[mag]

Overall I liked the little story arc at the end of DS9, but the last episode could have been a lot better. That last part at the end with Sisko and Gul Dukat seemed like it was just tacked on at the last minute to try and wrap up the story.

Voyager's ending wasn't as bad as most of the episodes in the series, but it wasn't all that spectacular either. The main thing I didn't like about it was that all through the series the creators kept saying they were going to bring Voyager back home at a time nobody would expect, and then they brought Voyager back home exactly when everybody expected. I would have liked to see Voyager return to the Alpha Quadrant some time near the end of the sixth season or even earlier. Then the rest of the series could have been about the characters' return. But then there was a lot of wasted potential in that series. They started so many plotlines that they would just suddenly drop and never mention again.

mag

[Marek]

The sad thing about the VOY ending is that their 100th episode tribute would have probably made a better ending (the one with the 2 timelines and the whole ship-crashes-on-ice-planet thing). It would indeed have been awesome to have seen VOY get home before the last episode, to see all the implications. But that's not the nature of that show. All the episodes in season 4 to 7 are completely interchangable. It's very much targeted to the casual viewer.

In the beginning the writers had plans to keep the Maquis angle in there a lot more, plus the production guys really wanted to beat up the ship... make it look more damaged over time, and even have the crew abandon the ship for half a season. Make it really tough for them. That didn't happen.

Ron Moore (DS9 writer, and VOY writer for a little while) had good ideas about the show. He's often said he really wanted to make the VOY crew gradually become more informal as they realize they're on their own. Little details like some crewmembers walking through the corridors in their pajamas. He envisioned Voyager more like a sort of Firefly, where the crew becomes a lost group of 'bandits' that isn't so strictly organized. The whole Maquis were originally set up for that to happen. It would have been interesting.

[Huz]

Voyager would have been superb if it had been done like that, Marek. I suppose part of the reason I liked Voyager far more at the beginning was because I could see the potential there and wanted to see it fulfilled. Eventually I realised it wasn't going to happen, and as you say, the later episodes were almost completely interchangable, leisurely cruises through space. I certainly gave up watching on a weekly basis and didn't really suffer for it.

In Voyager's defence, there was the odd episode where you really thought they were in trouble - I seem to remember an episode where the 'Year of Hell' was mentioned (where Voyager had to travel through hostile territory for an entire year, being attacked along the way), and then another episode (but only one - why?!) where they actually went through it (although it turned out to be a dream or something). The one where they were forced to land Voyager on some planet and had the whole thing hijacked was pretty good, too. If only they'd had the courage to develop some of those storylines further, it could have been fantastic.

Enterprise seems to be falling into the same 'conservative' trap, so far. I hear Series 3 is better - it could hardly be any worse. I'm vaguely looking forward to it...

[Starflux]

Marek, how well that signature suits your posts! For a minute I actually thought it was part of the rant XD

[Marek]

The two-parters "Year of Hell" and "Equinox" really showed what Voyager could and should have been

[Starflux]

What was the Equinox plot?