Often the subject of disagreement, Voyager is talked about poorly by some and praised by others. Seeing plenty of posts about it here. Well ya know - I think Voyager is underrated.
That show took risks. They ran some stories that were just risky in terms of writing and production - sometimes it was a hit, sometimes a stinker. That's why it has some amazing episodes and some really really stupid ones, because they were willing to take a chance on something uncertain. And I respect that, too many shows these days feel like the same recycled crap because television has become so risk-averse and they're not willing to take a chance on something that might turn out dumb.
So we got ones like the infamous warp 10 episode, and those are remembered as cases where the show got really dumb. But as an example, Seven of Nine could've completely bombed that show. Yes it looked like they were bringing on a bimbo for sex appeal, and they absolutely could've went that route with her. Fans might've hated the change no matter what. I mean, that's a big deal, losing a main character and adding a new one - shows don't always survive that.
Also there are things I notice from a production standpoint. From reading about the making of TNG, one thing I remember is them talking about never wanting to damage the costumes or get them dirty, or damage the set. That increases their production costs, cheaper to just not do that.
But Voyager does this all the time. Uniforms are always getting burned and torn, Neelix spills things on his shirt, the bridge is shown being blown up or completely transformed. All the times they have smoke inside there, there's something with water, parts are broken off - that's something they had to clean up for the next episode. If they show burn marks on the captain's chair, that means they'll have to be cleaned or the whole prop replaced, at the risk of it not being identical or impossible to fix.
So the point is - respect for taking those risks. Didn't always land, but plenty of them did.
I do agree with you, had no idea people disliked Voyager whe. I first watched it, and I overall enjoyed it very much. Yeah, the show has a bunch of out there episodes, but they tried new things and all great star trek shows have their good share of wacky episodes.
It's not even like it doesn't have good criticism points, Kes character was very mishandled and her relationship with Neelix was terrible, he becomes a 1000% more likable once she's gone, and Chakotay whole botched native American heritage disaster... (Which granted, they tried, they just sucked at finding a specialist)
And Tuvix is one of the topics that guarantees a philosophical discussion in any star trek group I'm in without fail. I pretty firmly hate Tuvix, but that's power.
I liked Kes better than Neelix, and also liked Seven of Nine.
I don't know where they possibly could have gone with Chakotay's character after the initial Maqui subplots.
Honestly, same. Kes is likable from the get go, she just unfortunately treated as a prop most of the time instead of a character, specially for Neelix. I loved Seven, she became one of my favourites in Voyager.
About Chakotay, I don't know where they could have gone either, he was one of my favourites at first because of the character's potential and he looked hella cool. I don't dislike him, but he's bland, he's honorable I guess.
Hacoochie moya.
There were a number of angles for Chakotay I think.
The romance with Janeway was obviously squashed by Mulgrew but could have been an interesting one to explore.
But the biggest missed opportunity was not making him into a more official counsellor/advice position - we have here a highly spiritual man who manages to keep a cool head in most situations. Use that. Don't have Seven go to The Doctor for social lessons (as fun as blind leading the blind plots are), have it be Chakotay.
I feel like they kind of realised this angle in S7 when they had Seven working with the Chakotay hologram, but the less said about how that turned into that ridiculous romance the better.