Why was Kes written off the show?

Discussion in 'Star Trek: Voyager' started by Kooz, Feb 23, 2012.

  1. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    You need to face up to the fact that it's not really that different from any other women's outfit worn during 24th-Century Trek. Nearly all of them were formfitting one-piece "catsuits."
     
  2. Avon

    Avon Commodore Commodore

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    could someone pin a statement to the top of the voyager section or something saying the whole 'kim was meant to leave, but the poll said no, so kes was picked etc, etc' because this topic comes up so often and seems pretty much common knowledge on here

    and there doesnt seem to be anything new to say on the subject.
     
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2012
  3. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    But this is how we prove that we know everything.

    i've been here for ten years, and I only only found out a month ago that Kim had been banned form the set for chronic lateness, which meant that there were kimless episodes out there on purpose and not accidentally Kimless.

    (Did Dawson get paid for episodes she wasn't in as her maternity leave?)

    I mean what's worse for Garret?

    (Garret is an anagram for regret. his parents could just tell something was wrong as soon as he was born. Regret Dick Wang. (his middle name is Richard. For realz.) The poor bastard didn't stand a chance... Okay "Gerret" but it's fricking close.)

    Banned form the set, or an episode where he's paid 20 grand to wander around in the back ground with no lines like he's an extra because the screenwriter thought everyone else was more interesting to write for?
     
  4. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    If I understand it correctly, actors in the opening credits get paid a set amount whether they are in an episode or not. They only get additional repeat royalties for episodes in which they appear.

    What made Grace Lee Whitney's contract so expensive in TOS was that she was paid for the first 13 episodes, whether in them or not. And the writers only put her in six. Nichelle Nichols and Majel Barrett were "cheaper" in that they were only paid the weeks/days they worked.

    So, yes, Roxann Dawson would have been paid all seven years, including her maternity leave. And extra when she directed.
     
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  5. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    So you just admitted that Kes is in fact wearing a catsuit then. A catsuit is defined as a close fitting women's jumpsuit, exactly what many of the Trek characters wore. It just happens that Seven's was much much more elastic and tighter than others. Personally I preferred the catsuits of Kes/T'Pol since the material was nicer.

    [​IMG]

    See, there's her red catsuit.

    Well I can't really speak for what it was like back in 1996 but there are false rumors about celebrities all the time, doesn't mean they get fired from their tv shows though.

    Regarding writing for Kes. I can definitely see how it was EASIER to "write" for Harry Kim since he could easily get a ton of filler lines each epiode, but it was clear the writers weren't interested in his actual character. As Wang has said himself, Kim was a cardboard cutout whose main function was to just spout out shield percentages and such. Kes was a character who didn't fit into that easily definable Trek role and as such the writers needed to make an actual EFFORT with her, which was clearly too much for some of them - although not all, as I said, its obvious Kenneth Biller didn't approve of getting rid of Kes, no small coincidence since he wrote her best episode that was the best use of all that made her unique "Before and After".

    Now really, if we all stopped talking about things which had been addressed before, the forum may as well close down.
     
  6. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    If you had been paying attention, you would have noticed that I said if Kes' outfit is considered a "catsuit," then almost every woman since TNG has been wearing a "catsuit" in some form or another. Therefore, it's nothing out of the ordinary.
    See above comment.
     
  7. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yeah so fine, you agree she was wearing a catsuit then whereas earlier you had said it wasn't. Great.
     
  8. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    Tell that to Charlie Sheen. (Ah, those weren't false rumours.)
     
  9. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    his main assistant apart from Kes was Tom Paris, both while she was there and after she left. And yes, I get that your real point was "it's not that important a job because we hardly ever saw an assistant for him after Kes left," but actually I think giving Holodoc an assistant added to realism, and having him work virtually solo in the later part of the series was kind of silly.
     
  10. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    On a potentially 70-year return journey, training up as a nurse the one character with only seven years left on their lifespan was DUMB.
     
  11. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think the dumb part was writing a character in with a nine-year lifespan.
     
  12. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    It exposes a flaw in the idea of EMH as the ship's chief medical officer. It implies that the Voyager had no other doctors in the medical staff at all or that they were all conveniently killed at the same time, including those that may not have been on duty at the time the ship was tossed into the Delta Quadrant.

    But even a junior lieutenant in the medical department could have taken over as chief medical officer with the EMH as his or her assistant.
     
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  13. Therin of Andor

    Therin of Andor Admiral Moderator

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    That's exactly what happened.
     
  14. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    They were golfing on the holodeck, duh.
     
  15. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    That's no different from saying all the engineering staff died or that everyone in the science department died. They really had to make it so that every single medical officer aboard the Voyager had to die no matter where they were on the ship.
     
  16. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Ha true, but to be fair, there was never ANY feeling on Voyager that the crew thought they were gonna be on the ship for more than a week.
     
  17. teacake

    teacake Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Someone should really have had a breakdown around the 5th year, someone with a lot left behind.
     
  18. You_Will_Fail

    You_Will_Fail Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I think they should have stayed in the Void seen in "Night" for a few episodes and sh*t shoulda really hit the fan. It was Brannon's chance to turn the show into what he wanted...but according to Moore, he lost all the ambition he had for carving a great show out of Voyager. Maybe the network wore him down or maybe he just lost interest, I don't know.
     
  19. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    well to be fair, of a crew of 150 on what was supposed to be a short-term mission, they probably didn't have that many. It might have been the smallest department.
     
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  20. Greg Cox

    Greg Cox Admiral Premium Member

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    Come again? Remember TOS? It may seem tame by modern standards, but they were definitely going for sex appeal from day one. Heck, the very first pilot, "The Cage," is essentially about a rugged human astronaut whose alien captors are trying their darndest to get him to mate with a curvy female specimen . . . and who eventually offer him his choice of females from the crew.

    And how often did Shatner end up shirtless on the original show? And how short were the yeomens' skirts? Nope, no sex symbols here. :)

    As an older, wiser mentor told me years ago, when I was just starting out : "There's a place for hormones in this business."