Farrell? Have you read her quotes in The 50 Year Mission? She felt very badly treated.
Jennifer Lien status
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Farrell? Have you read her quotes in The 50 Year Mission? She felt very badly treated.
That's not quite accurate. Two of the five episodes in which she was featured most prominently in her last season, were close together and closer to the end (Darkling & B&A) But the last five productions that ended the season, right after B&A, found her pretty much invisible. I've long found Displaced interesting in this sense, because there seems to have been a conscious effort to block views of her out of almost every crowd shot that featured a large number of crew milling around the biosphere. Also, one might expect her to have had some interaction with the Doctor, as he was being fitted up for duty, was conducting his search, or just had incidental dialogue. But not one moment together. Even in Scorpion I, which introduced the buildup of her psychic fruition, given the role she was to play in the conclusion and The Gift, she really was pretty slightly featured. I still might feel inclined to agree that Wang's <15 minutes in People may have turned out to be the coup de grace, but as time has gone on, I think that, at the least, while on the surface, Lien was given very fine opportunities in the two episodes mentioned above, they may have just as likely represented a plot line escape hatch that the TPTB could utilize later if needed i.e, a precursor of growth leading to potential departure in Darkling and a kind of lifetime summing up of the character, with the added attraction of suggesting what a possible future of accomplishment and happiness might have been like, covered up in a kind of obscurative shell of an always popular time paradox device.
Why should such a union be different than what sees on occasion here on Terra Firma? First, 102 is a bit more than slight hyperbole, even at her very end, er, beginning. Now one can certainly make the case that erotic passion between the two was unlikely after her engrams starting taking a plunge rivaling the Great Depression, but that was indeed very precipitous, as noted by the Captain's comment about having been operated on her just two weeks before the near nadir of her mental deterioration. Also, remember that IIRC, she looked just like contemporary Kes, a mere six months or so on, at the birth of Andrew. That's not much time, overall, for Tom to experience feeling grounded, especially as during even part of that end period, she looked to be a pretty typical middle aged woman, albeit, still, rather an attractive one (as at the birthday party) and much the superior to the appearance of used up Kes in Fury. As to your question of what did Tom have to gain by maintaining the bond until the absolute end, Van Gogh himself, in all of his overweening self-glorification, didn't suggest that the procedure would give Kes more than another year. Don't you think that, as she brought him back to life and gave him the full measure of joy that he hadn't been able to experience with B'Elanna,
Tom would feel that it was far more than fitting that their commitment remain constant until the actual end, even if the procedure, say, hadn't restored Kes' mental functioning beyond that, as faux Zimmerman once said, the level of a turnip?
When it came to Kes's powers, during seasons 1-3 they were actually limited like Spock's. "The genie they couldn't control" was unleashed in the crappy episode "The Gift" because that was the easiest way to get rid of the character.
And I still haven't understood wy on Earth they brought back a character which they had shanefully deleted and taken every step necessary to make the viewers forget, only to humiliate, destroy and finally kill off (which was their original plan).
I think the evidence of the actual productions, support your first contention here, Lynx. While there was certainly a good bit of focus, or at least mention of, Spock's tutelage of his protege, the clear majority of episodes that Kes appeared in, did not feature superpowers or an inescapable case being made, IMO, that such a development was the logical conclusion to her own personal arc. Perhaps, she might have grown to find that her ultimate self-realization was wrapped up in a desire to move on from Voyager, but didn't have to involve that kind of maturation at all, or only minimally. I don't think the notion that there was an organic and/or linear development that presaged the extraordinary level of control and capability that was displayed at the end, really holds up. Why didn't we see anything of that in her two last major roles of season three (Darkling & B&A)? We certainly were witness to a more mature and wiser character, but why wouldn't that be on display, commensurate with the mere passage of time, and the stage she was reaching in her life cycle? I think that in general, the evolution of her psychic gifts was not something inordinately emphasized and was choppier, rather than undisputed, except in those episodes in which she was being manipulated by a formidable opponent, or in her swansong when the exponential growth, that ignited in the Scorpions. simply was the clear device to mandate her exit stage right, or subspace right.
As to your befuddlement, even at this rather advanced date, of why the Episode With No Name was conceived in the first place, is pretty simple, I believe. As a show gets on in years and the plainly derivative material may be getting to be too much even for some writers habituated to it, I hardly think it uncommon, to burn at least one of the remaining slots, with the former character returns chestnut. I don't really think that there was malice behind the intent. If you're going to run with this conceit, and not just totally phone it in, with little or no change in what the character embodied originally, you're probably not going to have much of a compelling story to tell. Bathetically saccharine perhaps, which might actually satisfy a reasonable number of the character's old base. But if, as the writer, you want there to be some challenge, dramatic change, or confrontation to avoid staid stasis otherwise, you're much more likely to want to take some chances, meaning oftentimes, throwing the audience askew with the unexpected, confounding, or even illogical, perhaps to the extent of a shocking death.
