Star Trek Voyager: Waking Moments

[Skel]

For that matter, they shouldn't even be sending upper management down into dangerous situations.

Voyager - The Chute.
The highest member of management, Janeway, goes blindly into a dangerous prison as part of a rescue operation, followed by the Security Department's manager.


(Star Trek is just "The Adventure of Upper and Middle Management. In spaaaace!")


But it's probably a bit tougher to have a cast the audience can get attached to if each away team is nothing but redshirts with a 20% survival rate. Or even if they do survive, you'd likely send down different specialists for each trip. Investigating an ancient technological relic would likely have a different team than a hostile situation, or an interesting geological site.

For whatever reason the "First unread post" totally bypassed this post. I'm right there with you on this.. You get my point entirely.

I've often wondered about if a suicide squad type troop would work as a ongoing. You'd have a hard time keeping an audience without characters that they can be attached to yet have them die off without notice, but Game of Thrones makes me lean towards yes you can.

 

[Jeff7]

For whatever reason the "First unread post" totally bypassed this post. I'm right there with you on this.. You get my point entirely.

I've often wondered about if a suicide squad type troop would work as a ongoing. You'd have a hard time keeping an audience without characters that they can be attached to yet have them die off without notice, but Game of Thrones makes me lean towards yes you can.

Of course, it's Star Trek.
The Suicide Corps could just get time-travel-reset at the end of each episode. Groundhog Day in the future.




But you never know, maybe a good writing crew could make an interesting show without ongoing characters. Maybe have a few of them at the top, sending crews to their doom. (Or maybe not. Tune in next week to see who does survive.)
Make it interesting and unique, and maybe it could get a good following.

Or just make more of the same and attract a bigger and more stable audience, and ratchet down society's collective intelligence another notch.

 

[mikeymikec]

I worked in comics so I can argue real world vs a TV show, just so you know. I'm totally OK with this..

I think you're confusing principal actors vs go getters.

I would be if I thought all the regular characters were go-getters, but if the setting is the flagship, then it stands to reason that the people who have achieved postings of significance on that ship are probably go-getters. Some posts, like say in Engineering or another specialised area may have got there through fortune and recognised talent.

The ONLY reason senior staff would be taking risks like they do in any of the Star Trek shows is because they need to do something interesting with it's actors.

I agree that it achieves that objective, but it's not the only reason. If you want someone with field experience to evaluate a situation on say another planet, it stands to reason that is someone who has achieved a post of significance on the ship.

In a more realistic (again, I'm totally OK with debating realistic stuff in a TV show based on a Soap Opera in space.)

*smirk* If we weren't, then we wouldn't be here

The red shirts would be the only people put in hazardous situations. The Senior staff would be back on the ship going "I hope that fool don't die".

Or "we've run out of red shirts, they keep standing up whenever there's phaser fire, we need to send someone with some tactical experience down there!".

What doesn't make any sense at all is Starfleet going, "You feel OK? You're not lying about being OK are you?" and allowing him to retain command.

I did say that someone with some decent script-writing skills could have made a good episode out of the quandary regarding Picard's suitability for command after that incident, and/or an undercurrent of doubt in the upper chain of command throughout later episodes.

I do agree that if you go through the entire story, you'd find a completely replaced crew (at least senior staff) because of all the things that happened to them. They really did have the worst luck.

Or perhaps Starfleet isn't very much like present-day Navies at all - I doubt that any present-day Navy on Earth needs to worry about crew being kidnapped, probed and turned into mind-controlled weapons or cloned and under the command of one's enemies, and with your point of view regarding trust in the chain of command, if they did, they'd never let them go on leave because of that possibility.

 

[zinfamous]

Kes was a little sexpot in SLC Punk. I've always thought Jerri Ryan had a weird face.

She does have a weird face, but I think most people ignore that...


Also, she is indirectly tied to the political ascent of Barack Obama...

 

[poofyhairguy]

Of course, it's Star Trek.
The Suicide Corps could just get time-travel-reset at the end of each episode. Groundhog Day in the future.




