Star Trek Voyager Ruminations: Season One

[@tomt.8387]

I stumbled onto this channel a few days ago, and I have been listening to all of these every chance I could. I'm a big VOY fan and I generally agree with everything you're saying, and as a result I kind of want you to be the one to write the new trek (next year), which I am uneasy about. I think I'll end up listening to all of your VOY ruminations, ultimately. I think they are awesome, and I want to sincerely thank you for making them.

[@baronfang]

"Something that ACTIVELY takes enjoyment out of my life..." - perhaps the best Archengeia line ever.

[@Lorerunner]

I think it would work great. I hadn't put any thought into it until you mentioned it, but it only took me about 5 seconds to figure out what format it would take. In summary: One of the other custom D&D rulesets I use involves virtually no personal combat but lots of roleplaying, skill rolls, and NPC interaction. Which would suit very well to the Star Trek format of the issue of the week, AND with an ongoing story arc.

[@Greaseball01]

If you've never seen Blake's 7 I think you'd really like it, I only saw some of it when I was younger so I'm planning on re-watching it whenever I can.

[@jeffreymiller9438]

I stumbled upon Blake's 7 while watching Dr Who on PBS as a teen. I liked it then. Now, looking back, it seems trailblazing.

[@Hugebull]

The first episodes of Stargate SG-1 were amazing

[@iamawuss]

I like you Archengeia. I like you. And I like your commentary, and ideas, and speaking style - your videos are endlessly entertaining. Please continue making videos. =)

[@RachelAdria]

That look when you said you were going to watch Threshold, yeah, I think your face speaks for us all.

[@wanderingfist]

Wonderful overview. Bring on season 2!

[@xsamplexample]

and to further clearify arch's explaination, the first star trek movie is set a few years after TOS and is an isolated story of kirk's progress after captain. theres a *technical* triology of wrath of khan, serch for spock, and the voyage home. then is final frontier, which is its own story, with the same TOS cast, which isnt too good. undiscivered country was the 'ending' to kirk's story, federation makes peace with klingons (an antagonist in TOS)

[@Yura-Sensei]

Holy shit I'm so hyped for Treshhold

[@kblargh]

Since over on this side of the pond, TV series are brought over only years later, Voyager ran in one big stretch, so i hardly know what season is what. They did that with Fringe recently too, only now i have my wits about me. I was much younger when Voyager aired.

[@WoWKackorot]

The sweet dread of Threshold... lol

[@Lorerunner]

Whoops. Sorry, Movies 7, 8, 9 occur alongside DS9. Simple mistake.

[@Vorodill]

Well, the Conclave sounds interesting. And I trust you on this. After all, I saw how prepared you are in your DnD videos.

[@Lorerunner]

Star Trek: Enterprise is the first, many years before anything else. Star Trek (the original series) first. Then it gets more complicated. Star Trek: The Next Generation is next up until season 6, episode 11, which is the point at which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine begins. (note that TNG keeps going, they ran congruent). Then the next series (Star Trek Voyager) begins right about at season 3, episode 12 and continues past all the others, but has little to do with the overall canon until later.

[@Lorerunner]

Enterprise, TOS, Movies 1-6, TNG, Movies 8 & 9 occur alongside DS9 and Voyager, then Movie 10 is the last thing in the old continuity of Star Trek chronologically.

[@zeromancer-x]

I think I stopped watching Voyager during Season 2. When I finally decided to pick it up again, there was no first run Trek on television at that time so Voyager was essentially a brand new show for me. :D

[@vincentadultman8527]

If I had my druthers, you would do a recap for every season...b/c it would be interesting, and more Arch is always a win.

[@czulkanglah3098]

Your personal changes canon is a good concept, and the complex politics are part of what makes it good. However, on a few occasions I felt you had to construct a bit much stuff to make a specific episode fit your canon, to the point where it was more about integrating it into canon than looking for the potential of the individual episode and trying to achieve it, which was the original plan as I understood it.

