I'm just starting to watch Cold Front. They hail an unknown ship in some kind of stellar nursery and the captain of the ship either speaks English or the UT is working just fine. Then they invite some guests from said ship onboard who apparently come from all kinds of different systems and planets and... they all speak English or the UT is working just fine. This is what? The 11th episode of the show? It took 11 episodes for plot expediency to override Hoshi's purpose onboard Enterprise and so she's reduced to Uhura's "hailing frequencies" role or griping with Reed about movie night. Under-utilised? That would depend on them utilising her in the first place. After a token effort in Fight or Flight the character is left to conceptually die. 11 episodes in to the first season, a whole raft of new species onboard and they leave her to rot.
Well the most underutilized was Travis. I mean hoshi had the occasional episode or b storyline and she was empress.. And Malcolm got some buddy buddy storylines with trip and the 31 stuff. Travis was 95% the buss driver, no real good lines, was freindly but no"best freind" and no really good stories or character development, yet he had the best backstory of all the characters being a boomer and already having experience. His backstory shoukd have bern the captain's backstory, and shunt the warp 5 creator dad to trip. Wasted opportunities..
To be fair, Travis was miscast. I'm sorry to say that he was the worst series regular, acting wise, in the franchise.
I'm new to organised fandom, I've seen this one thrown around a lot though? I've just watched Fortunate Son, essentially Travis's 'showcase' episode and I think Anthony Montgomery is... fine? He isn't outstanding for sure, though even in the episode in question he's hardly given much material to work with, but what exactly makes him dreadful? Or worse than say (bless him), Will Wheaton at his earnest worst?
He just doesn't convince me of whatever dialogue he says or situation he is in. Even Garrett Wang sold some of his episodes and scenes, and he's widely considered among the worst of the regulars. Another thing... Anthony Montgomery reminds me of Steven Segall in that he almost never changes his facial expressions. Not very emotive at all. That's a big tool for an actor to use when trying to convince the audience of what you are portraying. It's also why I have such high regard for actors like John Billingsley, Andrew Robinson, Rene Auberjonois, Armin Shimerman, etc... half their toolkit is gone because of prosthetics, but they still manage to bring extraordinary amounts of nuance, depth, and character to their roles. He had none of that, and had the ability to use his full kit. I've never had a problem with Wil Wheaton's acting or his character, though I can see why some would find him grating.
I kinda wish they'd flipped T'Pol and Sato, made the former the Communications Officer (being a Vulcan with more experience than anyone else onboard she'd make a logical choice for a diplomatic liaison, whilst also having decades to hone her linguistics skills, and also would be in a prime place to be an unofficial intelligence officer (given all the secrets Vulcan would know but Earth wouldn't)) and the latter Science Officer (young, inexperienced, but eager to strike out into space and make a name for herself, only to realise she's out of her depth and that space might not actual be for her).
Well sometimes a neophyte actor just needs some time to get better at acting, since he's had other roles since then, with a long stint on some soap opera, he's gotten better. Could have also been the dialog was crap, and direction of how to do it was kinda meh, just film it, can it, move on. I think he could have gotten better, but wasn't given enough dialog. But yeah, sometimes the actor and role just don't sync and there kinda stuck with it ( like my take on the new Magnum PI, the guy who plays Magnum is as charismatic as a wet rag, he just sucks vacuum in the role in my opinion.. though he was good in Suicde squad? huh..) Maybe he could have been better as a Vulcan? less emotion?
A possibility, but Linda Park graduated from acting school less than a year before she was cast as Hoshi, and I feel she brought a lot more to the table. Maybe he has gotten better... I've only seen him in a LEPRECHAUN movie outside ENTERPRISE. He wasn't good there, either... but to be fair, that movie was baaaaaddddd. (And I'm very forgiving with horror movies.)
I think they gave Anthony Montgomery a chance, but he couldn't rise to the challenge. He's terrible in Horizon. Linda Park by contrast was a lot better - and you can see that her acting career has been much more successful post-Enterprise.
If they didn't want to change Hoshi's job, they could have atleast shown her doing her job in a more varied way. She could have been on the com to other ships in the area, friendlies, a tellerite, andorian, vulcan, they all would also have communication officers, and I would think they all would be Chatty Kathy's to each other. Trading recipes, gleaming information on where the ships are going, where they've been, Tell them there going ot Planet X in a week, any suggestions on if there any Faux Paws, how friendly, open to trade, etc. Talk to planets there orbiting, finding out more info on whats in the direction there heading, what and who to avoid, any space storms, short cuts, anything interesting in that direction, etc. Nothing "Secret" just a general friendly chat. With her, contacting other species, learning there language to update the UT. If she's not doing that.. then.. what is she doing except sitting there reading a book unless she's needed to press a button to open frequency's? They did show Uhura contacting all the stations for there reports, and coordinating to make sure everything is manned. and acting as the Bridge contact. I mean, thats kind of a problem with alot of the bridge stations. Maybe ops/science has something to do all the time, but take helm.. there on autopilot, so once they enter a course and on there way, there's not much to do except to look at the sensors every once in awhile to make sure there on course, and sensors don't see anything wrong/in there way. Not like there in manual flight and need hands on all the time.
There should have been Hoshi specific episodes that were along the lines of “Darmok” & “Liasons” from TNG to showcase here skillset more. Even if those episodes were to have a twist of her not being as successful in understanding the species as in the TNG era, it could have still bridged the two eras together. She should have also been displayed as a codebreaker. While we did not get to see her do that during the Romulan War since no S5, there was still the Xindi arc. I’m sure there’s an episode from that arc that could have been replaced (maybe “Extinction”) with an episode showing Hoshi having difficulty decrypting something Xindi related.
If Travis were here he would probably throw up an "aye sir" in agreement and then go back to tapping his panel.
Another thing with this is being science officer just gives you more to do and inserts you into more stories than Comm does. T'Pol was always going to be a significant character on her own given that she's the only Vulcan on board so it would have made it more equal.
Him worse than her, I think. About all I remember from Mayweather is the Horizon episode, him doing a way better job making nice with the Kreetasians than Archer, and... well, him bringing the "dead" part to Dead Stop. Not much else.
I just watched “Shadows of P’Jem”, and was reminded of yet another episode that could have been a Hoshi episode. Archer jokes with Trip about taking Hoshi to Coridan, before saying he’ll take him. Only to change his mind again to T’Pol because of the subplot of T’Pol being reassigned due to the destruction of P’Jem. In reality, this is the kind of situation where Hoshi would have been valuable - with it being a first contact situation - and might have made the episode a bit more interesting by focusing on the friendship of Hoshi and Archer. I think the TPTB should have actually had T’Pol leave during this episode, and work with the idea that she was only there temporarily. It would have forced the writers to develop and grow both Hoshi and Mayweather for the next season and a half, at least. T'Pol would then either be a reoccurring character for the series, or take the Dr. Crusher route and be absent for the second season, before returning in the third and the rest of the run of the series.
Hoshi = Who she? Yeah. Underutilized. Needed to be on more first contact missions. And as Empress Sato...wow! Would happily watched a MU spinoff featuring her in the lead role. Just goes to show the producers knew she was special, but lacked a proper vision for her in the Prime Universe.
It's pretty popular to say she was "underutilized". I love Hoshi and loved how Linda played her, but she is no different that any of the other Star Trek secondary main characters. She was better developed than Uhura, Scotty, Checkov and Sulu were.