What if Garrett Wang had left Voyager instead of Jennifer Lien?

[2takesfrakes]

I am very suspicious of this whole, "We kept Wang because some magazine thought he was cute (ie: Popular)". It seems more likely to me that they felt bringing on a Sex Siren would overshadow the established Pixie, no matter what. The fanboys would get one load of whatever vixen they cast and be like, "... Kes who?". Understand, I love Jennifer Lien - during Voyager, she was ... wow ... very beautiful and talented. But "they" didn't know what to do with her character, now that VOYAGER had settled into Standard Star Trek Mode, instead of whatever ideas they'd originally had for the show. It seems like they'd chickened out, in a lot of ways and writing for Kes suffered as a result. What a terrible waste ...

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I am very suspicious of this whole, "We kept Wang because some magazine thought he was cute (ie: Popular)"..

What if he had been Time's Person of the Year? Would you still be suspicious?

 

[2takesfrakes]

Had it been TIME? I would've been even more so ...

 

[Lynx]

1) I'm under the impression "Berman wanted Wang" is a dick joke.

2) As far as Kes, I think they had ideas about her in "Caretaker" but I think they felt she be a character that kinda wrote itself. I think they were expecting inspiration about her to come as show played out but it didn't.

That's on the writers, as I think Kes was an interesting character with lots of story potential. Our Lynx wrote a Kes centered unpublished Voyager novel. I don't think a good writer would have that hard a time coming up with the occasional Kes centered story. Then again, they kept Harry and he rarely got any memorable stories focusing on him.

Lynx is writing stories in retrospect.
It's easy to write a good story if you're rewriting what's been done.
Lynx is not part of a soapbox of 5 writers in a room each with 5 stories/ideas each week that may or may not be better than the 3 ideas/stories about Kes.
Having ideas for one or two Kes based stories doesn't compare with having to have 3 new ones to present for consideration every week, for 4 months.

Say what you want but those writers were good enough to beat out hundreds of other writers and their get their stories made into TV episodes.

You Kes fans wanna point fingers and accuse TPTB to purposely doing things against you(Fury) but you don't even have a clue how their job works.

In fact, I do have a lot of clues how their job works.

Right now I'm going through DS9, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch all episodes of due to stupid policy of a certain station where I live. Now I've bought the whole series on DVD and I'm in season 3 now.

What strikes me is how the DS9 writers didn't have any problem with writing for ALL characters. They even managed to add Worf later on.

Obviously they had no problem to write for certain characters and were obviously doing their job.

As for me, I'm far from being an expert. But give me a contract and a decent payment and I could probably come up with some good Kes stories in a short amount of time.

 

[Guy Gardener]

That's not how it works.

The first thing Berman did is to divide up the season by who is the focus of each episode.

The number of episodes dedicated to each character is proportionate to how popular Berman thought each character was.

If the world was fair = 26 / 7 = 3 remainder 5 (remember remainder!)

So he hates Kim and Kes, they're down to 2 each, there's a full cast two parter that eats those 2 up, Kate is supposedly the star, so she gets another two, Paris and Tuvok are the alpha males so they get another one each... Which just leaves one slot left for some slob if they're feeling lucky.

No one was writing stories for Kes becuase Berman wasn't asking for them, he'd ask for two or three a year at the beginning, and if some one had too many bright ideas, the excess would have to hold over to next year or be squeezed into the b story of another characters week.

And if that is what is going to happen to your bright idea, put in stasis or have all it's fat slit off until it can fit through a doggy door... Fuck it.

For a phenomenal Kes Story Mid year to get told, it would have to wow Berman enough to displace and put off an already written, half written script that had already been locked into position months earlier... And if your phenomenal idea turned out to be a dud, and if it's not your first dud, you'll probably get sacked eventually.

What I am saying is that it's fixed.

Rigged.

A scam.

They don't want Kes to become disproportionately popular so she can't become popular almost at all.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Dammit, Guy ... I hate Hollywood!!! But I love Kes ...

 

[Guy Gardener]

I was wondering if Kim hadn't died in deadlock and Alt Kathy still sent Alt Kim with Alt Naomi over to the surviving Voyager...

Could Wang play two Harry Kim's?

What would happen if one of them got promoted?

And what if to compound problems it was now Jenny Delaney who had fallen for the wrong twin?

 

[Lynx]

Dammit, Guy ... I hate Hollywood!!! But I love Kes ...

