11 REASONS WHY I HATE STAR TREK: VOYAGER #11

11. Finally, the series finale views like it was ghost directed by William Shatner. After seven years of ignoring lessons well learned while working on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, producer Rick Bermen and writer Brannon Braga decided the time was ripe to implement those fourteen years of experience smashed into twelve when conceptualizing Voyager's big finale. There is a slight problem with this. Seven years of lazy writing and decisions cannot be fixed overnight without firing the entire writing team, and brining in fresh talent. Watching the final episode, Endgame, brings to mind the series finales of the preceding Star Trek titles, though not in a good way. Endgame comes across as though C and D list writers decided to plagiarize previous episodes in the franchise, namely All Good Things. . ., which concluded The Next Generation's television run, and What You Leave Behind, the bittersweet send off to Deep Space Nine.

All Good Things . . . was a fantastic story spanning three time periods in Picard's life: the present, taking command of the Enterprise D, and Picard as an old man. Picard is cast as the underdog in each of these time periods. The current time setting has his crew supporting him, but only tentatively. The past Picard's crew are unsure of their new captain, and go so far as to openly doubt him. In the future sequences Picard is cast as a crazy old man worthy of pity and succeeds in accomplishing his goals by trading upon the benevolent indulgence of those who formerly called him their captain. We also have Q in the episode, once again challenging Picard to save humanity while doubting the captain's intellect along the way. This provides us with a nice full circle scenario as we were first introduced to Q in Encounter at Farpoint, the original episode of The Next Generation. A wonderful story, great characters, and the proper amount of conflict combined with the overall Star Trek feel. All Good Things . . . was perfectly executed.

With Deep Space Nine, we see the epic conclusions to The Dominion War and the centuries long struggle between the Bajoran Prophets and the Pah Wraiths in the masterfully rendered What You Leave Behind. We see our heroes triumph, and the villains fall. We see noble sacrifices, we witness evil turn upon evil, and nothing is left the same when all is said and done. The episode is filled with drama, action, and passion, all to leave you wanting more while knowing this is it. You will only make the mistake once of watching What You Leave Behind without a box of Kleenex within reach. The level of emotion as the characters say farewell to each other is as heart rending as the final episode of M*A*S*H and the final three episodes of Babylon 5. I doubt there are many television shows with such a strong conclusion.

At this point, Star Trek is proving it cannot fail to please when wrapping up a series. And then Voyager comes along.

I have a near perfect image of Rick Berman and Brannon Braga in my mind, talking to each other as the conclusion of Voyager's seventh season approaches. What to do? How to end the series to ensure Voyager's final episode will be remembered for years to come? Naturally, they discuss what made All Good Things . . . and What You Leave Behind such excellent viewing. From there it is a logical conclusion to plagiarize from themselves. Steal a bit from The Next Generation and grab some from Deep Space Nine, throw in a bit of original thinking, and Voyager's final episode, Endgame, is born.

Like with All Good Things . . ., Endgame deals in time travel. The episode starts thirty-two years after Voyager returned to Federation space, having been gone only twenty-three years rather than seventy-five. Janeway is an admiral because apparently the new Starfleet (post Captain Kirk) looks for officers with the ability to fail with upward momentum--the best way to explain why Picard was never promoted to admiral.

Janeway is plagued with guilt. We learn her decisions in the Delta Quadrant resulted in the deaths of Chakotay and Seven of Nine, who had a clumsily written romance late in season seven (it reeks of after thought.) Tuvok has succumbed to insanity, and the rest of the crew has aged under the ministrations of bad makeup, though they fail to develop as people. Older Janeway cannot live with the guilt anymore. She decides a bit of time travel is in order to set things right, proving once and for all she is not command material. These events are tragic (if you care about the characters), but not a reason to alter the past. Starfleet personnel and the Maquis adoptees knew the risks. And what about all the other members of her crew who died along the way? Why not go back in time to the point they encountered The Caretaker? Or better yet, why not go back in time to the moment before they entered The Bad Lands, and curtail the events leading to Voyager being tossed into the Delta Quadrant? I smell a plot hole. Point being, she could have saved many more lives than those three. Janeway is a bit cold hearted and selfish if you ask me.

