TSFFWS - Star Trek:Voyager - The Lost Opportunity

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

When participating in media criticism, especially of a franchise that is both beloved by and well-known to the critic it is tempting to engage in a rewrite of the story or series in question. That's not the role of a critic; the critic is to take the work on its own merits and look for meaning, messages, influence, elements of quality, thought-provoking point, and use it as a window to personal meaning and social deconstruction.

However, when a literary or visual work of art fails its own premise then a discussion of the alternative path it could have taken is well within the bounds. It should be no surprise then as a lifelong and deep-in-the-tank fan of the Star Trek franchise that I feel that Star Trek: Voyager is the greatest disappointment of any of the television or streaming series. Because the distance between its original premise and what was eventually delivered on screen is the greatest gap that exists in the franchise.

For the uninitiated, Star Trek: Voyager was an attempt to show how a Starfleet crew would react to being lost so far away from the Federation that it would take a generation if not a couple of lifetimes to return home; far away from those who shared their values or had cultural familiarity. This was complicated by the fact that the crew was made up of part of the original Starfleet crew, and the Maquis, a freedom fighting/terrorist organization who had been fighting against both the Federation and the Cardassian Union, after a peace treaty between those two power left many under the fascist yoke of the Cardassians with the Federation's tacit approval.

If you believe the interviews from people like Ronald D Moore who were intimately involved in the creation and development Star Trek in the late 1990's, the original intent of Star Trek Voyager was to show the resilience of federation values in all the humanistic glory when ultimately challenged by being cut off from the resources and the superior numbers of the Federation in an area of space that was far more brutal and challenging. This is certainly where the series attempts to go for a brief while but it completely abandons this premise and its ongoing implications to its incredible detriment. Moore went on to run a strikingly similar premise in the Battlestar Galactica's 2004 reboot, a show that embraced this idea until its last 30 minutes. That is a different essay.

While there were some episodes of Voyager that attempted to deal with the idea of a starship lost tens of thousands of light years from home and the type of material shortage, psychological existential dread, a philosophically divided crew, difficulties of dealing with utterly unfamiliar social structures, at the beginning of each episode the ship would look like it had just come out of dry dock, all uniforms pressed and clean, everybody well-nourished and healthy. And worse yet, the relationships between the characters but especially between characters on different sides of the Starfleet/Marquis divide would be reset if not inexplicably improved beyond last week's standing. This was a gross misfire of an incredible story that could've been told about how the humanistic values of cooperation, mutual respect, inherent personal rights in balance with communal responsibility, and the ethical dilemmas of doing the right thing in the face of personal and communal survival would've made an incredible show if not maybe the best of the Star Trek shows.

But that is not what happened. Moore has said that he left Voyager and all of Trek because of how he was being treated after his objection to the direction that Rick Berman, the highly conservative and nervous Nellie of the Star Trek universe who worried that anything that smacked of a dark tone à la Deep Space Nine, would turn people off of the franchise. It is no surprise that Berman kept the DS9 staff at hand's length from Voyager. Not only did Mr. Berman clearly misread the direction of narratives in culture in the early 2000s, he rejected the very nature and premise of the show that he had signed off on creating. He hamstrung the show by demanding that they tell a passable story for the broadest possible audience, instead of taking a risk on the best story to create the most dedicated audience.

Taking a note from the great Star Trek commentator Steve shives (see YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/c/SteveShives) how much better would Star Trek Voyager have been if they spent the first two or three seasons being challenged by the lack of support structure, surrounded by civilizations that exploited each other, who used trade and cultural integration not for peace or for prosperity but for exploitation, and having to both deal with those unethical structures to survive, and to influence them to change for the better? While at the same time having to deal with interpersonal conflict due to the nature of their hybrid crew, and the deep philosophical issues that they should've had in conflict with each other. Add to that after two or three seasons coming to the barrier that was Borg space, and after going ahead and adding Jeri Ryan as seven of nine (which was originally perceived as eye candy but was really one of the greatest narrative innovations of the show) having to backtrack and build a new federation out of all the societies they had encountered in order to take on the Borg. What an ultimate victory for federation and ultimately humanistic values that could have been.

I rewatch a lot of Star Trek, over to cover so to speak. I've seen all the series start to finish multiple times not to mention all of the movies and all of their variations multiple times (the new directors cut of the motion picture is fantastic) but Star Trek Voyager is the series I watch the least. There are great and complex characters, who I still would like to see more of, and there are some truly great episodes and I rewatch those episodes, but not the series. Voyager is the great lost opportunity of Star Trek.

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[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

If you believe the interviews from people like Ronald D Moore who were intimately involved in the creation and development Star Trek in the late 1990's, the original intent of Star Trek Voyager was to show the resilience of federation values in all the humanistic glory when ultimately challenged by being cut off from the resources and the superior numbers of the Federation in an area of space that was far more brutal and challenging. This is certainly where the series attempts to go for a brief while but it completely abandons this premise and its ongoing implications to its incredible detriment. Moore went on to run a strikingly similar premise in the Battlestar Galactica's 2004 reboot, a show that embraced this idea until its last 30 minutes. That is a different essay.

This is really interesting and I hadn't thought of this -- yeah, Voyager really could have been the brilliance that was early BSG.  Ragged and on the run, trying to balance their stated ideals with the practical constraints of their situation... good stuff.  Of course, BSG pretty much tanked once they started uncovering the final five, and the Starbuck thing was terrible, but the first few seasons are some of the best sci-fi that's ever been on television, comparable even to Farscape.  But the tension between Starfleet and Maquis only lasted a few episodes.  After that, it's hard to even guess at the point of Chakotay.  He just became the first of several "what do we do with them" characters, a list that included Neelix after the second season, Kes after the first few episodes, and Harry Kim right from the first second of the show.

Add to that after two or three seasons coming to the barrier that was Borg space, and after going ahead and adding Jeri Ryan as seven of nine (which was originally perceived as eye candy but was really one of the greatest narrative innovations of the show) having to backtrack and build a new federation out of all the societies they had encountered in order to take on the Borg. What an ultimate victory for federation and ultimately humanistic values that could have been.

The show just became the Borg Show after Seven arrived.  And that was fine, since she was an extremely interesting character for the same reasons that Data was interesting: she let the writers tell stories about humanity on a fairly blank slate, instead of as a culture clash.

I do like Voyager, though.  I rewatched it once, whereas I have never even been tempted to return to Enterprise.

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

An excellent Voyager Retrospective:

https://youtu.be/h8lNTPXE6s4

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

if to make a sheldonian list of STs, it would go like DS9, discovery, enterprise, NG, voyager. and as much as i loved OS as a kid in late 70ies (thnx to austrian TV), i never saw it for the second time, and honestly after watching like two random episodes, i don't plan to. and i like picard so far, but it still has to find its place in my chart.

i love DS9 maybe cos it was so not roddenberry, but still very humanistic. dark, struggling, realistic in the overwhelming and not friendly universe. the scene after defeating cardassians and helping changlings to move on, where sisko does not want to toast to such a bloody victory, that was moving. sisko generally was a huge character.

i think, voyager was supposed to be new as DS9, but also keeping the old spirit, which made it lesser than expected. anyway, borgs are as bluetooth, anything with them turns better.

after finishing my current enterprise tour, i plan for the voyager. oh, i remember how hard it was for me the get along neelix. and how i loved the poor holographic doctor for his... doctorness ;-)

[Tierçéu Rôibeardescù]

I have read the official autobiography of janeway (Well the audio book, read my Kate malgrew herself) and I love it as I had just finished voyager! I think if anything the series could have stuck the landing if the ending wasn't so rushed.