I just don't think the show runners cared anything about however truly extensive the clamor may have actually been to have Kes return. Again, it was an easy concept to come up with, and only in the expert rendering of the story, from which there would be the ever present hope for a week with better numbers than the last, did it have any real significance to the execs. Now, I've seen you reference such a groundswell of Kes habitues that forced, or at least played a role in doing so, after 3 1/2 years, to submit to their wishes. I'm aware that Kes sites would certainly have sought to drum up the possibility, but how many rabid fans voicing their righteous anger can you cite as really having any influence on the decision to run with this idea, even just as a guestimate? Honestly, that such pressure had any significance at all seems rather more fanciful and histrionic than the mass protest forcing NBC's hand in relenting to agree to a final season for TOS, which from repeated reading here, I've learned is a myth that has long since been busted.
Whatever floats Thomas' boat, I guess is what it comes down to. One thing that is perfectly clear, however, is that he'd - quite properly - stand by Kes and would've never let anyone, or anything, hurt her. It's hard to give him credit for that though, as even Neelix would do as much. Kes simply engenders those kinds of feelings. I can't think of a single crewman, for example, who isn't indebted to her, in some way. For every resolved personal crisis, it seems like. Kes was often there with a truly healing hand ...
Kes figuratively called 3 years a life time.
Most humans who tap out of a relationship at 5 years can consider their tryst to be a failure.
Most humans who tap out of a relationship at 5 years can consider their tryst to be a failure.
BUT ...
Even Captain Kirk's 13 minutes, or so, of chaste playfulness with Leonardo da Vinci's fembot android almost did him in. So much so, that Spock felt it incumbent upon himself to perform an intervention for Kirk to get over "her" and return to Life, as normal, onboard the Enterprise ...
Even Captain Kirk's 13 minutes, or so, of chaste playfulness with Leonardo da Vinci's fembot android almost did him in. So much so, that Spock felt it incumbent upon himself to perform an intervention for Kirk to get over "her" and return to Life, as normal, onboard the Enterprise ...
I have to disagree about Kes being almost invisible in the last episodes of season 3. She did have a certain amount of screen time in the episodes "Real Life", "Displaced" and most of all "Scorpion #1". In fact, her appearances in "Before And After" and "Scorpion" gave me the impression that she would play a more important role in the future seasons of Voyager.
Now, if they planned to dump her early on, they had the opportunity to do so in "Darkling" but as we saw, Kes did choose to stay on the ship with her friends and colleagues. Not to mention that if there had been a plan back in season 3 to dump the character in the beginning of season 4, I'm sure that the producers and writers should have come up with that as an official excuse when people started to question their original statement that "Jennifer left of her own free will".
As for "that episode in season 6" and their reason for coming up with it, I still think that it was a reply to those fans who committed a blasphemy by trying to persuade the "gods" to bring back Kes as a regular character in season 6. I still see no reason at all for bringing back a character which they had made everything possible to wipe out from the history of Voyager and from the minds of the fans.
What I know and have heard about from some sources, the letter campaign was noted among the "gods" of the Star Trek Universe. So those "gods" had two options:
1. Bring back the character as a regular in season 7 (if Jennifer had accepted to do it).
2. Totally ignore the wishes of the Kes fans and continue as before.
Option 2 would have been the logical choice if they hadn't noticed the campaign or simply had chosen to ignore it.
Instead they went for option 3, to bring back the character only to destroy, humiliate and finnaly kill of the character which was their original plan and by doing so showing a finger to those obnoxious fans who had commited blasphemy by question their former decision to kick out the character and even worse, tried to tell them what to do.
If they wanted drama and high ratings, there were a lot of other things they could have done. Henry Starling returning from the future, a horror episode with Suspiria or simply play safe with their beloved "TNG card" by bringing in Q, Riker, Picard, or a resurrected Tasha Yar or something like that. Or maybe Captain Kirk himself from an alternate timeline. Something like that could have given Voyager a shot in the arm and rasied interest outside the Voyager fanbase for a show which had been going down in ratings and interest since the temporal raise when Seven was introduced.
Did they really think that Voyager fans in general and Kes fans in particular would like that episode? No, I don't think that they were that stupid. They did know exactly what they were doing.
At that point they had more and less given up on Voyager and was planning ahead for their new project Enterprise where they should show the world how TOS really should have been made from the beginning. They just let Voyager run its course and finished the race by showing the finger to another Voyager fanbase, the even bigger J/C fanbase by throwing the Chakotay-Seven romance in their faces.
