Biggest problem with "Voyager" is that they didn't really take any chances.

[fireproof78]

Sometimes. But not always. Especially given the freedoms the other shows got.

Nope, we've been down this road before, and no.

MASH had a smaller main cast than Voyager, it's inherently easier to tell a story when you have a smaller cast.

VOY would've been better off with the Central Cast just being Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and the Doctor.

Kim, Kes, Neelix and Torres should've been Secondaries who didn't need to be seen all the time or be in every episode.

9 players, hmm?

M*A*S*H had Hawkeye, BJ, Winchester, Colonel Potter, Radar, Klinger, Margaret, Father Mulcahy as their ensemble, so only one short of VOY. They also introduced Sydney, Igor, Rizzo, Zale, Nurse Kelly, Nurse Baker, Colonel Flagg, General Clayton, and numerous others who made more than one shot appearances, and actually got character development.

It can be done.

 

[Tenacity]

Considering they spent so much money on make up and such, true, why not do an episode featuring the back ground crew members--have them speak and talk like normal people--to make them seem more real?

If the extras are given lines of dialog, TPTB have to pay them more.

 

[Sophie74656]

Secondary characters that were fairly fleshed out...Samantha Wildman, Naomi Wildman, Seska, Vorik, Tabor, Chell, Icheb, Joe Carey

 

[fireproof78]

Those who survived (RIP Lt. Carey) are just assumed to have done so. We actually don't see Ensign Wildman after Season 5, save for flashback sequences.

Just missed opportunities, in my opinion.

 

[MacLeod]

Nope, we've been down this road before, and no.


9 players, hmm?

M*A*S*H had Hawkeye, BJ, Winchester, Colonel Potter, Radar, Klinger, Margaret, Father Mulcahy as their ensemble, so only one short of VOY. They also introduced Sydney, Igor, Rizzo, Zale, Nurse Kelly, Nurse Baker, Colonel Flagg, General Clayton, and numerous others who made more than one shot appearances, and actually got character development.

It can be done.

You forgot to mention M*A*S*H was a half hour show.

 

[Prax]

Considering they spent so much money on make up and such, true, why not do an episode featuring the back ground crew members--have them speak and talk like normal people--to make them seem more real?

Thankfully, the did. They can't do this in every episode, but some good examples are "Repression" in season 7, the aforementioned "Good Shepherd", and many of the early season episodes like "Basics."j

But DSN unlike VOY could have people transferring in and out of assignment, new officers from the academy etc...VOY was stuck with the limited number of crew they had so it's easier to have one shot characters in DSN than it is in VOY. And really if you want to build a sense of family/community on VOY, developing a decent core of secondary characters would have helped. But then again they seemed to struggle to develop some of their primary characters.

I'm saying that DS9 did even less to flesh out the redshirts than Voyager did. If a Starfleet crewman is stationed on DS9, it should be for a few years. We barely met any of them at all, let alone recurring characters. All of DS9's recurring characters were Ferengi, Bajoran leaders, cardassians, etc. It became a stretch at times just how Dukhat was inserted into so many stories.

And the few times we do get to meet a redshirt, it's just to add emotional weight to their inevitable death before the end of the episode.

This got so bad that by season 6 and seven, who's running the defiant? Sisko, O'Brien, Garak, Ezri, Bashir, Kira, Odo. They've all got a bridge station. Oh yeah, nog too.

At least on Martok's ship we get to meet some of the crew...

 

[fireproof78]

^^
Don't forget Morn

You forgot to mention M*A*S*H was a half hour show.

I did- thank you for the reminder.

 

[Prax]

Those who survived (RIP Lt. Carey) are just assumed to have done so. We actually don't see Ensign Wildman after Season 5, save for flashback sequences.

Just missed opportunities, in my opinion.

Crewman Chell survived. Not only does he make an appearance in season 7, he's also mentioned in a bunch of other episodes. Ensign Wildman is also.

If this is a missed opportunity for Voyager, than it's an even bigger missed opportunity for the shows that came before it.

 

[fireproof78]

Crewman Chell survived. Not only does he make an appearance in season 7, he's also mentioned in a bunch of other episodes. Ensign Wildman is also.

If this is a missed opportunity for Voyager, than it's an even bigger missed opportunity for the shows that came before it.

Yes, it is a missed opportunity for all the shows.

 

[Anwar]

Nope, we've been down this road before, and no.

Tell me how well DS9 would've turned out without the Dominion and we never ever left the Bajor system and rarely ever left the station.

M*A*S*H had Hawkeye, BJ, Winchester, Colonel Potter, Radar, Klinger, Margaret, Father Mulcahy as their ensemble, so only one short of VOY. They also introduced Sydney, Igor, Rizzo, Zale, Nurse Kelly, Nurse Baker, Colonel Flagg, General Clayton, and numerous others who made more than one shot appearances, and actually got character development.

It can be done.

Sure, but in every story did all 9 of those character get equal roles or did they really just focus on a few characters with the rest of the ensemble playing supporting roles?

 

[fireproof78]

Tell me how well DS9 would've turned out without the Dominion and we never ever left the Bajor system and rarely ever left the station.

It depends on the stories being told. If they are told well, with compelling characters, then it could be very interesting. Characters is the biggest piece.

Sure, but in every story did all 9 of those character get equal roles or did they really just focus on a few characters with the rest of the ensemble playing supporting roles?

It varied, but that's the point. Little bit parts became bigger over the course of the show. Klinger went from a one note joke, to a character with real growth. Nurse Kelley called out Hawkeye on his sexist viewpoint towards her. Even Radar, after he left the show, still had some character development. By the way, this was also a half-hour show, with little in terms of event to event continuity, but very much a strong push by most, if not all, of the characters.