But you never know, maybe a good writing crew could make an interesting show without ongoing characters. Maybe have a few of them at the top, sending crews to their doom. (Or maybe not. Tune in next week to see who does survive.)
Make it interesting and unique, and maybe it could get a good following.

Or just make more of the same and attract a bigger and more stable audience, and ratchet down society's collective intelligence another notch.

British shows kill people off on a dime so I think its just audience expectation.

In fact there was kinda an uproar when Downton Abbey killed off characters British-style because Americans aren't used to that.

 

[mikeymikec]

One other thing I've just realised regarding Voyager that has pissed me off is this - the two-parter 'Scorpion' (where the Borg get their arses kicked by Species 8472 and Voyager does a deal with them to help in exchange for safe passage):

The underlying premise is that the Borg assimilate in order to investigate and learn about new species in order to defeat opponents and achieve perfection eventually, and because they haven't managed to assimilate any of 8472, they can't defeat them. I say this is utter bollocks because the Borg's ability to adapt outshines any of Starfleet by far, it did even before any of humanity was assimilated, so the entire premise of this episode is faulty.

TBH I think the Borg's ability to adapt is a bit over-powered to say the least. It would make more sense if, when a Borg drone is incapacitated by new-fangled-phaser fire, it is transported out of there, borg-autopsied (whatever) in record time, then the adaptation is sent out throughout the collective.

 

[Skel]

I would be if I thought all the regular characters were go-getters, but if the setting is the flagship, then it stands to reason that the people who have achieved postings of significance on that ship are probably go-getters. Some posts, like say in Engineering or another specialised area may have got there through fortune and recognised talent.



I agree that it achieves that objective, but it's not the only reason. If you want someone with field experience to evaluate a situation on say another planet, it stands to reason that is someone who has achieved a post of significance on the ship.

That's a valid point I'd agree with. It doesn't negate the fact that they'd have other people more qualifed to do/know things than the senor staff. ST has a bad habit of making someone on the senor staff an expert at something just cause it moves the plot along. "Hey Riker, you're a rock expert as shown by the rock collection the audience has never seen before, tell us about this rock thingy." You'd think they'd have a real rock guy on board as they're supposed to be explorers... if the plot calls for it. Normally I've seen in TNG at least the Enterprise normally screws around in Federation Space.

*smirk* If we weren't, then we wouldn't be here



Or "we've run out of red shirts, they keep standing up whenever there's phaser fire, we need to send someone with some tactical experience down there!".

Which in TNG is always the token Klingon. (on a amusing note, my spell checker knew how to spell that word.)

I did say that someone with some decent script-writing skills could have made a good episode out of the quandary regarding Picard's suitability for command after that incident, and/or an undercurrent of doubt in the upper chain of command throughout later episodes.

I personally feel they should have, but it goes right against the "Star Trek Syndrome" and putting our toys right back on the shelf. In it's defense, it was done in a time before we proved that audiences could handle long story arcs...

Or perhaps Starfleet isn't very much like present-day Navies at all - I doubt that any present-day Navy on Earth needs to worry about crew being kidnapped, probed and turned into mind-controlled weapons or cloned and under the command of one's enemies, and with your point of view regarding trust in the chain of command, if they did, they'd never let them go on leave because of that possibility.

It wouldn't be an issue if they were just explorers. In the OG series, they were too far out to replace people. In TNG they mostly were screwing off in known space policing the systems. (Again I could be wrong, but I mostly recall episodes that they were in known space, unless Q was involved). They also were on one of (if not the most) powerful star ships the Federation has ever made. That is the main reason why you wouldn't want someone that was compromised running it. In First Contact they told him to stay out of it because the feared he might flip sides.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Liar.

I just watched it again and found NO plot holes in Waking Moments.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

man, few shows could swing from occasionally brilliant to often making me want to jump out the window like voyager. excellent sci-fi:

you are my sunshine

bride of chaotica!