sorry, but even by the standards of ENT's treatment of secondary characters Mayweather was neglected. Hoshi, Malcolm, and Phlox all got better development.
Mayweather came in and went out as a cipher.
Just What Was Up With The Treatment of Travis Mayweather?
- Thread starter sonak
- Start date
sorry, but even by the standards of ENT's treatment of secondary characters Mayweather was neglected. Hoshi, Malcolm, and Phlox all got better development.
Mayweather came in and went out as a cipher.
I remember getting giddy when Mayweather got a line. Not exaggerating. As a teenager I was disturbed by his lack of presence; I'm not looking forward to my interpretations now when I get back to the series.
To those saying he was most interesting during the Mirror Universe episodes, I'd imagine we can thank Coto for that. Also, in the finale two-parter (TATV? What is that?) he has an OK enough story with an old flame, but that's such a tired plot device. At least they were trying, though...
To those saying he was most interesting during the Mirror Universe episodes, I'd imagine we can thank Coto for that. Also, in the finale two-parter (TATV? What is that?) he has an OK enough story with an old flame, but that's such a tired plot device. At least they were trying, though...
I thought he was doing okay for backstory until the Xindi arc came along... It's not a racist thing and that's an easy card to play. Borderline offensive. More that's always a disproportion amount of screentime in any ensemble and it takes better dedicated material, for the sixth or seventh cast member to shine among such likeable competition.
We should also try to remember that ENT wasn't a true ensemble like the previous three Treks had been. ENT attempted to replicate the 'Big Three' formula of TOS, with Archer, Tucker, and T'Pol getting the lion's share of the focus, leaving less time for the remaining cast. Out of those four, it was usually Phlox who got the most screentime (with good reason), followed by Reed, and then Hoshi. That left Mayweather at the bottom of the totem pole.
yeah, exactly. The question is why? Montgomery a horrible actor, they had no idea who the character was, etc.?
I think it was more of the latter. I don't think Montgomery is a terrible actor; I've seen him in a couple of non-Trek productions and he seemed to be better in them. I just think either he couldn't adapt to the Trek style of dialogue or the writers couldn't (or wouldn't) figure out how to write for him. Their original plans for Mayweather would have made him a completely different character, but when they cast Montgomery they made Travis younger and less experienced (though I don't know why; Montgomery was already 30 when ENT premiered). I think Montgomery would have done better if he'd been playing the original Mayweather instead of the one we ended up getting.
interesting, I didn't know the plan was to make him different. He kind of ended up an even less interesting Harry Kim-type of character though, didn't he?
How interesting. I've read in the past that originally they were trying to do an ensemble but later on (especially in Season 4) they focused on Archer, Tucker and T'Pol. Not terribly surprising really considering that the Voyager cast lacked much development outside of Janeway, Seven and the Doctor.
I think a bit of both... not that AM is a bad actor, but the writers didn't seem to know how to what to do with the character, so it all got a bit messy
Racism is such an easy 'card' to play because there is a real history of it. It bothers me that some people seek to liken the real cost and pain of racism to a mere game or crying. It's as if some 3 or 4 centuries of racism and racist sentiment were all of a sudden wiped away 40 years ago (in the US) and now the 'true' racists are the non-white people who talk about race or racism. Not saying that's you, but as I pointed out I think there is a pattern regarding lack of development of people of color on Trek. I'm not saying it's conscious (though perhaps for Nichelle Nichols and George Takei it was), but I don't buy that these things just happen if we continually see that it is the black, brown, and yellow folks who are getting less development, on nearly every show.
I might be wrong, but I don't think race can be as easily dismissed as you claim. I do think there is a racial/cultural component that plays out on the screen, when you have a largely white male writing/production staff behind the scenes for every Trek series. IMO, they have gravitated towards characters that they can relate to, or feel more comfortable with, i.e. people that look like them. Also there are the exotic alien characters. But as for run-of-the-mill human characters of color, it's almost like the Trek writers have felt they done their job just by populating the shows with them. The most notable exception to this is Sisko.
