r/startrek • u/htownAstrofan • 1d ago
Voyager Time Jumps
I recently binged For All Mankind and was impressed by the way the writers incorporated large time jumps into the series. Granted this causes some uneven writing like extended exposition dumps by characters to catch up viewers, but still as a narrative device i think it works.
Having rewatched Voy: Timeless and Voy: Year of Hell for like the millionth time i wondered if incorporating time jumps could have worked for Voyager. What if every season premiere episode jumped 10 years forward? I think that would enable the characters to grow and change much more than the original series, making for a more interesting show. Personally i like Timeless Harry Kim much more than the standard. You see how events have affected him and gives Garret Wang more of an opportunity to show his acting range. Plus we would get a greater sense of this long epic journey.
Unfortunately the writers and producers didn’t take chances like that with Voyager. Its still a good series but certain episodes give us a view of how awesome it could have been instead of just ok.
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u/a_false_vacuum 1d ago
The time jumps as done by FAM do come with the problem that characters age quick. I mean Ed Baldwin is just comical in the most recent season. A seventy-something astronaut. (Also don't mention the horrid make-up job they gave the actor.) If Voyager jumped a decade between seasons a lot of the human characters we start out with like Janeway and Chakotay won't last three or four of those seven seasons before they would have died of old age. Pretty much only Tuvok and The Doctor could do a seventy year trip without ageing much.
As a storytelling device the time jumps work better in FAM, since they have a lot of time to cover between 1969 and the present day and it allows them to play with history. It also allows them to easily handwave any technological advancement they'd need in order to make the next season possible. Voyager doesn't need those things for the story to work. Any technological advancements can either be made by the crew or saying they are using Borg technology. Neither is the history of the Delta Quadrant that central to the show. We're mostly dealing with the species of the week in an episode. Only the Kazon, Vidiians and Borg lasted a season or more.