As expected, Older Janeway meets up with Old Janeway, who is still aimlessly cruising the Delta Quadrant. They argue for no other reason than to increase the drama. Seriously, of the two, Older Janeway has the better notions. However, she wins the arguments by repeatedly stating, "I know because I was once you." I can except that argument once. After the second time, well I stopped paying attention to their spats since the resolution is predetermined.

Old and Older Janeway form their plan, and this is where Berman and Braga decided a touch of Deep Space Nine was necessary. No one who has watched What You Leave Behind can forget the bittersweet conclusion, and that is what they wanted with Voyager. How to accomplish this? By forcing Older Janeway to sacrifice her life. The problem with her death is in the timing. Older Janeway takes one for the team while the bridge of Voyager fills with cheers, smiles, and back slapping as the ship returns to Earth. There is one exception. Old Janeway! Yes, Old Janeway is mourning Older Janeway's death, and thereby the only person on the bridge who is moping around (not to mention isn't this a bit self indulgent? To mourn herself?) The music and closeups on Janeway's face tells us we are supposed to be sad, but that is made difficult if you never liked Janeway to begin with. Not to mention the joyful crew celebrating the achievement of their goal pretty much neutralizes the pity party.

On a lesser note, The Doctor finally picks a name after seven tedious years of debate. He settles on Joe. That's right! Joe! Why? Because the hologram got married to a flesh and blood woman (a sign marriage equality is honored by the Federation? We can hope.), and decided to take her grandfather's name. (I suppose in the future people have fetishes for their grandparents.) No other explanation is given. For all we know, Grandpa Joe made his living ripping the ears off of Ferengi, and selling the bloody lobes as fertility charms. Joe! What a let down!

I cheer every time I finish watching Endgame for one reason, and one reason only. It means I don't have to watch Star Trek: Voyager again for a damn long time.

Watching Voyager is painful. I'm talking more painful than watching a little person ride Captain Kirk like a horse. Plato's Stepchildren is perhaps the worst episode in The Original Series, but every one involved can blame the drug culture of the 1960s when pressed for an explanation (this also works for the Alice in Wonderland ride at Disneyland--the original park in Anaheim, California). Voyager does not have that excuse. In fact, it is guilty of regressing in the expectations of television viewers. The continuous storyline was finally taking shape in the weekly shows, gradually leaving behind the episodic format--though more than a fair share of these type of shows still exist. We had watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5, and Deep Space Nine, all of which required a continuous story arc for their success. Even elements of Seinfeld and Friends relied upon building on previous episodes. The days when the Reset Button was pressed at the end of the episode were thankfully dwindling as television began evolving into something more sophisticated, culminating with (what a surprise!) J. J. Abrams' Lost.

Yes, Voyager aired before Lost, but that is not an argument for demanding forgiveness in not keeping up with the more sophisticated tastes and trends of the viewing audience, particularly when this new sophistication was helped along by the producers of Star Trek through the seven year run of Deep Space Nine. As was previously mentioned in this blog series, the producers returned to the format of 1980s television in that the most entertaining segment of any given episode was the opening credits. That is what you have in Voyager. Jerry Goldsmith, who wrote numerous Star Trek scores, beginning with Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture, wrote a beautiful piece of music. The shots of Voyager flying through space, navigating around asteroids and planetary bodies is breathtaking. But that is all Voyager can hope to be. A lovely score, and gorgeous special effects. In all else it fails miserably.

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Reason 2 (Part 1)
Reason 2 (Part 2)
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Reason 4 (Part 1)
Reason 4 (Part 2)
Reason 5
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Reason 8
Reason 9
Reason 10


Related Links:

Kirk Ridden Like a Horse
Voyager Theme


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11 REASONS WHY I HATE STAR TREK: VOYAGER #10

10. Voyager stole the final three seasons of Enterprise. I know I am in the minority in that I have a great time watching Star Trek: Enterprise. Seeing Starfleet in its infancy was fun and fresh. There was no Federation, but we knew that was going to change as Captain Archer worked to bring stability to the relations of the space faring races. I thought it was a bold and wise move to cast the Vulcans as a flawed and arrogant race still in the process of evolving into the culture we came to know through Spock. The Xindi War in season three was mesmerizing, leaving me to believe the pending Temporal War would supersede all other Star Trek conflicts. The Temporal War was never to be. I was crushed when Enterprise was canceled after four seasons, leaving us to leave us wonder how Archer formed the Federation.

