Goodbye Carey

[Bry_Sinclair]

I caught "Friendship One" on TV again over the weekend.

Why kill off Carey? Or rather why establish him in season one then do nothing with him for six years, only to kill him off a few episodes from the end?

Why not kill Neelix (there would have been an uproar of applause and cheers then)? Or Chakotay (seeing as how Robert Beltran was getting a little hacked off with the series by then)?

 

[Jack Bauer]

I read an interview in Star Trek Magazine years ago (I no longer have the issue so I can't quote from it) and the writers of Friendship One were given a list of recurring characters they could kill off. They chose Carey. I don't know why they picked him. It may have been that he was the best known character on the list.

 

[eepruls]

I hate when writers kill off a character 'just cause'. There was no point in doing so, especially since we hadn't seen him since like season two. The writers obviously thought killing a character we already knew would make the story more dramatic and emotional than killing some new guy we'd never heard of. I would've preferred killing some unknown guy if the story demanded it (which it didn't).

But if they had to kill Carey off, why not do it a few seasons earlier where the emotional connection might have been stronger. Bringing him back for one episode right near the end of the series just to kill him off is dumb. At least have him do something important. What makes it sad is that we knew they were going to get home (the finale was only a few episodes away), so we're left thinking that the ONE guy on the ship with a family back home is the one that they kill off.

And it makes it even worse in the finale when Janeway decides to screw the timeline just to save Seven! Um, what about Carey who died just a few episodes earlier?!

 

[eepruls]

I read an interview in Star Trek Magazine years ago (I no longer have the issue so I can't quote from it) and the writers of Friendship One were given a list of recurring characters they could kill off. They chose Carey. I don't know why they picked him. It may have been that he was the best known character on the list.

What they should have done then is bring back that recurring character a few episodes earlier so that we can see him on the ship doing stuff. I don't like bringing a character we haven't seen in a long time back just to kill them quickly in one episode. Voyager had such poor character development throughout the series that they couldn't even rely on the regular characters to evoke an emotional response in a hostage situation. Instead, they felt they had to resort to killing a character from early seasons.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Okay, what if everything happened as we saw it, in the show and End Game up to a point, Janeway finds the nebula full of Borg and then runs away (just like she did) but instead of the Admiral meeting up with Voyager three days later, she arrived three months beforehand to save Joe and then a major chuck of Endgame is Kathryn with Kathyrn's help doing over Friendship one, natural law, homestead and renaissance man, you know forewarned is forearmed... And showing up the bad guys laughing at them as they try to get the best of Voyager without any luck (Though will Neelix still be able to get the girl if he's acting like it's a sure thing instead of discovering that he should like her?).

Now that's what I would have done if I was soft.

If I had to select the manner of Joe Carey's death, it would be this, Bone shards from the whack in the nose B'Elanna gave him in the second episode have been migrating towards his brain for the last 7 years and finally just before they get home, little bits of his nose finally skewer the lads thinking muscle deep enough to kill him stone dead.

B'Elanna on trial for the murder of a fellow officer or for Starfleet scum. All said and done it doesn't matter if she's a different person now, but when she hit him she really didn't care if he lived or died and that makes it murder.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

If I had to select the manner of Joe Carey's death, it would be this, Bone shards from the whack in the nose B'Elanna gave him in the second episode have been migrating towards his brain for the last 7 years and finally just before they get home, little bits of his nose finally skewer the lads thinking muscle deep enough to kill him stone dead.

B'Elanna on trial for the murder of a fellow officer or for Starfleet scum.

And the Doctor on trial for malpractice because he missed the bone shards.

I'm bothered by Carey's death, but also bothered by not being bothered enough by it. Better if it was someone I cared more about. Tuvok would do.

 

[Guy Gardener]

After Relativity do you think Seven went on that "date" Carey invited her on?

Meanwhile during Scorpion, don't you think Vorrik should have said something like "Excuse me sir, but isn't that the Ensign you mated with on Mars which I was not supposed to tell your wife about?"

Josh was in seven episodes.

Though in Fury and relativity he was just used as colour to prove that they had travelled back in time to the beginning of the story.

 

[The_Baroness]

They should have killed Kim. It'd have more effect (and being so close to the end wouldn't have made any difference to his contract)

It would have had more of an effect as heres Harry, the person who wanted to get home more than anyone, and he winds up being the last person to be killed before Voyager gets home. People would have cared more, and because we lose Harry here we probably don't need to bother with that terrible episode when Neelix gets laid.

Mind you, it would probably have more effect if Kim died during the journey through the borg conduit, literally, right as they get to the end, killed by explodering ops console, right in the face.

 

[Misco]

If Harry had died during "Endgame" or in place of Joe in "Friendship One" it would have been far better, I agree. There would have been a sense of weight to those episodes and the idea of having him be the last crewmember to die before getting home, like The Baron suggests, would have justified his existence a little over the last seven years in that the sense of poignancy created by his death would have contributed something to the overall series that he didn't provide most of the time he was alive.

The positioning of Joe's death and Admiral Janeway's return was really unfortunate; I'm really not sure TPTB intended her to come off as quite so single-mindedly heartless but, hey, maybe they did. I can't remember the end of "Friendship One" was there some sort of memorial service/funeral held for Joe or was his death/existence just swept under the carpet?

Ha, this is the second thread in the last five minutes I've posted on advocating the death of Harry. I'm going to feel bad next time I watch Voyager.

 

[Lynx]

Killing off Carey was stupid and unnecessary. He was a good character.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If they didn't kill Carey, they wouldn't have asked for Josh back.

Dude has to buy braces and wheeties for his kids.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I can't remember the end of "Friendship One" was there some sort of memorial service/funeral held for Joe or was his death/existence just swept under the carpet?

There was a thirty second scene at the end where Janeway and Chakotay are in his quarters looking at a model of Voyager in a bottle, and saying about how Carey joked he wouldn't have it finished before they got home (and there was just one nacelle to go).

 

[Gaith]

@ The OP: Whhhyyy do you remind me of "Friendship One"; I was having a good day?!!


"Friendship One" is one of the most mind-bendingly awful hours of TV I've ever seen. Its saving grace is it wasn't ambitious enough to kill of a Kim or a Tuvok, as then it'd be much harder to forget without necessarily improving one aritistic iota.

 

[Misco]

There was a thirty second scene at the end where Janeway and Chakotay are in his quarters looking at a model of Voyager in a bottle, and saying about how Carey joked he wouldn't have it finished before they got home (and there was just one nacelle to go).

Thank for the remind!

I remember that scene now you describe it.

 

[Nick086]

I had some tears when they killed off Carey, he was the only character I really like, besides Ensign Vorik. I guess Ensign Vorik was Lt Carey replacement in Engineering.