[@williamozier918]

For some reasons the culture of Star Trek writers holds to the belief that annoying is funny. This manifests across TNG, DS9 and Voyager. In early TNG when they wanted to use Data as comedy relief the did it by making him being annoying to the people around him. They tried the same with Bashir, and it was the hallmar of NEEEEEELIX. Lucas even caught it with Jar-Jar. I've always wanted to sit them down and use the Clockwaork Orange eye lid technique with me just repeating over and over 'annoying is NOT funny'.

[@MarshallMiller157]

It'll be interesting to see where The Conclave ends up. Perhaps they're building up to fight the Borg, hmmmm? Heh, we'll see I suppose. Archengeia, just curious, were you thinking of running a tabletop game based on your Voyager storyline? I've actually never heard of a Star Trek tabletop being run let alone a Voyager one. Do you think that would work?

[@williamozier918]

Trek has also often fallen prey to a misguided belief that the way to make your character's look good is by making their enemies look stupid. This was amped up to 11 by Rodenberry himself with the Ferengi and was the backbone of their interpretation of the Kazon.

[@0utc4st1985]

I think what didn't help TNG was that they burned through so many writers in it's early years. I can't seem to find it now but I read several years ago that it went through a couple dozen writers in just season one.

[@fredrikcarlstedt393]

Recapping the 1st season of VOY .

[@KaisN]

Lets be clear Arch, we'd never brand you a geek. We're all that way.

[@ergesilva]

I would love to hear you commenting TNG!! I remeber that after watching the first season I had the impression that Picard was sometimes too arrogant. I also think the writers put too many political references in that season without even try to be subtle and they failed to make it interesting. And, which is the WORST episode you mentioned? Justice?

[@williamozier918]

Random how I would change voyager specifically regarding the Doctor: One of the reasons I never liked the Doctor or Picardo's presentation was that I felt that he developed a distinct sentient personality too quickly. He should've played it less like a snarky personality and more like the kung-fu guy Tasha practiced on, a complete blank slate of a personality until an action is initiated, then it only reacts and then goes blank again. They should have not made a big deal of him, keep him very background so that we the audience barely notice him either. Then slowly show this background guy slowly developing quirks that are now noticable and start raising questions. Anyway build from there over the first season. So that at the end of the first season Kess gives Janeway the big 'doesnt he deserve respect to!' speech as part of the last episode. Leaving the audience wondering, “Hey what's up with that doctor hologram?” So then in the second season I would open with Kes going to the Doctor and saying she researched Commander Data, a sentient AI with full rights, and recommend that the Doctor learn from him. So this starts a running schtick where every few episodes we the audience hear the doctor listening to a part of Data's log entry from Data's Day, and then in the episode we see the doctor sort of trying out whatever is Data was talking about. So we see the doctor hologram trying to make friends based on advice from Data's log. Now there's a danger this could lead to just ripping off Data and Brent Spiner, but I'm seeing as more of an extension of Data's story by showing us him being viewed as a teacher by a nascent AI and how those lessons translate. Hilarity and character development ensue. THEN at the end of season 2 Janeway and Torre are in sickbay running a full diagnostic on the Doctor to make sure it's running correctly. So they're checking programs and protocols and holosystems and asking him diagnostic questions, show them still treating him like a tool. But then Janeway stops and asks him about how his reviews of Data's logs are going. Then the doctor hologram gets some really good character time where he gets to ruminate on his existence. As he's doing this his diagnostic start going all over the place and he suffers a major cascade failure. In the end he de-rezzes screaming “help me” and vanishes. Cue dramatic music. End season. Season 3 opens with Projections, the one where the Doctor hallucinates he's Doctor Zimmerman, and in the end when he comes out instead of being bullshit plot radiation have them explain when was commiserating on the nature of his existence he suffered a major cascade failure, they were able to stabilize his program BUT something has happened and his program is running in a bizare and chaotic way. Then we get a camera shot from the Doctor's point of view looking at every one and we show the doctor is really seeing them for the first time. Then move on with his character development from there.

