Oh absolutely but Star Trek especially Voyager has a bad habit of making a disproportionate amount of characters American despite a united Earth. Because I guess they decided American audiences can't handle seeing too many non-Americans.
we can almost excuse Chakotay as one of those guys who's really into an imaginary, stylized version of his heritage like a lot of Americans do currently
except, he got demoted from full lieutenant to enlisted before that, lol
He turned down Primal Fear shortly after TNG. He was the second choice after DiCaprio believe it or not who also turned it down.
In the army an experienced Sgt. would still be expected to salute a Lieutenant right out of West Point and call him sir.
I'm not so sure about the pay scale. The standard guest star is brought in on a single episode basis. Some of them, like James Sloyan, are brought in to play the featured guest character, in episodes like The Defector, or Firstborn. Others, like Andreas Katsulas as Tomalak or Natalia Nogulich as Nechayev, are recurring, but still seem to be optioned one appearance at a time. Even Sito Jaxa comes back for Lower Decks, but it's not like she's been regularly recurring.
Then, there seems to be the ever fleshed out supporting cast. Some are nonspeaking extras like Lt, Jae, or barely speaking like Martinez (in sickbay) or rotating helm officers like Ensign Gates, who are in a ton of episodes, superficially.
Some of these get optioned for more, & are developed, like O'Brien & Keiko. Ogawa was eventually added to this roster, later on too. I'm not sure, but I think they're contracted differently, & I think Michelle Forbes was in that grouping, (& maybe Dwight Schultz but I'm not sure) Only they brought them in specifically to do so, which is where they get the impression this character will grow & become more central, in time
I suspect there were others that they'd intended to do similarly, like Ashley Judd's Robin Lefler (who is supplementally around in Darmok, before she gets featured in The Game. Also, maybe Sonya Gomez, who is introduced rather flamboyantly in Q-Who, & is still around in Samaritan Snare. For whatever reasons, those didn't pan out, but Ro landed especially well in the narrative, & was ripe for more, but just like with Ashley Judd, they just couldn't nail the actress down
Forbes had first been an actual guest actor as David Ogden Stiers' daughter, in Half a Life. She's so damn good in it, it must've caught their attention, & they revisited her for a more regular contract, the next year
I'm just going by my understanding of the Navy/Coast Guard from what I've heard from people who've served in those branches. I've always seen them say that a low ranking officer pulling rank on an experienced chief or higher petty officer would be in poor taste and jeopardize their career.
^ I don't know about any one such incident "jeopardizing a career," but it would be frowned upon, sure. There's also just not many plausible scenarios in which it would happen, because military jobs, and thus working conditions, are so specialized.
That said, for enlisted personnel to salute officers and call them Sir/Ma'am is a basic and universally required custom, not only across branches, but even across national lines. I.E., if a uniformed US Navy sailor wearing a cover (service hat) walks by a British Army officer, the sailor is expected to salute and offer a formal greeting.
That said, for enlisted personnel to salute officers and call them Sir/Ma'am is a basic and universally required custom, not only across branches, but even across national lines. I.E., if a uniformed US Navy sailor wearing a cover (service hat) walks by a British Army officer, the sailor is expected to salute and offer a formal greeting.
After being demoted from lieutenant.
They definitely didn't "pay" Forbes in Season 7 on the expectation of putting her in more episodes. They figured they were done with her and the character by then and her return in S7 was fairly last minute.
Yes, sometimes you lock down a recurring character with a promise of a certain number of episodes in a season, but that definitely wasn't the case with Forbes, especially since she hadn't been in an episode since Rascals, early in season 6. They basically considered her Trek career over, particularly after she passed on DS9.
Star Trek's two most prominent genetically Asian characters were both American (Sulu, Kim.) (Even though being "American" in Trek's future is merely of a geographical/cultural distinction rather than anything else.)
He had worse luck career-wise than Data.
He had almost as bad luck romance-wise as Worf.
And he got pummeled almost as much as O'Brien.
So yeah, I'm calling Harry Trek's biggest whipping-boy.
While I agree Kim is a strong contender for that title, I don't agree with your points.
Worse career than Data - he was the same rank for 15 years. I think that outdoes Kim's 7 year plateau.
Worse romance life than Worf - the two women he truly loved, K'Ehleyr and Jadzia, were both murdered. And he was NOT a player. Kim sure acted more like a player than Tom Paris was initially described to be. Worf had it rougher here.
Pummeled almost as much as O'Brien - both have been killed multiple times and both have been imprisoned for crimes they didn't commit (one real prison, one mental). It's a tough call on this front, I'll agree.
You make some valid points as well, though I maintain that 7 years as an ensign is arguably worse than 15 as LCDR. In the wet Navy, almost half of all officers (about 44%) top out at LT. or LCDR, even after respectable careers. An officer with 7 years as an ensign would be seen as an utter incompetent.
More to the point, Harry is the confluence of all three types of bad luck. If we go by the old Saturday Morning Laff-Olympics scoring system, a gold medal gets 25 points, silver gets 15, and bronze a mere 10. So we'll say Data gets 25 for worst career luck and Worf 25 for worst romantic life, Harry takes the silver in career AND romance AND physical suffering. So with 45 points, he easily wins... or loses.
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Well... when you consider that Data's next promotion, in all likelihood, would put him in position for a post, that would give him direct command somewhere, and that it was shown that Data has a number of detractors out there, that don't approve of him having such a post, it reflects an underlying possible bigotry, which makes his lack of promotion especially egregious, beyond just being neglected.
It makes one suspect that Data might never have even been given his current post as a 2nd officer, were it not for Picard being a singular ally. Nobody else on Picard's ship, besides two medical officers, are ever given a rank of commander, because there's possibly no post for such a rank, that would then equal the 1st officer's
This imho makes Riker look even worse btw, for his willful refusal to accept promotion, & his own command. Not only is he blocking off an important, trainable position, that could have given numerous officers an opportunity to occupy it, under Picard's tutelage, before they moved thru to their own commands (officers like Shelby) but it's even worse...
There's an officer & friend sitting just beneath him, in the chain of command, who uniquely might never otherwise get to hold that rank & position, anywhere else, and is shown being held in place, for a decade and a half, because maybe there's nowhere else for him to advance, except for Riker's spot under Picard. Riker is occupying the possible only place in all of Starfleet for Data to move up. That's bloody tragic
From what I understand, in the real navy, becoming a Lt. J.G. is basically a given, just for doing a competent job as ensign; nearly all ensigns move up to Lt J.G. An ensign has to mess up somehow to end up not being recommended for promotion to J.G.
Even alternate Picard in TNG's Tapestry, "a dreary man in a tedious job," who didn't really stand out in any way at all, was a Lt. J.G.
Kor
Even alternate Picard in TNG's Tapestry, "a dreary man in a tedious job," who didn't really stand out in any way at all, was a Lt. J.G.
Kor
Technically Mayweather had it worse, since he wasn't even given the CHANCE for that. Even in the alternate future episode, the one where they could do anything with the character, they just killed him off early, rather than even imply that he could have actual character growth in an alternate timeline.
What's worse, constant abuse or perpetually ignored?
To be fair, to Kim, I believe the only promotion during Voyager's run was Paris, and that was after he'd been demoted. So, he didn't advance in the seven years either.
B'Elanna was promoted as well.
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