Star Trek:  Voyager

This is the new 'Trek' spinoff, scheduled to begin sometime (I believe)
next season.  I only know two things about this series:  it's title, and
the fact that it will be the flagship show on the new Paramount TV net-
work.

I'm curious...does anyone know what the show will be about?  Rumors are
encouraged (sometimes they're better than the real thing).  Here's the
rumor I've heard:

Three ships involved in a battle (one Federation, one possibly Ferengi and
one possibly Kardassian) go through an unstable wormhole.  The wormhole
shifts, and they're stuck on the other side, all damaged.  The only way they
can continue is to jury-rig one of the ships with parts from the other two.
I also heard that Riker (Jonathan Frakes) was going to be involved in the
series (though it might only be that he's directing episodes).

As I said, that's just a rumor I heard, but I'm interested in what anyone
else knows.  So:  what juicy "Voyager" rumors are there out there?

91 responses total.

um, the ship is cool, nut deffinitely different. little, for one thing, and not
modeled after female sex organs as both enterprises are, reputedly.

here is my info from the rumor mill:

two ships involved in a high speed chase (smaller ships, perhaps a little
larger than runabouts) one of them federation, the other Maquis.
both ships get damaged, and they must cooperate to survive.

rumor #2:  Leutenant Ro will be on the show.  I heard about this one
before I saw the episode where she defected to the maquis, but then the
person saying this may have known about the st:tng episode and may be
making a guess.  but then, aren't we all?

pardon me, but i dont recall this race, the maquis....
what are the federation views on them and how powerful are they? their
technology? sounds cool...

The Maquis are the Federation's version of the Irish Republican Army...
well, that's not totally accurate...let's say they're the Federation's
version of Texans pre-Texas' status as a nationhood and, later, a state.

They're a terrorist (or underground, whichever you prefer) group made up
of Federation colonists along the border w/ Kardassia, dedicated to over-
(scratch that over) protecting themselves from Kardassian colonists (and
Kardassia)

cool.

The rumor I heard is that ST:TNG is where the series peaked...it's
all downhill from there...including DS9 and this new rigamarole...
 
It'll still be interesting to see iif they can come up with a 
credible and interesting series in a universe that's getting a
bit stale...

they can, but never like STTNG did. what STTNG had over the rest was acting and
good plots. and characters like Picard and Q that you can either plain love or
love to hate. sometimes both. also, the universe being at sstake is usually a
cool plotline but can be misdone. not so in STTNG, it was usually well written,
evn the science. usually.

I'm getting a bit tired of the new-aliens-that-will-destroy-humanity
plot...  If they do that in this new series, I'll probably give up on
it rather quickly.

I think Deep Throat Nine might suceed if they got some of the TNG writers
over helping them out...the problem w/ DS9 is that, as the author of
"All I really needed to know I learned from Star Trek" pointed
out, they never GO anywhere...
they just sit there waiting for stuff to come through the wormhole that
*might* be exciting...
That's why I think _Voyager_ has potential...hopefully the ship will
be GOING somewhere...
It might also be a time to pick up abandoned plot threads
from TNG...anybody remember the Iconians?
The Jem-hadar (or however you spell it) are just the Borg redux.  DS9 has
the potential to explore a part of the galaxy untouched by humanity,
but instead they sit on the stupid space station most of the time...
I think what would really make Voyager succeed is to have one carryover
crew member from the Enterprise...someone we can identify with (Riker
would be a good one, as much as I despse him)...
it seems like TNG has introduced us to new characters and then
done nothing w/ them (e.g. the four ensigns from this season's "Lower Decks")
Voyager would be a good time to do something w/ those people, too.

Wasn't Myles (the engineer) on TNG before joining DT9?  (I know what
you mean, though, a more TNG-identified member...)

Yeah, Miles (or Myles) was on TNG...
I actually like the characters on DS9, but they're just not as compelling
as the TNG characters...of course, if you go back to watching first and
second season episodes of TNG, you wonder why you ever liked the show
in the first place (at least, I do)...maybe we just need to give DS9 a 
chance, and cross our fingers that Voyager will pick up the TNG torch.

STTNG did what the Old ST did, they made their primary characters Archetypes.
Picard, the leader.         Kirk, the Swashbuckler.
Riker the fighter.          Spock the Scientist.
Data the Scientist Android. Bones the Cynic.