It's one of those situations where you can't win, no matter what you say or intend to mean. I especially can't just say anything outrageous like "Fortunate Son" and "Horizon" were stories about Travis, I really enjoyed. Because I did. Not when so many find those dull or can't get past Enterprise's choice to feature the Naussicans. I liked seeing that humanity doesn't equal Starfleet and that Boomers came from families out there years on end, scraping a living out of cargo shipping. I liked the even more industrial look of the ECS ships. Trucks in space, with a smaller tug that uncouples at the front.
Seems to me that if Travis had been given the negative stereotypes we see in movies, TV and music videos - jack of all trades career, a drink problem, a string of offspring with different women and a fetish for guns and jewellery, more would find him interesting and that's sad. I'll take what AM did and got to play with, over that anyday. It tells you more about society right now frankly. That people look for implied racism in the comments of others, while discrimination often goes unchallenged in plain sight.
Travis Mayweather was born in space, and came from a family who likely hadn't lived on Earth in over a century. He isn't Benjamin Sisko from New Orleans, into Jazz and Cajun cuisine. They probably auditioned a number of different actors from all sorts of backgrounds for Travis and then decided Anthony Montgomery deserved the role, adjusting whatever they had to the actor. Or maybe I'm getting mixed up the casting process that resulted in Avery Brooks being cast in Deep Space Nine?
Seems to me that if Travis had been given the negative stereotypes we see in movies, TV and music videos - jack of all trades career, a drink problem, a string of offspring with different women and a fetish for guns and jewellery, more would find him interesting and that's sad. I'll take what AM did and got to play with, over that anyday. It tells you more about society right now frankly. That people look for implied racism in the comments of others, while discrimination often goes unchallenged in plain sight.
Travis Mayweather was born in space, and came from a family who likely hadn't lived on Earth in over a century. He isn't Benjamin Sisko from New Orleans, into Jazz and Cajun cuisine. They probably auditioned a number of different actors from all sorts of backgrounds for Travis and then decided Anthony Montgomery deserved the role, adjusting whatever they had to the actor. Or maybe I'm getting mixed up the casting process that resulted in Avery Brooks being cast in Deep Space Nine?
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I didn't look for implied racism in your statements, if you that is what you are suggesting. My reply was more to the point that this 'race card' description is used to trivialize discussions of race, its history and legacy, far too much in our society.
I don't think Mayweather exhibits any of the typical stereotypes ascribed to blacks, or black male characters, that litter some Hollywood productions, which is a good thing on the part of the ENT writers. They even removed him from the asexual category, with Gannett Brooks and the implied Mirror Universe-relationship with Empress Sato.
My concern with Mayweather, and other characters of color, is more of a tokenism issue. They are sort of there just for background, for symbolic diversity, and the writers don't seem to invest enough in the characters to make them interesting, to make the audience want to see more. For me, I think there is a racial/cultural component to that.
And it is vexing, especially with Mayweather, because the writers seemed to start him at an interesting place. As a Boomer he had outside knowledge/hard bitten experience about a lot of species that Archer and company rarely if ever relied on or consulted him about, since T'Pol and her Vulcan database were used as a go-to. Perhaps its just me but it seemed like Broken Bow was setting up a Travis-Trip friendship that went nowhere. There was also some interesting Archer-Travis interplay in a couple episodes that went nowhere. And that left field mention of Travis by Hoshi when she was thinking about the people she would miss, while with that psychic alien in the Expanse, and that went nowhere. (Would it have hurt them to have a Travis-Hoshi relationship, or a Travis-Hoshi-Malcolm triangle? It would've given all three of them something more to do). And in TATV, they didn't even change his rank (like with others), which reinforced that B&B had little idea of where they wanted to take this character (and many of the other characters as well).
