Tl;Dr - everybody on Voyager lacks the most basic of common security sense, and roams the delta quadrant with the naivety of children. Discuss.
Long version: Let me preface by stating that we've watched all of TNG and DS9, and we're approaching the end of Voyager, so maybe I'm just burned out on Trek's writing in general, but why do so many of Voyager's plots require a complete lack of security common sense to work?
Case in point: we've just watched "Repression", wherein Tuvok has been attacking and mind melding with all of the old Marquis crew, who have now all recovered from their mystery comas and been put straight back on duty. Tuvok is in the brig talking with Janeway. Not only did they let him keep his combadge, but when he uses it to relay a bunch of strange words to Chakotay, who replies that he "understood", Janeway at no point thinks it might be prudent to have Chakotay immediately detained. This leads to a full ship takeover and Janeway almost getting killed.
Then literally the very next episode a random trader is able to straight up steal the doctor out from under everyone's noses. I know the internet was in its infancy when Voyager was created and we were all pretty naive about data security, but come on!
So many plots rely on critical systems being wide open for anyone to tamper with, or crew members lacking the most basic of common sense and/or being way too trusting of complete strangers.
I appreciate that it would be a pretty boring show if everything was locked down and people did their jobs properly, and that I might as well be complaining about the fallacy of Holodeck safety protocols, but I had to get it off my chest!
If it weren't for the fact that it's become a bit of a running joke to point out all of the ways a major plot device could've been avoided I think we'd have stopped watching a couple of seasons ago.
Has Trek always been this way, or is the writing on Voyager just particularly lazy/bad?
I thought you were going to talk about the wild swings in characterization, the ratings-chasing premises, and the continual reset button mashing. The kind of minor plot hole/contrivances used to move the story along that you’re talking about never bothered me all that much. I feel like they’ve always been there to a degree, but you’re probably right, those were probably worse in Voyager, too.
It had some good moments and wonderful character dynamics when the writers managed to stay halfway consistent about it, but the franchise definitely showed a downward trajectory with Voyager and Enterprise.
reset button mashing was a reality of making network television in the 80s and 90s.
Budgets relied on sets that didn't need to be updated every week to a consistent level of "damage" in the passage of time. It's no different than the fact that no matter how many car destroying stunts the General Lee did one week, the next episode it was running fine and dandy.
I'm tired of Voyager getting shit for that when literally every episodic show in the era relied on it. They HAD to. There was no Cheap CGI. the ability to keep updating the sets with new damage only really came about with the BSG remake, and THAT'S because budgets had increased exponentially.