RETROACTIVELYMAKING STAR TREK: VOYAGER GOOD
The weakest of all Star Treks was Star Trek: Voyager. There can be no doubt of this. The show was pathetic, top to bottom, beginning to end. Airing from 1995-2001, Voyager chronicled the trials and tribulations of Captain Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager NCC-74656, a Starfleet vessel marooned in the Delta Quadrant, some 70,000 light years from the Federation. Fundamentally, this is not a terrible concept. While placing the ship far away from the Federation and the known history of the Star Trek universe (Vulcans, Romulans, Klingons, et al.) is inherently limiting, it does open up new possibilities to blaze new trails and explore new frontiers (to literally go where no one has gone before). The basic problem of Voyager was the piss-poor writing, which resulted in static, one-dimensional characters. So, in addition to retroactively sacking Jeri Taylor (the brain behind of the show, who was fired after the fourth season anyway - ha ha!), I have revamped or replaced all the major characters, as well as determined the major story arcs of the first two seasons.

The Big Picture
What kind of name for a starship is Voyager? You might as well call it the Explorer or the Journey (no Steve Perry jokes, please). All starships are voyagers, you chodes! What more dramatic voyage home from a far away land is there than The Odyssey? Thus, my show would be called Star Trek: Odyssey, a name that evokes the powerful symbolism upon which the show will draw. The ship could be named either the Odyssey (which would require renaming the Galaxy-class starship destroyed by the Jem'Hadar in the DS9 second season finale, "The Jem'Hadar") or the Ulysses, a name which, in this context, I prefer over the Odysseus. So, our ship shall be the U.S.S. Ulysses NCC-74656, a Nova-class scoutship.

