Care looks differently across professions.
A few things to discuss about Kes
- Thread starter BohandiAnsoid
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They could have subbed in any character for Harry with the same result. Just as someone had to be the ensign, someone had to be the awkward son-in-law.
No, they just killed off Kirk a movie later.
Some of us are OK with that, if it's done right. Case in point: "The Visitor"
Martok was a military leader who wanted nothing to do with politics. He should have thrown that furry coat back over Worf's shoulders and told him "clean up your own [Klingon cussword]-ing mess, you petaQ!"
We all have our opinions on where various Trek characters should have ended up. I could give you a long list, comprising characters from all four Berman era series. Including Kes, though my opinion does differ from yours.
No. The character I killed off in that story was one I was quite fond of. And I had planned to spare him; he deserved a happy ending. But the story just worked better with him gone.
My point exactly. The writers would not be beholden to a timeline that need not happen. The weird relationship with Harry need not happen.
Let's face it, no relationship involving Linnis wouldn't be weird. Harry was as good (and as bad) a choice as any.
^ Maybe that's why they chose him for this dubious pairing... from the wrong twin to an alien terrorist to a zombie ensign, weird was par for the course for Harry.
It seems Seveb is the least weird of w9men he was attrqcted to.
Shades of Bicentennial Man, I can imagine Harry to be the sort of asshole moron shortening his own life span to make his beloved comfortable, so they can grow old together gracefully, at her speed.
1. Superficial ageing. Not really getting older. Hair die and surgery.
2. Gene editing, actually speed up his ageing and let him die.
3. Gene editing, actually speed up his ageing and then reverse it after Lynnis dies, or after Lynnis and Andrew both die.
(Superman died his hair gray and then applied fake wrinkles in DC Generations, so that Lois did not look like a cradle robber, as their relationship dragged on, and he did not get any older.)
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^ We're not even totally sure that Linnis or Andrew have Kes's 9-year lifespan. Linnis is 50% human and Andrew is 75.
If Kes gave birth at 3, like she's supposed to, then Lynnis is 6 in the first act.
It's possible that gestation took longer, but then it's also possible that if the baby tried to stay inside mum for twice as long as she was comfortable with, it would have killed her, either Kes or Lynnis.
We saw Andrew born, so he was 1 years old in the beginning.
Human DNA is bunk.
^ Possibly the accelerated childhood is dominant, but the morilogium could still occur later, depending on how the genes stack themselves. Linnis might be good for 20 years, and Andrew around 40. Since the reality where both characters existed has effectively ceased to be, there's just no way to know.
It's actually possible to have a deadline without making those mistakes that some of the Star Trek writers did.
Even worse when they didn't even try to correct certain errors in some coming episode.
It does when great characters are wasted for no purpose at all.
Sometimes it's hard to understand obvious errors like Voyager's endless supply of shuttles and torpedoes when it was stated that those items were limited.
Even harder to understand why they didn't correct such errors. That would have been possible.
More likely when it comes to different series. NCIS didn't have the same amount of killed off characters as the Star Trek series has.
Not to mention that when a character left NCIS due to the fact that the actor wanted out, it was all explained to the viewers with comments from both producers, writers and actors. No fairytales like "We couldn't come up with ideas for the character anymore".
Unfortunately you are right here. Harry was definitely the "whipping boy" of the series. But why?
harry could have been a great character with better writing. Just look at some of the Voyager books where he's actually doing something.
Yes, and that was hideous. Just meaningless and stupid and it ruined what could have been a great movie.
I can actually accept The Visitor since it was made in a time period when Jake Sisko actually was very old and Ben Sisko would have been gone anyway, no matter if it was because of an accident in an alternate timeline or of old age. When i watched it i knew that we would have Ben Sisko back in the next episode
Yes indeed!
Not to mention that some smart writer would come up with a way to restore Gowron, a great character who deserved better than to be wasted as he was in that episode.
I think that my idea of the "Gowron" in the episode being a Cardassian agent with altered appearance while the real Gowron had been taken as prisoner but manage to escape during the Cardassian uprising could be useful.
I could do the same and I could also come up with scenarios how to restore them, just like i've done with Kes and Gowron.
Well, that's your story and your problem. personally I would have solved that problem differently but that's another thing.
No anf´d not the nine-year lifespan either. It could have been altered.
I agree!
Do the view them as a mistake? If they shift writing staff are the new writers just there to fix mistakes or tell new stories?
NCIS has a different attitude towards death than Star Trek. That's not a bug, but a feature. Using Kes to show aging and growth in a positive way rather than the often insulting ways people get towards aging could have Trek going back on the more social commentary idea.
The answer is simple: because someone at the top demanded it. The attempt to salvage Harry's character was actively halted, and they presumably demanded that he stagnate for the rest of the series.
It had a few, though. And except for Ziva, they weren't brought back.
Indeed. Especially when you can technobabble out solutions when necessary.
Problem is, not everyone sees it as we do. A lot of people liked the Klingons becoming Federation besties, courtesy of a regime change to a Federation-friendly chancellor. Just as they liked domesticating the Ferengi, permanently killing Weyoun, and making Ezri and Bashir Trek's most "meh" couple ever.