How do we know that Spock didn't do that every other week?
I'm not saying that she is not special, just that Kirk is like a teenager with love.
Everyone has a reason to live ... but it can't be Android Love.
Even Kirk, living for - roughly - a Century, or so, he has a Dickens of a time finding a Love so True.
... With their limited Lifespans, there's no room for error, when it comes to Ocampan Love. There's no 'Playing the Field' with this particular Life form, is there? It's got to be Love At First Sight ... or not at all. Woe ... that's heavy-duty stuff!
Even Kirk, living for - roughly - a Century, or so, he has a Dickens of a time finding a Love so True.
... With their limited Lifespans, there's no room for error, when it comes to Ocampan Love. There's no 'Playing the Field' with this particular Life form, is there? It's got to be Love At First Sight ... or not at all. Woe ... that's heavy-duty stuff!
Not that it's hard to give him credit for that, but to me it seems like that's what anyone in a loving relationship would do....well SHOULD do
Lien was listed as a guest star in Scorpion II, so it was pretty obvious she wasn't going to be around much longer
Wang was going to be fired as of Scorpion one.
Wang was then declared one of the sexiest people on the planet by People Magazine while they were on break between seasons, and gained the immunity idol.
So yes, by the time they started making Scorpion II, 4 months after they finished Scorpion 1, Wang was safe and Lein was on her way out.
A lot can happen in 4 months.
Wang was then declared one of the sexiest people on the planet by People Magazine while they were on break between seasons, and gained the immunity idol.
So yes, by the time they started making Scorpion II, 4 months after they finished Scorpion 1, Wang was safe and Lein was on her way out.
A lot can happen in 4 months.
Yeah, this is pretty common knowledge.
Also don't forget at some point they had to shoot all the commercials for season 4 and take all the publicity photos for season 4, all of which had Seven and not Kes in them.
Yes, that decision was made before the filming for season 4 started but after the fiming for season 3 ended.
I guess that Wang's fame in that glossy magazine was the reason for that.
Well it does make sense from a production stand point to keep a character that would bring more ratings. If appearing in a magazine brought more ratings then it makes sense from production point of view to keep him. TV shows are all about ratings and money.
The list was more a reflection of the hearts and mind of America.
People was not trying to inspire America to love Wang, People was just announcing a secret Wang infestation in the zeitgeist that America et all had already accounted for the honest to god fact that Wang was more fantasized about than Leonardo DiCaprio.
http://www.amiannoying.com/(S(nrqqwfg2vggqkefw1ldkqzni))/collection.aspx?collection=57
People was not trying to inspire America to love Wang, People was just announcing a secret Wang infestation in the zeitgeist that America et all had already accounted for the honest to god fact that Wang was more fantasized about than Leonardo DiCaprio.
http://www.amiannoying.com/(S(nrqqwfg2vggqkefw1ldkqzni))/collection.aspx?collection=57
America loves Wang
I wasn't talking about when Tom was married to Kes. She was already the mother of his baby girl and everything, so naturally, her status was instantly elevated to where no matter what else happened between them, ever after, she'd always have that over him. Tom owed Kes everything ... everything. But when Kes started to age out of the relationship to where she's ... like ... old and decrepit and Tom's still young and virile ... what's it all about? How could he stay married to her? He does! Of course, we see that in the final thing. But ...
Yeah, in my 'head canon' if you like, Tom & Kes had stopped being intimate for a quite while, by that point. He should have, if not divorced her, outright ... at least "separated" from Kes. And at the same time always being there, for her. When she needed him, he'd be there, like Johnny on the Spot. Anytime. For anything. He'd be there. That's what I was really getting at, not so much loving her up, when they were kind of equal in the relationship. I was talking more about after Kes had gotten too old for Tom. She'd stopped becoming his wife and became his granny ... what to do? You know? What to do ...
I was just saying the other day about how the Zeitgeist had a Wang infection.
I went to high school with Jennifer. If you watch her in Another World playing Hannah (around April 1991), it would give you a perfect idea of how she was in real life. Another (gasp!) bombshell: she popped pills in class... like all young girls did when you could order them out of the back of magazines. She was not shy, and did not escape a life of drugs/abuse (I read that somewhere). She was going to voice lessons and acting classes and left because she got onto AW. She came through the local BK drive thru to announce it. I mean kudos to her and all her accomplishments in her life, but the first thought that ran through my mind when I saw her arrest photo was "karma!!!"
That is exactly the kind of thing I've always thought about with her short life and something that could have been interesting to see. If she was with someone and reached her old age, her partner would still be relatively young. There could be weird feelings on both sides, fear of loosing each other, anger that one is aging and one isn't...things like that
of course in MY head canon that Tom and Kes thing just never even happened at all LOL
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