New Trek show...

[Pat Mustard]

Her entire seven season run was utterly destroyed by the pilot?  

No just her entire authority as a captain and credibility as an intelligent person. She stranded her crew (and a bunch of criminals) 70 years away from home for the want of a damned timer fuse.

Said fuse was later shown to be canonically available when they used it to blow up a Borg ship.

[KevinM1]

Really the only thing I didn't like about her character was the romance with Chakotay, who is possibly my least favorite character in a sci fi TV series, ever.  Somehow, he still didn't ruin the show!

My roommate and I used to call him "Chipotle" ... lol. He was annoyed by the character, too. I always thought he was okay. One of my favorite Voyager scenes is when he punched the dude who wanted to do things "the Maquis way" and said, "That's the Maquis way!"

I never really understood all the hate directed at his character.

PS: Janeway was awesome.

I think there were two main problems with Chakotay:

1. He was boring as fuck most of the time.
2. He was a Native American pastiche, an amalgamation of tropes rather than a well-researched and developed character.

Voyager itself was incredibly underwhelming. A lot of it was the writing. The show abandoned its premise early on to become TNG lite, to the point where Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi were semi-regular guest stars. Conflicts were largely uninspired. Got a problem? Throw some Borg nanoprobes at it and call it a day. There was also some strife among the cast.

Garret Wang was somewhat disliked, and was going to be released until he was voted one of Hollywood's most beautiful actors. Jennifer Lien was released instead (although, given her recent public issues with mental illness, perhaps there was more to her release than that). Robert Beltran had a reputation of being difficult. Kate Mulgrew hated Jeri Ryan.

Still better than Enterprise, but that's damning with faint praise.

[vulcanlogician]

PSA: Don't google Jennifer Lien mental illness, no matter how curious Kevin's post makes you.

(You're welcome.)

[KevinM1]

PSA: Don't google Jennifer Lien mental illness, no matter how curious Kevin's post makes you.

(You're welcome.)

Agreed. It's sad what's happened to her. I hope she can find some measure of peace and take care of herself.

[The Valkyrie]

My roommate and I used to call him "Chipotle" ... lol. He was annoyed by the character, too. I always thought he was okay. One of my favorite Voyager scenes is when he punched the dude who wanted to do things "the Maquis way" and said, "That's the Maquis way!"

I never really understood all the hate directed at his character.

PS: Janeway was awesome.

I think there were two main problems with Chakotay:

1. He was boring as fuck most of the time.
2. He was a Native American pastiche, an amalgamation of tropes rather than a well-researched and developed character.

Voyager itself was incredibly underwhelming. A lot of it was the writing. The show abandoned its premise early on to become TNG lite, to the point where Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi were semi-regular guest stars. Conflicts were largely uninspired. Got a problem? Throw some Borg nanoprobes at it and call it a day. There was also some strife among the cast.

Garret Wang was somewhat disliked, and was going to be released until he was voted one of Hollywood's most beautiful actors. Jennifer Lien was released instead (although, given her recent public issues with mental illness, perhaps there was more to her release than that). Robert Beltran had a reputation of being difficult. Kate Mulgrew hated Jeri Ryan.

Still better than Enterprise, but that's damning with faint praise.

Chakotay wasn’t used to his potential.

The character could have really built on his backstory but the writers didn’t bother (not surprising from Brannon and Braga)

The first few seasons suffered from stagnation and they seemed to overcompensate in the later seasons.

Jeri Ryan was overused, as were the Borg.

Neelix should have been killed early on.

Some of the Pathfinder episodes were very well done, though the best thing about Voyager had to be Captain Proton!

[AFTT47]

I LOVE all this hate over 24th Century Star Trek characters because now we're discussing REAL Start Trek rather than the abortion that was Abrahms Trek or the horrible Enterprise.

I don't know if this new series will be any good. I'm guessing Picard will now be an admiral. I have a hard time imagining it being any worse than the pathetic efforts we have seen after Voyager, though.