As I said before, I can understand why Nichelle Nichols and George Takei didn't get much development on TOS, though they were given some hobbies which was better than nothing. I do think race played a part in their development or lack thereof. Even when creating Sulu, the writers said he would be inscrutable to other Asians (why? Because Asians were inscrutable to them perhaps?) and that he would consider himself a French swordsman/Musketeer type (why? Once again, something more familiar to them; something Eurocentric).
With Geordi, it made little sense to me, why they didn't capitalize on LeVar Burton's fame, as I've written before. Though he was promoted and contributed to the ship quite a bit, his character didn't change much at all. There was no arc for him. And even in NEM, despite the well established friendship between him and Data, LaForge isn't even allowed to give the android's eulogy. Crusher didn't get much development either. Sure she switched jobs a couple times, admitted-under duress of a sort-her feelings for Picard-but there was no growth for her. It's not like she started the show hating Picard and then learning to respect and love him or something like that. She had largely forgiven him when TNG started and the writers were reluctant to explore the one aspect that could show change for her character, or if nothing else, a change for Picard from stuffy bachelor to family man.
DS9 is the anomaly. It wasn't perfect, but it got it closer to right than the others. Sisko came across as relatively three-dimensional. They dropped the ball with Jake and some of the writers even mentioned that they did so in the final season.
With VOY, others have long pointed out how Kim and Chakotay were shafted. This is juxtaposed with Janeway's development and the rise of Seven of Nine (but how much of that was based on her sex appeal as opposed to Ryan's solid acting?). But overall, I think Mayweather fared worse than most of these characters, due in part because he was developed after all of them, in the 21st century, yet his lack of development feels like he was created as part of daring sci-fi program from the 1950s, where it would've created a stir just to cast a black person in such a high-profile (relatively speaking) role.
I don't think Mayweather exhibits any of the typical stereotypes ascribed to blacks, or black male characters, that litter some Hollywood productions, which is a good thing on the part of the ENT writers. They even removed him from the asexual category, with Gannett Brooks and the implied Mirror Universe-relationship with Empress Sato.
My concern with Mayweather, and other characters of color, is more of a tokenism issue. They are sort of there just for background, for symbolic diversity, and the writers don't seem to invest enough in the characters to make them interesting, to make the audience want to see more. For me, I think there is a racial/cultural component to that.
And it is vexing, especially with Mayweather, because the writers seemed to start him at an interesting place. As a Boomer he had outside knowledge/hard bitten experience about a lot of species that Archer and company rarely if ever relied on or consulted him about, since T'Pol and her Vulcan database were used as a go-to. Perhaps its just me but it seemed like Broken Bow was setting up a Travis-Trip friendship that went nowhere. There was also some interesting Archer-Travis interplay in a couple episodes that went nowhere. And that left field mention of Travis by Hoshi when she was thinking about the people she would miss, while with that psychic alien in the Expanse, and that went nowhere. (Would it have hurt them to have a Travis-Hoshi relationship, or a Travis-Hoshi-Malcolm triangle? It would've given all three of them something more to do). And in TATV, they didn't even change his rank (like with others), which reinforced that B&B had little idea of where they wanted to take this character (and many of the other characters as well).
As I said before, I can understand why Nichelle Nichols and George Takei didn't get much development on TOS, though they were given some hobbies which was better than nothing. I do think race played a part in their development or lack thereof. Even when creating Sulu, the writers said he would be inscrutable to other Asians (why? Because Asians were inscrutable to them perhaps?) and that he would consider himself a French swordsman/Musketeer type (why? Once again, something more familiar to them; something Eurocentric).
With Geordi, it made little sense to me, why they didn't capitalize on LeVar Burton's fame, as I've written before. Though he was promoted and contributed to the ship quite a bit, his character didn't change much at all. There was no arc for him. And even in NEM, despite the well established friendship between him and Data, LaForge isn't even allowed to give the android's eulogy. Crusher didn't get much development either. Sure she switched jobs a couple times, admitted-under duress of a sort-her feelings for Picard-but there was no growth for her. It's not like she started the show hating Picard and then learning to respect and love him or something like that. She had largely forgiven him when TNG started and the writers were reluctant to explore the one aspect that could show change for her character, or if nothing else, a change for Picard from stuffy bachelor to family man.
