Travis Mayweather, what was the point of that character

[jespah]

Yeah, Travis didn't seem to have a buddy (and Reed kinda lost his when the writers committed to the Tucker/T'Pol relationship). Briefly, during the episode where Reed, Hoshi and Travis are possessed by aliens with a particular horrific virus (I am blanking on the name of the ep), Reed and Travis are shown playing chess together. That could have been more for both characters, but that was more or less it.

I could have seen Travis with some below decks characters as well, even briefly - "Hiya, Sue, you going to Movie Night?" or something like that. Instead, he's the silent presence.

 

[Christopher]

Briefly, during the episode where Reed, Hoshi and Travis are possessed by aliens with a particular horrific virus (I am blanking on the name of the ep), Reed and Travis are shown playing chess together.

That was "Observer Effect," and it was actually the Organians possessing them who were playing chess together; we don't know whether Travis and Malcolm themselves ever did so.

I could have seen Travis with some below decks characters as well, even briefly - "Hiya, Sue, you going to Movie Night?" or something like that. Instead, he's the silent presence.

But again, he didn't start out that way. Pre-"Fortunate Son," he was one of the most gregarious and garrulous members of the crew, always spinning stories of his experiences in space or telling ghost stories or the like. I think the problem is simply that the actor they cast didn't live up to their intentions for the character, so they ended up downplaying him. It's not that they didn't have the right ideas for the character, it's just that circumstances didn't let them achieve them. (Though maybe I'm being too hard on Montgomery. Michael Dorn's acting was pretty poor in TNG's first season, but he was given the opportunity to keep doing more and that experience helped him improve immensely. Maybe if the producers -- or the network? -- hadn't given up on Montgomery so soon, he might've improved too.)

 

[jespah]

Thanks re the name of the ep.

It does seem like there was a chance for Montgomery to prove himself and/or try out for a bigger part, and either the chance was blown and/or didn't go as TPTB expected or wanted. The % of screen time he had was inversely proportional to the amount that Trinneer had, it seemed. It might've been, at least partly, the other way around, e. g. Montgomery didn't necessarily do too much that was wrong, but Trinneer swung for the fences and connected?

 

[Skywalker]

Trinneer played the show's breakout character, so it's no surprise that his screentime increased as the show went on. I don't know if it was a combination of the writing and Trinneer's performance, or just the latter, but something about the character clicked with viewers.

 

[SchwEnt]

Manny Coto, who wrote Similitude, talks about the formality of Trek writing in the commentary to that episode on DVD. He mentions that it was difficult to pick up the cadence of the dialogue because it was very strict. So while the dialogue quoted above seems informal in writing, it sounded formal when spoken. So the "going to"s didn't slide into "gonna"s for example. I wish I could link to the comments. He was pretty clear that it was a Trek specific thing and it came from on high.

This is true. Many times, in other ST series, I've heard both writers and actors remark about the "formality" of ST dialogue. Due to its chronological setting, perhaps ENT tried to be more contemportary in its dialogue, but it was still very much ST.

This aspect has remained consistent across the five series. By the time auditions came around for ENT, you'd think that *someone* would know this and that maybe only certain actors would be considered appropriate for such writing style. If it wasn't Montgomery's style, that's fine. But maybe they shouldn't have cast him, knowing the particulars of ST.

 

[ReedEnterprise]

Trinneer played the show's breakout character, so it's no surprise that his screentime increased as the show went on. I don't know if it was a combination of the writing and Trinneer's performance, or just the latter, but something about the character clicked with viewers.

I think it was a combination of the two. The character was written to be just like an average everyday person, like most of us. And with the writing, his acting skills went up a notch.

As much as I like Dominic Keating and his portrayal of Malcolm, Trip is my favorite character. I can easily identify with him like I think most of us can.

But I still liked Travis.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Briefly, during the episode where Reed, Hoshi and Travis are possessed by aliens with a particular horrific virus (I am blanking on the name of the ep), Reed and Travis are shown playing chess together.

That was "Observer Effect," and it was actually the Organians possessing them who were playing chess together; we don't know whether Travis and Malcolm themselves ever did so.

I could have seen Travis with some below decks characters as well, even briefly - "Hiya, Sue, you going to Movie Night?" or something like that. Instead, he's the silent presence.

But again, he didn't start out that way. Pre-"Fortunate Son," he was one of the most gregarious and garrulous members of the crew, always spinning stories of his experiences in space or telling ghost stories or the like. I think the problem is simply that the actor they cast didn't live up to their intentions for the character, so they ended up downplaying him. It's not that they didn't have the right ideas for the character, it's just that circumstances didn't let them achieve them. (Though maybe I'm being too hard on Montgomery. Michael Dorn's acting was pretty poor in TNG's first season, but he was given the opportunity to keep doing more and that experience helped him improve immensely. Maybe if the producers -- or the network? -- hadn't given up on Montgomery so soon, he might've improved too.)

From what I've seen of him in other roles, it's not a case of Montgomery but of Mayweather. Mayweather was ultimately a passive character with no fire to him. There was a conscious effort to downplay his space boomer background fairly early on in the series and make T'Pol the more experienced space traveler. What was left was essentially just "the wide-eyed young ensign," which was quite a departure from how the character was originally conceived:

Lieutenant Joe Mayweather: Helmsman. African American. Mid to late 20s. A unique product of 22nd Century life, Mayweather was raised on cargo ships. As a result Joe is more "interstellar" than even the Captain. He's travelled to dozens of planets and met many different alien species. Mayweather has an 'instinct' for space-travel that few humans possess. Joe's closest friend is Spike. Similar in age and spirit these two will spend their off-duty hours finding new ways to enjoy life in space.