I also loved Archer's Enterprise. The ship was the perfect meld between Zefram Cochrane's first warp vessel, Phoenix, and James T. Kirk's Enterprise NCC-1701. The design department did their job well, leading me to believe they toured Navy museum ships. When comparing the ship from The Original Series to the one under Archer's command it is like comparing a factory fresh Humvee to a Model T. When throwing Picard's Enterprise D into the mix, Archers Enterprise NX-01 looks like a horse drawn buggy. This is how things are suppose to be when writing a prequel series (this is intended for you, George Lucas.) The production team went out of their way to ensure the technology fit with the era, but such hard work failed to be appreciated.

Voyager, however, got a full seven season run (apparently the magic number christened by The Next Generation.) The success of Voyager mystifies me to no end. Sure, Star Trek: Enterprise had its fair share of garbage episodes, but that comprises roughly fifteen episodes of the ninety-eight episode run. Voyager, however aired one hundred seventy-two episodes ranging from laughable to horrendous. Before forming a counter argument, please let me remind you of Paris knocking up Janeway with lizard babies.

Here is a Wiki article detailing what we missed out seeing due to Enterprise's untimely cancellation:

At the time of its cancellation, planning for a proposed fifth season of Enterprise was underway. Most details of this never-made season come from comments made by producer Manny Coto who in 2009 stated that two arcs of this season may have been to show the 'origins of the Federation' and 'whispers of the Romulan war', and consequently, the Romulans would have been the major villains of the season.

Coto also stated that had the series been given a fifth season, the recurring Andorian character of Shran may have joined the Enterprise in an advisory role.

Other possible plans for the season included: an episode showing the construction of the first starbase; a Borg Queen origins story with Alice Krige as a Starfleet medical technician who makes contact with the Borg from Season 2's "Regenration" and becomes the Borg Queen, and a Mirror Universe arc spanning four or five episodes.

There were also hopes for an episode in which T'Pol would finally meet her father and discover that he was in fact a Romulan agent who had posed as a Vulcan officer prior to faking his own death. The revelation that T'Pol was half-Romulan would have shed light on her affinity for humanity and as well as her interest in experimenting with emotions."

I hope that excites you more than anything found in Voyager. Personally, I will never forgive Voyager for stealing the final three seasons of Enterprise. (Yes, I agree the theme song for Voyager is better than the puke inducing disaster we are treated to with Enterprise.)

Reason 1
Reason 2 (Part 1)
Reason 2 (Part 2)
Reason 3
Reason 4 (Part 1)
Reason 4 (Part 2)
Reason 5
Reason 6
Reason 7
Reason 8
Reason 9
Reason 11

Related Links:

A Look at What Could Have Been
Voyager Theme
Enterprise Theme

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11 REASONS WHY I HATE STAR TREK: VOYAGER #9

9. The DVDs were formated by computer science flunkies.

Admittedly, the box sets of Voyager have nothing to do with the story construction of the series, but I feel compelled to include this product fiasco in the list since the inattention to quality follows Janeway and crew to home video.

I began my first all inclusive Star Trek marathon after Star Trek: Nemesis was released on DVD. I knew I'd eventually come to the end of Deep Space 9, and be forced to watch Voyager if this was to be a true marathon. I immediately hopped online in search of the cheapest box set of all seven seasons. I settled upon the Japanese version for a Chinese-American audience I know, bizarre, but it does exist. I once held it in my hands. (The collection is no longer in my hands. I can find nothing online that suggests what I referred to is indeed the Japanese version for a Chinese-American audience. What I did find is the collection is labeled as the Chinese region free box set. For some reason the box, when it was in my possession gave me a different impression, so that is the one I chose to run with.) I soon regretted the decision when learning some episodes froze anywhere between one to forty minutes into the show. Some episodes were completely unwatchable. In fact, entire discs refused to load. Unfortunately, I did not learn this until well after the option to return the box set to the retailer had expired. I was stuck with a seven season box set in which four episodes in season one refused to play, and anywhere from eight to ten episodes were unwatchable in the following seasons. That comes to roughly fifty-two to sixty-four episodes lost out of 172. That is no small number! Foolishly, I blamed this on an old DVD player. The issue remained when I was forced to replace the player after it crapped out. At that point, I blamed the version I had purchased, only to learned better a few years later.

