Voyager started out very nicely, with a very well realized pilot, but from there it all went down hill. The first season wasn't bad, though it did rely on time travel too much, but then the writers got lazy. Key problems were weak characterization and story lines, a general lack of logic and continuity, and limited knowledge of Trek by the writers themselves.<br /><br />Voyager should have been an excellent opportunity to explore new territory in an environment where the situation was not ideal, but it was never realized. Although by the first regular episode they were having power problems (though conveniently and stupidly the holodecks ran off incompatible reactors), potential problems were never really dealt with. Battle after battle, the ship could have (and should have) started taking on a beat up Millennium Falcon kind of look. Instead she looked as pristine in the finale as the day she came out of spacedock.<br /><br />The series offers no genuine character growth. Personality quirks are added to the characters in a hap hazard way purely to serve the plot and are never heard from again. This might be something like the First Officer suddenly developing a passion for early space exploration five seasons in, when it was more in keeping with the helmsman Paris, all because its the First Officer who has the rank to ignore the Captain and get everyone in trouble.<br /><br />As far as trouble, no scenes get old fast like a Voyager battle scene. Aside from having trouble with simple concepts like space is big and three dimensional, the writers turn the crew into morons. How many times can one ship get thoroughly beaten in combat because its crew can't be bothered to shoot back. They typically wait so long to shoot back that the ship is no longer in any position to defend itself. It gets particularly silly in later seasons when the ship is seriously threatened by shuttlecraft (I kid you not). The writers seemed unwilling to think through a plausible way to put the ship in trouble.<br /><br />Finally, the writers seemed to have no clue what machines in Trek can do. I know Gene Roddenberry said writers aren't required to read the technical manuals, but at least watch some episodes. When characters are pinned down by a couple guys on a cliff, they should not be calling the ship to ask if they can help with their weapons. Most members of the audience have seen hand phasers vaporize people, so why not just go to a high setting and take out the whole cliff. This is just one example of many lapses of logic resulting from writers who didn't know the material.<br /><br />With a handful of innovative episodes, Voyager spent most of its time wallowing in the laps of lazy writers. Plots were weak. Characterization was all but nonexistent, and the writers would have us believe two kids and a dog could take the ship.