Me too!

 

[Lance]

Right now I'm going through DS9, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch all episodes of due to stupid policy of a certain station where I live. Now I've bought the whole series on DVD and I'm in season 3 now.

What strikes me is how the DS9 writers didn't have any problem with writing for ALL characters. They even managed to add Worf later on.

Obviously they had no problem to write for certain characters and were obviously doing their job.

The trouble is, DS9 did have a 'Seven of Nine problem' in Season 7. The late change from Jadzia to Ezri did have a very similar effect to when Seven came into Voyager, where a larger-than-normal number of stories seemed to be written around the new girl just so that the audience could get up to speed with who she is and where she comes from. The other characters did suffer as a result (although the effect wasn't quite as devistating as it was on Voyager). Ezri did impose on that last season a bit.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The one where she goes home to meet her estranged mummy was the worst.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Ezri and 7 were better than most of the boring ruts the characters were in.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Ezri yes, but Seven was just data with implants.

"I want to find/explore/tap/ my humanity."

That should have taken 5 minutes, even without a holodeck unless she had a mental impediment.

I think she was a high functioning, closet drunk, becuase she got reeeeally bitchy when her dinner guests tried to drink the wrong wine with their meals.

 

[Timewalker]

Right now I'm going through DS9, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch all episodes of due to stupid policy of a certain station where I live. Now I've bought the whole series on DVD and I'm in season 3 now.

What strikes me is how the DS9 writers didn't have any problem with writing for ALL characters. They even managed to add Worf later on.

Obviously they had no problem to write for certain characters and were obviously doing their job.

The trouble is, DS9 did have a 'Seven of Nine problem' in Season 7. The late change from Jadzia to Ezri did have a very similar effect to when Seven came into Voyager, where a larger-than-normal number of stories seemed to be written around the new girl just so that the audience could get up to speed with who she is and where she comes from. The other characters did suffer as a result (although the effect wasn't quite as devistating as it was on Voyager). Ezri did impose on that last season a bit.

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

 

[2takesfrakes]

Dammit, Guy ... I hate Hollywood!!! But I love Kes ...

Me too!

Lynx, I knew you were a man of my stripe!

 

[2takesfrakes]

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

Ezri's only real flaw was that she's bat-faced. She looks like a rodent ... and has the body of a 12 year old boy!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

I utterly and totally and magically and wonderfully agree with you

 

[exodus]

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

I utterly and totally and magically and wonderfully agree with you

Bunch of haters!

Dax was a fan boys dream character come true.
Hot
High ranking diplomat
Best friend too the Captain
Hot
Buddy/Buddy with the First Officer & the shady Ferengi
Honorary Klingon
Could kick ass
Hot
Flew the starship
Well respected
Did I mention being hot?

What's not to like?
She's us.

That's on the writers, as I think Kes was an interesting character with lots of story potential. Our Lynx wrote a Kes centered unpublished Voyager novel. I don't think a good writer would have that hard a time coming up with the occasional Kes centered story. Then again, they kept Harry and he rarely got any memorable stories focusing on him.

Lynx is writing stories in retrospect.
It's easy to write a good story if you're rewriting what's been done.
Lynx is not part of a soapbox of 5 writers in a room each with 5 stories/ideas each week that may or may not be better than the 3 ideas/stories about Kes.
Having ideas for one or two Kes based stories doesn't compare with having to have 3 new ones to present for consideration every week, for 4 months.

Say what you want but those writers were good enough to beat out hundreds of other writers and their get their stories made into TV episodes.

You Kes fans wanna point fingers and accuse TPTB to purposely doing things against you(Fury) but you don't even have a clue how their job works.

In fact, I do have a lot of clues how their job works.

Right now I'm going through DS9, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch all episodes of due to stupid policy of a certain station where I live. Now I've bought the whole series on DVD and I'm in season 3 now.

What strikes me is how the DS9 writers didn't have any problem with writing for ALL characters. They even managed to add Worf later on.

Obviously they had no problem to write for certain characters and were obviously doing their job.

As for me, I'm far from being an expert. But give me a contract and a decent payment and I could probably come up with some good Kes stories in a short amount of time.

DS9 is written in a completely different format than Voyager. One is arc based the other episodic.

You've only watched 3 seasons, so you're wrong in you're assumption about the DS9 writers not having a problem writing for all the characters. Jake Sisko.

