Kazon - Yay or Nay?

[KimMH]

Nay. mostly because they overstayed their welcome and their culture looked pretty awful, too. I could have gone with more Seska - even though she was predictably and unvaryingly evil she was so good when she was bad! I felt her mind made her an excellent foil for Janeway - Janeway mostly had to throw technobable at episodes to fix things - I don't think she got to think about thge essence of good and evil often enough. The Cardassians as a whole were a worthy adversary much more so than the Kazon and the rest of the ilk VOY had to shake off.

 

[exodus]

Well, if you liked so many things about them, was their hairstyle really that awful that it would ruin the whole species?

Just asking.

Kinda, especially after you found out they were supposed to represent L.A. gangs. You looked at their hair again and thought: Wow, they're really supposed to be nappy headed black folks! I'm not sure if that's amusing or racist.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I voted 'yay'. I liked the Kazon. They were a race that was new and unique to Voyager, and I'm always up for the new races.

I would have liked to have seen the execution of the Kazon more 3-D in scope - could have fleshed them out a bit more.

But overall, I think they were a good addition to the show. I'd have rather them spent the time and energy fleshing out the Kazon as opposed to making the Borg into the chief VOY enemies.

 

[Lynx]

Exodus wrote:

Kinda, especially after you found out they were supposed to represent L.A. gangs. You looked at their hair again and thought: Wow, they're really supposed to be nappy headed black folks! I'm not sure if that's amusing or racist.

I don't think that Star Trek can be accused of being racist, not even in this case.

I think that the Star Trek writers take their inspiration from many sources, the LA gangs being just one of them. It could also have been inspired from one of those countries where a resistant movement overthrows some dictator or foreign opressors but then everything is ruined by internal squabble. I guess they use a lot of such events and mix them together in some way.

I wrote a story once where I deliberately made the "bad guy" a mix between Stalin, Mao, Hitler and North Korea's Kim Jong Il and a person who read it thought that this character was inspired by Fidel Castro!

 

[exodus]

Exodus wrote:

Kinda, especially after you found out they were supposed to represent L.A. gangs. You looked at their hair again and thought: Wow, they're really supposed to be nappy headed black folks! I'm not sure if that's amusing or racist.

I don't think that Star Trek can be accused of being racist, not even in this case.

TNG's "Code of Honor"

Writers and actors openly apologize for racist stereotypes within that ep.

Haven't some here even made that claim toward "Fair Haven"?

However my point was, we can accept they were inspired by the L.A. gangs but did the designers really need the nappy hair? They looked like a gang of Buckwheats.

 

[Akiraprise]

Don Imus should have guest starred as the leader of the largest Kazon sect.

 

[freak]

Is it just me or did most of the villians from season one of the show always wanted something from Voyager? Such as water, or technology, or the crew's organs??

For me, I say "yay" to the Kazons for two reasons: One: If I had a bad hair day, I knew I wasn't alone! Just kidding! I liked them because of their sects..they usually had an interesting storyline for me. and Two: Cullah. Of course, I wanted to pop him in the mouth when he and that dumb Seska took over the ship in the episode "Basics". I remember actually throwing something @ the TV set too! Anyway, they're definitely not the BEST villians, but they rank 3rd on my book.

 

[Akiraprise]

When Cullah smacked Janeway in the face I knew he was going to be in some deep crap eventually.

 

[Tachyon]

^Me too. And down he went with his pride.

 

[MMCL]

The Vidiians on the other hand were a great enemy.

Agree completely. If there were no Kazon just Vidiians that would have made S1/S2 much better IMO - eg they also would have had motivation for trying to get Ocampa - the prize crop of organs that the Ocampa had living underground.

Of course - they wouldn't have held Kes hostage like the Kazon but that could have been explained if they had sorted out the Ocampa properly.

And that may just be my biggest problem with VOY: the first two real races we meet (Neelix aside) were ill-conceived on the part of the Ocampa and a watered down version of what we already had.

 

[crohnie]

I voted Nay

and I agree with most people who voted Nay, the Kazon that we saw on TV, were generally weaker and flatter than the Kazon that TPTB wanted us to see.

I wanted to see more of the Vidiians as well.

 

[spoonunseptium]

Nay.


Whenever I started watching an episode and Kazons barged in, I sighed a loud and epicly exasperated sigh.

I hate Kazon episodes.

The best villians are the psychologically disturbing ones, like the Borg or the Q or the Vidiians.

 

[Akiraprise]

^Me too. And down he went with his pride.

I just watched this again on youtube. Awesome episode.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I voted yay.

I seem to be determined to go against the current here.

It's a gift.

These guys didn't have to be smart of pretty just persistent and thuggish like the pakleds. They could have been awesome if they just would have been given a little more screen time to really frak up Kathy's life...

How come it took two years to get through Kazon space and a week to pass though every other adventure? Hmmm? Considering the state of Ocampa, maybe the Kazon claimed space and worlds that no other bugger wanted, which is why their "empire" is so large but not prized enough to be taken by others cleary more powerful...

 

[DarKush]

I'll go with nay. I thought they were knock-off Klingons and then the fact that they were based on L.A. gangs-primarily black gangs and not deemed worthy of Borg assimilation was doubly offensive.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Following the nasty gang metaphor, the introduction of the trabe was just shocking. Were the writers not thinking or were they suggesting that the 19th century negros should have manned up and killed all the grey and the blue while they were distracted fighting the civil war? Then taking the trabe fleet rung a little bit like how the jews lost everything to the whiley germans before they were hurried away to their gas chambers, but then the spoils always go to the victors.

 

[RAMA]

They should have lasted 3-4 episodes then gone!

 

[Dingo]

I do see some historical similarities here as well. The Kazon was one of those people who revolted against an opressive and discriminating power which was understandable but everything went wrong from there. Instead of remaining united and create an independent, prospering nation, they started to fight among each other. Still they were strong enough to become a power in that part of the Delta Quadrant. That has happened before in history and I do think that the concept for the Kazon in that aspect is realistic and well-thought.

Interesting modern paralell to the Kazon would be the fractured nature of Afghan society.

As a serviceman I find that parallel to be especially interesting. The similarity is thus. The Afghan Mujahideen expelled the Soviets yet before the Taliban were a society of tribal villages that hated each other and united against a common foe only to turn against each other after said foe was ejected.

Simply replace Soviets with Trabe and Afghan Mujahideen with Kazon Sects and you've got a very interesting modern parallel that I never even thought of.

 

[neogothboy74]

Nay.

They were ok for the pilot. I could see them encountering them again an episode or two later. But beyond that it didn't seem logical for their space to be so vast that Voyager kept encountering them for 2 full seasons while constantly on the move toward the Alpha Quadrant. And I didn't find them interesting enough to warrent their continued presence, though the Seska storyline helped a great deal.