The REAL reason that Kes isn't a more beloved character...

If you like the character, I wouldn't take the away from you.

I've written fiction off and on and as such, I'm interested in the mechanics of writing fiction. The Kes character is interesting to me because I can't remember remember ever coming across a character that was so disliked for reasons that had little or nothing to do with what we actually saw onscreen and I can't remember any other character in a long running series that was so ill conceived but wasn't dropped immediately.

 

Telling your kid "because I said so" is also giving a reason. But it's simply using your parental authority to bludgeon them into accepting a decision, rather than coherently defending it.

If you want to continue the Harry discussion, there's an active topic on it. This topic is about Kes, and whether she was a worthwhile character. My mind is that she was.

 

I think you may want to recheck your figures. Kes is generally liked among Voyager fandom. One of the most beloved characters after Seven.

 

You could actually both be right. Some of the best characters are the ones that polarize the audience. Compare a character like Chakotay, who was too generic to garner much of a response (until they tried to pair him with Seven).

The only negativity I've seen aimed at Kes is due to (1) the creep factor of her relationship with Neelix, and (2) the fact that her potential was never developed much. I understand the first, and agree with the second.

 

Sorry but I think you also need to recheck your figures. Kes may not be as disliked as the OP thinks, but "one of the most beloved after Seven" ? More than the Doctor an Janeway? In your circle of Kes fans maybe, but definitely not the Fandom as a whole. I find that only the most devoted Voyager fans even remember Kes enough to have an opinion of her at all.

 

I checked five Trek or Voyager character ranking sites. Of the three that seemed the most reliable, two put Kes in the middle and one failed to mention her at all. Of the other two, one gave her an honorable mention, and the other put her at the bottom (didn't really explain why).

The chief issue with her seemed to be her failed potential, which is sad but true. And endemic to several other VOY characters.

 

I dislike "doom-and-gloom" series and movies and avoid them as much as possible. Unfortunately there are a lot of such "entertainment in the gloomy 2020's and the also gloomy 2010's.

One such example was Stargate Universe. I did quit watching it after two-three episodfes of constant whining and bickering between different factions on that doomed ship and nothing more. The only reason why I did start watching it again was because a friend of mine told me that he had fallen asleep twice while watching it. After that it became a joke between us about "our favorite series which makes sleeping pills obsolete."

After 6-7 boring episodes when a bunch of hostile blue aliens filally showed up, I actually cheered for them. Let's go Blues!

I'm happy that Voyager never became as bad as Stargate Universe. However, i liked both Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis.


[/QUOTE]Kate Mulgrew was really upset about Jennifer Lien being let go and then the production making the ’new kid on the block’ the star of the series and she took it out on Jeri Ryan. She later admitted she targeted the wrong person and apologized to Ryan.

The thing to keep in mind is neither Ryan nor the character 7o9 had anything at all to do with Kes being dropped from the series.

She was dropped from the series because the production had no idea what to do with the character.[/QUOTE]

I can actually understand Mulgrew even if it was wrong to behave badly against Ryan. Mulgrew should have attacked the "writers" and "producers" instead. They were resonsible.

If "the production" had no idea what to do with Kes, they should have been fired for not doing their job. All of them!

They were hired to write for those characters and they should ave done just that.

If an amateur like me can come up with decent kes stories, then I expect even more from well-paid writers.

What I've read and heard on many occasions, Wang was going to be dropped to make room for Ryan and her character but after that silly inside poll in that gossip magazine, those in charge changed their mind and dumped Lien instead.

Kes wasn't that disliked.

I remember that before this whole thing with Kes being dumped and "the changes in season 4", Neelix was the most disliked character. There were a lot of not so nice comments about him. Kim was also criticized for being bland and there were also a lot of comments about Janeway. Some people liked her, some didn't. Kes was hardly mentioned in those debates. It was after Kes being dumped some criticizm started to come up.

Yes!
She personified the spirit of Star Trek with her will to learn and explore.

I get the same impression.

I can agree with that. In fact, most of the Voyager characters were underused, especially in the later seasons when everything was about Seven, The Doctor and Janeway.

 

There's a Youtuber who does Trek vids. I don't think well of the man at all (for quite a few reasons), but his insights into Trek are usually spot-on. When asked which Voyager character had the most wasted potential, he said: "can we just say all of them?" Then a pic of Seven appeared and he said "almost all". Then a pic of the EMH appeared and he yelled "I said ALMOST all!"

That pretty much says it all.

 

Therin, the pixie cut has been around for a long time, was revived in the '60's by Vidal Sassoon (and featured in the movie this actress was in) and was revived in the '90's and also became the prominent hairstyle of this actress in the '90's, as well as becoming a popular hairstyle for women generally in the same decade; it is not a 'mop' at all.

Actress one:


Actress two:

Exactly. But that wasn't enough to save her for being axed.

That's all on Wang for not doing what Burton, Frakes, MacNeil, and Dawson did to get their directorial shots (and because they did what was required, they got to go on to be directors, while he's doing...what he's doing.)

I knew about the production problems, but I never knew that the morale of the cast was low.

