To be honest, she was the only reason I watched the show. She was cute as hell.
She certainly was!
Jennifer Lien
- Thread starter DS9
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She certainly was!
I agree. It is a pathetic excuse. If your writers can't figure out what to do with a character, then the answer is obvious. Fire the writers and get some new ones. That was the problem with Voyager in general. They had a great premise, an interesting set of characters, and a cast that was ready to deliver. But the writers were fresh out of ideas. So what do the producers do? They drop one character and add another to try and sex things up instead of addressing the real problem.
This idea that Kes' short lifespan made it too difficult to write for her is such BS. This is Star Trek, a show that invents science to suit whatever the plot demands. They could've just said her being in space changed her physiology in a way that prolonged her lifespan or that her emerging psychokinetic abilities had something to do with it. Sure the audience would see right through it, but so what? The viewers forgive the writers whenever they invent some new particle that does this or that or when they take something that actually exists and totally misrepresent how it works. Brannon Braga is a master at that.
As for potential plot ideas, I could think of a few just off the top of my head.
- Kes comes into conflict with another character because he doesn't think the Ocampa were worth saving.
- Kes, while practicing her telepathic abilities with Tuvok, accidentally plants an idea in his head that leads to major problems on Voyager.
- Kes has to take over in sickbay when The Doctor's program goes offline.
And it doesn't even have to be specific plots. How bout just exploring certain themes, like the mother/daughter relationship between Janeway and Kes. There was still a lot of potential there. So when the writers claim they didn't know how to write for her, I think two things. Either you're incompetent and should've been fired or you're just looking for an excuse to fire her cause you want to bring in a Barbie doll instead.
That's absurd.
You don't fire an entire writing staff over one character.
It's not like Kes was the first character in the history of television to be written out of a series due to them not working out. Plus as usual, your facts are incorrect. There is no mention or implication that Kes' lifespan was ever an issue for the writers.
I swear, folks act like those that created her don't have right to do with her as they wish.
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Well, considering that he was the equivalent of a Human who was 135 years-old, I'd say he looked pretty youthful.
They did create the character, then they should have had a plan for her. Otherwise they weren't doing their job.
In your statement, you focus too much on that "one year" thing. Kes was in reality about 18-25 years old. The Ocampa did seem to have a lot of wisdom and certainly Kes had a wisdom of an 18-25 year old Ocampa.
"The child option", which means describing Kes as a child was never really used in the show. From the moment she did show up, she was more like a person in her late teens-early twenties than a child. The only episode which came close to describing Kes as something of a child was "elogium" and in the long run it was more like a story of unexpected teenage pregnancy than a child story.
As for acting if Voyager wasn't new for her, Kes arrived on Voyager in the episode "Caretaker" at Stardate 48315.6 (26 April 2371). The next episode "Parallax" took place at Stardate 48439.7 (10 June 2371) which means that Kes had more than a month to learn a lot about the ship and the life on the ship as well.
The point is that the writers don't seem to be telling the truth when they state that they couldn't write for her. There were many episodes with Kes as an important character in season 3, actually more Kes-oriented episodes than Kim episodes or Neelix episodes. Therefore it seems strange that they all of a sudden lost the ability to write for her.
My assumption is that the dumping of the character had nothing to do with them not being able to write for the character, they needed an excuse for dumping the character.
They should have told the truth which was:
We dumped the character because we wanted to sex up the show with a woman with big boobs in a catsuit, therefore we had to dump one main character. Since we do care more for looks and effects than for stories and characters we couldn't dump Kim as we originally planned because the actor was voted as one of the 50 most handsome in that silly poll among the staff of a glossy magazine. So we dumped Kes.
Such an explanation would at least have been honest.
And if they really couldn't write for a character they themselves created, then they weren't doing the job they were paid for and should have been fired.
Oh, I guess it helps if I proofread my own posts.
If Jennifer had some warning, maybe she could've seduced Braga?
Ultimately there's not too much difference physically between Jeri and Jenny, and Brannan might have been on the market for a while before jeri showed up and made the rest of the female cast look and feel like coatracks.
Of course you save Jen, and suddenly it's Robby or Roxy on the chopping board.
Ultimately there's not too much difference physically between Jeri and Jenny, and Brannan might have been on the market for a while before jeri showed up and made the rest of the female cast look and feel like coatracks.
Of course you save Jen, and suddenly it's Robby or Roxy on the chopping board.
The producers can't fire themselves and Paramount fully supported their decision. They wrote 28 eps. a season for a show with a cast of 9 that ran 7 years, like the TNG & DS9. These are the same writers/producers that gave Paramount their highest grossing Trek film to date.(First Contact)
There was no way in Hell, Paramount was going to fire them over one character after giving them 2 successful shows & 3 hit movies. So again, what you ask for is absurd. Even Jen Lien herself never had any issues with being let go and is happy the show continued without Kes.
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Second highest Trek film.
Roberto Orci, Damon Lindelof, and Alex Kurtzman wrote the highest grossing Trek film.
But you have a very good point.
