Voyager....

It's difficult to know where to start when it comes to highlighting Voyager's flaws.

I'll just stick to my favourite two; characters and plot.

Janeway has to be one of the worst characters ever written for the Star Trek universe. If ever there was a character that was in constant danger of disappearing up it's own backside then Janeway's it. Inconsistant, hypocritical, morally ambiguous (in a sloppily written way rather than any conscious decision to make her character flawed) and smug beyond comprehension. One week she's bemoaning Ransom (Equinox) for exploiting an alien species in order to get home, the next week she's signing a pact with the Borg to commit genocide to lop a few years off their journey (Scorpion)

The less said about the balance between the set of characters the better. Later seasons simply turned into the Janeway/Seven/EMH show to the detriment of every other character on the show. We ended up knowing little more about the likes of Tuvok or Harry than we knew after the first episode.

Leaving the characters behind there's still the issue of the show's plotting. Even the show's fundamental principles were in flux. Every week we heard about how desperate the crew were to get home, and how desperate Janeway was to get them there, the next she's having them stop off to explore a nearby cloud in the hope of extracting some coffee for herself Make up your mind woman !!

That's before we even get on to the old 'Spatial anomaly of the week' charges, or better still the constant use of the BRB. DS9, by comparison, was bold and adventurous. It took chances and it lived with it's consequences. The Dominion war for example reshaped the entire landscape of the Star Trek universe and they lived with it and explored it. Every time Voyager even hinted at a fundamental change within either it's local setting or it's internal dynamic, it felt the need to have everything back to the way it was by the episode's close. Just take a look at The Year of Hell 2-parter, for me completely ruined by it's resetting to the status quo by the time the credits rolled around at the end of the second part.

For all it's flaws, Voyager, in my opinion, only has one thing w**king in it's favour. It's better than Enterprise.......

It is not better than Enterprise come on!

Least Enterprise has some plots and makes some sense.....

And Scott Bakula is a very good Captain better than Janeway.....

Jolene Blalock has better sex appeal than Jeri Ryan......

I enjoyed Enterprise, with Voyager I just felt awful trying to sit and watch it with soooo much bad acting....Ensign Kim anyone?

And the Caretaker must be the stupidest plot I've ever seen.......ooooh were trapped on the other side of the universe....why....because Janeway has to the moral highground...why didn't she stay behind and let Voyager go and blow up the Array herself......then they could have got home instantly and given Voyager to a more worthy Captain.

I could probably count at least 10-15 good Voyager episodes.

I'd be hard pushed to count good Enterprise episodes on one hand.

At least Voyager never had to resort to a season of fanwank which was only put out because they knew they'd never get anything past a 4th season, and so they did whatever they could to placate the rabid fan contingent.

Voyager never had to spend 2 episodes explaining the Klingon forehead mystery

I could probably count at least 10-15 good Voyager episodes.

I'd be hard pushed to count good Enterprise episodes on one hand.

At least Voyager never had to resort to a season of fanwank which was only put out because they knew they'd never get anything past a 4th season, and so they did whatever they could to placate the rabid fan contingent.

Voyager never had to spend 2 episodes explaining the Klingon forehead mystery

Am I the only person who actually liked Enterprise......

I could probably count at least 10-15 good Voyager episodes.

I'd be hard pushed to count good Enterprise episodes on one hand.

At least Voyager never had to resort to a season of fanwank which was only put out because they knew they'd never get anything past a 4th season, and so they did whatever they could to placate the rabid fan contingent.

Voyager never had to spend 2 episodes explaining the Klingon forehead mystery

Am I the only person who actually liked Enterprise......

I liked most of the first season of Enterprise, the final few episodes of Season 3 (from Azati Prime onwards), the last few episodes of Season 4 (TATV aside, although it doesn't deserve the flak it gets from the more rabid contingent), as well as a few other episodes here and there.

It's just the rest of it that really fails...

I enjoyed Enterprise's third season, but beyond that the other three years were pretty woeful.

I agree with Phillip on this one, despite Voyager's obvious flaws it still managed to produce a number of classic Trek episodes; Blink of An Eye, Scorpion, Counterpoint to name just a few. I can count the number of 'classic' Enterprise episodes on one hand; Twilight and Similitude, and that's about it for me.

I'll agree with you on one point though Daniel, Bakula/Archer were absolutely light years ahead of the woeful Mulgrew/Janeway.

I'm with Daniel. Enterprise was better than Voyager, although I though Bakula was the worst thing in it. Apart from him the cast of Enterprise were much stronger than their Voyager counterparts. Enterprise also had some character development and continuity, something that was totally lacking from Voyager.

