Was Lt. Carey screwed over in Voyager?

[Who1]

I think fans underestimate how difficult it is to write a good TV show.

I don't think the writing team was the problem, I think the leadership was the problem. They were told to write disposable stories.

Nothing wrong with developing a strong recurring guest cast, surely? So much time wasted on disposable forgettable villains that could have given us more time with people like Lt. Carey or Lt. Chapman for Starfleet or Lt. Hogan or Suder for the Maquis (who were practically Starfleet, let's not pretend those pips differentiated anything after season 2). Some screen time for the characters introduced in "Good Shepherd" would have been lovely. Hell, I'd have settled for seeing Ensign Mulcahy show up again, at least he was cute!
What did we get instead? Naomi Wildman and Icheb, which is the equivalent of cheaping out on a product by using child labor.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Of course, that means that Lieutenant Carey had to report to "Captain Kim" whenever shit got real.

Madness.

If Carey was awake and on duty during the nightshift, what the hell is he doing hiding down in Engineering when he should be on the bridge?

In TNG's Arsenal of Freedom, Chief Engineer Logan had to take orders from Lt jg La Forge when the latter was acting captain of the good ship Lollypop. He wasn't happy about it, but that's the way its done. This in and of itself didn't make much sense to me, though, because Logan was only a Lieutenant. On a ship the size of the Enterprise, there MUST have been a bevy of Lt. Commanders in charge of the various other departments who would all outrank Logan, too.

I also thought it was silly how many chief engineers the Enterprise had in season 1, and then La Forge gets promoted in season 2 and keeps the job for the next 15 years.

I always figured that La Forge was hand-picked by Picard to be Chief Engineer (like Riker and Crusher and Yar and probably Troi), except that he was a lowly junior grade shuttle pilot and wasn't qualified to be Chief Engineer of a Galaxy-class. So he had to spend a year studying and serving as flight controller until he could take over as Chief. The other chiefs (MacDougal, Argyle, Logan, and Lynch) were just acting officers on temporary assignment from their own ships.

In fact, Logan's hostility might be related to the fact that he was more qualified and knew that he would be transferred away in a couple month in favor of this unknown junior lieutenant. He was only a full lieutenant himself, so the Enterprise was probably the pinnacle of his career.

 

[Drone]

Are there any Carey vignettes from which one can reasonably extrapolate disgruntlement or pique after he was passed over? Anger at being "suspected" of spying for the Kazon, joining in the plan to use the spatial transjector, spending endless hours getting that ship in the bottle? No, I think that the admittedly limited evidence, shows someone, who while initially taken aback by Janeway's decision to go with B'Elanna, came to accept it, perhaps even realizing, while leaving it unspoken, that Torres was the superior choice. I think he was seen as an exemplary officer who made a sacrifice in an extraordinary situation and was thereafter a dependable, if unseen number 2 in engineering.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Just the opposite.

TORRES: All right. Get that isolinear bank up and running. And lock down those plasma relays. Please. I'm going to be counting on you, Lieutenant. I'm not up to date on the latest Starfleet protocols and I know that you're probably more familiar with the quirks of this warp engine than I am right now. I hope that I can depend on you.
CAREY: I assure you, you'll never get less than my best. Lieutenant, congratulations. Welcome aboard.
(Carey offers Torres his hand, and she shakes it.)

Joe was a steady cog.

Without his selflessness the ship would fail.

 

[Who1]

No.
Lt Carey was the Boba Fett of Trek.
A character that was never meant to serve any major purpose, that the fans got attached too and make a bigger deal over him than he deserved.

If Voyager had bothered to develop more recurring characters, perhaps people wouldn't have pined for someone who probably wouldn't have made a big impression on TNG or DS9.
When "Basics Part 2" killed off Seska, Suder and Hogan, that was practically it for the recurring guest cast. If a bit character actually got a line, s/he was lucky to simply survive the entire episode. That's absolutely insane for a show about a small crew traveling alone together. I would have gladly done with a few less space battles in forgettable episodes if we could have kept Suder and Hogan, seen the "Good Shepherd" players again, explored what happened to Chell or the Equinox crew, gave second stories to the likes of Lt. Chapman and Ensign Mulcahey, or created a couple new characters who might just help round things out, give the main cast new talents to develop relationships with.
In the end we got Vorik, Icheb, and the Wildmans, and Lt Carey once someone in season 7 forgot he never died.

