Being strict with the uniform code didn't make a lot sense considering the fact that Neelix and Kes (and later Seven and Icheb) got to put a communicator on whatever they were wearing that day. Those former Maquis didn't chose to be part of Voyager's crew, they were civilians stuck on the ship and should have had the same option to wear civilian clothing as other civilians on the ship. And it's not like Neelix showed perfect behavior at the start when he took over Janeway's dining room without permission or barged onto the bridge uninvited. He was basically a bum who tried to make himself useful when he clearly wasn't, all he did was cook crappy food and his knowledge about the quadrant was basic at best, you're telling me Voyager couldn't some copy of space wikipedia from some friendly species instead of relying on Neelix? Gerron should have replicated a Neelix outfit and should have attended the next senior staff meeting chewing on some leola root, saying he assumed he was welcome if he dressed appropriately.
I'll say this for Riker/Ro. She may not have been openly rude to Riker upon entrance, but there is a quiet moment between them where he's looking fully boyscout, & apparently expecting her to snap to, like a good little subordinate, & she fairly well has a look on her face like she couldn't give a crap, & casually says "reporting for duty" handing off her orders, uninterestedly. To be fair, her posture is one of dismissal, from the get go. That's all Riker needed to see to get his rank up, having already had a personal grudge against her for her misdeeds. Now, not knowing it was cultural dress, he's seemingly in the right to go after her about it, BUT knowing the ship he serves on is actually rather loose with uniform guidelines, he's clearly nit picking this one specific case, intentionally to show he intends to be a hard ass with specifically her, despite other factors Still not entirely wrong of him, given she is a proven poor officer. However, it is still rather petty behavior of a leader (laughingly so when you consider how easily it was overturned) Now in Ro's defense, maybe she is understandably dismissive of her superior officers, given that she's actually been dismissed by her superior officers, permanently. It's profoundly weak to be nit picking her, of all people, about uniform regs, & duty/privilege BS. She's not Barclay wanking in the holodeck. She's an inmate, who's only IN the uniform because it bartered her way out of prison. To go in on her like that only serves to make him look like a flaccidly impotent blowhard, & IMHO belies the dignity of his station... but look who I'm talking about. In another year he'll be pissing in Jellico's ear far worse than Ro had ever pissed in his. Add that to the Shelby pettiness, & clearly Will's not one to calmly consider how his dignity is holding up lol.
Gerron would've made a great replacement for Kim! That's a little harsh, what did the inanimate carbon rod ever do to warrant that comparison?
Honestly, this is why Ro garners so much sympathy from me. She is completely honest about her situation and yet still gets treated horribly. It makes Picard's whole first duty to the truth speech fall a little flatter. Ro at least is honest; Riker is vindictive.
I do agree that Ro is extremely honest, to the point that it gets her into trouble. I can relate. A lot. It's one of her traits that I always liked about her.
He's also retroactively hypocritical, to be so judgemental, imho, given that Ro's disobeying orders got like 8 people killed, meanwhile, Will's hiding the secret that his blindly following illegal orders got nearly his entire Pegasus crew killed. You'd think if someone could understand that young officers can sometimes make bad decisions, it'd be that guy.
Even better yet: have "Ensign Inanimate Carbon Rod" be a character on the show. People would talk to him, then we'd see a close-up of an inanimate carbon rod with a communicator glued to it, and then the other characters woudl pretend he answered. And make him such an asset to Janwway that over the course of the show we see him become Lieutenant Inanimate Carbon Rod, then Lieutenant-Commander Inanimate Carbon Rod, and maybe even Commander....all the while Harry remains an Ensign Definitely, he would have had some pathos to the character at least. And they could have even have him played by Wong, since there's nothing against a Bajoran who looks "East-Asian" to us. And in an added bonus, they could make Torres fully human instead and save us from additional Klingon episodes. (though tbh, I think in Harry's case both the writers and the actor were to blame, since Harry isn't all that compelling even on the rare occasions when the writers give him more to do..)
No that was another character he screen tested for, but was passed over because his performance was too lively and emotional.
A background guy you can sometimes see when the camera is angled to show the front of the bridge. He's like Mr. Leslie, but with less presence.
They were all civilians. They were never members of Starfleet. So Janeway can't really command them to wear any specific uniform. And communicators are an essential part of day-to-day life aboard a starship, so they pretty much had to wear them.