Spoilers Paris Rank Question

Lower Decks?

 

We're still midseason.

 

So, Harry could show up.

 

As I said originally. My theory is that he won't (nor will his current status be mentioned), for reasons stated.

 

Yeah, got that.

 

Harry might be being saved for a cameo in a future episode of LD or even PIC. The fact he's not in the "collectors' plate" episode means nothing.

 

I think the problem with Harry is that he lacks glamor. Tom Paris for example is a much more exciting character. That's why I don't think it would be such a good idea to include him in an episode.

 

I'd bring him back just to say he'd finally been promoted to Lieutenant. And have his new rank be brought up every time a Cerritos officer speaks to him. End Garrett Wang's generation-old frustration AND make the audience laugh.

 

Ransom "Mister Kim"
Harry:" Lieutenant Kim"

 

Ransom: "I can see the number of pips on your collar, Mister Kim."
Harry: "Good. About time people can."

 

I think nobody actually wants to work with the actor any more. He whined about being turned down on being director on Voyager and immediately played the race card over it (even though Alexander Siddig, Lavar Burton, Roxann Dawson and Tim Russ were all “directors of color”). He was just toxic to be around, didn’t show up on time, had problems learning his lines and all kinds of general epic fail and bad work ethics. I’d be totally fine with him never showing up in Trek again.

Makes me wonder why they brought Beltran back for Prodigy. He was also a less-than-stellar cast member (always complaining he wasn’t given enough to do and even acting like he wanted to get fired), not to mention being an uninspiring block of wood when it came to line delivery. Hopefully he’s acquired a better attitude (and developed more skill in his craft) about things after these several past decades.

 

Not just his. I believe that a lot of fans had written in, expressing concern that the character hadn't been promoted. The scenes in "Unimatrix Zero" and "Nightingale" were basically a raised middle finger to them, a sort of "we're going to do this and you can't do anything about it, so ha ha ha". Why else would those scenes exist?

Be that as it may, that's actually a pretty good way to handle it. And right up "Lower Deck's" alley.

 

Those were season 3 complaints about Wang.

He was then kicked off two episodes, and they fired Jennifer because he magically couldn't be fired after they started paying Jeri with his paycheck.

Theoretically, Garret got his shit together, since he somehow stayed on the show for another 4 years, because as popular as that People magazine pole was... They only had to wait a year, and they they could fire him if he was still a shit.

Theory: Garret called Voyager "racist" as a prophylactic, to save him from the next round of shit canning. It was tactical more so than moronic.

 

IIRC, Robert Duncan McNeil later explained the reason Garret Wang was never selected to direct an episode was because of his generally bad work ethic as an actor and the fact that Wang never went through the required Director Training that every other actor turned director on the Star Trek shows went through. So basically, Garret Wang wanted something for nothing, and when he didn't get it he cried Racist.

 

Yep. That’s basically how I remember it. I’m guessing that the air of entitlement that he arrogantly threw at Berman and others over the director bit (along with his many other professionalism issues) pretty much blacklisted him on the production. His sparsely-populated filmography in IMDB after the Voy run implies that word got around and nobody wanted to have anything to with him.

 

Imagine just how much better of they would have been if they had fired his ass instead of Jennifer lien's!

 

If he'd been eliminated early, when his rank still made sense, would anyone have noticed he was gone? Just add a few more steamy Tom/B'Elanna scenes to make up for his lack of a bestie.

From what I hear, both Lien and Wang had issues. And Robert Beltran was looking for the door as well. I've often said that if Voyager had eliminated all three of their characters, not together but sequentially and in different ways (Kes departs, Harry gets 8472-ed, and Chakotay dies a heroic death somewhere or other) it would have improved the series. It would have introduced a degree of risk, as in "who's going to bite it next?" Also, Tuvok would have been a more effective first because he balanced Janeway better. And, TOS, TNG, and ENT did fine with seven leads. ENT could have deleted Travis and run fine with six.

 

TOS only had three leads. Aside from Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, no one else was listed in the opening credits. And Kelley didn't even get added to the opening credits until the second season, meaning he isn't really a lead during the first season either.

I'd also argue against the notion that TNG and Enterprise did fine with seven leads, though granted TNG's problem juggling its main cast around didn't become evident until the movies where everyone who wasn't Picard or Data was shafted. Enterprise didn't always service Reed and Hoshi that well either, they just weren't neglected as bad as Mayweather

 

Most of the leads in TNG were regulated to the backseat, even Riker who was nominally a lead on par with Picard at the start. Worf definitely moved up in the pecking order.

 

Except for Deep Space 9, most of the Trek series had some neglected characters. Harry and Chakotay were worse than most, though.