Funny Idea I had. Basically, we score series by what was promised for star trek voyager, and see if it was better in that regard than voyager was. What was promised us for voyager: - Stranded far away from home trying to reach their destination - Resources are in short supply, and can not be easily renewed - Tensions between several groups on board the ship rise high - The situation they are in, causes characters to go through profound changes - New and unique parts of space are discovered with never before seen phenomenon For each element present in the series, it can earn up to twenty points, with an additional 20 points that can be earned for stories that make sense and consistency between the stories. Let's see which series are better at being star trek voyager than star trek voyager First, star trek voyager itself. - Stranded far away from home, trying to reach their destination Because this is the general premise of the series, it could easily earn 20 points. However, there are a number of episodes, most notably the one with the ferengi, where this point is abandoned for (usually very contrived and senseless) reasons. So, 16 points - Resources are in short supply, and can not be easily renewed While some episodes do mention shortages of power, the crew is constantly gathering food supplies and there was an episode dealing with shortage of a certain metal, Voyager never seems to run into any form of resource shortage. Even more, the ship actually seems to hold more stuff than a fully stocked ship, and is reset every episode. For the best example, you'd need to look at the number of shuttles the ship has. The ship starts out with 2 shuttles and no way to build more. Despite this, it manages to lose 36 shuttles, including three in a single episode. 2 points - Tensions between several groups on board the ship rise high You'd think that half your ship being manned by terrorists that opposed you would be an excellent source of conflict. Despite this, maquis and federation forces on board clashed only once, and even that was in a holographic simulation that was deemed unrealistic by everyone but tuvok. There were a few episodes dealing with a maquis crewmember having to adapt to the federation way of life, but none of these made sense.1 point. - The situation they are in, causes characters to go through profound changes For your character to change, you'd actually need a consistent character first, which already removes Janeway, Tuvok, Chakotay, Neelix, Naomi, Harry Kim and Tom Paris from the equation. B'elanna has no change in her character at all, even though she gets married. Kes seems to have some character growth, but all of that was undone with her return. Seven of nine, however, was handled excellently and makes me wonder why she was the only one that got any consistent growth at all. 6 points. - New and unique parts of space are discovered with never before seen phenomenon The phage was interesting. Shame that plot never went anywhere. Year of hell had some interesting new concepts as well. There were a few individual episodes with interesting concepts as well, but they were in the minority compared to the episodes that ripped off "the next generation". 5 points - stories that make sense and consistency between the stories Nope. Just nope. Anyone remember the time that they got the ability to reach any speed but infinite? The fact that B'ellana's DNA could cure an entire species? The caretakers? Some episodes even contradict others. The Hirogen are introduced in flashback, where they retroactively find a way to jam their torpedoes. When they next appear, the voyager crew acts like they never heard of them. Also, remember when the holodeck was invented 15 years before voyager took place? All the fourty year old characters somehow grew up with holo-deck technology. Not to mention Tuvoks three contradictory backstories. 0 points. Total: 30 /120 points. Now, we take battlestar galactica - Stranded far away from home, trying to reach their destination Their destination might have been very vague, but they always tried to reach it. 20 points. - Resources are in short supply, and can not be easily renewed Handled excellently, with shortages of food, water, alcohol, medicine, power and mechanical components being constants throughout the series. The only complaint I have is that the numbers of vipers and raptors seem to be slightly inconsistent during the fourth season. Bonus for pointing out the number of people left at the start of every episode. 18 points. -The situation they are in causes characters to go through profound changes All characters are handled well, except maybe head-baltar and head-six, but its not actually clear whether those are characters at all. 18 points. - Tensions between several groups on board the ship rise high Done very well, with the conflicts between the pegasus and the galactica, as well as the military coup and anti-cylon revolution. 20 points. - New and unique parts of space are discovered with never before seen phenomenon Not really the primary goal of the series, but nevertheless, there are a number of interesting locations. 4 points. - stories that make sense and consistency between the stories For every part that makes no sense, they make sure to involve god. 15 points, because a number of points are intentionally never explained. 95/120 points.
How is that fandering? The limited amount of shuttles and building capability had a point, namely to point how screwed they were by being at the wrong end of the galaxy.
Not really sure about that. They could have picked up some other shuttles over the course of the show to replace the ones they lost. Would give a better sense of continuity (not to mention more bang for the bucks spent on the various shuttles of different races that only showed up once).
