Especially Beltran and Wang. Really, if those two characters had been killed off in S4 or S5, would anyone have noticed much?
I would!
And it would have annoyed me!
If I hadn't stop watching (at least temporarily) when kes was dumped in the beginning of season 4, annihilating Chakotay or Kim or both should have been more fuel on the fire.
I actuallystopped watching my long time favorite series NCIS recently because all the original characters who actually made me like the series from the first episode were gone, replaced by characters I don't care about.
As for the "evil Tuvok" and "evil Doctor" question, I found "evil Tuvok" in
Meld more scary and convincing.
"Evil Doctor" in
Darkling was convincing and a good villain too but his behavior in the episode coul be explained as a program malfunctioning due to his own dabbling with the program which could be corrected by a skilled programmer, such as Kim or Torres.
But "Evil Tuvok" in
Meld was even more scary and convincing. OK, he did a mind meld which didn't work out well for him but what was interesting was his comments about humans and Janeway in particular when he couldn't control his emotions, not to mention his wish to strangle Neelix which he did in that holodeck program.
That made me wonder: Was that Tuvok's real feelings about humans, janeway and Neelix, which he normally was hiding beneath all layers of Vulcan self control or was it just a result of the situation and not being able to control his emotions?