 

[DonIago]

I realize I'm about to paint a big bullseye on myself, but it really should have been more like...

Lost. In space.

In the sense that for the most part you have a finite set of characters to work with, unless you come up with good reasons for introducing others.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Carey made a huge impression on TNG.

He almost killed Wesley for me in Justice.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I didn't pine for Carey so much as I pined for a robust secondary cast.

If Lost In Space they were the only characters on the ship. In Voyager there were 150. It would have made the culture of the ship seem richer if you got to know more of the people on it.

Introducing a character in one episode, leaving them on the ship, then ignoring they exist in stories they naturally fit into is the quickest way to kill viewer investment.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But did it?

It was a different era where most TV was like that.

 

[DonIago]

Not when DS9 was running in parallel and arguably had less reason for recurring characters than VOY.

 

[Guy Gardener]

DS9 is better?

Not seeing your point.

Syndication hates DS9 because the arcs, and constant character growth and shifting presence pisses off casual viewers.

Syndication loves Voyager because every episode is a bottle episode, and apart from before and after 7 showing up, can be played in any order, and really in the earlier episodes, before 7, you can just pretend that she was having a nap, so yes literally any "story" (glue the two parters together) can be seamlessly played in any order.

 

[DonIago]

My point, and one of the things that frustrates me about VOY, was that it felt like it was a regression from DS9. It had the chance to, at least in terms of the people on the ship, be more serialized, but instead they took it in the other direction.

 

[hux]

you can just pretend that she was having a nap.

Yes, she's having a lovely nap in this one. I know she's having a nap because Kes is saying something boring.

 

[suarezguy]

Introducing a character in one episode, leaving them on the ship, then ignoring they exist in stories they naturally fit into is the quickest way to kill viewer investment.

What stories do you think the Equinox survivors would naturally fit into (especially since the latter were stripped of rank)? They could have made for some good stories but since they probably wouldn't be trusted or eager to interact with the rest of the crew they didn't feel ignored.

 

[DonIago]

I wonder whether the Equinoxsurvivors started their own poker nights since nobody else would play with them...

 

[hux]

We needed to see more Gilmore.

Lessing was coming up with a plan to kill Janeway but it would take a few years. Admiral Janeway screwed with his plan.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

What stories do you think the Equinox survivors would naturally fit into (especially since the latter were stripped of rank)? They could have made for some good stories but since they probably wouldn't be trusted or eager to interact with the rest of the crew they didn't feel ignored.

For one, Good Shephard.

Redemption stories are scifi bread and butter.

 

[Guy Gardener]

My point, and one of the things that frustrates me about VOY, was that it felt like it was a regression from DS9. It had the chance to, at least in terms of the people on the ship, be more serialized, but instead they took it in the other direction.

Here's what you're forgetting.

Season one and two of DS9... Just Like TNG and Voyager.

Sure there was "the dominion is coming" mentioned in a couple season 2 episodes, and Odo in every fricking episode as a precursor for the arrival of his people whoever they turned out to be... Parallel to impossibly early season one, an asshole Shapesifter showed up in the novels. His origins were left vague, but if no one forbid that from happening, then they had no idea about the Dominion a few weeks out from Emissary.

But when they were designing Voyager to be just like another TNG, DS9 wasn't inspiringly different, urging baby Voyager to be something better for a smarter more hip audience... It was just another Baldwin brother from the Baldwin brothers cookie cutter.

 

[Drone]

We needed to see more Gilmore.

Lessing was coming up with a plan to kill Janeway but it would take a few years. Admiral Janeway screwed with his plan.

Yes, we should have had that episode "That Gilmore Girl" and see if Chakotay would show some integrity by continuing to deign chatting up a Starfleet outcast, just like he was once upon a time.

I think Lessing knew she was just funnin' him. He had served under a captain that was willing to do anything and I doubt he sensed that same capability in Janeway, even when she seemed to be very very cross there in the cargo bay.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Lessing was in the Magicians last week, coming to terms with the fact that his opponent plucked his eye balls out.

Torture is relative.

(They were hammering railroad spikes through his hands on Supernatural a few years back.

Torture is REALLY relative.)