J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on VOY

[Guy Gardener]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

Money is as important as screentime Anwar. They needed 40ish grand an episode for a lead character like Seven, or 20ish grand for a minor character like Kes, when they don't have 50 cents that is unaccounted for in the budget. Someone or something had to go if they wanted to introduce new elements.

In a perfect world Kes and Seven mucking about with Sam Wildman and the Delanney Sisters and Marla Gilmore talking about they are in no way interested in Harry Kim.

 

[TedShatner10]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

Apparently Garrett Wang, at a recent convention in London, tearfully said to Jeri that Kate felt bad about the ego clashing all those years ago. Also this forum is pretty dead - nobody mentioned yet that Jeri has landed a major guest role on NCIS?!

 

[Grathon Tolar]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

When I am a bitch I always blame Braga, it works pretty well.

One of the funniest things I heard recently was Braga on the Enterprise blu-ray:

"I'm not blaming the studio for Enterprise's problems. That's the job. No way am I putting blame off...I fully take responsibility for any problems the show had. By the way, even if we had gotten our way with the show, that's not to say I wouldn't have fucked that up either."

I find Braga endlessly fascinating; not just because of what he's done, but what he represents and what his presence says about the audience. Star Trek is one of the only fandoms that takes bad television personally. On any other television drama, something like Threshold would be quickly forgotten; yet people like the SF debris guy dissect it like the Zapruder film.

 

[Makarov]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

The doctor is really the highlight of voyager imo. Seven of Nine is mostly memorable for the outfit and the looks, and being some kind of male fantasy. The popularity of the character just because of that is kind of a downside to voyager in my opinion. Yeah TNG had Troi's boob outfit, but atleast Jellico gave her a verbal beat down for wearing it. And it seemed like something someone might actually wear, where as Seven's doesn't.

I would be pissed off if I worked on a show for 3 years and then they pulled that...

It's like if on TNG all of a sudden they bring on some beefcake shirtless male captain and Picard starts getting pushed into the background.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

Jettisoning the wide eyed fairy and bringing in the Borg was the best decision TPTB ever made for Voyager.

 

[fireproof78]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

When I am a bitch I always blame Braga, it works pretty well.

One of the funniest things I heard recently was Braga on the Enterprise blu-ray:

"I'm not blaming the studio for Enterprise's problems. That's the job. No way am I putting blame off...I fully take responsibility for any problems the show had. By the way, even if we had gotten our way with the show, that's not to say I wouldn't have fucked that up either."

I find Braga endlessly fascinating; not just because of what he's done, but what he represents and what his presence says about the audience. Star Trek is one of the only fandoms that takes bad television personally. On any other television drama, something like Threshold would be quickly forgotten; yet people like the SF debris guy dissect it like the Zapruder film.

I'm sure that there are other boards who take some TV very personally. There are whole studies of psychology regarding why people take TV so seriously.

Also, Trek is not the first fandom to do so, though it certainly has done so from an early onset, given the Franz Joseph's tech manual, and the Bjo Trimble Concordance being produced so soon after TOS initial run.

The Star Wars prequels could probably also fall under the category of a fandom taking a production both incredibly seriously and to the extreme, on both sides. Given that there was a documentary all about the people vs. George Lucas, I think it is safe to say that piece by piece dissection is not unique to Trek.

As for Braga, he is an interesting man, and one that would be fun to sit down and just talk with and get his take on everything.

As for Jeri Ryan, she is an incredibly gracious and funny lady, and it is sad to hear about her going through such a tough time. I just wish I could say I was surprised.

 

[AgentCoop]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

The doctor is really the highlight of voyager imo. Seven of Nine is mostly memorable for the outfit and the looks, and being some kind of male fantasy. The popularity of the character just because of that is kind of a downside to voyager in my opinion. Yeah TNG had Troi's boob outfit, but atleast Jellico gave her a verbal beat down for wearing it. And it seemed like something someone might actually wear, where as Seven's doesn't.

I can't agree with this assessment at all. I feel Seven was the most fully realized character on the show. If anything, you could argue that her characterization was emphasized too much, since it seemed to come at the expense of developing the other characters.

I would be pissed off if I worked on a show for 3 years and then they pulled that...

It's like if on TNG all of a sudden they bring on some beefcake shirtless male captain and Picard starts getting pushed into the background.

But that's hardly what happened. Janeway was one of only two characters (the other being the Doctor) who wasn't pushed into the background so the show could focus on Seven. In fact, the Janeway/Seven dynamic became one of the show's key relationships, which benefited both perfomers.

 

[mos6507]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

Seven of Nine is mostly memorable for the outfit and the looks, and being some kind of male fantasy. The popularity of the character just because of that is kind of a downside to voyager in my opinion

I don't think that holds up under scrutiny of the actual episodes. The problem with VOY is that by that time the tropes of Trek characters were becoming ingrained, and so there's really no way to look at 7 or even the Dr. without seeing echoes of Data or Spock. So neither can claim to be nearly as innovative. Nevertheless, those kinds of tropes, the quest to define intelligent life and human nature, are the very core of Trek. There's very little of those themes to be had in characters other than those two. So one is a lot more photogenic than the other. Doesn't mean she's not a good character.

 

[bbailey861]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

Seven was a terrific edition to the cast - it brought life back to the show. The fact that Spock, Data, and Seven may arguably be 'tropes' doesn't dissuade from the fact that each of the characters were sufficiently different to stand alone. Having Seven be a human who was assimilated and then rescued and had to learn humanity again was an excellent journey. That she is extremely attractive, well, that's just icing on the cake.

 

[dub]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

The term "trope" is itself annoyingly overused.