[The Valkyrie]

I LOVE all this hate over 24th Century Star Trek characters because now we're discussing REAL Start Trek rather than the abortion that was Abrahms Trek or the horrible Enterprise.

I don't know if this new series will be any good. I'm guessing Picard will now be an admiral. I have a hard time imagining it being any worse than the pathetic efforts we have seen after Voyager, though.

Don’t get my comments wrong.

I’m a Trekkie through and through.

All three major series had their good and bad points, but I generally enjoyed them all, though DS9 was my favourite and I still think the best character in all three wasn’t even Starfleet... Garak.

[AFTT47]

I LOVE all this hate over 24th Century Star Trek characters because now we're discussing REAL Start Trek rather than the abortion that was Abrahms Trek or the horrible Enterprise.

I don't know if this new series will be any good. I'm guessing Picard will now be an admiral. I have a hard time imagining it being any worse than the pathetic efforts we have seen after Voyager, though.

Don’t get my comments wrong.

I’m a Trekkie through and through.

All three major series had their good and bad points, but I generally enjoyed them all, though DS9 was my favourite and I still think the best character in all three wasn’t even Starfleet... Garak.

Yeah, Garak was sooo good!

"That's why you came to me, Captain, wasn't it? You knew I could do those things you weren't capable of. Well, it worked. You'll get a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your consciousness is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant and all it cost was the life of One Romulan Senator, one criminal and the self-respect of one Star Fleet officer. I don't know about you but I would call that a BARGAIN."

Epic!

IMO, Star Trek was at its best when it hits those philosophical high notes - when it made the audience think. IMO, nothing does this better than in the DS9 episode, "In the Pale Moonlight" when Garak and Sisko plot to trick the Romulans to enter the Dominion War on a false pretext. Sisko goes against the principles the Federation is founded upon out of desperation. Garak was streaming him along the whole time but was sympathetic to Sisko's views and makes a genuine attempt to soothe his conscience - even after Sisko beets the crap out of him.

Wow!

I doubt we'll see anything like this again but it's nice to see TPTB acknowledging the real Star Trek rather than that Abrams garbage.

[The Valkyrie]

Don’t get my comments wrong.

I’m a Trekkie through and through.

All three major series had their good and bad points, but I generally enjoyed them all, though DS9 was my favourite and I still think the best character in all three wasn’t even Starfleet... Garak.

Yeah, Garak was sooo good!

"That's why you came to me, Captain, wasn't it? You knew I could do those things you weren't capable of. Well, it worked. You'll get a war between the Romulans and the Dominion. And if your consciousness is bothering you, you should soothe it with the knowledge that you may have just saved the entire Alpha Quadrant and all it cost was the life of One Romulan Senator, one criminal and the self-respect of one Star Fleet officer. I don't know about you but I would call that a BARGAIN."

Epic!

IMO, Star Trek was at its best when it hits those philosophical high notes - when it made the audience think. IMO, nothing does this better than in the DS9 episode, "In the Pale Moonlight" when Garak and Sisko plot to trick the Romulans to enter the Dominion War on a false pretext. Sisko goes against the principles the Federation is founded upon out of desperation. Garak was streaming him along the whole time but was sympathetic to Sisko's views and makes a genuine attempt to soothe his conscience - even after Sisko beets the crap out of him.

Wow!

I doubt we'll see anything like this again but it's nice to see TPTB acknowledging the real Star Trek rather than that Abrams garbage.

One of the very best Garak scenes was when Bashir was trying to explain the story of the boy who cried wolf.

“Are you sure that’s the moral of the story?”

“Of course, what else could it be?”

“Perhaps it’s not to tell the same lie twice!”

[AFTT47]

Yeah, it was so funny to see Bashir roll up his eyes in exasperation when Garak came up with that, lol.

Garak was such an interesting character because while he was generally anti-Federation, his logic was hard to argue with. He was the ultimate foil in the Star Trek universe.