But no one protested when Spock was brought back to life in the Star Trek movie The Search For Spock which was far more over the top than a prolonged lifespan for Kes. The same with Kim being killed and replaced by a duplicate Kim. Which actually confirms my comments above. When it came to destroying the character, there were no barriers or obstacles which couldn't be moved or simply forgotten by those in charge. Tanis a "sexy boy Ocampa"? Anyway, if I remember the s**t episode in season 6 correctly, "Kes" didn't go to Ocampa until it decide to do so at the end of the episode so it can hardly have been "treated like an asshole" before that. But I can understand that this totally illogical, pathetic excuse for a Star Trek episode confuses you.
While discussing the episode on their podcast, The Delta Flyers, McNeill and Wang figured, yes, that Kim was a replacement for the one who died but not the duplicate. He comes from the Voyager that sent the pulse (or whatever), so even though it's nitpicky, I agree that the original Voyager was the one that sent the pulse first.
I believe Nimoy had his objections too. And that the edit was done without his knowledge. Could be misremembering though.
They didn't treat her like an asshole, she just anticipated that they would treat her like an asshole because she knew that they would treat her like an asshole because they are small and provincial. My bad.
But development could be created and showed up in a better way than turning it into some death-infested doom-and-gloom drama. As for your comment about the Billy Joel song, maybe it should have been changed to "Only the good die Young, while the evil seems to live forever" from the Iron Maiden Song "Only The Good Die Young", at least when it comes to what we discuss here. And when you mention the "creators" of Voyager, it reminds me of the Deep Purple song "No, No, No" and the lyrics "They talk about creation, but all they do is kill". As for your comments about Picardo, you have a point there. His character in Stargate, Mr Woolsley had a similar development as The Doctor, from just an agent of the National Intelligence department to the leader of the whole Atlantis Expedition. Sometimes I wonder if they were thinking at all. No problem. That pathetic excuse for a Star Trek episode is so messed up and full of contradictions that it is impossible to think logic while discussing it.
But it did at least explain Wildman's ridiculously long pregnancy. The only saving grace of "FURY". And the teaser with Tuvok's birthday.
Good point. Agreed. If they were going to remove Kes from the show, they should have let "The Gift" be the end of it. The gist I get from the Billy Joel song is of a horny teenage boy who's trying to convince an attractive but religiously conservative girl to drop her panties for him. Doesn't really jibe with Kes's situation.
Or even better, they should have scrapped the badly written The Gift with its energy-being mumbo-jumbo and let her leave with Zahir in Darkling. If they really had to dump her which I don't think they should have done. I haven't heard that song but due to your description of the lyrics, it doesn't seem compatible to Kes's situation. In that case "Only The Good Die Young" by Iron Maiden is a better choice. The lyrics "Only the good die young while the evil seems to live forever" fits both Kes and the "gods" who removed her from the Star Trek Universe in the worst possible way.
Nothing saves that episode. The examples you bring up could and should have occurred in some other episode between the birth of Naomi and Endgame.
No, like I said: DS9 juggled 25 characters at its end. VOY could have handled 10. Maybe a few more, if they did character development right, which they sadly didn't. I also still maintain that the "Beautiful People" story was probably not entirely true... "Before and After" felt to me like they were condensing the original plan for Kes's life into one episode, because they weren't going to play it out for real. And because it was one episode, they could do things that were more "out there" than would have worked in the series proper (like Harry and Linnis). Sounds like me and "Half a Life".
An episode I often skip when I rewatch TNG. The writers really took the easy way out there. The poor man should have showed the "finger" to the authorities on his homeworld and been granted asylum in the Federation.
Darn right. Involuntary termination of "defectives" was the way the Nazi holocaust began. It makes me sick that Trek actually gives their tacit acceptance of such a thing.
Makes me think that world just doomed itself by forcing one of the scientists working on the coming disaster commit suicide.
The situation was almost the same in Emanations, the worst and most boring episode in the early seasons of Voyager.
Would it have been a good development for Kes if in season 3 and/or 4 and staying she had become more of the ship's unofficial, or even all-but-official, counselor?