 

[bluedana]

I don't hate "A Night in Sickbay" -- it's actually a pretty good Phlox-focus episode. But it does have its awkward elements and misfires. "Singularity" doesn't work for me, because it's just "everyone's out of character because of a space whoozits" and we're not learning anything about the characters as they really are. It would be one thing if the things they were fixated on actually revealed something about their personalities, but they're just obsessed with complete trivialities and so the whole thing feels equally trivial. And "Vanishing Point" is, well, pointless because it quickly becomes obvious that it's all just a hallucination. And because it's just an extended riff on the "Hoshi is neurotic and afraid of stuff" thread that the character had already outgrown by the end of season 1, so it feels like a regression.

WRT Singularity: Aside from Hoshi's obsession with her udon (?), which I suppose ties into a desire to make her family proud or her heritage, the rest of the obsessions were pretty spot on.

Trip: fixates on making the ship (the captain's chair) perfect. Reed -- security rules. Phlox-- chasing the perfect cure. Archer -- honoring his dad. Travis -- being on duty. Porthos was probably stalking cheese the whole time. I thought it was a nice nod to The Naked Time, only funnier.

I'm one of the six people who like Vanishing Point. It spoke not only to Hoshi's fear (understandable, since the transporter had a very spotty safety record at that point), but also her worry that she was invisible and unimportant on that ship. I do wish the hallucination had tied into reality at the end of the show, maybe that she materializes somehow knowing that there's a circuit about to blow and destroy the ship or something. Other than that, I liked how her subconscious played out how she thought she was perceived by the crew.

Dead Stop hinted at a Mayweather/Hoshi friendship, where Hoshi mentions Travis playing a practical joke on her. I do wish they'd put in more moments (showing, not telling) like that.

 

[RandyS]

I don't hate "A Night in Sickbay" -- it's actually a pretty good Phlox-focus episode. But it does have its awkward elements and misfires. "Singularity" doesn't work for me, because it's just "everyone's out of character because of a space whoozits" and we're not learning anything about the characters as they really are. It would be one thing if the things they were fixated on actually revealed something about their personalities, but they're just obsessed with complete trivialities and so the whole thing feels equally trivial. And "Vanishing Point" is, well, pointless because it quickly becomes obvious that it's all just a hallucination. And because it's just an extended riff on the "Hoshi is neurotic and afraid of stuff" thread that the character had already outgrown by the end of season 1, so it feels like a regression.

You discussing character development, which while I agree is not a bad thing, was not the point of those episodes. They were about the "alien" or "gimmick" of the week, a concept that was hardly new to Star Trek by that time.

Looked at in that context, those episodes were no better, or worse than similar episodes done on TNG or VOYAGER.

At least, I don't think so.

 

[lurok]

Dead Stop hinted at a Mayweather/Hoshi friendship, where Hoshi mentions Travis playing a practical joke on her. I do wish they'd put in more moments (showing, not telling) like that.

I guess Mirror... was the 'alternative' extension of that 'friendship'. In many ways think Travis suffered similar problems to Paris; shoot out of blocks with a couple of good episodes, than fall back into 'aye', 'course plotted' etc helm-talk until the writers remember to find something for you to do

 

[Christopher]

WRT Singularity: Aside from Hoshi's obsession with her udon (?), which I suppose ties into a desire to make her family proud or her heritage, the rest of the obsessions were pretty spot on.

Trip: fixates on making the ship (the captain's chair) perfect. Reed -- security rules. Phlox-- chasing the perfect cure. Archer -- honoring his dad. Travis -- being on duty.

Archer's obsession was cool, but the rest were just too obvious, more to do with their jobs than with who they were as people, or at best were the most simplistic and superficial takes possible on their characters. And "being on duty?" That's an incredibly generic obsession, and shows how completely Travis was being wasted by this point.

I'm one of the six people who like Vanishing Point. It spoke not only to Hoshi's fear (understandable, since the transporter had a very spotty safety record at that point), but also her worry that she was invisible and unimportant on that ship.

Again, that might've worked a year earlier, but at it was, it just felt like they were ignoring her intervening growth beyond those insecurities and regressing her to her earliest characterization.

You discussing character development, which while I agree is not a bad thing, was not the point of those episodes. They were about the "alien" or "gimmick" of the week, a concept that was hardly new to Star Trek by that time.

Yes, that's exactly the problem I'm pointing out. At the start, in season 1, the producers set out with the goal of doing a more intimate, character-driven series. The sci-fi gimmicks were kept basic and served only as vehicles to put the characters in situations that would allow exploring and developing them -- for instance, there were no real aliens in "Strange New World," just a simple neurotoxin that heightened the crew's fears and brought out their mutual mistrust. I consider that one of season 1's greatest strengths, that emphasis on characterization. But by season 2, presumably due to network meddling, the focus shifted and gimmicks-of-the-week became more strongly emphasized, and that nice, intimate, character-driven focus was largely gone, which is part of why S2 is the weakest season of the series.