DS9 is the anomaly. It wasn't perfect, but it got it closer to right than the others. Sisko came across as relatively three-dimensional. They dropped the ball with Jake and some of the writers even mentioned that they did so in the final season.
With VOY, others have long pointed out how Kim and Chakotay were shafted. This is juxtaposed with Janeway's development and the rise of Seven of Nine (but how much of that was based on her sex appeal as opposed to Ryan's solid acting?). But overall, I think Mayweather fared worse than most of these characters, due in part because he was developed after all of them, in the 21st century, yet his lack of development feels like he was created as part of daring sci-fi program from the 1950s, where it would've created a stir just to cast a black person in such a high-profile (relatively speaking) role.
Thanks, DarKush. I actually agree with all of that. Sisko's the anamoly really, being the leading character. They're forced to try harder and possibly also that the writers liased more with Avery Brooks, about the person he wanted to play. Being the headline act, even in an ensemble carries some weight. They had to properly do their homework or else.
I'm old enough to remember DS9 in first run and its initial two seasons reviewed in magazines. Well received Premiere aside, it took until Season 3 or possibly 4, when Sisko sported his finished look for the tide of appreciation to turn. Of its leading actor. Of the whole cast. Even then, some developments like Bashir being genetically augmented came completely from left-field and late in the game, with no obvious foreshadowing. Most of the criticial stuff I remember focused on what DS9 needed to be better and fortunately it would go on to get most of that. Including Worf, for those still mourning their lack of weekly TNG and holding out from coming back to DS9 regularly.
I'm old enough to remember DS9 in first run and its initial two seasons reviewed in magazines. Well received Premiere aside, it took until Season 3 or possibly 4, when Sisko sported his finished look for the tide of appreciation to turn. Of its leading actor. Of the whole cast. Even then, some developments like Bashir being genetically augmented came completely from left-field and late in the game, with no obvious foreshadowing. Most of the criticial stuff I remember focused on what DS9 needed to be better and fortunately it would go on to get most of that. Including Worf, for those still mourning their lack of weekly TNG and holding out from coming back to DS9 regularly.
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^
Yeah, with Sisko being the lead, I think the writers had to write for him, they had to find ways to make him interesting to anchor the show around him. I don't think it was always a smooth process and there were many shows where it didn't seem like Sisko played that much of a role at all, however he was the most developed character of color on Star Trek. The writers even added a new angle to him, making him a family man, which helps him stand out even more, as does his role as a war leader. I think Avery Brooks played a significant role in the character's formation and I am glad the writers seeked out or heeded his input.
Overall, DS9 was a bit of a slowburn for me. The premiere was good but the first season was uneven. However I liked the second season opener and I loved the closer, I was pretty hooked after that. With Sisko, you can see an evolution of his character, from the first to the last episode. But a big change came after he shaved his head, it was like Avery Brooks' comfort with the role gelled with the writing and Sisko became a bigger character to me.
As for the show itself, I think the writers did a pretty good job giving almost everyone something to do, or distinct personalities. Granted there was some left-field stuff like you mentioned, but I think they did a pretty good job of handling those curveballs for the most part.
I wished that ENT had taken more of a page from DS9, which to me felt like the spiritual successor to TOS anyway, but made for modern audiences, instead of trying to recreate TOS in terms of the Archer-T'Pol-Trip triad, though largely absent the charm, humor, social consciousness, or sense of adventure of the original show.
