Well, my motto has always been "Don't get mad-get even" As for the statement about "Fury" being written during the Christmas holiday, I did read that a couple of years ago in an interview with Braga. I think it was on the TrekCore page. Unfortunately, I can't find it despite three hours of Google searching and I do have to sleep now to be fit for work tomorrow. But I will continue my search. Maybe someone else will remember it as well. And believe me, not even me can come up with such a horrible scenario. Not to mention that the humiliation and destruction of the character is bad enough as it is.
I never said I couldn't imagine Kes doing anything wrong. I can't imagine her killing her friends though, and she starts off the episode doing just that, even if it was an alternate timeline. The problem was that they only rewrote the end, when at the least the whole thing needed a massive rewrite. Maybe if they had used the big reset button they were so fond of and had Kes stopped herself from the whole thing happening at all, and at the end we saw Kes happy on Ocampa leading her people to live their lives with bravery and an independent spirit, something like that, then the episode could've been better. If they had managed to put some hope into Kes's future it might've worked better. As it was, yes, Kes did stop herself, but old Kes still left Voyager angry and broken, she just had backed off from her killing spree, and had nothing left for her but to return to the backwards little world she had fled with a desire to see more of the universe. What kind of message does that send? The end for Kes was still so depressing and bleak it really ruins Kes's whole story arc. I can't think of any other major Trek character that got treated that badly.
Really? Because I tend to think that it was the second half of the story that was set in an alternate time line, and that the Voyager story carried on from there because they didn't want to fire Roxanne Dawson since her character was pushing daises in the original timeline.
Yes. Yes I have. It makes me think about Stargate SG-1, in one of the later episodes, possibly a season finale around seasons 8 or 9, the lead characters realize at the end of a trippy alternate reality story that some detail is slightly off and they're now living in a slightly different AU.
Right, thanks. I remembered they were fishing, but not what the actual change was. I love alternate reality stuff, and it is funny that they never addressed it again so presumably they are living in an AU after that. And I guess Voyager is too.
Well, if you truly believe that "Fury" is a big "Fuck You" to your letter writing campaign. Then look what it got you. They still got the last laugh by getting even. Just sayin'.
Boy I wish I had thought of this with Riker. "PLEASE Mr. Paramount, please please please make Riker the Captain and have him marry all the women and sit in the big chair and say engage I am writing these 1000 letters to beg you to come to your senses and make it so!" Season finale: Riker blows up.
Oh, I agree. There's absolutely nothing realistic we could do to "get back" at the people responsible for this, even if I believed in revenge, which I don't. They totally got the last laugh, but realisticly, what were they getting back at us for? For caring about a character they had created but lost interest in?
It sends the same one that TNG & DS9 did with Worf & Odo. While they are surrounded by friends, they aren't of their race. Their people. They wanted to embrace their culture, feel a bond again with their own kind that they didn't have with those around them. They did it with Neelix & again with Seven. Neelix found more of his kind and wanted to stay. Seven accepted Earth was where she came from and where she belonged. I am African-American, you openly admitted you are Homosexual. We as minorities ourselves should identify with such things. While we can have/make friends of other races & cultures, there is usually a stronger bond of understanding and relation with our own kind. THere are aspects of our cultures that others can't truly understand or share that bond with us. As Kes was getting old, she did her exploring and she wanted to go to finish her life were she felt comfortable, home. Just like the crew of Voyager, she still held a bond to the place where she was born. On Ocampa she could be at peace. It maybe a backwards place but as you get older things change, you become nostalgic. Things you rebelled against in your youth, as an adult you come to accept and see wisdom in. There's no place like home, cheesy yes but it's one of the greatest truths there is. I don't see Kes going home to end her life in peace with her own people as a bad thing. It was the theme of the show, wasn't it?
I was too busy wondering which apostrophes I fucked up to bother with that. It's slowly dawning on me that a great deal of my TV today has been tabled by Turkey Day. DAMN YOU TURKEY DAY!
Exactly, that's why I don't believe they were trying to get back at anybody. TV is about ratings, the bigger the better. The bigger the ratings, the more sponsors. The more bigger name sponsors, the more money a show makes. "If" your story about Sliders actually is true, then that is why those guy were fired. They purposely not only fucked their show over but they hurt the payroll of EVERYBODY working on that show. Knowing all this, no way would tptb behind Voyager do that type of stunt. They would have screwed the ENTIRE staff of the show. If they did it on purpose, the cast and crew aren't under contract anymore and I'm sure we would have heard it by now if it were true.
I see Kes's situation a little different than you do. It's a little interesting to me, as I think it's just a matter of perspective, point of view, and not that either of us is right or wrong. Kes left her people and was happy to build a new life for herself because at least in part because she was "different". She questioned the status quo and wanted more out of life than the safe and traditional life that was expected of her. I had never thought about it like that before, but Kes's beginning could be seen as having parallels to the gay experience, where so many of us have to leave home and build a new life for ourselves away from what is familiar. It's very common for gay people, especially ones who have been cast out or at least alienated from our families to build new families, a chosen family of friends, as Kes did. For me, I see the people Kes belongs with as being her family of choice on Voyager, instead of her returning, tired and defeated, to safe boring Ocampa, where no one understood her. I do get your point about the theme of the show. Maybe it would've worked if we'd seen some spark of happiness in Kes at going home instead of her looking utterly miserable. As for behind the scenes, all I remember hearing is that Jeri Ryan got a very cool reception for a very long time from a lot of the cast, including KM, because they resented her replacing JL. I thought that sounded unfair, as it wasn't her fault that JL got fired, but that's what I've heard. As for Sliders, I have heard a lot of really awful things about how bad the behind the scenes were. There were problems with Sabrina Lloyd being bullied by Kari Whuler or whatever her name was, Maggie, apparently because Sabrina Lloyd was dating someone from the crew and KW was snobbish about that, and that when the other producers got rid of the original creater that there were all sorts of problems, and it showed in the quality of the show. The writers seemed to delight in giving exiting characters terrible exits, but Sabrina Lloyd's Wade got the worst of it by being sent to a "breeding camp" where she'd be repeatedly raped. I've even heard things said about that, that I won't get into just because it's so ugly. Being aware of how people behind the scenes can do vicious ugly things to a character with malicious intent makes me more wary of the intentions of writers when I see a character treated so badly, especially in an exit story. Kes's exit story wasn't too bad, but bringing her back just to do this to her, I have a hard time believing it wasn't malicious no matter how illogical it may seem. The possibility that it was this bad unintentionally is hard to believe.
I completely get this, more than you know. However, deep down inside don't those gay people estranged from their family wish it wasn't so? Don't deep down inside wish they could go home?