In the early stages, an efficient, business-like "coldness" made sense in its own way. Later, as Y1 progressed and even more-so in Y2, the Alphans grew together as a community. Rather than just a collection of experts, they started growing their own culture of a sort. After all, Breakaway left them only their own memories, computer records, and some physical artifacts to remember Earth by. So they had to start building something of their own.
Emotionally, the people started out as mostly brisk, efficient, business-like, even distant. This is not surprising in its own way. Many were still strangers to each other, either from it being a recent posting, taking time to adjust, or just the size of the base (would you know everyone at a business with 300-some employees?). This actually makes sense, IMO, considering the high-powered nature of getting a post to this most prestigous (or one of the most, it would seem) posting in the solar system, the absolute dedication to ones duties, then the shellshock of Breakaway, and subsequent alien encounters and outright attacks.
Little time for anything else but a few brief conversations (often at the end of many Y1 episodes), moments of deeper human contact. Not that they didn't care at other times. Koenig's gruff concern for Carter in "Collision Course," to cite one example, or Koenig's even greater concern for Helena as the season progressed. Not always obvious, and it could take multiple viewings to even recognize in some cases--but even then, it could leave some wondering if it was always there or not. They simply played it too subtle at times, it seems, and I can easily see how it led to accusations of "coldness", as even I had that impression for the longest time (first impressions aren't always easy to shake off, even if you're trying).
On the other hand, the point can still stand on its own. Robert, for example, has already discussed the lack of forward momentum that was insisted on by ITC, especially Abe Mandell, and how it actually worked against the series, and ultimately led (in part) to the criticisms, ratings disappointments (overall), and attempts to humanize the series (even if carried to the point of OVER-compensation by ITC and Freiberger). Greater appreciation or not, I still didn't get that much of a feeling of emotional growth, and that's still something that dogs my impression of Y1.
Like I said, however, I have considerably greater appreciation for Y1's uniqueness, and can accept that the emotional distances made sense in their own way. They had brief moments of deeper human interaction, but the name of the game seemed to be "Duty above all", not only before Breakaway, but after it as well.
But how long can this be kept up, when all other ties have been severed? No chance to contact family or friends back on Earth. No chance for vacations, or contact with *real* nature. A bunch of other driven individuals you never really got to know because of the continual demands of your duties (true before and after Breakaway). Sure, there were those moments of connection, and others I'm sure we had never seen. But I still, to this day, get a sense of mostly-isolated individuals, trapped in their own spacious but almost sterile quarters, on a somewhat "colorless" base. Don't forget Helena's words from "Death's Other Dominion":
But Alpha isn't home. It's a barracks, on a barren rock, flying endlessly through space! We want a real home. A place to live. To.. raise children.
This is one of my favorite quotes from the whole series, and is quite illustrative of a few of the points I was making in my previous paragraph. It's not a home. Not a place to live. How long could you live there without going crazy? How many actually *went* insane in some way? Moments of warmth still make for mostly cold days, so to speak, and I can't imagine this being enough for most people who are marooned from everything and everyone they had previously known. Sooner or later, the emotional stress of their situation would break down barriers. The only question, it seems to me, would be whether those "barriers" are those separating people, or those separating people from insanity.
The people in Y1 for the most part still seemed rather isolated from each other. But the barriers were slowly dropping. Year Two had a much stronger feeling of interpersonal warmth and closeness, of a group of people who had pulled together into a self-supportive community. Humor to help cope with the pain. Strong, supportive relationships. Romance that was, simply put... inevitable, very human, and even very necessary. Could you really imagine being marooned and not wanting to find someone? Would you really be able to help it? At least Year Two injected these elements, and even showed some "forward momentum" during the year, as we saw Maya and Tony's relationship deepen, for example, even if things could be left frustratingly vague at times.
Not that Year Two did its own things perfectly either. The "human" elements, if realistic in their own right, were sometimes mishandled.
Put together, both series came off with their own extremes. Year One for holding an almost unchanging, non-evolving interpersonal distance, when reality and sanity would suggest that people would have to pull together more quickly in the face of their circumstances. Year Two for jumping so abruptly to its own form, and not always handling it well. If Year One had greater forward momentum, we might have seen a smoother transition in the natural of Alphan interpersonal relationships, and the Y2 jump would not have seemed so abrupt in this regard. Or on the other hand, give Y1's slow inching forward, perhaps if Year Two was dated (in the Alphan calendar), from couple *years* after Breakaway, it would have made more sense (even if a huge time gap was left).
Without a doubt, it was an extreme jump from mere moments of deeper human contact, *slowly* increasing and deepening over time, to such an overwhelming (one could even say overpowering) sense of community. Even if both made sense in their own ways, it was still a radical jump. But I still say interpersonal relationships had to strengthen in many ways to stay sane, given Alpha's ugly situation. But the extreme shift? If "forward momentum" had been stronger, instead of being intentional repressed (for the most part), we could have seen it progress in a way that would have been more fulfilling, in a sense, without frustrating many viewers for the perceived lack of change. If they had progressed in such a manner, we could have seen an exploration of the changes of a collection of people sharing some moments and evolving by fits and starts into a closer-knit community over time. (BTW, this does not preclude conflict by any means; what community lacks this?)
Revisiting the "subtle flavor" metaphor for a second, and not just in regard to interpersonal relationships, but the series as a *whole*....
As much as the subtlety can be wonderful, it still hurt the series, IMO. It could get so subtle sometimes, that you couldn't recognize it for what it was until you saw it several times, either over the course of a run of episodes, and/or on second/third/etc. viewings of *each* episode--but how many people would hold out for that? Well, yes, it's their loss. But for a new series on which expectations were running high (perhaps unrelistically high), could it afford having a mass of initial viewers tuning in, watching it, not getting it, and tuning out--many permanently? Perhaps it made too many of its flavors too subtle.
To carry the wine metaphor further (perhaps too far), it would be like a wine with a bouquet (sp?) that starts wonderfully, then goes flat or perhaps even bitter for some seconds, then slowly starts to pick up with previously hidden riches? How many people can get past those middle impressions?
"Flat? Bitter?" you might ask, not seeing S19 this way, even metaphorically. But how many people saw special effects first, failed to get past plots that first seem confusing and characters that first seem cold or wooden, and never got as far as the subtle but rewarding opening of layers that could follow? How many people got lost along the way, for *whatever* reason, and simply tuned out before they could grasp the intent, and the uniqueness, of S19? Sometimes, it was outright closed-mindness, the type many ST fans display, or the type that many critics seem to constantly affect. Sometimes, the open-mindness was there, but just not enough patience, or that in the end, the themes simply did not grab them well enough. Their loss? Sure. But in ITC's quest for perhaps unrealistic ratings, it seems it became everyone's loss as well. Instead of splicing new additions/changes into the existing structure, they decided there were too many problems, and rewrote much of the structure instead. A pity they couldn't taste all the bouquets of their own wine....
(From a note I mailed to the list on 02/28/97)