Yeah, with Sisko being the lead, I think the writers had to write for him, they had to find ways to make him interesting to anchor the show around him. I don't think it was always a smooth process and there were many shows where it didn't seem like Sisko played that much of a role at all, however he was the most developed character of color on Star Trek. The writers even added a new angle to him, making him a family man, which helps him stand out even more, as does his role as a war leader. I think Avery Brooks played a significant role in the character's formation and I am glad the writers seeked out or heeded his input.
Overall, DS9 was a bit of a slowburn for me. The premiere was good but the first season was uneven. However I liked the second season opener and I loved the closer, I was pretty hooked after that. With Sisko, you can see an evolution of his character, from the first to the last episode. But a big change came after he shaved his head, it was like Avery Brooks' comfort with the role gelled with the writing and Sisko became a bigger character to me.
As for the show itself, I think the writers did a pretty good job giving almost everyone something to do, or distinct personalities. Granted there was some left-field stuff like you mentioned, but I think they did a pretty good job of handling those curveballs for the most part.
I wished that ENT had taken more of a page from DS9, which to me felt like the spiritual successor to TOS anyway, but made for modern audiences, instead of trying to recreate TOS in terms of the Archer-T'Pol-Trip triad, though largely absent the charm, humor, social consciousness, or sense of adventure of the original show.
I think it's important to acknowledge race and racism, and understand its role in our past/present/future, but I think we can be a little too sensitive at times. I always kind of felt like Mayweather was the Token Black character with an Al Roker vibe to him. I despise this relatively modern concept that somehow being racist is in fact not being racist, and discussing racism is some how racist. However, I think in an effort to remove racial stereotypes we can end up sanitizing one's cultural identity. Having a Ben Sisko character who enjoys cajun cooking and jazz isn't racist or turning him into a stereotype. It was just his cultural background. I think with Mayweather, they really stripped him of any sort of cultural background -- both black and boomer -- and well, they turned him into Star Trek's Al Roker.
I don't really know if Anthony Montgomery was a bad actor because I haven't seen him in anything else. He was either a bad actor, the wrong person for that role or was a victim of poor writing. His character was probably my least favorite on Enterprise, but mainly because they didn't develop him. It was almost like his only purpose was to provide the occasional anecdote about running freight and to "drive Miss Daisy" on away missions. Hoshi wasn't much better and at times I found her character kind of annoying. Another one of my biggest Star Trek complaints was the fact that many of the characters were a little too perfect and this resulted in many dull characters.
Many of the boring, under-developed characters seemed like the type of people who don't drink or swear or own a TV or do anything fun, and who go to bed at 8 p.m. and plan out their entire week in 15 minute increments. Travis Mayweather, Hoshi, Harry Kim and Wesley Crusher all seemed to fit this profile.
I don't really know if Anthony Montgomery was a bad actor because I haven't seen him in anything else. He was either a bad actor, the wrong person for that role or was a victim of poor writing. His character was probably my least favorite on Enterprise, but mainly because they didn't develop him. It was almost like his only purpose was to provide the occasional anecdote about running freight and to "drive Miss Daisy" on away missions. Hoshi wasn't much better and at times I found her character kind of annoying. Another one of my biggest Star Trek complaints was the fact that many of the characters were a little too perfect and this resulted in many dull characters.
Many of the boring, under-developed characters seemed like the type of people who don't drink or swear or own a TV or do anything fun, and who go to bed at 8 p.m. and plan out their entire week in 15 minute increments. Travis Mayweather, Hoshi, Harry Kim and Wesley Crusher all seemed to fit this profile.
Oh, I think this is unfair, and a gross misrepresentation of both ENT and Driving Miss Daisy. There really is no comparison between a skilled pilot and the cultural infantilization of a grown man in a servant role. Travis may have suffered from short sighted tokenism, but just the fact that he is by some stretch a "driver" does not mean he is a chauffeur. And to equate the two in order to make a point really trivializes the experiences of people who were, in fact, servants.