It's not a matter of equal time-it's a matter of the writers going, "Hey, these people are going to be around a while-why not use that to our advantage?" Unfortunately, all we got was the occasional one shots, with Lt. Carey being the most egregious in that they thought he was (apparently) dead, and when they realized that he wasn't, they killed him off any way. So long Lt. Ya...I mean, Carey.

When Voyager has recurring characters, when it delves deep in to those moments of real humanity, it has some of the best of Trek. But, there are a lot of missed opportunities and that's frustrating.

 

[Prax]

When was Carey said to be dead? I don't remember that.

 

[Refuge]

When was Carey said to be dead? I don't remember that.

Me neither. I think he has been promoted in significance so that the argument can be made that.. hey look that really interesting guy Carey was misused by the writers and killed off. He was so all that and yet so not all that at the same time, he could have been really great if he wasn't written as being.. well, Carey. No one noticed he was gone until he was gone but they thought he was gone.. apparently. See look the writers stuffed up again. The Carey Chronicles!

 

[Prax]

Ensign Vorik is a good one. He appears in many seasons, including 7, and had his own spotlight. He's also referenced in Episodes he doesn't appear in, just like Ensign Wildman.
From TNG, the only people I can remember by name are Ensign Ro, of course, who took on starring roles in her episodes(I believe she was in 8), and Robin Leffler. I think she was only in one episode. I remember the girl from "Q-Who" but not her name. Barclay, I suppose(He was in 5) but these were all guest stars. And Voyager had many, many guest stars.

If we're doing that, we can count Seska, Hogan, Sudor, and Jonas.

The only one I can remember by name from DS9 is this guy.

I had to look up the few other's names.
And everyone else were faceless nobodies

EDIT: Her name was Gomez(It just showed up on the same results page as Muniz)

 

[fireproof78]

When was Carey said to be dead? I don't remember that.

He wasn't. He just stopped appearing in present timlines, even in episodes like "Relativity" he only shows up in the past. It's just bizarre to me.

And just so I'm clear, I'm not saying that VOY didn't do anything with characters or that other series did it better. I'm saying that VOY had a lot of missed opportunities, and they stick out to me. Sorry if that offends.

 

[MacLeod]

Ensign Vorik is a good one. He appears in many seasons, including 7, and had his own spotlight. He's also referenced in Episodes he doesn't appear in, just like Ensign Wildman.
From TNG, the only people I can remember by name are Ensign Ro, of course, who took on starring roles in her episodes(I believe she was in 8), and Robin Leffler. I think she was only in one episode. I remember the girl from "Q-Who" but not her name. Barclay, I suppose(He was in 5) but these were all guest stars. And Voyager had many, many guest stars.

If we're doing that, we can count Seska, Hogan, Sudor, and Jonas.

The only one I can remember by name from DS9 is this guy.

I had to look up the few other's names.
And everyone else were faceless nobodies

EDIT: Her name was Gomez(It just showed up on the same results page as Muniz)

What about O'Brien from TNG. Saying he appeared in something like 30% of the episodes.

 

[Prax]

That was inexcusable of me... I'm sorry, O'Brien.

 

[Anwar]

It depends on the stories being told. If they are told well, with compelling characters, then it could be very interesting. Characters is the biggest piece

Well, I doubt that DS9 would as fondly remembered if they were isolated to just that Station and Bajor and never ever went anywhere else.

It varied, but that's the point. Little bit parts became bigger over the course of the show. Klinger went from a one note joke, to a character with real growth. Nurse Kelley called out Hawkeye on his sexist viewpoint towards her. Even Radar, after he left the show, still had some character development. By the way, this was also a half-hour show, with little in terms of event to event continuity, but very much a strong push by most, if not all, of the characters.

It's not a matter of equal time-it's a matter of the writers going, "Hey, these people are going to be around a while-why not use that to our advantage?" Unfortunately, all we got was the occasional one shots, with Lt. Carey being the most egregious in that they thought he was (apparently) dead, and when they realized that he wasn't, they killed him off any way. So long Lt. Ya...I mean, Carey.

When Voyager has recurring characters, when it delves deep in to those moments of real humanity, it has some of the best of Trek. But, there are a lot of missed opportunities and that's frustrating.

This was probably a symptom of how they just had bad luck with their Centrals and couldn't even get THEM to all get along. Beltran and Wang being the biggest offenders. If they had some excuse to split the crew up so they weren't all on Voyager the way DS9 was able to with its cast, they'd have more wiggle room because the difficult actors wouldn't be thinking "Why give that extra focus that should be mine?"

 

[Prax]

That's not the impression i've gotten. I listened to an interview of Robbie McNeal on the Warp Five Podcast on Trek.Fm, where he's asked how he would compare directing Enterprise episodes to directing Voyager episodes. He says something to the effect of "Voyager was very easy to direct. We're like a family, or even closer than a family. The closest friends I've ever had." And in a Garrett Wang interview on the same sight, he explains how all the men on the show started a tradition of meeting at some restaurant in LA every 3 months, and how they've been doing it religiously for 20 years now. He also said that Ethan Phillips moved back east, so they have him join the dinner on skype or speaker phone when he can't fly out for it.

I'm sure we've all heard about Mulgrew and Ryan during season 4 of Voyager, but it's understandable, and they acclimated.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I have thought maybe the actors that played Joe Carey and Samantha Wildman were not available to guest star all the time. They could have mentioned them more though, so that you knew they were around as a part of the crew. Naomi mentioned her mother some.

It wouldn't have hurt anything to have at least brought Carey's name up once in a while because he was the Assistant Chief of Engineering. So viewers didn't think he was dead before he was dead.

A little off topic, but I was wondering, who would have been next in line for his job when Carey was killed. I was thinking maybe Nicoletti since she had the rank of Lt.