a dinner. So what does Captain Archer do? Take his dog and piss them off more. What captain takes his dog on that kind of mission?!?!?!?

It's cool how mean the Vulcans are in Enterprise though. They had some good plots centered on the Vulcans.

[/end rant]

:)

[karl-moebius.livejournal.com]

Actually, there's a semi-cogent reason why Harry never advanced in grade (probably unknown and completely coincidental to why the writers didn't promote him). In the US Marines, advancement in the first few grades is pretty automatic, you just don't have to mess up, and stay "in grade" for 6-9 months. This also assumes that after 9-12 months, after your tour is up, you move on to something else, where they need someone with your new shiny rank.

On Voyager, that became problematic, since they were there for the long haul, and to preserve the command structure, if someone advanced, everyone would have to advance (eventually) -- and while US Navy captains have the authority to promote someone in grade to replace combat losses, or for special gallantry, it's technically a "temporary thing" (you get the rank, but not the pay, if I remember correctly), and must be approved by BuPers (Bureau of Personnel) for the person to officially hold the rank. These requests are usually rubber-stamped quickly, however, and look good on the person's record.

Now when Voyager got back, just about everyone would probably be summarily promoted to the rank to which they earned, and then run through the Academy to teach Lessons Learned to the new students, before recycling back into the Fleet.

Beyond that, Voyager seemed to be the ship of "C" students, honestly. While the Enterprise got Data, and La Forge, (and the rest of the cast) and all these really talented personnel (and seemingly all the valedictorians of Starfleet Academy), Voyager seemed to be made of the people that would handily be the "red shirts" or background people of any of the other Star Treks. And the show just seemed to stumble across the story arcs, with little apparent rhyme or reason, and quickly degenerated into the most simplistic, formulaic writing I've ever seen, and it went on and on and on!

After a season or two, I began to cheer for the alien-flavor-of-the-week to succeed in destroying Voyager, and ending the series before it could get "worse" (in other words "to put it out of it's misery") and that's about the time I stopped watching, but I've heard from a friend that it picked up with the introduction of the Borg, and the TimeShip but I never watched that long, so I cannot say for certain.

Of course, my viewpoint is rather tainted; I began to watch Babylon 5 around that time, and quickly fell in love with it, and hoped some of it would "rub-off" on Voyager.

[evillord.livejournal.com]

Early on, DS9 struck me as "in need of a focus". They wanted SOME unifying plot, but they couldn't figure out what could carry the episodes along. We had "look at the cool new aliens coming through the wormhole". We had "Cardiassians and the Maquis." We had "Bajoran religious politics." But they had an ace up their sleeves in case none of these worked out: they kept hinting at something called "The Dominion". When the Dominion wars started, we saw sides of the Federation we had never seen before -- The Federation at war!

I kept wondering why the Federation didn't just send a probe into Borg space, giving them a map to Dominion space saying "Look at all the cool stuff this bunch have! Wouldn't you want to assimilate them?" But no, they had to save the Borg for Voyager, in case people couldn't take the Kazon seriously (which we couldn't).

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

That episode pissed me, off, too. Archer was a jerk in that episode. One of the problems with Enterprise is while everyone out there is written pretty consistently, Archer isn't. One episode, he's an ass, another he's a boy scout, and another he's Bruce Willis.

I'm still happier with Enterprise than Voyager, though. Voyager really just insulted my intelligence.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

The fin thing is, once DS9 found it's niche, and ran with it, you could go back to earlier episodes and see some of the threads and seeds that ended up coming full circle down the line.

The Kazon confused me. They were a backwards culture that could barely survive in the Ocampa desert...but they had battleships?

And considering how fast Voyager was making a beeline for Federation space, hey sure hung around a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time....

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

C Students. :) One of the things I used to say was Voyager was the B-Ark of the Federation, sent out to the Badlands to get rid of them. :)

You didn't miss much once the Borg were introduced...I heard the emasculated them (one lowly Federation ship destroying cubes left and right). Year of Hell was a good episode, and one I only saw because I heard it was the original Season 3 cliffhanger (instead of Scorpion).

Now B5...THAT ws a gripping piece of literature. :) I loved that show to death.

[karl-moebius.livejournal.com]

I remember watching the first few Enterprise episodes and getting mental whiplash at the Vulcan's recalcitrance at divulging any sort of information. Or when they had to pop a hull plate off the hull, and for a few episodes, it stayed gone. A little thing, I know, but I appreciated it.

[chrysalis.livejournal.com]

Yeah I liked that too. They had to work hard to get the ship repaired, and there was obvious continuity between episodes. I know ST:TNG could have benefitted from that at times.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

Voyager, too. The bad thing about Voyager was how the ship had that Starfleet Fresh look week after week.

[karl-moebius.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Considering it's not eactly pulling into a starbase for repairs when the manual says, I'd expect Voyager to start looking a little ragged around the edges. Have a few scorch marks here and there on the hull, y'know?