That's why s4-7 rock!
Sorry, but quality beats quantity.
You know this is just going to be a hopeless stand off, don't you?
Who Should Have Left in Season Four?
- Thread starter Michael
- Start date
You know this is just going to be a hopeless stand off, don't you?
lol
Yeah, best save the torpedoes and allow the laws of physics a greater role in his destruction. It would probably provide a greater laugh for the crew as well (in an uncharacteristic moment of callousness).
I've been re-watching early Voyager for the first time in about 10 years and I'm struck by how much I like Kes (and finally get why people hate Fury so much). As I'm a big 7 of 9 fan as well I think I'd have liked the show to include both of them. I don't know whether this would have required someone else to leave, but if it did I guess I'd have to join the chorus of people nominating Harry for the chop. He had potential, but the writers never seemed to bother taking advantage of that - we saw characters like Tom and the Doctor develop over the course of the show, but with Mr Kim that never really seemed to happen.
Well here's my 2 cents worth
they shoulda got rid of a character every season bring new people on every now and again just to spice it up( but never janeway she was the glue that held this series)
but I guess its all moot seens the show finished.......... what is it 10 years ago now
I 'll be in my grave before the next series comes our way
they shoulda got rid of a character every season bring new people on every now and again just to spice it up( but never janeway she was the glue that held this series)
but I guess its all moot seens the show finished.......... what is it 10 years ago now
I 'll be in my grave before the next series comes our way
Two reasons for not doing that:
1. They're in the middle of the Delta Quadrant. There's a limit to how many new characters they can bring on board and old characters they can get rid of until Janeway is surrounded by ex-drones, friendly aliens and Starfleet characters banished to the DQ by technobabble.
2. Character Development. Kim, Paris, Torres, Neelix, Tuvok and Chakotay had little enough development as it is surviving the whole 7 seasons, without bringing new characters and getting rid of old ones every single season.
I think that would have been bold, realistic and really groundbreaking for Trek.
Unfortunately, too big a gamble for network TV. Fans get too attached to characters. Killing off the wrong one at the wrong time turns people away. Plus as you see with the Kes vs. Seven debate, some take a long time to warm up to the new comer.
However, If none of that mattered and I ran Trek. I think I'd like to try it your way for just once. Who knows, maybe if they gotten rid of Harry, Kes & Chakotay they could have wriiten in newer, bolder characters to replace them. They weren't developing them anyway and Beltran wanted out of his contract. Who knows, maybe a Hiearchy alien would have been a better comic foil than Neelix or a Hirogen onboard instead of Chakotay?
I agree, if you make a habit of killing off characters then you run the risk of alienating the audience. This happened to me with Lost; I was a devoted follower of the show for many years, but they killed off my favourite character this year and I'm now less interested in the final season. The problem is that they kill off old characters and replace them with new characters I don't know well, so my attachment to the show dwindled. On the other hand, BSG made a habit out of killing secondary characters, including many that I liked, but there was enough characters in the show that I liked and cared about that I still loved the show.
A show needs a core of good, interesting, likeable characters, and they should only be killed off during the final season.
But Lost being Lost, "killing off" is a relative term - the fact that a character is dead does not mean that they would not keep appearing on the show...
Some of them have made more appearances dead than alive. Christian Shephard has been dead from day one but he's had more appearances than many living characters have. 
But Island Shepard isn't really Shepard, he's something else, presumably the black to Jacob's white (or the white to Jacob's black). And while the actor of the character I'm talking about has confirmed he is coming back next season, he also confirmed that he will be playing a new character, presumably taking over from Christian.
To be honest, I'm just upset that the way they chose to kill the character had no emotional impact, it was treated as a plot point and tossed into the sand.
On the other hand, BSG made me feel bad about the deaths of minor characters I hardly knew. I wish that that Lindelof and Cuse had the same "It's about the characters, stupid" epiphany that RDM had, though I'm sure that there's thousands of people queuing up to disagree with me.
To be honest, I'm just upset that the way they chose to kill the character had no emotional impact, it was treated as a plot point and tossed into the sand.
On the other hand, BSG made me feel bad about the deaths of minor characters I hardly knew. I wish that that Lindelof and Cuse had the same "It's about the characters, stupid" epiphany that RDM had, though I'm sure that there's thousands of people queuing up to disagree with me. 
