Voyager Actors Deliberately Unemotional?

At least Chacotay had some balls unlike Harry who was probably used as a slave offscreen.

 

The one episode where I thought Wang excelled in the Kim role was the one where Voyager is covered in ice (forget title), and a future Kim tries to save the crew. I'm not one to yell darker, darker, darker all the time, but this time it did work. Kim was darker and introspective, Wang played him perfect.

Maybe that's how Kim should have started out.

 

He still lacked the necesarry charisma but who cares Voyager is over.

 

This is the Voyager forum. It's never over.

 

huh

 

Aliens? Like what? Tuvok? How do you underplay compared to a bloody Vulcan? Neelix? Come on, the guy is so overplayed that a two year old throwing a temper tantrum would look mild. And Kes? she's basically a human with funny ears anyway.

Here's a thought: If they wanted the alien characters to seem alien, maybe they should have told the actors to play them more alien! That's a better idea than getting the human characters to act less than human, isn't it?

 

Travis Mayweawho?.

 

By giving the Vulcan a dry wit of a straight man in a comedy routine. It's part of what gave Kirk & Spock such great screne chemistry. It's why Tuvok & Tom had great dialog.

which is why they pairerd him up with Niomi in comparison. An adult full of energy and a calm child? Underplaying Niomi also allowed the actress to be one of ther few likeable children on Trek.

Never make her speak much, so when she does it's something wise. Pair that with her age & next to her, we as humans looked dumb.

Robbie McNiel was given the same direction to underplay his role asa human, he he could do so without having his characters personailty suffer for it. Wang took "downplay" as give your character no personality.

Trek is about finding similarities in ALL alien cultures we meet. Part of the underlying theme of Trek is "Folks are the same the world over to spite cultural differences". Having the aliens be MORE alien looses that connection they want the audience to have with them. If you didn't find likable similarities, the audience would have never liked characters as distant as Vulcans.

 

If it’s true that the actors were asked to underplay as humans, that allowed the Doctor to stand out so much. But it also emphasized Janeway’s extreme emotions negatively--if the main emotions Mulgrew was supposed to show were extreme ones, that’s bad; makes Janeway bipolar.

That being said, Mulgrew showed PLENTY of emotion, most was just not “out there” but more subtle. Small expressions. THAT’S acting.


I still blame the studio suits. They suck and have no interesting at understanding what the show was about and their lack of caring for the franchise and fans was and is disgraceful.

 

I don't think they did completely.
We still got a show that ran equal to the first two spin offs.
We got toys, t-shirts, Video games, Voyager contests, Trek lottery tickets & the Las Vegas Experence out of it.
Voyager, Janeway & Seven of Nine are now household names and Trek Icons.

I don't think we the fans did so bad in the long run.

 

A) I still highly doubt this is even true (half true, perhaps) since things obviously didn't work out that way, and this is a guy known for blowing things out of proportion.

B)

This. Also, I'm hardly unhappy. If the show was that bad, I wouldn't be talking about it happily on the internets 10 years later.

 

Although I don't believe Anthony Montgomery is in any way inadequate as an actor - for me - his portrayal of Travis Mayweather was not convincing and fell somewhat flat. IMO, that had far more to do with writng than acting chops.

 

Agreed.
They didn't give Montgomery enough to do IMO to prove if he is a good or bad actor either way.

 

With all respect to the actor, for the majority of the show's run, Travis wasn't a "major role" character.

When he was featured, he did good, he really shined in Mirror Darkly.

But in most of the episodes, he could have been replaced with a non-speaking extra, and it would have had no impact on the story. There are a very few episodes where you might be able to do the same thing with Malcolm or Hoshi, but only a few.

Maybe the ensemble cast was one too big for the writers to handle?

 

Wow. I was JUST thinking about this issue, of Kim being so underplayed emotionally that he at times seemed barely there, less than an hour ago (I was thinking about how the show, and the characters, could have been rebooted, to really get the most out of both the show's premise, and its potential). Synchronicity indeed.

As for Wang's claim, I must say I am inclined to believe it. Fits in perfectly with the "let's-have-the-characters-have-quirks-and/or-be-a-general-archetype-but-never- really-explore-them-and-provide-them-with-a-true-journey" ("the journey" being the show's ostensible theme, as noted in "Endgame" by still Ensign Kim - in a manner that was very well delivered, I might add) approach to characterization. Unless of course, they wanted to push the show's TNG - Lite, benign positivism....Then the selected characters and their archetypes - Kes, Tom, Janeway, The Doctor, Seven - would be writ EXTRA EXTRA LARGE.

Btw, I kind of have to grimace at the idea of Tom being a true person, as opposed to a mere archetype. Having a series of one-liners (one reviewer called him "Lt. one- liner" lol) and being an enthusiast for things that go fast does not a complete character make (at least on a non-sitcom). I remember a comment somebody once made that Tom would only be a "bad boy", or remotely edgy, if he were a student at Rydell High during the 50's (a la Grease).

Of course, I wouldn't particularly mind seeing a leather - clad Roxann Dawson singing "You're the one that I want" so....

 

And you can hardly accuse the Shatman of underplaying to anyone. Different personalities does not require one actor to underplay.

I think naomi was played realistically, not underplayed.

Sounds like Kes was the underplayed one there!

I dunno. I thought his greenness came through pretty well in Caretaker.

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And if the message of Trek is that folks are the same all over, why were TPTB trying to make the aliens stand apart from the Humans?

 

I must admit, I do at least lend his statement some level of credence. Bearing in mind Rick Berman's edict reference scoring on modern Trek, e.g., "music should not draw attention to itself" or something along those lines, we were given what I consider to be a flat, homogeneous, musical blandfest for much of his tenure.

I'm not 100% sure, but I recall someone on these boards stating Ron Jones was let go from TNG for not conforming to this directive.

 

Take it up with TPTB.
They think differently.

That proves that Scarlet Palmers even at her young age understood acting better than Wang.
My personal experence with children her age are that they're a little more rambunctious.

Is one ep. in seven years really praise worthy for a actor that's a cast regular?

Isn't the theme of Trek to seek out "strange" new life?

 

Maybe Berman just gave that instruction to Garret Wang.

tee hee

 

Wow. I did not know about the musical edict. Sounds a bit...strange (on Berman's part).

From my experience, watching loads of TV and film as a kid (and even acting in one - but I won't tell lol), a good score is neither overly bombastic, is supposed to draw attention to, or complement, a show's strong dramatic moments (i.e when something "big" happens), and/or complement the emotional tone of the episode, and in particular, an individual character's emotional arc. It is not supposed to be overly bombastic, but it's not supposed to be so low key as to add nothing to the show.