Why were so many characters on Voyager underdeveloped?

VOY unlike most ships, couldn't receive replacement crew e very other episodes. As such it had a chance to build up a decent secondary cast. Who we would see fairly often. Apart from Carey and Vorrik VOY failed to utilise a small number of secondary characters.

Anyone remember the Transoprter Chief from TOS who was more often or not Lt. Kyle. Who was Voyager's Transporter Chief?, almost seemed to be a new one every week.

 

And what would make these Secondary character worth watching in the first place? It's not like they'd have any religious icons, former spies, exiled nobility, fugitives, etc on the ship as Secondary characters.

DS9, Babylon 5, Farscape and NuBSG at least had their secondary characters be all those varied sorts rather than just "another crewman" types.

 

Pregnant Sam Wildeman gets stuck in a Jefferies Tube.

Tom exclaims: "Oh my, It's just like Winnie the Pooh"

...

8 episodes in 7 years, and Nancy is a Voyager celebrity.

 

Honestly, I never expected any spin off to be anything like the ones before it. DS9 wasn't anything like TNG, much like TNG is very different from TOS even in character development. Besides Mulgrew, the cast of VOy were different class of actors than those of DS9. Much of DS9's cast were stage actors while many of Voy's were mostly TV actors from my understanding. I didn't expect the same dramatic quality. I also didn't find DS9 to be as "Americana" as Voy. was either.

 

Seska, Lt. Hogan, Lt. Jonas, Suder, Niomi & Sam Wildman, the Borg Kids & Icheb don't count?

 

Seska 13 episodes in 7 years

Hogan 7 episodes in 2 years (More like one, but basics crept into season three.)

Jonas 5 episodes in 1 year.

Naomi (scarlet) 17 episodes in 3 years.

Naomi (Brook) 2 episodes in one year.

Icheb 11 episodes in 2 years.

compared to

Garak 47 episodes

Nog 37 epiodes

Weyoun 36 episodes

Dukat 32 episodes

...

It's just a different paradigm.

 

Not to mention Martok in 24 episodes over four years, 22 of those not until after half-way through the fifth season. DS9's more minor recurring characters appear in as many episodes as Voyager's major recurring characters. That says a lot.

 

In Voyager between season 2 and three, they wanted to move their money from a larger cast into a greater sfx budget, but honestly I can't think of a single piece of CGI produced by Voyager that compared to those Space Battles in DS9, but those battles wouldn't mean anything without all the backstory setup and actors posturing for seasons.

 

And from the Original Series at 79 episodes (3 years)

Lt. Kyle 11 episodes
Yeoman Rand - 8 Episodes

So some of the recurring characters in TOS which had hlaf the number of episodes appear almost as often as characters in VOY

 

I was watching a "Making of TOS" once upon a time and they're explaining that they hired back actors in part due to fan mail.

We have to assume that if they wanted to keep a stable of actors, that Voyagers writing room could handle anything as well as DS9s if they were allowed to.

But the producers got the product they asked for nd it made them happy we would have to assume.

 

TOS really was a different animal (dramatically) from modern Trek. Plus, shouldn't Sulu, Chekov, Scott & Uhura be included in the secondary cast list? As has been mentioned earlier, they were all hired as day players, not main cast.

 

To be pedantic (hey, this is the internet!), that's not quite right. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were the only regulars during the first season (DeForest Kelley would be elevated to being a regular in the third season), but they weren't the only contract players.

Whitney and Takei were both hired with series contracts, as was Kelly, and James Doohan was hired with a multiple episode contract. Only Nichols was a day player throughout the series. Koenig was a day player during the second season, but he was given a contract during the third season.

Still, this didn't make them regulars, and despite statements to the contrary, Star Trek was never an ensemble show.

 

Frankly, I wouldn't have minded if VOY's central cast was smaller to begin with. I don't think anyone would've minded if the Main cast was limited to Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor.

 

And leave the chief engineer as a guest character? TNG tried that in its first season, and it didn't work. Kim was more or less extraneous, though. I have a hard time thinking of what he did on the bridge that couldn't have been performed by someone else. His most important function was being Tom Paris' best friend, and that didn't require him to be in every episode.

 

Agreed. The engineer needs to be a main character. The CMO is unimportant to me and mostly useless at staff meetings. Of course in VOY, the Doctor was one of the best characters, but not for his job.

Funny how DS9 did a better job developing its guest characters than VOY did with its primaries.

 

In retrospect, I think that given VOY spent 4 of its 7 years far more focused on the scifi aspect of the ship and its adventures than on any given crew member save Seven, Doc and Janeway, I'm thinking arguing about character development is not all that relevant since the main characters from season 4 on were Seven, Doc, and Janeway. The others were more like CSI staff looking at evidence. Sure, they threw in a bit here and a bit there, but there weren't really that many bits to go around when the primary focus is on Janeway, Doc and Seven, which is fine by me because I liked them all the most. Season 4-7 are my favorite. Season 3 is pretty awesome because I loved how Kes and her abilities came alive. I had actually stopped watching somewhere around 3-4 when it aired due to life being too busy to catch it when it aired. Wasn't like TiVo was around then and setting up the VCR was a pain. But I digress. Is there anyone who is not thinking what I am - S4-7: Janeway, Seven, Doc = main characters, all others CSI level characters staring at the evidence. Yes?

 

^The fact that the show focused on characters you liked, doesn't mean that the debate isn't irrelcant. What other shows where on about the same time as Voyager, The West Wing which had an ensamble cast. Yes it focused on some more than others.At it even managed to do resaonable on it's recurring characters.

 

If the writers weren't devoting time to develope main of the main cast, what good would having a secondary cast do? That's not fixing the problem, it's ignoring and using a temporary distraction in hopes of fooling the audience. That was Voyager's main problem to begin with.

Everybody seems to be avoiding the truth.
Yes, Voyager's writers weren't always the greatest.
However, many of Voyager's characters were underdeveloped because Paramount spent money to promote the show using Seven. Mulgrew & Picardo, the two divas were both fighting for equal screen time as her. Too keep the two of them happy, they gave them what they asked for which left no room for anyone else in the cast. The rest of the cast go shafted due to jealousy and ego.

 

Well they brought John Savage in to scare Mulgrew and at any point the Doctor could hav been replaced by anyone, hells they could have brought Jeri into to replace Picardo rather than sweet little Jennifer.

Would Tom hit on the Doctor, eventually believe that he's falling in love with "her" if the Doctor had chosen to adopt Jeri Ryans body after season 3 finished (You know, if they had decided against the Seven of Nine character.)?

Actually, wouldn't it have been keen if they had a different actor or actress every week to play the Doctor, and now and then s/he switchs out bodies in the middle of a story like in those episodes of Rosanne where the two Beckies (Sara Gilbert and sarah Chalk) kept swapping out between camera shots to screw with the live studio audience

 

Doubtful.
Picardo is the most famous face on the show.
If you didn't know him from his films like "Total Recall, Gremilins 2, Small Soldiers & The Howling". Then the other half knew him from his even better TV career "The Wonder Years, China Beach".
Voyager needed Picardo far more than he needed them.