>> For some people, like Mike Okuda, it is both a fan interest and a source
 >> of a regular paycheck.  They generally have a pretty good feel for what
 >> fans like, balanced against the realities of television production and
 >> life at Paramount.
 BK> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 BK> Not just Paramount.. it's also life in the franchise which is another
 BK> issue completely.
I intended that to mean the bigger picture of the Voyager production
team, Star Trek management, Paramount corporate influences and corporate
partnerships to exploit the franchise.
I really don't see Voyager's problems as a writing problem, although of
course the writing has been problematical.
Any writer is going to come up with good and bad ideas.  It is management
that should be reinforcing the good ideas and redirecting the bad ones.
Instead, management seems to favor the ideas most fans see as bad --
like the macro-virus in Star Trek: Die Hard.  :-)
By the way, this week's episodes, The Gift (second new episode of the
season) is one of the best I have seen in some time.  Toward the end,
the B-plot is ruhed a bit, but overall it is a good episode.  Knowing
that you don't regularly watch, you might see if you have an hour free
for this one.
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