Its true that Enterprise made a complete hash of the overall continuity of the trek universe, but often the episodes that sounded like a really bad idea actually worked ok (the borg one, the klingon forehead one etc). Enterprise was a bad idea from the start. Making it a prequel meant they struggled to do anything original, Having said that, they did manage to quite a few decent epsiodes. I think Series 3 of enterprise was pretty good, and the second half of series 4 wasn't bad either (If you'd asked me at the end of series two which series was better, I think I'd have gone with Voyager). Voyager, (which was a great premise IMO) could only managed half a dozen decent episodes, despite having nearly twice as many.

Enterprise suffered from poorly thought out plot lines, and a lot of the secondary characters had wafer thin personalities, but it managed to avoid the biggest problem voyager had, which was being totally boring. There were far too many plot lines in Voyager about Torres being angry or Neelix feeling insecure or Harry being rubbish.

(Of course, I wouldn't go so far as to say I actually liked enterprise, its just not as bad as it could have been).

Enterprise took a great risk in being a prequel and so set itself up for a fall. It could have gone for the "more spandex and shinier console" routine. There's always going to be problems with a prequel and the gruesome twosome weren't up to the challenge. Voyager has no such excuses.

Personally I think Enterprise beats Voyager on every level. It's got a better captain and the other cast members are more fleshed out. Granted the fourth season is a fanwank but that's just a result of the imminent closure of the series. Granted Voyager might have more better episodes than Enterprise but it had seven seasons instead of four. On a percentage basis Enterprise would win. Most of the entire third season equalled the best Voyager could offer, or was it another board that I saw people talking about downloading S4 because they couldn't wait for it to be on the telly.

This is not to say that Enterprise was a triumph. It just wasn't as bad as the waste of a show that was Voyager.

In my humble opinion, of course

Great finally people who agree with me!

I am not sure if he is right but Bryan Appleyard said TNG was very much a product of the Reaganite era and that is reflected in it's general hardness unlike the hippy leaning original series. The seriousness of TNG was perhaps a problem and it also lacked the interest in the human condition that made the original series so appealing. Having Wes or Data find increasingly technical solutions to problems is not that engaging.

I do not own the TNG DVDs but after the first two woeful seasons the show did seem to find its feet as far as I remember. sk

Your massive post does point out some of the flaws of Voyager I admit. As one magazine put it the stories could be 'dangerously unfocused'. On the whole I enjoyed Voyager more than Enterprise. At least Voyager had an overriding mission that drove the stories however they ultimately mishandled the stories. A problem with Enterprise has to be the 'historical' aspect to the show which took away any significance of the stories hence the remarkable acrobatics of S3.

I must admit I watched Caretaker and really enjoyed it. The whole storytelling seemed infinitely more effortless than Enterprise has ever managed. I cannot recall much of S1 but I am looking forward to it. sk

Caretaker highlights the odd thing with Trek pilots - the poorer series (Voyager and Enterprise) have far better pilot episodes to those of the better-received ones; TNG's 'Farpoint' being just very dull, and DS9's 'Emissary' being far too complex for a pilot, and only really makes more sense once one has a beter idea of the series as a whole...

Of course, the ultimate fanwank turned up back in season 2. The Borg

Your massive post does point out some of the flaws of Voyager I admit. As one magazine put it the stories could be 'dangerously unfocused'. On the whole I enjoyed Voyager more than Enterprise. At least Voyager had an overriding mission that drove the stories however they ultimately mishandled the stories. A problem with Enterprise has to be the 'historical' aspect to the show which took anyway any significance of the stories hence the remarkable acrobatics of S3.

I must admit I watched Caretaker and really enjoyed it. The whole storytelling seemed infinitely more effortless than Enterprise has ever managed. I cannot recall much of S1 but I am looking forward to it. sk

The thing with Enterprise was that it's (relative) historical setting should have forced the writing to be that much better. You don't need to overthink the plot, that's already there; The war with the Romulans, the founding of the Federation, etc, etc should have provided a rock solid backbone to the series as it went along.

Unfortunately Berman and Braga simply weren't up to it and insisted on tinkering with pre-established history, hence the godawful 'temporal cold war' arc

Voyager and Enterprise had great potential, in different ways. In the end both floundered, IMO Enterprise moreso. Although I'd much prefer the characters from Enterprise, there's very little comparison between the relative merits of the storywriting.

Voyager, amongst the rough periodically yielded absolute gems by any Trek standard. Enterprise, again for me, managed such a feat only twice.