Sometimes, the best way to resolve a character's journey is to grant him a hero's end. Like Spock in ST II, or Janeway in "Year of Hell". If those deaths had been final, they would have been epic.
I did have a similar character in a similar situation in another story and I spared him... but there were other considerations. He had become a parent and had solid family ties, so there was love in his life without romance. And at the end, I had another character known to have matchmaking aspirations set her sights on him. No conjuring a suitable mate out of the ether (the opposite of "delete the wife"), just a note of hope.
Both endings served their respective stories very well, and I regret neither.
The Klingons became Friendly in the 80s/90s movies because of Glasnost.
Would Star Trek be Bold enough to carry that metaphor to "Putin" if they still had plans to sell their products and merch in Russia?
Putin probably thinks that he is Kirk, when he's more like Sloan.
Would Star Trek be Bold enough to carry that metaphor to "Putin" if they still had plans to sell their products and merch in Russia?
Putin probably thinks that he is Kirk, when he's more like Sloan.
I think the Romulans more became the default bad guys, with the Cardassians and Dominion as backup. The Klingons... well, they tried it, but the writers decided they were better as allies.
Those big-headed fools never admitted any mistakes, even when there were so obvious, like the torpedo and shuttle things. Not to mention how they actually insulted the fans on some occasions, like how they brought back a character they had done everything to make the fans forget in the previous years just to humiliate and destroy that character and the Chakotay/Seven thing in Endgame which angered many fans.
Which is a reason why I still watch NCIS, at least occasionally now while I've totally given up on current Star trek movies, series and books.
There is nothing positive with aging and dying. Those who try to state that are only trying to fool themselves and I don't find aging and dying scenarios entertaining in any way. To be honest, I have had too much such "entertainment" in my life ever since my childhood when there was a funeral every second year during a 10 years time period.
In that case, that "someone at the top" was narrow-minded and downright childish in the actions against a character in a series.
Agent Kate Todd was killed off after two seasons because the actress wanted to quit due to family reasons. Reeves was killed off later on in the series which was weird because they had finally came up with a decent background story for him and made him more important to the team as well. Ziva was never killed off, at least not oficcially. It was only supposed that she might had been killed of which she hadn't been.
Some of the errors they made were correctable, sometimes with technobabble but also with more realistic scenarios.
I have to be a bit provocative here but sometimes I get the impression that many fans just accept everything which is thrown upon them, good or bad, realistic or not.
They refuse to see the damage made by killing of a somewhat controversial but intersting character like Gowron and replacing him as Klingon Chancellor with a Federation puppet. The same with the domesticating of the Ferengi and killing off Weyoun. As for Bashir/Ezri, I must admit that I've seen much worse pairings in Star Trek, most notably Chakotay/Seven.
But there is actually alterantives to all of that!
Gowron can be brought back the way I mentioned it before. Brunt can overthrow Rom and bring back the old Ferengi society and a new Weyoun clone can be created if it hasn't happened already.
And bashir/Ezri can be broken up too if necessary, just like Chakotay/Seven was in the Voyager relaunch books.
I ahve to disagree when it comes to these great characters.
Well, it's your stories. I might have chosen different scenarios.
Agree to disagree.
Because it's not damage. Characters are not damaged but used to move a story along. I can disagree with choices but this idea of damage is one I just don't see.
I find this ironic, given how many words you have written in this thread about why all these character fate were grave mistakes and how the writer were required to find the means to undo them. The characters are tools for the writers to tell stories. Certainly, we can have fun postulating how we might have done differently, but we have no ownership over those characters. And after 25 years, the show isn't changing.
I'll go further: STPicard basically proved that revisiting these "mistakes" more often than not has worse outcomes.
Voyager barely managed to reach seven seasons and end on its own terms. Whether its efforts to turn into TNG lite helped it or hurt it will never be known... but the series was worse for it.
Star Trek tends to follow the "natural death good, unnatural death bad" trope, which is common in pop culture. The only exception to this rule is found with the Baku in "Insurrection", but even that, Picard's crew took steps to ensure that the gift of immortality was theirs alone.
The tradition of people turning down the opportunity of immortality for a natural lifespan is quite common in pop culture: examples include Disney's "Hercules", the Chronicles of Prydain, and "Tuck Everlasting".
And the series was worse for it.
I wouldn't call Martok a puppet, but certainly the Empire was less interesting with him in charge. Assuming he held on to power at all; as opposed to getting ousted by a more politically savvy high council member.
They weren't bad, just boring. The equivalent of a scoop of bland vanilla ice cream.
I did a proposed DS9 Season 8 that did some of these things. Most notable was Section 31 and the Dominion's equivalent joining forces, allowing Sloan to return as well. You can't have too much of an actor who managed to steal scenes from acting legends Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.
I never said killing them for good was desirable. Just that if they had to go due to IRL considerations, those were examples of how to do it right.
I expect you probably would have.
Sometimes you have to. But for the most part, I feel as you do.
Sometimes the worst thing you can do to a character is spare them. If Harry had been allowed a dignified exit from Voyager, he would liktly not be the figure of contempt he is today.
Every journey ends, and it's fine to have your readers walking alongside a character when it happens.
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