I like that story line YWF. It gets everyone out of the ship, it's gritty, it's horrible (the slavery) and I'm also keen to see Kes corrupted.
Offering critical commentary and content analysis means "telling writers how to do their job." And that's fine. There's nothing sacrosanct about television scripts. The writers put their work out there for mass consumption - it's fair game for any sort of criticism we can throw at it. ^Good link. Here's the bit about Kes's departure:
Honestly, what you consider "tinkering" might be a strength for the character. They could write stories about her from many angles and perspectives. Compare that to Kim who remained "young Ensign Kim" for seven years. Tales about Lien being a difficult person are pure speculation. Lien and Mulgrew were best friends. I don't think they would have been that if Lien had been difficult to work with. Besides that, if Lien had been a pain in the @** for her co-workers, someone would have mentioned that sooner or later. They didn't, instead all of them were sorry to see her go. And obviously there were writers who liked the character too and could come up with good stories until they were ordrerd to be unable to write for the character.
As a fan, I think I have the right to do that since the fans actually are those who keep these people at work. If the fans abandon a show, then it's gone and the glorious writers are out of work. As for critical commentary and analysis, if my analysis says that it was wrong to dump Kes/Lien, then I do think I have the right to express my opinion in that case.
Yep. I've heard enough inside stories, from people who were actually there, to believe that what the creative team said they felt to be true, at least at the time, is true. These things are not decided on a whim, usually. Hollywood is big business and no one likes to get it wrong. Jeri Ryan was a breath of fresh air for the franchise. A revitalised Kes was not going to have the same spike of interest. When did I ever say that? I said that the writers were disappointed with the character and, despite numerous attempts to steer the character in very different directions, over three seasons, they were still unhappy with Kes. No, I know people who had to attempt to explain her bizarre actions at a convention to some very angry fans, who'd travelled interstate to see her. She's a very shy woman who continued to attempt to do conventions, even though she'd realised she was unsuited to that method of public speaking. And yet she kept accepting invitations.
Jeri Ryan did bring renewed attention to Voyager, but I think it would have been a lot cooler to see her interact with Kes than either Harry Kim or Neelix. And again, did she really bring them a lasting ratings bump or did it slide back to pre-Ryan levels after a while?
No one is saying that Seven of Nine didn't revitalize Voyager. But that's pretty irrelevant to this discussion.
Revitalize is not the same as changed, and the ratings seem to say that she didn't increase ratings, they still steadily fell despite her amazing ta-tas... She did nothing. Jennifer was fired for a dog that wouldn't hunt.
agreed. I checked the ratings, and other than a VERY brief bump, they continued their pattern of slow decline and/or held steady. So yeah, she made pop culture a little more aware of Voyager perhaps, but she wasn't bringing in the big ratings.
I just wonder if Seven did create a new expanding audience pool that was offset by the core audience abandoning the show faster than Sevens rump could attract new punters, so that by the end the new core was mostly nothing but swooning letches hopelessly devoted to Anika's double dees.
But conventions have nothing to do with her daily work on the set. Obviously everything worked fine for three years during which she did a splendid job. So why the sudden "problems" with "writing for the character" just when season 4 was about to start?
Because they needed something with big tits that would give men 18-40 thier boners. Face it, its Hollywood, even in Star Trek there MUST be sex appeal.
It's already been explained more than a few times in this thread that wasn't the reason. Seven of Nine was added to show to spice things up, but not to originally replace Kes.
You'd have to wonder if Jeri had been cast as Kes in the beginning, what monster they would have figured they'd need to 'spice' the show up if they already had a catsuited booby lady.
They probably would have changed the entire format of the show, probably have the Voyager return back home and bring most of the Borg Collective with them to the Federation's doorstep, IMO. It so wouldn't have been a good time to be in the Federation with the Dominion War looming on the horizon too in DS9.
I think you're overestimating the power of fandom. Those who consider themselves fans of any given genre usually make up a very small percentage of the audience. Producers look for the larger audience as a whole. That's where the revenue is. Any industry that catered only to the fans would quickly go broke.
Maybe it's simpler than breast size. Maybe its breasts, period. With Captain Janeway, Chief Engineer Torres, and Roving Medic Kes, we had 3 principle females in an ensemble cast of 9. 2 of whom basically ran the ship. Add 7 of 9, a character that would soon become another department head and primary mover/shaker then this show really does look like its "A ship of Valkyries". Take away the male Operations officer and replace him with say nothing Lt Ayala and the girls really do seem to "take over". Take away the female medic and by shear numbers it looks like the male storylines are safe. (Of course, they did not factor in the "all 7 all the time" effect of later seasons. ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLoho482n90 [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLoho482n90[/yt]
That's another disappointing thing about ditching Kes instead of Harry or Chakotay. With both Kes and Seven, the show would have been very female dominated and that aspect really woulda set it apart as something fairly special.