They even have Worf, Troi, Chekov, and Sulu. The next generation may actually
be better at the archetype game than the Old Startrek did. Youre right, the
problem with DS9 is tht they never go anywhere. Its almost exactly like
Babylon5 except witout guns

I have a friend who has a number of contacts into the TV/SF business. He
gave me a real arm-waving rough idea of what ST:Voyager was going to
be all about. The general idea was that a ship would be thrown to 
way-out-there and it was going to take a *long* time to get home
I don't remember the details. 
I think it will have to be larger ships that the idea of runabout sized
vessales as described in #2 above. You need a realatively large diverse
pool of crew members to draw on to build plots around, especially since
you won't have the rest of the federation to draw on for this weeks walk
on character. And that's where I think this idea is simply not going to work.
One of the appeals of STTNG, especially in the later years, was that they
had crafted a very interwoven tapestry of a universe, not only did you
know the stories of all the various races, there was a whole raft of characters
that kept showing up and drifting around in that universe. It gave it a very
*real* feeling.

Unfortuneatly, they won't be able to do that in ST:voy. These people are
going to be on a one-way trip *back* home. The alien of the week that they meet
will never be seen from again. This was the probl(amoung *many* other problems
) with shows like _Space 1999_ and <gak> _lost in space_. If the crew
of ST:voy meet up with a member of the XGHTY race, all you will ever know 
about the entire XGHTY race will be what they can cram into 50 minutes,
and that will be it. OTOH, look at the Bjorans. Over the cource of many 
episodes, on 2 different shows, they've been able to build up a very 
complex image of what that culture is.

i wholeheartedly agree

The problem with a large, diverse number of characters is that it takes
a long time to "get into" the series (Tek War/Whatever is like this for
me, so I don't like to watch it).  They almost have to have a core group
of strongly-identified characters to hook the audience.  If they can't
bring in an alien of the week, they'll probably draw from that large
crew and we'll still have the "which red shirt will die this week"
anti-suspense.  
  Science fiction writers have already dealt with the ship "way out
there" meeting a new group of aliens.  Unfortunately for the humans
the aliens are usually smart enough to follow the humans home, or
back track their path through space to find the general vicinity of
whatever the "Federation" is called.  Maybe the aliens will even help
the humans get home, just so they can follow.  Silly hoo-manz fall
for that all the time.
  It sounds like a lame show, however, at this point we're just hearing
rumors and speculating.  I'll give it a few weeks (unless the first
episode is horrendously awful in which case I'll quit watching after
the second week) to see if it appears to be unique enough to watch.

        When I first heard about it, I thought it sounded promising because
they were back to exploring the galaxy, rather than sitting around putting in
wall-to-wall carpeting wherever they've been already.  Probably the whole 
reason they're going for the plot they have is to get us out of the old, well-
worn Trek universe.  As for the alien-of-the-week, they could always be
ranging over a wide area and appear several times.  Other races we've already
encountered could also be in the show (e.g. the Borg).
        Incidentally, I heard that the characters from "Below Decks" are going
to be on ST:Viger.

Good point, young, I agree.  It certainly did seem that by the end of
ST:TNG, we almost never met a new race, and indeed we almost never beamed
down!  I'm looking forward to (something of) a (limited) return to the
(sometimes silly, but now missed) style of Old Trek.

There's a "frequently asked questions" list which contains a lot of rumors
about ST:Voyager posted periodically to the newsgroup
rec.arts.startrek.current .  It will air in January and I think they
will start shooting in August on the sets that have been cleared from
the TNG series and the TNG movie.  The movie must be done shooting by now
as it's to be released around Thanksgiving and there's got to be plenty of
post-production.  Anyway, I'm trying to remember the rumors about the
content of the show. 

Captian of the voyager will be an attractive woman.  The ship's doctor was
in a transporter accident and now he can exist only in the holodeck. 
There will be a character with a 7 year life span.

The DS9 that came on the screen was so far removed from the rumors like
these that were floating around months before that I'm not paying too much
attention to the current round of rumors.  Remember Melora, the low
gravity wheel chair person from a DS9 episode?  She was going to be a
regular character if you believe rumors from this time 2 years ago...

A character who can only exist on the Holodeck?  How many frigging
hologrammatic characters do we need, anyway?

The one with a 7-year life span sounds interesting, though.

I'm sorry, but a holographic character... I wouldn't be able to take
it seriously, the only thing I would think of is Red Dwarf!

Or maybe the frozen captain from Darkstar....

Heh, thinking of Darkstar just gave me a weird idea:
Scene: Data in his cabin fiddling with the guts of one of his computers.
      <flash and shower of sparks>

Cut scene to bridge: Data walks in with that silly-ass grin that he worn
    alot in the first season and announces:
     "Hi. I'm a 30 second bomb, 29, 28, 27, etc. (you get the idea)

They'd have to teach him phenomenology. :)

Am I the only person out here who is sick to death of the "holodeck-
gone-wrong" storylines?  Everytime they can't think of a good episode
on TNG, they all head for the holodeck.  And then, once Picard, Worf,
Troi, Data, <insert character here> realizes they're trapped, they're
*SO* shocked when the safety has malfunctioned and they realize they
can get killed.  Of COURSE THEY CAN GET KILLED!!!!  DON'T THEY
REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME???????????????????????
 