 

[Chilli]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

A friend of mine is the Post-Production Supervisor on Orange Is The New Black and says Mulgrew is a delight to work with.

[...] I don't know that I believe, given my friend's experience with Mulgrew, that it's the only way things could have gone down. I guess we'll never know.

Workplace bullying is, sadly, a lot more complicated than this. It'd be a lot less tricky a topic if the people behind it were surrounded by an aura of evil obvious to anyone that interacts with them. In my experience - which is fortunately that of a bystander, and not of a perpetrator or victim - one of the trickiest things about workplace bullying (and bullying in general, really) is that the people behind it are often enough highly charismatic and "good with people", and manage to get people to "see things their way" even when their aims and conduct would, objectively speaking, be unjustifiable.

It was actually a really tricky thing for me at my old office that there was a bigwig person I *knew* was behind a whole array of personally motivated, vicious, and borderline psychopathic bullying campaigns against co-workers, but that was never anything but lovely to me personally, as she had no beef with me. (In fact, as I was in charge of the computers in the office, it was in her personal interest to stay in my good books.) I had to constantly reconcile what I *knew* about her conduct (that she has a history of ruining people's lives for the pettiest of reasons) with what I *felt* about her conduct (that she's always really nice to me).

Obviously, I wasn't there either, so I have no idea if Ryan's and Wang's interpretation is accurate. Innocent till proven guilty, yadda yadda yadda, yes. But the fact that Mulgrew is pleasant to work with for people with whom she has no beef is not an argument against the story they are presenting.

 

[Makarov]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

I just don't believe she is popular because of her character rather than her looks. Her outfit was a pure grab at ratings and in a sense it does push Janeway into the background as the prominent main female cast member. I was a boy at that time Voyager was airing so I remember how it was. Totally upstaged by hooters in space.

All else including Janeway seemed to be written around getting Seven up front and center. They even have Seven defying the captain repeatedly and Janeway not doing a whole lot in response to it. And the character is just... not that interesting to warrant it.

Up to season 5 in my rewatch and every Seven episode is either:
- Seven causes huge problems and no one does anything about it. Oh well, atleast she's eye candy! *sitcom laughter* That's our Seven.
- Seven can fix problem x, y, z because of her borg inserttechnobabblehere

 

[Grathon Tolar]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

I think such an interpretation is too simplistic. JR undoubtedly had sex appeal, but there was also unquantifiable presence and charisma.

The Seven character was a rarity in Trek. The franchise was full of rude, barely sociable assholes who are nonetheless heroic. Spock, Worf, Odo. It also had a number of extremely vapid, banal eye-candy--Troi and Jadzia Dax. In effect, Seven was a mixture of the edifice of the latter with the personality of the former. I could see where such a unforeseen mixture of female sexuality and abrasiveness could prove problematic, but I think it was refreshing.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

If it's about sex appeal, then why are most of the characters most ardent fans seemingly gay men and women?

 

[Chilli]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

The character of Seven, and the background behind which she was introduced, really should be irrelevant when it comes to how Mulgrew treated Ryan. I can see how the introduction of Seven might be considered problematic, and I can totally see how it would piss Mulgrew out, but all Ryan did here was ( a ) take a job that was offered to her ( b ) be swell at said job. Ire aimed at her is/was completely misplaced.

 

[Makarov]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

If it's about sex appeal, then why are most of the characters most ardent fans seemingly gay men and women?

Not sure where you're getting that fact from, but as for why gay women might like her, I can give you two big reasons.

As for straight women they might aspire to be the center of attention the way Seven of Nine is due to sex appeal, the same reason men like James Bond.

 

[Grathon Tolar]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

If it's about sex appeal, then why are most of the characters most ardent fans seemingly gay men and women?

Not sure where you're getting that fact from, but as for why gay women might like her, I can give you two big reasons.

As for straight women they might aspire to be the center of attention the way Seven of Nine is due to sex appeal, the same reason men like James Bond.

I'm pretty sure it was meant to be read as "gay men and (straight) women".

I think a strong case can be made for Seven's across the board popularity. Have you seen how much Seven crap is on tumblr, which is almost solely the domain of teenage girls and young women? Or seen the extensive Seven cosplay that some girls engage in? There's obviously an appeal to the character which transcends mere questions of appearance. To think otherwise is contrary to all available evidence.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

If it's about sex appeal, then why are most of the characters most ardent fans seemingly gay men and women?

Not sure where you're getting that fact from, but as for why gay women might like her, I can give you two big reasons.

What are they?

As for straight women they might aspire to be the center of attention the way Seven of Nine is due to sex appeal, the same reason men like James Bond.

The center of attention? That's all women want?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

If it's about sex appeal, then why are most of the characters most ardent fans seemingly gay men and women?

Not sure where you're getting that fact from, but as for why gay women might like her, I can give you two big reasons.

As for straight women they might aspire to be the center of attention the way Seven of Nine is due to sex appeal, the same reason men like James Bond.

Sorry, did I make that seem like a fact?

It's just an opinion generated from a small sampling.

I would never be so bold as to speak for the audience, the entire audience.

Hells, I even used the word "most" twice in that post.

I obviously still had to edit that baby another three times before it was fit for open consumption.

I'd like to think that most lesbians are too smart to be manipulated so easily.

I would absolutely like to think that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: J. Ryan Speaks About Her ‘Intentionally Unpleasant’ Experiences on

I'm pretty sure it was meant to be read as "gay men and (straight) women".

I thought about typing "straight women", but then I did a calculation in my head (from watching documentaries about the fanbase and being observant during conventions.), it still seems that gay women want to be her more than they want to do her.

If they had to pick one or the other.

The truly sick at heart (and lower), want to be her while doing her.

No, not masturbation.

Time travel, mirror universes and clones.