Why did late Trek abandon the use of "secondary characters"

[Ziz]

Personally, I think the diminishing amount of secondaries in VOY and ENT was just down to money and effort. If they focused on the cast they already had, then they wouldn't have to deal with the labor of casting other people and all the Hollywood paperwork that goes along with it.

 

[Gotham Central]

I think that it is worth nothing that DS9 allowed itself more to have a bunch of secondary characters, even it's format and storyline. ENT, considering they were always on the move (especially in its first two years), didn't.

Enterprise dropped the ball completely. Not only were half the gast being systematically ignored, but the show really did not have secondary characters. Shran, Admr. Forrest and Soval were more like recurring guest stars in the mold of Q or Lawaxana Troi.

This is a load of bunk, especially since you have on the DS9 list characters such as Damar, Eddington, Winn, Leeta, Bariel, and all the Ferengi characters among others. I would say they, too, were guest starts in the mold of Q or Lawaxana Troi. The only up screen time they got wasn't until season 6 and 7 when things started to get wrapped up.

Also, let us not forget the surplus of secondary characters in season 3 of ENT.

Also, look at what a secondary character does. The character adds to the already established cast, as opposed to a guest character where the character is the focus of the episode. Characters like Forrest, Soval, etc were never the focus of the episode and were there to add to what was going on.

Being "on the move" in no way inhibits the creatin of secondary characters. in fact, Voyager and Enterprise should have had an easier time creating such characters. Both ships had a fixed compliment of crew members and were not in a position to pick up more or rotate crew. Thus would have been easy to round out the regular cast with additional crew members. In fact, this is precisely what BSG does. Even when Stargate was doing planet of the week episodes, they took the time to round out the staff of the SGC.

Voyager did this early on and Enterprise didn't bother (since they had main characters that they essentially stopped writing for).

 

[Gotham Central]

Personally, I think the diminishing amount of secondaries in VOY and ENT was just down to money and effort. If they focused on the cast they already had, then they wouldn't have to deal with the labor of casting other people and all the Hollywood paperwork that goes along with it.

I do not think that it was down to money at all. Increasinly, damatic shows make regular use of these types of characters since they are actually cheaper to maintain than the regular cast. Take CSI as an example. Not only do they do expensive FX on a regular basis, but they've maintained a fairly large stable of secondary characters (some of whom have been promoted to being part of the regualr cast due to their success).

I actually think that this was purely a writing problem.

 

[Broccoli]

Voyager did this early on and Enterprise didn't bother (since they had main characters that they essentially stopped writing for).

Crewman Cutler? Rostov? (though, I admit they were fazed out after season one - in Cutler's case, she went to another show [which wasn't picked up] and died shortly thereafter). Rostov at least got mentioned multiple times throughout the series.

Season 3: Degra; Dolim; Jannar; Hayes; Hawkins; the rest of the Xindi Council; Macos (many of which were not given names, but the faces were pretty much the same from episode to episode).

And I still maintain that Daniels, Forrest, Soval, Shran, Silik, Capt. Hernandez, Kelby, and Future Guy count as secondary characters going by the OP's qualifications.

Had the show continued past season 4, I suspect there would have been an increase of background characters, as it was developing in seasons 3 and 4. Even DS9 didn't start to develop their background characters until the later seasons. It is almost silly to compare the two shows in this regard.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Chef was more like Vera from Cheers.

 

[payndz201]

Pah! Morn not only had an episode named for him, but arguably saved the entire Alpha Quadrant by passing vital intelligence (at immense personal risk) on to Sisko and Starfleet. What has anyone's precious Chef done, beyond make the occasional omlette?

Of all the Trek shows, Voyager should have been the one to make the most of the potential of recurring characters simply because of its whole concept. That it didn't was purely down to laziness; "Meh, we could make this Voyager crewman the same guy we saw two episodes ago, but that'd mean we'd have to check if the actor's available and commit to booking him. Let's just make him a new but very similiar guy instead."

On DS9, that same random guy would probably have ended up getting seven years' work, being crucial to several episodes and commanding his own starship...

 

[Dream]

Of all the Trek shows, Voyager should have been the one to make the most of the potential of recurring characters simply because of its whole concept. That it didn't was purely down to laziness; "Meh, we could make this Voyager crewman the same guy we saw two episodes ago, but that'd mean we'd have to check if the actor's available and commit to booking him. Let's just make him a new but very similiar guy instead."

Voyager barely developed any of it's main characters like Kes or Harry well so they probably would have screwed up if they had to deal with more secondary characters.

 

[Gotham Central]

On DS9, that same random guy would probably have ended up getting seven years' work, being crucial to several episodes and commanding his own starship...

This so true. On DS9 even random nurses or engineering staff ended up being used repeatedly. DS9 was the only show that actually gave the impression that it had a regular crew compliment even though people could have been passing through all the time. Voyager and Enterprise should have felt like they had a fixed crew compliment, but they never did.

 

[Gotham Central]

Of all the Trek shows, Voyager should have been the one to make the most of the potential of recurring characters simply because of its whole concept. That it didn't was purely down to laziness; "Meh, we could make this Voyager crewman the same guy we saw two episodes ago, but that'd mean we'd have to check if the actor's available and commit to booking him. Let's just make him a new but very similiar guy instead."

Voyager barely developed any of it's main characters like Kes or Harry well so they probably would have screwed up if they had to deal with more secondary characters.

Voyager actually has secondary characters for a while in the early seasons. Then they apparently all had fatal airlock accidents and disappeared. The one exception being Lt. Carey, who vanished for 6 years only ton turn up in season 7 and get killed. You know, the mere fact that they brought back the character acknowledges that he was a significant player early in the series. Htat they brought him back to kill him was just gratutious. As far as the viewers were concerned, he might as well have died years earlier.