Which is why Wang never got to be a director as he wanted, and after Voyager, hasn't seemed to be doing much of anything other than cons; so much for all of the promise inferred by his inclusion in that People magazine issue.

It's too bad that Wang wasn't got rid of and Sarah Silverman brought in to be on Voyager as intended; I'll bet that Rain Robinson would've been a lot better than how Harry Kim eventually turned out (and also be in a much better place than being an agent of the Aegis, as indicated near the end of one novel.)

 

I said one of, not the most.

But more popular than Chakotay, Kim, and Tuvok? Probably.

 

Far as I know, it mostly wasn't. There were just some issues, such as Beltran being disappointed that his character was not being developed, and Wang being a wanker, and Mulgrew (by her own admission) being a b**** to Jeri Ryan.

It seems like most Trek main cast actors seem to have trouble catching on anywhere else, aside from the captains. Jonathan Frakes neatly avoided this by traipsing around to the other side of the camera.

The only things people remember about Kim was his clarinet, his friendship with Tom, and his seven years of ensignhood. And Chakotay... uhhh... the tattoo, maybe? But I always thought Tuvok to be a pretty popular character.

 

I didn't say Tuvok wasn't. My premise is I'm confused at the idea Kes wasn't.

 

Ok, who was THAT one? Quark and.....someone?
.......Garak and Ziyal?

 

The one thing I remember about Harry was that he had a girlfriend named Libby back on Earth in the early seasons, but later the writers completely forgot about this and had an episode where he stated that he had followed Lyndsey Ballard to his assignment on Voyager. So if one were to take all that literally, he had a gf whom he was two-timing with another woman.

 

Harry was dead.

Libby picked up wicked strange at the mass funeral for Voyager's crew.

Griefgasms.

In Fair Trade, beginning of season 3 Voyager, Neelix helps his sleazy friend Wixiban sell space crack, But Jennifer didn't get an allergy to her prosthetics glue till the end of season three, where they got rid of her mushroom wig, to cover her noncanon human ears.

Space crack + 9 inches of hair, over night.

I wonder if her leg hair grew nine inches over night?

 

I agree. Pixie cuts are real beautiful on some women and kes was STUNNING hin her hairstyle. It was a trademark for the character. When she got the longer hair, she looked just like some ordinary Starfleet cut-out character.

They should have found another way to attach her ears and keep the pixie cut. But I guess that Berman and Braga were too cheap and greedy to even think about it.

In a company run by idiots, even the most useful and popular can be axed.

There were some problems here and there, mostly fueled by the actions of those in charge.

I have to disagree here. Rain Robinson was OK in that episode but I can't see what she should have provided to the ongoing story except being Paris's girllfriend.

besides that, what I know, Silverman has a reputtation for not being the nicest person off-screen so the problems could have been bigger with her on board.

As for Harry Kim, the character could have been saved by better writers. Just compare with the Voyager books where harry is actually doing something, even if he has the bad habit of being fatally injured in many of those too.

Great comments!

In your straight-forward way, you have just described what was the main problem with the series. Sloppy and Inconsistent writing!

Sometimes the "writers" didn't seem to remember what they had come up with in the previous episode. Instead they just kept going. Sort of

We can't have Tom Paris as the main character in this one. We killed him of in the last episode!
Ah, never mind! The viewers won't notice!

But talking about additions, one character who I would have liked to see joining the crew was Wixiban!
I liked him and he actually was a good guy after all.

Not to mention that according to the book Pathways by Jeri taylor which tells Neelix's background story, Wixiban became a good friend and support to neelix after the tragic events at Rinax when his family was killed. He also helped Neelix to get rid of his severe addiction to Rhuludian Crystals (yes, neelix was a drug addict then).

Unfortunately, Wixiban was caught by the Ubean and ended up in prison for a year. Neelix had to run avay to avoid being captured too and did not have an opportunity to save Wixiban.

After all that and after correcting the mistakes they did at the station by helping Bahrat to catch the drug smugglers, Wixiban should have deserved to join the Voyager crew.

Justice for Wixiban!!!

 

It would have if the Doc had stimulated her follicles down there.

I actually started to say that maybe they cared enough about their actress to allow her to change her character's appearance for the sake of her own health...

Then I remembered Seven's skintight torture suit.

Oh, that Harry!

Think about how his character would have blossomed on DS9, a show where character development was a staple rather than a no-no.

And Chakotay's.

And Kes's.

They certainly could have taken his ship onboard, with their infinite-capacity clown-car shuttlebays. But, Wix grabbed his ship and scampered before they could make the offer.

There certainly are times when you wonder what they were thinking...

 

The original painful silver suit disappeared quickly.

 

Kes is an alien. If the show says she's a full grown adult by two and expected to die when she's nine, that is how her species works. It's likely that the Caretaker meddled with their evolution, possibly shortening their lifespan and limiting their fertility to make the species more manageable with limited resources. We do see that the Ocampan colony's population lives up to 15 so that does suggest their potential is greater than what they showed.
I find Kes likable and fascinating, and it's a shame the writers didn't know what to do with her.

 

I think you completely missed my point.