Yeah, but those are secondary characters. The people that matter are protected by pure narrativium.
Like "Sacrifice", an episode where a big deal is made about Lee Adama getting shot and bleeding on the ground. Then kapow! Billy dies instead and Dualla's mooning over Lee before his corpse is even cold. Ouch.
The secondary cast are basically more developed and integrated redshirts, so we've been familiar with them long enough to care who they are but ultimately they're as expendable as VOY's guest stars and random goons. It's the same idea executed more effectively.
My preferred solution really is what Dexter does.
Look, sooner or later Doakes was going to find out. And then either he or Dex was going to kick the bucket. So he found out and died. A trifle conveinent that Lyta was there to be the darkness Dexter could not, but hey, KAPOW! Major character dead.
Aside from him the show has been good at adding new characters to the mix only to axe them along the way, as a conclusion to their character arcs - it all flows organically with the drama.
Aside from him the show has been good at adding new characters to the mix only to axe them along the way, as a conclusion to their character arcs - it all flows organically with the drama.
Yeah, where's the option to vote for 'none of the above'?!!
Though I did like Seven eventually after Jeri Ryan proved to be more than just the new girl in the stupid outfit. If they insisted on someone leaving for the sake of keeping numbers the same I guess I'd have to vote for poor old Harry. I'd make it a deal that they had to clothe Seven properly before I let him go though
Voyager as a variant on the British show "The Black Adder", at the end of each season, everyone dies in the last episode, next season it a couple of hundred years later, new ship, everyones back as new characters, different command structure and new problems.
I agree with your statement about fans getting attached to the characters. To watch a series, you have to like most characters or certain characters, otherwise you'll only get annoyed or bored. I must admit that there have been series I've started to watch (none of the Star Trek series, I must stress) where I found one or some of the main characters so annoying that it made me stop watching, despite that the stories were good.
It wasn't long ago where there were some peculiar changes in the main cast in a series I've been watching for years. When one of the better characters were dumped for no reason mentioned and a second-rate clone was brought in, I did quit watching there and then.
So a Voyager where the main characters would be killed off one by one and replaced by others would have made me stop watching it immediately.
Not to menytion that such a series where the main characters are replaced one by one will never become really loved by the fans. People will watch it and then forget it very sonn when it's over.
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Such a show wouldn't be geared toward a audience such as yourself.
I think shows like Trek, B5, ER, LOST & Law & Order have proven that you can loose cast members if done right and the majority of your audience will still follow. Many are saying right here that if certain characters were dropped, they still follow the show. That's the core audience I would gear that type of show toward.
But on Black Adder, these new characters were played by the same actors, and were in fact new variants of the characters from the previous season/century. Not the same situation at all. The equivalent of this would be to have Mulgrew, Picardo, Russ, Beltran etc. playing their own descendents or people who just happen to look the same and have the same names, and curiously similar character traits. Not a very good idea for a non-comedy show.
Not really.
I can't speak for ER since I've never watched it, and I've only started to watch B5, but LOST and Law and Order don't belong to that list, for different reasons.
Law and Order is an episodic show and was never based on characters. The characters don't even matter much, it's the cases/stories that the show is all about.
LOST, on the other hand, still has most of the same cast it did in season 1, and even when it kills off characters (mostly supporting characters and new characters introduced in season 2 and later), it never actually gets rid of them, because they can always come back in flashbacks or as visions/ghosts or in the past via time travel, or in some other way (the premise of the show offers infinite possibilities).
I can't speak for ER since I've never watched it, and I've only started to watch B5, but LOST and Law and Order don't belong to that list, for different reasons.
Law and Order is an episodic show and was never based on characters. The characters don't even matter much, it's the cases/stories that the show is all about.
LOST, on the other hand, still has most of the same cast it did in season 1, and even when it kills off characters (mostly supporting characters and new characters introduced in season 2 and later), it never actually gets rid of them, because they can always come back in flashbacks or as visions/ghosts or in the past via time travel, or in some other way (the premise of the show offers infinite possibilities).[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure what list you're referring to.
