Whatever happened to Samantha Wildman?

[Guy Gardener]

Think about it, they brought Nancy Hower back for that cleft of ass "Fury" to PROVE that the adventure they were having was in the past because it would be impossible to think that her presence there and then meant that it couldn't be anything else other than the recess of dank history... Something bad or strange happened even though her daughter was walking around as if nothing was wrong... Maybe they hypnotized and drugged Naomi to think that her Mommy was still aboard the ship and... Did she really survive that shuttle crash in Once Upon a Time?

Maybe Naomi reacted badly to finding out that she was adopted?

Maybe Sam had been jailed like the Suder bloke for some strange reason?

So many possibilities.

 

[Rarewolf]

It's pretty much the same for Joe Carey. He only appeared in season 1, then flashbacks during 5,6, but then showed up in the present in season 7 to be killed off, proving he was along all the time.

 

[Kirks_Flying_Wig]

She's on deck 15 looking after the Borg baby. Ask Tim Russ what happened to her and he'll just say "Samantha who?"

 

[Danny99]

She's on deck 15 looking after the Borg baby. "

Beat me to it!

 

[Lynx]

As we all know, Samantha Wildman was assigned to The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team (TSTBT) in 2374 together with Vorik due to a too heavy work-load on the members of the team which was lead by Lt. Carey and included crewmembers Rollins, Dalby, Henley, Chell and Gerron.

Later on the team was joined by the Borg Baby whose small hands and small size made it an excellent engineeer when it came to detailed and delicate work in small areas. When the Borg Baby lost its temper during some complicated work and ran off in anger, Samantha Wildman had to chase it all over the ship until finally finding the little rascal on Deck 15.

As a skilled member of the most important unit of the ship, Samantha Wildman was highly appreciated by everyone, most notably Captain Janeway herself who often praised the efforts by The Shuttle and Torpedo Building Team, naming it the most important personel on the ship.

However, for Samantha Wildman the success had its price to pay as she was separated from her daughter Naomi for very long periods which resulted in young Naomi more and less forgetting her mother and regarding Neelix and Seven Of Nine as her parents.

The chaotic situation finally erupted when Voyager returned to Earth with Naomi defying Samantha and refusing to have anything to do with her. Later on, Samantha divorced from her Ktarian husband as a result of the previous events.

The latest gossip in Quark's bar on the station Deep Space Nine says that Samantha Wildman has joined a deep space expedition in order to return to the Delta Quadrant and marry Neelix.

 

[kathrynjaneway]

Thank you for asking this!!!

Until I recently watched Once upon a Time again, I was absolutely certain that Sam had died in that episode! But now that I know she's alive, I really don't understand why she disappeared, especially with Naomi still present. She wasn't even mentioned again.

 

[Finn]

^Yes she was, as "Mom".

 

[Guy Gardener]

Nuh-huh.

The word Mom was used 8 times EVER in Voyager.

Kim talking to B'Elanna in Eye of the Needle.
Kim Bitching in Author Author.
Some girl in a flash back B'Elanna was having during Lineage.
Naomi in Infinite regress which was JUST after Once Upon a Time.
Kim screaming for his mommy waking from a nightmare in Favourite Son.
ANDREW kim wining to his Mother,
Neelix talking to Naomi in Once Upon a Time
Shannon O'Donnel making sure some oldguy called Janeway with a bookshop is fair game.

The word Mother is used 46 times, but it's still mostly Kim droning on about his incumbent Oedipus complex.

A lovely character, and a beautiful actress but Voyagers writers are indolent to say the least.

 

[doubleohfive]

More than likely (and I'm just typing this now, I haven't actually checked) the original writer who introduced the character back in season one was no longer on staff and thus the writers didn't want to bring her back and then have to pay out royalties to that particular writer, when it was just as easy (and more profitable for those on staff) to add some new one-shot N.D. for whatever they needed.

 

[Anwar]

Samantha was used more than once in the show though, so there would be no royalties involved since she was the show's property and not the writers' anymore.

 

[doubleohfive]

Of course she's the property of the show...why wouldn't she be?

The fact remains however that the writer who wrote the script she first appeared in would still get the royalty each time she appeared again.

 

[Udat]

My head hurts, but the borg baby tasted like chicken...

 

[ProStar]

I think it is possible that Samantha Wildman shifts she was constantly busy with ship repairs and she may have been involved with many away such as scouting missions for new ship supplys on screen and plus Seven was doing relatively low activites apart from keying in stuff and she seemed to be mates hanging out with each other even if seven was busy and Neliex allways was doing very little onbored post season 3 so they had to have him do something plus she might have requested a room of her own just next door to her own

 

[tvih]

While I won't bet on it, I'm fairly sure Naomi made references to Samantha even after Samantha was no longer shown on-screen. I've heard it said viewers didn't like Samantha, which could well be why she was no longer shown. There's really no reason to assume she died or anything. It's not like she's the only recurring character that "goes missing". After all, we don't see Vorik most of the time either. And Carey was a good example also.

They probably just ended up using only Naomi since she was the only kid on board, but decided against bringing Samantha back when there was no real need and since the audience didn't like her that much.

 

[KiraDax]

I don't see why Samantha would have been disliked, she didn't do enough to be bothersome...she was nice, in a word.

And even if they didn't want to write a whole plot around her, it wouldn't have killed anyone to write in a fifteen second 'hand off Naomi' scene in a couple of episodes, or have Nancy Hower do a comm voice over, anything to imply that Naomi wasn't an orphan being raised by the senior staff, for all intents and purposes.

They kinda made a perfectly decent, upstanding character look back through simple neglect.

 

[Admiral Shran]

The writers simply didn't care about showcasing recurring characters all that often. So, I'll agree with Kirks_Flying_Wig. She's on Deck 15, looking after the Borg baby.

 

[tvih]

Well, I personally had nothing against Samantha either, and wouldn't have minded seeing more of her. Her not being all that popular is simply the impression I've got from some other comments.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

I think somehow the writers got the impression that they actually DID kill her at the end of 'Once Upon A Time' (I seem to recall reading that specifically, actually) and that no one actually ever bothered to correct them. I mean, by that time, the writers' habits were already firming in place so it wasn't as if complaining about logic and plot errors would actually do anything...

 

[tvih]

Well, I decided to take a look at what Memory Alpha says.

"However, she is mentioned in various episodes as still being alive and well." Don't know which episodes those would be, but I'm indeed fairly certain some references were made to her after Once Upon A Time.

More importantly though... as the Memory Alpha page says and as I actually remember just before reading it, the end of Once Upon A Time in fact shows Samantha in the Holodeck together with Naomi and Neelix. So she hardly dies in that episode given she's healthy, up and about the last we see of her

 

[Nick Ryder]

Samantha Wildman actually left the crew for a little while to follow the Grateful Dead's descendants on their tour of the Delta Quadrant. Then she heard that AC/DC was touring and she became a groupie on that tour. She was known as "That MILF from Voyager" and returned to Voyager during the end of season 7 just before they returned to Earth. Samantha spent the majority of her time in the lower decks catching up on all those years of work she left behind. Samantha actually gained a body like 7's by this point and would typically dress up as a short 7 of 9 from time to time.

Her Kitarian husband was never happier.