During the first season of Enterprise, I found myself liking Malcolm. His semi-reclusive nature was endearing, as well as adding a certain level of intrigue to the character. However, the show seemed to stick with that character outline without ever fleshing it out. Over time, it felt like Malcolm was getting over-looked, which made him appear to be more background than anything. It might have been interesting if Malcolm met an untimely death while in the line of duty, which would have been on par with his character, and possibly bring in a new tactical officer, such as Major Hayes.
I find Malcolm to be the most interesting character in the show, because he is very much an enigma. I would have preferred the Enterprise triad to be Archer, T'pol, Reed instead of Trip. Though with Malcom's gloom-and-doom speeches and his obsession with military tradition, if anyone had to be killed off in the final episode, it should have been him instead of Tucker, simply due to all the foreshadowing. It would have also made all those Section 31 theories about what happened to Trip more plausible if it had been Malcolm.
I wish Reed would've been more paramount to the ship/show in the beginning. I like the idea of making him the third component to the triad.
A lot of the time, at least to me, he seemed like the most competent person on the ship. Him having a fit about Hayes coming on made some sense - e. g. Hayes moved his cheese. And of course for Malcolm, that's a flogging offense.
I never took to Reed and can't really say why. He did have some good moments admittedly, but still he doesn't rank that highly in on my favourite ENT characters.
I enjoyed Reed a great deal and wish we'd learned more about him. Sadly the books haven't given him a lot more to do either IIRC. BTW, Buffy fans should look for the actor in "Helpless" as well.
Reed was cool. I always liked the guy. About time we had an old fashioned tactical officer. He wasn't afraid to admit that he just liked blowing shit up! Always had a crush on his sister as well. And, lately... Spoiler: novels Reed's got a future as well. As of Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures, he has his own command!
I like Malcolm Reed I thought he was an interesting character. I liked his friendship with Trip and Hoshi Sato.I liked his mysterious background was very intriguing.
I think he's a bit dull just because he never got developed very much. I want to like him, and I don't hate him, but he blends into the background compared to the Big Three.
Well, he certainly wasn't as under-utilized as Travis, but I liked what he contributed. I think my favorite line of his was in Singularity, when Trip is going on about his Captain's chair modifications including cup holder, and Reed sarcastically remarks "Just what the Captain needs during a crisis: a place to rest his beverage."
Oh I completely agree about Travis. He was completely wasted, he doesn't have much more to do than hang out and look pretty. I thought it was a shame that ENT didn't make Malcolm be the gay character that was long overdue. I remember reading a tv guide interview with the producer where they asked about a gay character, and he said that it was possible one the characters was gay, they hadn't completely decided if one of them would be. Which I thought was pretty poor planning on tptb's fault, but I then was watching to see who it could be, and pretty quickly most of the characters show some signs of attraction to the opposite sex anyways. I thought Malcolm would be the gay character, but tptb didn't have the stones to follow thru with it apparently.