In 2008, the announcement so many of us had been waiting for finally came. A new Star Trek movie was in the works to be released in 2009. That was when I decided it was time to replace my Voyager DVDs with the standard rainbow box sets. I sent the Japanese version for a Chinese-American audience to my brother with a warning of what to expect. This year, 2012, I finally got around to taking the cellophane off of the box sets as I forced myself to include Voyager in the latest marathon. I quickly realized the newer purchase was plagued with the same problem as the first box set. I initially suspected different episodes were formated wrong, causing me to regret sending the first attempt to own Voyager to my brother. If only I had kept the Japanese/Chinese-American version I could have mixed and matched with the purpose of creating my own glitch free collection. I was in error there as well. The affected episodes remain the same. There are simply fifty-two to sixty-four episodes I will never see, and I am mostly fine with that knowledge. Voyager was a terrible show, so missing out on nearly a third or more of the episodes simply speeds up the viewing. Though annoyed I did not get all of what I paid for (twice), this is truly a gift from Paramount. I definitely will not be buying Voyager on Blu-ray when Jayneway and crew make that transformation.

The packaging of the box sets is horrendous as well. The Japanese version for a Chinese-American audience crammed all seven seasons into one giant rectangle, and the discs were housed in plastic sleeves. You know, the type of sleeves that scratch the hell out of your DVDs and CDs. (You: Stream it! Your music and movies/television show, just STREAM IT! Me: Stop screaming! I'll get to that point soon.) So I wasted a pile of money on buying CD cases. I even went so far as to color co-ordinate the cases with the traditional Voyager box sets. My homemade box set was an eyesore in the Star Trek collection, but more important than aesthetics was being in possession of a complete Trek library after years of searching and finding amazing deals on new and used DVDs. Contentment was achieved until learning not all the episodes loaded. (I like the caption at the bottom of the set: The Complete All Season On DVD.)

Years later, when I replaced the original Voyager purchase, I was dismayed at the crappy plastic sleeves holding each box set together. Pull the DVDs out too hard, and you risk ripping the plastic. The cases are no better in that they are made of brittle plastic, open faced, and held together by Scotch tape. Unlike all the other box sets from TOS to DS9 and skipping over to Enterprise, you cannot flip the leaves of the set to a fully open position. The tape won't take the strain, and then you are standing in the living room with a mess of open faced cases lying around your feet. With luck, none of the DVDs popped free, rolled in the direction of something sharp (or a hungry dog) and gathered a scratch or two. So you stuff the now loose leafs back into the cheap plastic sleeve only to find Voyager now rests upside down on your shelves to keep the DVDs from falling out the next time they are dusted off for a trip to the DVD player. Even some of the labels on the sleeve were applied upside down. So much for quality control.

I suspect streaming through Netflix will nullify this argument, but I will never know through firsthand experience. I was among those who jumped ship when Netflix made the entertainment blunder of the century. I also refuse to pay for streaming a show currently collecting dust on my shelves. I would find it endlessly amusing if the same improperly formated episodes fail to stream. Yet, I'm interested to learn if Netflix fixed what Paramount home video flubbed twice. (Vaguely related question: Has Netflix resolved the bandwidth and buffering issues, or is that still an on going problem? Can't say I miss spending three hours to watch a ninety minute movie.)

I've freely admitted throughout this series on the points where I lacked information that may or may not have been explained in Voyager. This ninth reason serves to explain the source of these gaps in my knowledge.

Reason 1
Reason 2 (Part 1)
Reason 2 (Part 2)
Reason 3
Reason 4 (Part 1)
Reason 4 (Part 2)
Reason 5
Reason 6
Reason 7
Reason 8
Reason 10
Reason 11

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