What happened to Jennifer Lien?

[Infern0]

First and foremost, this is NOT a bash thread, so please be kind.

I was reading into why Kes was written out of Voyager, and I read some nasty rumours regarding drugs etc.

I looked up some recent photos, and the difference is unbelievable, she looks like a completely different person now.

It's odd because she is only 38 years old, so I couldn't understand the change.

Just wondering, is there any substance to those rumours, and if anyone knows why she left Voyager?

[Deckerd]

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=162934

It's been covered many times but this is the most recent.

[Guy Gardener]

She went to school and is a qualified nutritionist now.

They can't fire you for drugs if you agree to go to rehab.

Addiction is a medical condition.

Firing someone for a medical condition is stupidly litigious ground to tread upon.

To be fired for drugs she would have had to have been caught, gone to rehab, gone back to work and then relapsed and gotten caught again.

Either she's the least stealth drug user in the world and they caught her on the first day of filming, or maybe the third day when she shared some bad acid with Genevieve which is why she really ran off set and never came back?

I googled Jennifer Lien + Drugs, and this thread was at the top of the results page.

[billcosby]

Deckerd wrote:

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http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=162934

It's been covered many times but this is the most recent.

It should be pinned, really.

[lurok]

+1. Or google is your friend

Someone ought to do a VOY FAQ:
What happened to Lien?
Why was Kes written out?
What happened to the Borg baby?
How many torpedoes does Voyager have?
How big is the shuttle bay?

ad nauseum

[Lynx]

Jennifer Lien wasn't fired because of drugs. She was fired because those in charge wanted a new character, a "sexy babe" to boost the ratings.

When they brought in Seven Of Nine in the beginning of season 4, they thought that they couldn't afford ten main characters so one of the original characters had to go. The first choice was Garret Wang (Kim) but when an inside poll among the staff of a glossy magazine showed him among "the 50 most handsome", they changed their minds and dumped Lien instead.

There was a drug rumor about a Star Trek actor (not Lien) before "the changes in season four" but that rumor was never confirmed and that actor wasn't fired either.

[Melakon]

Lynx wrote:

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There was a drug rumor about a Star Trek actor (not Lien) before "the changes in season four" but that rumor was never confirmed and that actor wasn't fired either.

It must have been Neelix. He seemed pretty addicted to leola root, using it in all his recipes. And he seemed a bit hyperactive.

[R. Star]

Melakon wrote:

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It must have been Neelix. He seemed pretty addicted to leola root, using it in all his recipes. And he seemed a bit hyperactive.

Well if I had to pretend to be in a relationship with him, I'd seek coping mechanisms too.

[Silvercrest]

A year or so after she left, there was a commercial for Valtrex (or some such product) and I would swear the voiceover was Jennifer.

[Guy Gardener]

Or you could talk about the four seasons of voice over work she did for Men in Black animated?

It's not like she vanished.

"Immediately"

[Silvercrest]

I hardly ever saw that show. Was her voice recognizable?

[Guy Gardener]

I was a little too old for cartoons when it came out, but I did hear good things.

[DeepSpaceWine]

This is a rather touchy topic given she has been in the news of late.

From what I heard, the show got rid of her because Paramount/UPN weren't willing to expand the budget (I presume they did a little, assuming Ryan was paid more than Lien), so someone had to go. First it was Wang, but a certain magazine saved his hide, so next up was Lien. Really, the only other potential fodder would be Neelix, and given how central the mess hall is (ship cafeteria) to scenes, it was unlikely he could be cut. Kes was just second fiddle in Sickbay and the cargo bay set was being replaced with Seven's Borgified cargo bay. If they got rid of Wang, I'm not sure who they planned to be an Ops. Random yellowshirt? There's no conspiracy, just new castmember + hard cap on the number of castmembers. And evidently it wasn't handled like DS9, where they could load up on supporting characters, some of whom appeared more than billed actors (i.e. Lofton).

As for her change, she was a minor actor who was out of the limelight for many years. For a lot of actors, one show is their only time in the spotlight and after that, they go back to obscurity. Look at Gabrielle from Xena for example (Renee O'Connor). Sidekick in every (?) episode of the top syndicated series for several years. And after that? Look at some of the movies she was in. Didn't star in much tv since. Even a show like Voyager, highest-rated show on UPN every show it was on (behind Smackdown, which I guess qualifies as a scripted show) didn't exactly send its cast onto great success (only Jeri Ryan seems to have continued her career, at least onto 2 series in the '00s). Heck, a lot of main actors disappear. The guy in Pretender? The guy in Highlander? How about some of the cast of Buffy, Angel, and Dawson's Creek, though WB was better at churning out actors able to get more gigs (Geller, Hannigan, Boreanz or however its spelled, Holmes). If you look closely, you'll notice a lot of castmembers of shows just fade away into the background.

[Guy Gardener]

If all she was going to get was 7 years, then whacking her when did is even more vulgar.

[Infern0]

it's an aside, but Replacing a Prime Jennifer Lien with Jeri Ryan is a downgrade in hotness, in my opinion