Tom Riker instead of Chakotay?

[DarKush]

I was reading some posts over in the Trek Lit. forum and someone posited the idea of Tom Riker going to VOY. It got me thinking, would VOY have been better if Tom Riker had been the Maquis leader instead of Chakotay?

I thought Beltran was sometimes judged too harshly by the fans and his character was mishandled by the writers, but I think Tom Riker on VOY would've been cool.

It would've been another nice link to TNG, perhaps bringing more TNG fans over to VOY, perhaps esp. during the time of each TNG movie, and I think Tom Riker had a more interesting character arc than Chakotay-who I don't even think really had a character arc.

I guess one of the major problems would be that Tom Riker's character might be similar to Paris. Both living in the shadow of a 'relative', both roguish, both seeking redemption. Still, I think the pluses outweigh the minuses. What do you all think?

 

[LeadHead]

I don't know if people would have wanted to See Riker, any Riker as the First Officer on any ship besides the Enterprise under Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I think there are a lot of ways that would have not worked. If i'm not mistaken there were some rumors that they wanted to perhaps have Will Riker be Captain of Voyager, I really don't have anything more substantive about that, if somebody does please post it. I may be wrong it was a long time ago, feel free to correct me.

 

[Lucy of Nine]

Maybe I just live in the past, but I would LOVE the next series to be a combination of all our favourite characters from TNG, DS9 and VOY.... ahh imagine that. Could be set on a space station with a ship which operates from there. As long as Deanna and Seven were back I would be happy! Ooh.. and Picard. And Janeway. And... and... and all of them come to think of it! Ahhh I can dream!

 

[Lucy of Nine]

By the way, do you mean Will Riker?

 

[Red Ranger]

People,

Well, an interesting idea, but I believe they made the right decision casting the characters in VOY.

Leadhead, you may be under the impression Riker was to be captain of VOY from the Q ep Death Wish. Q mentions how he thought Riker was going to become captain of VOY, but I don't think it was actually offered to him and turned down, like the other three commands he spurned.

Lucy of Nine, Lt. Tom Riker was Commander Will Riker's "twin" brother, created in a freak transporter accident. Tom wound up stranded on a planet ffor eight years while the original wound up transporting back to the Potemkin. The ep is called Second Chances, and he takes the name Tom as that's Will's middle name. My understanding is TPTB thought about killing off Will Riker and having Jonathan Frakes continue on the show as Tom. It would've meant Data would become first officer and Tom might've taken Data's place as operations manager.

Red Ranger

 

[Cronos6939]

I think that seven years of seeing Jonathan Frakes playing first officer Riker was quite enough for everyone. I don't have any problems with him, it's just that I wouldn't have wanted more of the same. And I really doubt that Frakes was looking to repeat his performance for another entire series.

 

[Lynx]

I don't think that Tom Riker would have contributed that much to the show. Although I love TNG, such a move would have turned Voyager into a TNG clone from the start with a "duplicate Will Riker" as Number One.

Chakotay was a great character with a great premise who did contribute a lot to the show and who would have been even better with better writers. In fact, I do find Chakotay more interesting that Tom Riker would have been.

 

[LeadHead]

Leadhead, you may be under the impression Riker was to be captain of VOY from the Q ep Death Wish. Q mentions how he thought Riker was going to become captain of VOY, but I don't think it was actually offered to him and turned down, like the other three commands he spurned.

No it's definitly not just from that. I'm not talking about anything from on screen, i'm talking about behind the scenes rumors.

 

[Good Will Riker]

Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis expressed interest in moving onto VOY in 1994, but Rick Berman vetoed that so they remain exclusively with the TNG films.

 

[bintak]

"Red alert! Shields up!" Frakes did better work on "Gargoyles" after ST/TNG. Enough of him as Ryker was enough!

 

[Penguin]

What about Tom Rikder as Captain of the New Enterprise series?

Might have been better than Archer

 

[Jeri]

Just look at the uproar over having a Riker on ENT; and I agree with them. Let's not bleed NG into VOY, too. I like Chakotay. I like the episodes he was featured in -- even "The Fight" -- very much.

 

[AuntKate]

Tom Riker went on to become a member of the Maquis. That might have been in a DS9 episode.

 

[Good Will Riker]

I like Chakotay. I like the episodes he was featured in -- even "The Fight" -- very much.

Then, why was he wearing a big sweater while boxing in that episode?

Wouldn't it get all sweaty under there, and wouldn't it have been better for him to just take off that sweater and expose his big, meteor-sized gut!

 

[Jeri]

I like Chakotay. I like the episodes he was featured in -- even "The Fight" -- very much.

Then, why was he wearing a big sweater while boxing in that episode?

Wouldn't it get all sweaty under there, and wouldn't it have been better for him to just take off that sweater and expose his big, meteor-sized gut!

Yeah...I'm not seeing anything but a non-sequitur between my quote and yours.

 

[Infern0]

Riker, in any form would have been better than Chakotay, in fact Will Riker should have been captain with Janeway as his XO

 

[spoonunseptium]

Riker was definately a more interesting actor, but for some reason i could never get used to his face. Just...I dunno. Of all the creepy faces on Trek, Riker's outranks Chakotay's by several points.

Although, it was way more symmetrical than Chakotay's. Am I the only one who ever noticed that Chakotay has a crooked face?

 

[Good Will Riker]

I like Chakotay. I like the episodes he was featured in -- even "The Fight" -- very much.

Then, why was he wearing a big sweater while boxing in that episode?

Wouldn't it get all sweaty under there, and wouldn't it have been better for him to just take off that sweater and expose his big, meteor-sized gut!

Yeah...I'm not seeing anything but a non-sequitur between my quote and yours.

We'll see about that.

 

[Mareika]

Tom Riker instead of Chakota? No way!!
I like Voyager because of the wonderful crew, but I most like Voyager because of Chakotay and J/C.

Tom Riker and Janeway? I wouldn`t like it.

 

[Balthier the Great]

I didn't like Chicotay because of the way he was handled. So many times he just sorta ended up as the "Vision Questing Indian" rather than a well-rounded character. I would have rather seen him as more conflicted about his past (ex-maquis, maybe the falling out with his father) a bit more Han Solo as well -- willing to break the rules and appologize later.

I'd have kept the Maquis/Fed conflict longer too, but that's me. They started out trying to ARREST the maquis -- I think that breeds resentment.