Dramatis Personae
Captain Elisabeth Janeway, Commanding Officer - before the awful Kate Mulgrew was cast, the character had been named Elizabeth, not Kathryn, Janeway; thus, the name shall be restored. The single largest problem with Captain Janeway was Mulgrew's perfomance. Every single word that came out of her mouth was painful to hear and offensive to the mind. She was horrible beyond words. My nominee to play Captain E. Janeway is Tricia O'Neil, known to Star Trek: The Next Generation fans as Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C. In many ways a Star Trek show is only as good as it's captain; so, this is the single most essential change.
Commander Benicio Torres, Executive Officer - Chakotay was a disaster, beginning to end; the only way to move forward to is to forget him completely. Benicio Torres had a sister in Starfleet who was killed in the Cardassian border wars and joined the Maquis as much to avenge her death as to defend the colonists in the Demilitarized Zone. He was the commander of the Maquis ship the Ulysses was pursuing when both were pulled out of the Badlands into the Delta Quadrant by the mysterious Caretaker. His ship irreparably damaged by the crossgalactic voyage, he accepted Captain Janeway's offer to merge his crew with hers and become her Executive Officer. Torres is an everyman who regrets allowing his life to become engulfed by thoughts of vengeance and violence; he doesn't particularly like the man he's become.
Lieutenant Commander Sovok, Chief of Security and Tactical Officer - the biggest problem with Lieutenant Tuvok is that he did not have an s-name. Tim Russ could be kept on, or another actor hired, it doesn't really matter. The problem with Tuvok is that he was underwritten, not underacted. As the crew resorts to begging, bartering, or stealing to survive, Sovok serves as the ship's conscience, both reminding his captain of the virtue of Federation ethics and the pragmatism of violating them when the situation demands. Like Tuvok, Sovok had served aboard Torres's Maquis ship as a mole.
Lieutenant K'rena Singh, Chief Engineer - B'Elanna Torres was as worthless as Chakotay; forget her. However, because the average Trekkie creams his shorts at the mere mention of the Klingons, here I will pander to my audience. (Personally, I find them simplistic as adversaries and not just a little boring.) Singh is a hapa, half-human/half-Klingon. Whereas B'Elanna was one-dimensional, her Klingon temper standing in for any actual character development, K'rena is a thoughtful, introspective young woman who has spent her whole life trying to be comfortable in her own skin. A Stafleet Academy dropout, K'rena joined the Maquis as a way to "stick it" to those who she hadn't liked at the Academy. The Benicio-K'rena relationship is an inversion of the Chakotay-B'Elanna dymanic; this time around, he's the hot-head and she's the consensus builder.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Nick Locarno, Conn Officer - I don't get Tom Paris, the helmsman on Voyager; he was a gifted pilot, like Locarno, a fuck-up, like Locarno, and was even played by Robert Duncan McNeill, the actor who also played Nick Locarno in "The First Duty" (TNG). So, basically, Tom Paris was a clone of Nick Locarno, played by the same actor as Nick Locarno. Why not just use Nick Locarno? After his expulsion from Starfleet Academy over the death of fellow cadet Joshua Albert, the former leader of Nova Squadron became a pilot-for-hire all over the Federation, eventually joining the Maquis in search of a life of high adventure. On his first mission, Locarno was captured by Starfleet and sentenced to a penal colony in New Zealand. Captain Janeway had him paroled to serve as a guide through the Badlands when she went in search of her friend Sovok, missing along with Torres's Maquis ship. Aboard the Ulysses, Nick finds himself after years of drifting and begins to live the life he would have had were it not for one botched Kolvoord Starburst....
Ensign Harry Kim, Operations Officer - same character, same actor, Kim is the newly minted, by-the-book ensign assigned to the ill-fated Ulysses right out of Starfleet Academy. Unlike the Harry of Voyager, the Harry of Odyssey will actually be more than just a stereotypical Asian obsessed with his grades and the opinions of his superiors. Harry is a stickler for procedure and is shocked by Captain Janeway's less-than-pure methods, but eventually he stops being such a narc and learns that sometimes the rules have to be bent in the name of survival. Whereas Sovok is a consumate pragmatist, Harry is a naive idealist, yet the two of them become close as champions of the moral high road. At the same time, Harry finds his best friend in the rogue Nick Locarno. In the end, Harry is a young man on the adventure of a lifetime.
Emergency Medical Hologram, Chief Medical Officer - the Ulysses's surgeon was killed in the passage to the Delta Quadrant; so, the crew has to fall back on the stopgap solution, the EMH. Unlike his counterpart, "the Doctor" will not embark upon a holographic civil rights movement; instead, he is an aloof and even antagonistic observer of human behavior. No too-convenient-plot-device mobile emitter for the Doctor, he will remain happily confined to Sickbay and the Holodeck. He is at all times grumpy and sarcastic, but with the Hippocratic Oath written into his basic programming, he is a dedicated healer. A gruff exterior, but a heart of gold. However, like DS9's Vic Fontaine, he knows he is a hologram and does not aspire to be regarded as a sentient lifeform.
"Captain" Neelix, Sacagawea - for all their explorers' spirit, the fine Federation folks of the Ulysses don't know jack about the Delta Quadrant. Ethan Phillips is a true thespian; so, he returns as the more aggressive, devil may care Neelix. The region of the Caretaker's array is remote and lawless, the Old West in deep space. Voyager's Neelix didn't seem like he would survive five minutes without his Federation friends; Odyssey's Neelix is a pirate, a man doing whatever it takes to get by in a very rough neighborhood. He knows the score: who to piss off, who to flatter, who's got what you need. He's not a bad guy, but he knows bad guys and he knows how to get by without getting killed. Ship's cook? Morale officer? Nuts to that. Neelix is a scrounger who gets things done. By the third or fourth season, though, the ship will be beyond the edge of his world and Neelix will become more a conventional part of the crew.
Kes, Neelix's Girlfriend - the most pointless character on Voyager, they got rid of her just when she was starting to get interesting. Kes, looking to make herself useful, will be the Doctor's eyes and ears outside of Sickbay, the ship's corpsman. Also, partially as a result of some horrific and unorthodox experimentation by the Vidiians (more later) and partially as an awakening of her people's latent abilities, she will pick up some pretty bitchin' mental powers. Due to her short lifespan, Kes has an intense thirst for life, a desire to do everything she can now now now! She's feisty.
Seven of Nine, Giant Lie - while the Ulysses will inevitably come into contact with the Borg, there won't be any of this deassimilated Borg crap. Fuck no. And, according to precedent set in "I, Borg" (TNG), her name should have been Seventh of Nine. Hugh was Third of Five, not Three of Five. Dumbasses.

More to Come
Man, this took for-fucking-ever. Coming up, "The Big Picture, Part II," "The Heavies" (including a unifying nemesis for Janeway and Torres) and synopses of the major arcs of seasons one and two. Star Trek: Odyssey, coming never to a TV near you.