I'm pointing out the fact that shows do & can continue with the lost of cast members. L&O took a great hit in viewership at the lost of Jerry Orbach and I don't think many fans would consider Mariska Hargitay & Chris Melone characters less important than the story. The dead LOST characters make 1 cameo a season, some even less.(when was the last time we saw Boone & Shannon?) They aren't in it enough to draw back the fans of those character, yet the show still pulls an audience dispite they're gone.
Law and Order is an episodic show and was never based on characters. The characters don't even matter much, it's the cases/stories that the show is all about.
LOST, on the other hand, still has most of the same cast it did in season 1, and even when it kills off characters (mostly supporting characters and new characters introduced in season 2 and later), it never actually gets rid of them, because they can always come back in flashbacks or as visions/ghosts or in the past via time travel, or in some other way (the premise of the show offers infinite possibilities).[/QUOTE]
I'm not sure what list you're referring to.
I'm pointing out the fact that shows do & can continue with the lost of cast members. L&O took a great hit in viewership at the lost of Jerry Orbach and I don't think many fans would consider Mariska Hargitay & Chris Melone characters less important than the story. The dead LOST characters make 1 cameo a season, some even less.(when was the last time we saw Boone & Shannon?) They aren't in it enough to draw back the fans of those character, yet the show still pulls an audience dispite they're gone.
MeanJoePhaser
Admiral
Dump Neelix, given he had more personality than most, but he was still just a cook...his "Delta Quadrant guide" bit ended a season before or so. "Enterprise" got by never showing Chef (which was a joke, I know), so we don't need a cook as a lead character.
Just move Neelix's meeting with those Talaxians he stays with to much earlier, where it might still make sense. (Though, not much, since since season 4 is past Borg space.)
Just move Neelix's meeting with those Talaxians he stays with to much earlier, where it might still make sense. (Though, not much, since since season 4 is past Borg space.)
The list of shows that, according to you, "have proven that you can loose cast members if done right and the majority of your audience will still follow."I'm not sure what list you're referring to.
L&O was never a character-based show.
As for Lost, come on, how many people cared about Boone and Shannon in the first place? They were never the most popular characters, and certainly weren't particularly important for the show's mythology. You couldn't even tell many flashback stories about them. 5 years later, and most of the original cast are still on the show.
Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Hurley are all still alive at least by season 5 finale; Locke is debatable, but we only found out he may be really dead in season 5 finale, and Terry O'Quinn has most definitely been still in the cast and in almost every episode. Popular characters introduced in season 1 like Ben and Desmond, are also still alive (Eko is dead, because AAA wanted to quit the show). Juliet may or may not have died in season 5 finale, but we've been told that she's definitely coming back in season 6.
everyone will be back in season 6, somehow - all or most of the major characters who have been on the show, including Charlie, Boone, Shannon and perhaps Eko.
The list of shows that, according to you, "have proven that you can loose cast members if done right and the majority of your audience will still follow."I'm not sure what list you're referring to.
L&O was never a character-based show.
As for Lost, come on, how many people cared about Boone and Shannon in the first place? They were never the most popular characters, and certainly weren't particularly important for the show's mythology. You couldn't even tell many flashback stories about them. 5 years later, and most of the original cast are still on the show.Where is that big change of cast that you speak of? And now it's even been heavily hinted in posters and interviews thatJack, Sawyer, Kate, Sayid, Sun, Jin, Hurley are all still alive at least by season 5 finale; Locke is debatable, but we only found out he may be really dead in season 5 finale, and Terry O'Quinn has most definitely been still in the cast and in almost every episode. Popular characters introduced in season 1 like Ben and Desmond, are also still alive (Eko is dead, because AAA wanted to quit the show). Juliet may or may not have died in season 5 finale, but we've been told that she's definitely coming back in season 6.everyone will be back in season 6, somehow - all or most of the major characters who have been on the show, including Charlie, Boone, Shannon and perhaps Eko.
I'm sorry but so what?
Have you not seen that most wish for the characters
to be gone are the ones just like Boone & Shannon? If Neelix got killed off, do you think it would greatly affect Voyager?
People are already telling you that they'd watch the show with or without them. Jadzia Dax was popular, yet DS9 still held strong without her because the story transended her. TNG survived without Yar & Wes, while Voy. did well without Kes. Trek has already proven it regardless of what type of show it is. The fans still followed.
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