Why didn't they just keep their characters?

[bbjeg]

^I've recently got back into Enterprise. I trailed off around the beginning of season three and was told it gets better by the end of the third season and it's last, which is true. They had a unique opportunity to connect many dots to link star trek histories together but they didn't do as much as I hoped. They followed up on "First Contact" with "Regeneration" and explained Klingon foreheads between TOS and Next Gen in "Affliction" and "Divergence" but they could have done much more.

 

[bbjeg]

I recently saw a DS9 episode featuring Susan Gibney as Erika Benteen and wondered why didn't they keep the character Leah Brahms. Seeing her instead of Benteen would have been better IMO.

 

[The Wormhole]

I recently saw a DS9 episode featuring Susan Gibney as Erika Benteen and wondered why didn't they keep the character Leah Brahms. Seeing her instead of Benteen would have been better IMO.

Leah Brahms wasn't a Starfleet officer, therefore the character of Erika Benteen, Admiral Leyton's chief aide who gets command of a starship couldn't be substituted with her.

 

[bbjeg]

I recently saw a DS9 episode featuring Susan Gibney as Erika Benteen and wondered why didn't they keep the character Leah Brahms. Seeing her instead of Benteen would have been better IMO.

Leah Brahms wasn't a Starfleet officer, therefore the character of Erika Benteen, Admiral Leyton's chief aide who gets command of a starship couldn't be substituted with her.

Brahms could have been promoted by that episode. It was probably an attempt to save money by not paying likeness rights to the Leah's writer.

 

[The Wormhole]

I recently saw a DS9 episode featuring Susan Gibney as Erika Benteen and wondered why didn't they keep the character Leah Brahms. Seeing her instead of Benteen would have been better IMO.

Leah Brahms wasn't a Starfleet officer, therefore the character of Erika Benteen, Admiral Leyton's chief aide who gets command of a starship couldn't be substituted with her.

Brahms could have been promoted by that episode. It was probably an attempt to save money by not paying likeness rights to the Leah's writer.

Brahms wasn't even a Starfleet officer, so how could she be promoted? Most likely, they created a new character, Erika Benteen and Susan Gibney auditioned and got the role. At no point had it occurred to anyone to try to make a connection to her previous role.

 

[Cyke101]

Leah Brahms wasn't a Starfleet officer, therefore the character of Erika Benteen, Admiral Leyton's chief aide who gets command of a starship couldn't be substituted with her.

Brahms could have been promoted by that episode. It was probably an attempt to save money by not paying likeness rights to the Leah's writer.

Brahms wasn't even a Starfleet officer, so how could she be promoted? Most likely, they created a new character, Erika Benteen and Susan Gibney auditioned and got the role. At no point had it occurred to anyone to try to make a connection to her previous role.

Agreed. Sometimes the simplest answer is the easiest. Besides, then the writers wouldn't have to go to a TNG character and then try to explain how non-Starfleet became captain and whatever expositionary rigamarole for that.

 

[DS9forever]

Marc Alaimo wasn't the first actor cast as Dukat.

 

[bbjeg]

Here's a case where I'm glad that they didn't point out it was the same character. After recently watching Star Trek Generations, I noticed the Klingon helms officer actor Brian Thompson also played the Klingon in TNG's A Matter of Honour who gains respect for Riker (after he rammed his head in a terminal). Though it would be considered a good death by Klingon standards, I hope they're not the same character because I liked him in AMoH and would feel somewhat cheated if that character who wouldn't see his father because of honor and who didn't shoot Riker in the back after betraying his captain based of honor, later decided to join and die alongside the dishonorable Duras sisters.

 

[tafkats]

Like others have said about Locarno/Paris, I also think having Dukat be Macet doesn't work. The character on DS9 was the person who ran the occupation of Bajor. This likely wouldn't be the same person Cardassia would send to deal with the situation in "The Wounded."

Promotions happen you know. That's like saying Worf can't command the Defiant because he only was a Lieutenant junior grade conn officer in season one of TNG or that Picard couldn't be a captain because he's the type of person who starts bar fights in college.

However, if Dukat/Macet had been a ship commander performing other missions just a few years before DS9, that would suggest that his posting to DS9 was relatively recent. Which, while certainly plausible, would deprive the writers of a lot of interesting backstory opportunities.

 

[The Wormhole]

Plus, as someone mentioned earlier in the thread, another actor had been cast as Dukat and even did a day or so of filming before being dismissed. At no point were Dukat and Macet meant to be the same character, so why should they have changed that just because they ended up casting the same actor that played Macet to play Dukat?

Plus in-universe, why would the prefect of Bajor be called away from his post just to track down a renegade Starfleet captain on the other side of Cardassian territory?

 

[bbjeg]

^Like I said before, he could have just been promoted to prefect after that episode.

 

[CoveTom]

Does this thread win an award for double thread necromancy? :-) First, a jump from July of 2013 to February of 2014. Then a jump from March of 2014 to January of 2015. That's gotta be some kind of record. :-)

 

[The Wormhole]

^Like I said before, he could have just been promoted to prefect after that episode.

Except, I think it was in the character's backstory that he had been prefect for at least a decade. At the very least, the episode Duet, which from later in the season does state Dukat was prefect as early as twelve years earlier.

 

[bbjeg]

^Well that story wasn't written back when we first saw Macet.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I much prefer the way the two characters are presented in the novelverse. IIRC, Macet is a relatively decent sort, and is rather unhappy at being compared to (and confused with) Dukat, who is his cousin.

 

[bbjeg]

^That's kinda funny that they're confused with each other.

 

[The Wormhole]

^Well that story wasn't written back when we first saw Macet.

What difference does that make? I thought the issue was why didn't they use Macet in DS9, to which I was providing the reasons.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^That's kinda funny that they're confused with each other.

What's even better is that Danar (the Cardassian Gul from DS9's "Past Prologue") is, in-universe, considered by the Obsidian Order as a top candidate for infiltration into other races due to Danar's resemblance to many other characters...because they're all played by Vaughn Armstrong.

Very 'meta'.

 

[bbjeg]

^Well that story wasn't written back when we first saw Macet.

What difference does that make? I thought the issue was why didn't they use Macet in DS9, to which I was providing the reasons.

The point of this thread was to link actors who played a character to later play another character that could have easily been the first character. The posters of this thread generally agreed that it was simply avoided so the studio didn't have to pay the original writers to use already existing characters, but once they casted Marc Alaimo, before they shot the first episode, the story could have been changed making Dukat Macet, adjusting whatever story they intended to make to fit accordingly.

 

[The Wormhole]

^Well that story wasn't written back when we first saw Macet.

What difference does that make? I thought the issue was why didn't they use Macet in DS9, to which I was providing the reasons.

The point of this thread was to link actors who played a character to later play another character that could have easily been the first character. The posters of this thread generally agreed that it was simply avoided so the studio didn't have to pay the original writers to use already existing characters, but once they casted Marc Alaimo, before they shot the first episode, the story could have been changed making Dukat Macet, adjusting whatever story they intended to make to fit accordingly.

While there are certainly some situations where money and paying royalties was the factor in why the original character that actor played wasn't brought back (like with Nick Locarno and Tom Paris) it's not the case all the time. Sometimes writers just want to create a new character and producers or directors just want to cast an actor they know and like. Why can't the same actor play multiple roles? What is wrong with Marc Alaimo being two different Cardassians?