On to the broader point, I think they didn't even try to create a culture for Travis. We assume he was African American, but there's really no basis for that. They took the lazy way out; Travis could have had a background as surprising and foreign as Phlox's. But I think early on, they decided on the Big Three dynamic, and were stuck with starring credits for Montgomery and Park, when they should have had second billing, like Nichelle Nichols and George Takei did starting out.
I never made the assumption that he was African American. In fact, I think he stated in one episode that he was born on the Horizon which would make him African-Space Man. My big problem with Mayweather is that they never used his background as a space boomer to develop his character. At least with the non-Big Three characters like Malcolm and Phlox, there was some personality, but Mayweather and Hoshi were really dull. Hoshi was just kind of annoying and Travis didn't do much beyond flying the Enterprise and its shuttlepods. Having too many characters can make a show difficult to watch, such as Heroes circa Season 2, but too few can make it boring, which would have happened to Enterprise if they hadn't been canceled (and never developed existing and/or added other characters). When your two minority characters have no real personality and are underdeveloped, you can't really blame people for viewing them in a "token" role.
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I think there has been a tendency in Hollywood to use negative stereotypes in depicting blacks, but there has also been a tendency to sanitize them, to make some black characters too antiseptic or perfect (perhaps as a well-intention reaction to the negative stereotyping). The end result of both approaches are characters that are less or more than human, therefore characters people can't really relate to. We can revile them or admire them, but not really feel them. That's why you have very few, or zero, black characters that are considered 'everymen'; that kind of ground-level, point of view regular guy/girl.
With Mayweather's Boomer background that could've been him on ENT; living outside the niceties of United Earth, he could've been a more rough and tumble character that more resembled us 21st century humans, but he wasn't.
Perhaps I'm something of a Goldilocks, I want my porridge just right. But mainly I want to see more people of color depicted in a three-dimensional fashion, with good and bad personality quirks, with character arcs that have growth or devolution.
I think there has been a tendency in Hollywood to use negative stereotypes in depicting blacks, but there has also been a tendency to sanitize them, to make some black characters too antiseptic or perfect (perhaps as a well-intention reaction to the negative stereotyping). The end result of both approaches are characters that are less or more than human, therefore characters people can't really relate to. We can revile them or admire them, but not really feel them. That's why you have very few, or zero, black characters that are considered 'everymen'; that kind of ground-level, point of view regular guy/girl.
With Mayweather's Boomer background that could've been him on ENT; living outside the niceties of United Earth, he could've been a more rough and tumble character that more resembled us 21st century humans, but he wasn't.
Perhaps I'm something of a Goldilocks, I want my porridge just right. But mainly I want to see more people of color depicted in a three-dimensional fashion, with good and bad personality quirks, with character arcs that have growth or devolution.
Hoshi had her own problems. For one, they started her out as a fraidy cat, but then in the 4th season gave her this heretofore unknown badass rebellious poker player side as well as kickass martial artist. I was like, where did that come from? I think her finest moment on the show was the Mirror Universe episodes. That's when the writers finally gave her something to do, they let her out of the straitjacket they had written her into, and it seemed like Linda Park had a good time playing Mirror Hoshi.
Mayweather got very little development, but when finally we got to see his Boomer past and his relationship with Gannett Brooks it felt a bit more natural to me than the revelation of Hoshi's plot-dictated kickass past. Once again, the writers started Hoshi in an interesting place, as a potential point of view character to perhaps portray the dangers and fears of deep space travel, which some in the audience might be able to relate to. But it was something that was written heavy handedly, if written at all. Hoshi largely receded into the background and that arc of watching her start out as being frightened of aspects of space travel and turning into this confident explorer wasn't given much focus. Also, having space born Travis and earthbound Hoshi, there was the potential for some interesting culture clashes and discussions, a way for ENT to show a wider array of humanity, and how space travel had affected Earthlings, that was largely ignored.
I think the biggest problem for Mayweather is they never pared him up with someone for interaction. His story lines almost always involved someone off of the ship. I also wish they had been more consistant with him. How does a space boomer become the ship's expert rock climber?
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