[@DarianHarder]

That is exactly what Robert Picardo was afraid of William Ozier. Not sure if you saw any interviews, ot _Star Trek conventionswith him on +KZbin or anything, but when they approached him for the part, he read the script for _Caretaker_ and hated it. Because his part was basically described as a "bitter crotchety man with no personality". He rejected it. Instead he really wanted to play the part of Neelix. He auditioned but, the part went to Ethan Phillips‼️But when they _insisted_ that he auditioned for The Doctor, hee had to be talked into it by his friends and family. So he did, and so one it for him was when he auditioned, they used his opening scene from_Caretaker_ when he was initially activated. At the end of that scene he did what was considered a cardinal sin to Star Trek, and ad-libbed a line-essentially stealing from DeForest Kelly-"I'm a doctor not a nightlight‼️". That's what won him the role. Everyone says how annoying Neelix is. I wonder how he would have changed if Picardo had actually gotten the role. Plus I feel Neelix was only "annoying" around Kes. Someone said it best when they said he was borderline abusive to her. I', kinda surprised nobody confronted him on it-with the exception of Paris in the middle of season 2 or 3, I can't remember which.

[@vincentadultman8527]

Ironic or coherent that Voyager was the tentpole that launched UPN, and it doesn't exist anymore?

[@Ravendar999]

Arch, any chance you could do videos about serries Battlestar Galactiac Reimagined?

[@kereed1000]

I for one can't wait to see where the conclave story like goes .

[@wargeek4577]

lamentations coming up

[@DentonXV]

Question, what is the actual chronological order for all the star trek shows? I'm really considering watching them all

[@EnvisionerWill]

I'm a bit sad that you only did Seasons 1 and 2 as group Ruminations.

[@ilyanagalen9320]

It would've been great if you'd let us know which eps you meant when talking about 'best' or 'worst'. I'm a big Trek fan and I couldn't work them out...would def be better to actually say 'I bet you can guess...and this is it'. I would definitely say that Voyager is a series that was overly vilified because of the bad episodes, and mainly because of seasons 5-6 (where most of the bad ones are, in my opinion).

[@TheChatterbox1991]

what is the chronological order of star trek including all the movies?

[@TheChatterbox1991]

What about First Contact, Star Trek 7, when is that?

[@CRocketSlim]

"I didn't like DS9 when it first came out... I watched the first few episodes..." lol OK that checks out I have to admit I only really enjoyed that season just because I grew to love the characters later on from later seasons, I just sort of consumed it back in the day as I needed my Trek fix, I had a bad habit, man Not sure why I'm badmouthing DS9 in a Voyager Rumination video....

[@vincentadultman8527]

I hear "Threshold" whenever you say worst. Q and the Grey is pretty bad too.

[@jeffreymiller9438]

I thought the pilot was mediocre, certainly compared to DS9's pilot. I thought they should have tried to recruit Michelle Forbes instead of Roxann Dawson. Robert Duncan McNeill should have been cast as Nicholas Locarno. The writing for season one, however, wasn't bad. There were a number of quality episodes: Emanations, State of Flux, Heroes and Demons, Jetrel. I liked the long-connected Space Opera episodes of the DS9 series endgame. It would have been nice to see something like that in Voyager. I have had no interest in Lorerunner's alt scripts, and I'm glad he ditched that meme when ruminating on TNG and DS9.

[@iam9991000]

I guess Code of Honor.

[@zeromancer-x]

^ This one's prophetic!

[@padawanmage71]

Oh you definitely aren't that geeky. I went to so many Creation Conventions dressed up as Data. =) I must be the only one who didn't hate Enterprise that much, I only wish the ending didn't suck so much (sound familiar?). I was never into Voyager (or ST: Lost in Space, imo) but yes I did like DS9...but sometimes because it tried to be a B5 clone. =)

[@xsamplexample]

the TNG movies are each their own stories, like extended episodes. nemesis the the defnative 'end' to TNG, but cant say more because no spoiler rule. Voyager, DS9, and enterprise dont have associated movies bc they are all true spinoffs. the new movies are their own thing, and to me, dont exist.

[@kereed1000]

ok i just watched threshold cuz i wanted to see what the fuss was about and all i have to say is WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@meamishere1166]

The relentless bashing of Enterprise is a bit much.