Cirroc Lofton is credited in a starring role.
The writers openly admitted to dropping the ball with his character by not developing nearly as well as the rest of the cast. Worf was added to the cast to boost ratings in hopes of bring TNG viewers into DS9, much like Voyager did by adding Seven of Nine to improve theirs.

However, I'm sure you're good at writing the fanfic stories for Kes you do.

 

[Timewalker]

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

I utterly and totally and magically and wonderfully agree with you

Bunch of haters!

Dax was a fan boys dream character come true.
Hot
High ranking diplomat
Best friend too the Captain
Hot
Buddy/Buddy with the First Officer & the shady Ferengi
Honorary Klingon
Could kick ass
Hot
Flew the starship
Well respected
Did I mention being hot?

What's not to like?
She's us.

I don't happen to be a "fanboy."

Interesting characters have flaws and weaknesses. Jadzia didn't have any of those. She was Perfect in a really annoying way.

Plus, after I read an interview where the actress was bitching about the secondary characters getting storylines - in some cases storylines a hell of a lot more interesting than those of the main characters, I was really, really happy when she got killed off.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Dax was a fan boys dream character come true.
Hot
High ranking diplomat
Best friend too the Captain
Hot
Buddy/Buddy with the First Officer & the shady Ferengi
Honorary Klingon
Could kick ass
Hot
Flew the starship
Well respected
Did I mention being hot?

What's not to like?
She's us.

She's you. I'm much more like Ezri in every way.

And that is why Ezri is hotter

See: doppleganger fantasy.

 

[Lynx]

They should have gotten rid of Jadzia long before. If they HAD to have a Dax trill character, Ezri was a lot more interesting than somebody who had done everything, knew everything, and was just so damn PERFECT.

I utterly and totally and magically and wonderfully agree with you

Bunch of haters!

Dax was a fan boys dream character come true.
Hot
High ranking diplomat
Best friend too the Captain
Hot
Buddy/Buddy with the First Officer & the shady Ferengi
Honorary Klingon
Could kick ass
Hot
Flew the starship
Well respected
Did I mention being hot?

What's not to like?
She's us.

Lynx is writing stories in retrospect.
It's easy to write a good story if you're rewriting what's been done.
Lynx is not part of a soapbox of 5 writers in a room each with 5 stories/ideas each week that may or may not be better than the 3 ideas/stories about Kes.
Having ideas for one or two Kes based stories doesn't compare with having to have 3 new ones to present for consideration every week, for 4 months.

Say what you want but those writers were good enough to beat out hundreds of other writers and their get their stories made into TV episodes.

You Kes fans wanna point fingers and accuse TPTB to purposely doing things against you(Fury) but you don't even have a clue how their job works.

In fact, I do have a lot of clues how their job works.

Right now I'm going through DS9, which I haven't had the opportunity to watch all episodes of due to stupid policy of a certain station where I live. Now I've bought the whole series on DVD and I'm in season 3 now.

What strikes me is how the DS9 writers didn't have any problem with writing for ALL characters. They even managed to add Worf later on.

Obviously they had no problem to write for certain characters and were obviously doing their job.

As for me, I'm far from being an expert. But give me a contract and a decent payment and I could probably come up with some good Kes stories in a short amount of time.

DS9 is written in a completely different format than Voyager. One is arc based the other episodic.

You've only watched 3 seasons, so you're wrong in you're assumption about the DS9 writers not having a problem writing for all the characters. Jake Sisko.

Cirroc Lofton is credited in a starring role.
The writers openly admitted to dropping the ball with his character by not developing nearly as well as the rest of the cast. Worf was added to the cast to boost ratings in hopes of bring TNG viewers into DS9, much like Voyager did by adding Seven of Nine to improve theirs.

However, I'm sure you're good at writing the fanfic stories for Kes you do.

Well, at least they didn't dump Jake Sisko, they didn't turn him into a psycho who were planning to kill everybody on the station, including his father and they didn't turn him into a whimpy wreck determined to go home to Earth to live in a cave either. Not to mention that they didn't dump anyone when Worf was brought in.

The sad thing was that they killed of Dax. I don't know if the actress wanted to quit or not, there are some who claim it was a contract conflict. Whatever, they shouldn't have killed off the character. They could have had her sent on some mission somewhere (maybe to find Voyager) and brought in Ezri without the "Dax" connection.

There should be a "Bobby Ewing rule": Don't kill off a main character, you'll never know if you have to bring the character back.