Wrong. As usual, you just deny facts when they weaken your argument. Rick Berman and Robert Picardo are both on record saying that the writers wrote themselves into a corner when it came to Kes because of her limited lifespan. And yes, you do fire a writing staff when they've provided ample evidence that they've run out of ideas. It wasn't just the character of Kes. It was their writing as a whole. Look at some of the plots we saw in those first 3 seasons. Time travel, temporal/spatial anomalies, bodily possession. Those have been done to death in Star Trek and here you have a writing staff recirculating ideas from TNG. They couldn't figure out what to with this character and they couldn't come up original stories. A good producer would've recognized that it was time to clean house.
Paramount supported the decision because they wanted Berman to bring in some T&A. Do you think they care about the quality of the writing? Of course not. They don't have a clue what makes Star Trek work. All they care about is ratings. And they figure the fans are just a bunch of nerds who never have sex so they'll gladly tune in to see some buxom blond. Rick Berman's a company man. He does what he's told. But he also had a lot of say. He could've fired the writers and I'm sure Paramount would've gone along with it. Why? Because they don't care about the writing. Yes, a lot of the writers were also producers on the show. But Berman could've pulled rank and said you're just producers now and you don't get to write scripts cause you've run out of ideas.
Lastly, if you think Jen Lien's going to admit that she was unhappy about being let go, then you're naive. It's been 13 years. If she complains now, she'll come off as bitter. That's fine for people like Beltran and Wang, but maybe Lien has a little more class than to badmouth a former employer.
Or the marketing process, either. Whether one's a fan of Kes or not, whether one likes Voyager or not, one can't say the show failed critically or financially because one of the lesser characters was booted.
You're all aware that between the end of Enterprise and the beginning of the production of Star Trek I, they were waiting out bermans multimillion dollar contract (it was drafted when he had two shows and the movies to oversee) so he couldn't get a toe hold in on any new projects.
they had the choice of paying up on his golden parachute or doing nothing until his ten year contract finally lapsed.
Making a tiny little blonde girl cry, or a room full of "writers" is piss easy in comparison.
they had the choice of paying up on his golden parachute or doing nothing until his ten year contract finally lapsed.
Making a tiny little blonde girl cry, or a room full of "writers" is piss easy in comparison.
The firing of Jennifer Lien and dumping the character Kes was a stupid, rude and unnecessary move.
First of all, the show didn't need any changes. It already had great characters, among them 3 excellent female characters who were very different but still very interesting in their own way. So there were no reasons to bring in a fourth female character who, except for the catsuits and body attributes, actually ended up like a cross between Kes, Torres and The Doctor when it came to manners and personality.
If they absolutely had to bring in Seven, then why did they have to dump one character? Worf was added to DS9 but no main character was dumped because of that. Not to mention that they more and less made Naomi, Vorik and Icheb main characters. What was the point with that?
They were also very rude to Jennifer Lien, dumping her for no acceptable reason at all after three years of excellent acting on the show and they were rude to the fans of the character Kes when they brought back the character in season 6-just to humiliate and destroy the character. That was downright insulting.
The whole thing is a dark spot in the history of Star Trek. There are no excuses for rude and unnecessary actions.
First of all, the show didn't need any changes. It already had great characters, among them 3 excellent female characters who were very different but still very interesting in their own way. So there were no reasons to bring in a fourth female character who, except for the catsuits and body attributes, actually ended up like a cross between Kes, Torres and The Doctor when it came to manners and personality.
If they absolutely had to bring in Seven, then why did they have to dump one character? Worf was added to DS9 but no main character was dumped because of that. Not to mention that they more and less made Naomi, Vorik and Icheb main characters. What was the point with that?
They were also very rude to Jennifer Lien, dumping her for no acceptable reason at all after three years of excellent acting on the show and they were rude to the fans of the character Kes when they brought back the character in season 6-just to humiliate and destroy the character. That was downright insulting.
The whole thing is a dark spot in the history of Star Trek. There are no excuses for rude and unnecessary actions.
Seven was an intriguing character in her own right--a terribly damaged person reclaiming her humanity, albeit reluctantly.
And she was given life by a talented and hard-working actress who was more than her "body attributes."
This is more melodramatic than a Tennessee Williams play.
I think the second darkest spot in Star treks history is when we had to watch Riker take a bath in Nemesis
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It's not like many scandals happen.
Maybe Shatner fumbling his lines of purpose so that Sulu didn't get a promotion in the 5th movie... Takai was reportedly super pissed, but it was still hardly an abuse of power since it was just actors being bitchy.
Imagine (adjusting for the 80s...) they replaced Bev for Heather Locklear in TNG because Gates' boobies were more than half the size of the escaping Dallas star?
I mean they could have told Jenny to sex it up to save her part because sweet and innocent was just going to get her shitcanned, but gods all they had to do was get rid of that stupid mushroom wig a season or 2 earlier.
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It's not like many scandals happen.
Maybe Shatner fumbling his lines of purpose so that Sulu didn't get a promotion in the 5th movie... Takai was reportedly super pissed, but it was still hardly an abuse of power since it was just actors being bitchy.
Imagine (adjusting for the 80s...) they replaced Bev for Heather Locklear in TNG because Gates' boobies were more than half the size of the escaping Dallas star?
I mean they could have told Jenny to sex it up to save her part because sweet and innocent was just going to get her shitcanned, but gods all they had to do was get rid of that stupid mushroom wig a season or 2 earlier.