If they are indeed planning a holodeck-only character, it only
indicatesto me that they can't get it together well enough to start a 
whole new show and keep up the quality of TNG.  I'm hopeful, but
skeptical. Wait and see, I guess.

The holodeck seems to be a good place for people to face their
inner selves, also, which does not necessarily translate into actual
danger of physical harm.  Brockley's (sp?) use of the holodeck to
confront his everyday fears was certainly interesting...

I think one thing we have to keep in mind (maybe I've said this in here before)
is that TNG wasn't all that stellar a show it's first couple seasons...I
really loved it when it came out, yet looking back on that first season
makes me realize a few things:
most episodes were pretty weak plots designed around an ulterior moral (anyone
remember Wesley asking Troi "But why do people use drugs? That's so stupid!")
most of the characters were stiff characitures of their roles (worf the
super-klingon who wanted to kill anything out of the ordinary)

In other words, it took a few seasons for TNG to come into its own--including
the characters, who became more "real" asthe series progressed (as an example
of this, consider the first season finale, where the Enterprise recovered
3 people frozen cryogenically in the 20th century...Picard dismissed them as 
nuisances...yet if he's supposed to be an avid archeologist, he would have been
(should have been) fascinated by them...

So...I'll give "Voyager" a  chance, cheesy as it may be...I can already see
DS9 seems to be heading in the right direction...and as someone pointed
out on rec.arts.startrek, the rumors 2 years ago regardind DS9 ultimately
proved to have little to do w/ the show...
Still, it's fun to knock aroudn rumors...feel free to contribute any 
you have regarding the "Generations" movie, also.

Went to see "Clearn and Present Danger" last night, and they had a preview
for "Star Trek:  Generations."  The script was posted on Usenet rec.arts.
startrek last month, and people have been talking about the script there
for much of the last couple months (I should say that *a* script was posted;
Paramount has said that the script was leaked, and that the script on Usenet
was the real script).  Anyway, I haven't read the script itself, but I read
all the talk about it, and many people were ripping on it...however, after
seeing the 30 second preview, I must say that I'm anxiously awaiting it...if
it's anywhere near what STVI was, it'll be good...I anticipate it will be much
better, however.  It's scheduled to come out November 18th.

Apparently , Paramount has decided that Trek
demographics skew too much toward male viewers, hence on "Voyager", the lead
character or captain, will be a female, apparently Linda "Terminator" Haa
Hamilton.  There will also be a gay character[D, somethibng
Roddenber[D[D[D[D[D[D[D[D[D[D[D

There will also be a gay character, something Roddenberry wanted to do on Next
Generation but was talked out of.  Ro Laren will not be a regular, she turned
the offer down. John "Q" DeLancey will be his usual recurring self on the show
however, and the Borg will appear." Hugh", the renegade B may be a crew member
as well............

could be interesting.  or way too "well meaning".

Almost forgot, there will be a more direct ST:TNG crossover, that being Wil
Wheaton, whose character was transformed into a "Traveler" so he'd mensions s
on the "Voyager" show. Wheaton may only be a recurring like "Q" but word I
heard is that hell be a regular.......no other cast crossovers unless they get
desperate for ratings though

No!  Say it ain't so!

Noooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!   please not wesley...  I thought I was
done with wesley... I was very very happy for him (me) when he became
a traveller and departed the universe as they know it...
I had hoped it would last longer than this, since his SHOW IS DONE.

now, to get rid of wesley, er, lucas on DSV...  maybe he can become
an amphibian and swim away...  ribbit...

Here, Wes, we need this message delivered to Star Fleet posthaste...
and while you're pushing this message along, could you take the
whole over-flowing post office while you're at it?  (aside: hopefully
that will get rid of him for a while, and if not, we've got more
go-fer tasks that need doing...)

Looks like you guys probably subscribe to alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die !  :-)

Or they could ask him the sensible thing, i.e. take the entire
ship along with him to Star Fleet HQ.

NAAAAAAAAAAAH!

What?!?!  Isnt everybody's favorite episode the "Wesley gets it it on with
Ashley Judd episode??    Roddenberry himself said the Wes character was his own
fantasy of helming a ship as a young boy....and he is the only person every to
make ensign before going to the Academy you know........

Hmmmmm........looks like Genevieve Bujold has quit "Voyager" over cr[D[D[D[D
"creative differences" .....leaving show temporarily without a captain.....
Kirstie Alley sounds like a good idea.......Captain Saavik?

Well now that we've seen a sample of what they've got to offer, any opinions ?

I like the last episode, it was quite funny.  I like the last episode of B5
better though, the war is finally here!!

Things are about to get really messy out there !

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss