Why did they keep bringing back Leeta?

[Oddish]

Ro is a special case. Apparently they wanted to feature Ro on DS9 (and then on Voyager) but the actress didn't want to commit, so instead we got Kira (one of the best female characters in Berman Trek) and Torres (one of the worst)

Oh, interesting. First time I’m seeing someone saying she’s the worst. What makes you say that? Although not necessarily my favorite character from Voyager, I think B’Elanna is a fascinating character, memorably portrayed by a wonderful actress. It probably helps that she reminds me of women I know in real life. I think if I had to deal with Torres in real life, she’s be a proper pain in the ass, but that doesn’t make her a bad character.

My main issue with Torres is that they gave her an absolutely amazing potential development arc (to grow from "scary and dangerous loose cannon" to "emotionally centered and valuable team member who has accepted herself for who she is"). Then, they had her cover half of it in ONE FRICKIN' EPISODE! And so then, she spends seven seasons on the endless treadmill of "having trouble accepting her Klingon side".

I don't see her as one of the worst characters... but only because Harry was deliberately and calculatedly allowed zero development (instead being artificially locked in as a wet behind the ears ensign when it no longer made sense), Neelix's tremendous potential as a gamma quadrant alien and genocide survivor was also ignored, and Chakotay was based on insights provided by a charlatan. And she is admittedly one of my least favorites.

 

[fireproof78]

Gotcha. You are right, you didn’t say the worst.

I’ll agree with you insofar as that the way B’Elanna ended up on the screen often worked better than how her character was conceived on paper. Making her angry all the time just because she’s half-Klingon is bit of a lame concept. But overall I think Roxann Dawson made the character more interesting than that, often giving her this insecurity you could sense just beneath the surface. She was a strong-willed, stubborn and tough woman, but that was only her exterior. Ultimately she was one of the characters where you could witness some actual growth over the course of the show. She started out as someone who wasn’t able to control her anger, but ended up as a seasoned, strong-willed leader and led what felt like a rather realistic relationship.

I also gotta say, as someone who loathes Klingon stuff in Trek (especially of the 90s Trek variety), I never thought they overdid it with bringing up her Klingon heritage. If anything, I feel they often portrayed her as someone who very much rolled her eyes at that stuff as well.

Torres is one of the high points in Voyager for me. She wasn't handled well, but she was an interesting character, and definitely one that grew a bit, though still had her struggles. Unfortunately, often let down by problematic writing.

 

[Oddish]

I actually like the Voyager characters. They had great potential.
Unfortunately the potential for some of them was never used or badly used.
And Kes was the most ill-treated of them all.

We're saying largely the same thing, @Lynx . We only disagree on which character was crapped on the worst.

 

[Orphalesion]

Voyager is pretty much the poster child for wasted potential. Though I do think a handful of the Voyager characters were doomed from their conception (Chakotay, for example, Neelix too, because if you read the series Bible for Voyager it seems Neelix was supposed to be like three contradictory character concepts in one)

 

[Oddish]

My thoughts...

Seven and EMH: Used fairly well. Proof that character development on VOY was possible.

Janeway: Moderate waste of potential. Yes, we saw a lot of her... but she was the same person at the end as the start. Compare that to Benjamin Sisko, who was transformed on a fundamental level.

Tuvok: Moderate waste. Tuvok was over 100 years old, and worked best as a static character. But with his family not with him, the most unique aspect of his character wasn't really visible.

Chakotay: Severe waste. Largely because of the character's initial design.

B'Elanna: Severe waste, because so much of her journey was covered in one episode, and there wasn't that much to do with her afterward.

Tom: Less waste than others. He did follow something of an arc, from rogue to family man, and his other interests also played a part.

Harry: Extreme waste. They could have done ANYTHING with him. They did NOTHING!

Neelix: Severe waste. A character with considerable depth, played by a talented actor, reduced mainly to a sofa-suited comic relief buffoon.

Kes: Severe waste. Her powers and her short lifespan made her an interesting case. Strange that she got more character development in ONE EPISODE ("Before and After") than in the show proper.

Naomi: As a child character, she was actually used reasonably well.

Vorik, Durst, Carey, Samantha, Borglets, "Good Shepherd" trio, too many others: Severe waste of potential. Look at what DS9 did with Rom, Damar, Weyoun, Zek, Leeta, and especially Garak and Nog.

 

[Orphalesion]

I just have a strong distaste for such extremely arrogant characters like the EMH (and Q), so I find it difficult to judge the way his character was used objectively, since he's so thoroughly unenjoyable for me.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Overall, I actually preferred VOY to DS9, when they were concurrently in first-run. Especially since by that time, the whole Dominion War arc had begun, and the Changelings had been established as the Founders. I didn't care for the political intrigue of the Li Nalas trilogy, and I really disliked the whole business with Winn Adami and pah-wraiths, and so forth.

I always found Leeta to be one of the bright spots of DS9. And not just because I met Ms. Masterson once at a convention (as I recall, she was sharing an autograph table with Patti Tallman and Camille Saviola).

 

[kkt]

I just have a strong distaste for such extremely arrogant characters like the EMH (and Q), so I find it difficult to judge the way his character was used objectively, since he's so thoroughly unenjoyable for me.

Yes. I find Q's interest in humans and their friends just unbelievable. And if I was Janeway I would have unplugged the EMH's personality module just like HAL in 2001, by any means necessary.

 

[kkt]

At least Uhura is now getting her dues in SNW.

Uhura got some good things to do early in season 1 of TOS. Singing. "Sorry, Neither." Unfortunately after that she was just opening hailing frequencies most of the time.

 

[Orphalesion]

Yes. I find Q's interest in humans and their friends just unbelievable. And if I was Janeway I would have unplugged the EMH's personality module just like HAL in 2001, by any means necessary.

Q combines three things I just don't like: arrogance, omnipotent/nigh-omnipotent characters, and Trek's old "we met god but it was an alien" shtick.

As for what I had done with the EMH if I was Janeway....I think I would have deleted him and told Kes she's the CMO now.

Edit: Or maybe, since he wasn't sentient yet in the very beginning, I would have reprogrammed him to be friendly, and attractive.
(thinks to himself....hm....Dr.Okona...)

 

[Frontis]

Hoshi was another character with much potential that wasn't developed enough imo.

 

[Lynx]

My thoughts...

Seven and EMH: Used fairly well. Proof that character development on VOY was possible.

Janeway: Moderate waste of potential. Yes, we saw a lot of her... but she was the same person at the end as the start. Compare that to Benjamin Sisko, who was transformed on a fundamental level.

Tuvok: Moderate waste. Tuvok was over 100 years old, and worked best as a static character. But with his family not with him, the most unique aspect of his character wasn't really visible.

Chakotay: Severe waste. Largely because of the character's initial design.

B'Elanna: Severe waste, because so much of her journey was covered in one episode, and there wasn't that much to do with her afterward.

Tom: Less waste than others. He did follow something of an arc, from rogue to family man, and his other interests also played a part.

Harry: Extreme waste. They could have done ANYTHING with him. They did NOTHING!

Neelix: Severe waste. A character with considerable depth, played by a talented actor, reduced mainly to a sofa-suited comic relief buffoon.

Kes: Sever waste. Her powers and her short lifespan made her an interesting case. Strange that she got more character development in ONE EPISODE ("Before and After") than in the show proper.

Naomi: As a child character, she was actually used reasonably well.

Vorik, Durst, Carey, Samantha, Borglets, "Good Shepherd" trio, too many others: Severe waste of potential. Look at what DS9 did with Rom, Damar, Weyoun, Zek, Leeta, and especially Garak and Nog.

Here's my take on those characters:

Seven and EMH: Actually over-developed. Seven came in in season 3 and more and less took over ths show. The Doctor was supposed to be a "less important" main character, a holographic doctor and not more but became the third most important character in the series.

Janeway: Moderate waste. Good character in seasons 1,2 and 3. Erratically written in the rest of the seasons. They actually messed her up a bit by making her such an unstable character.

Tuvok: Moderate waste. Great character who was shoved in the background in seasons 4-7.

Chakotay: Severe waste. Could have been the best "number one" of them all, better than Riker. he had potential for that. Instead he was wasted and shoved in the background. They couldn't even come up with a decent tribe for him.

B'Elanna: Severe waste. became tame too fast, did a decent performance in seasons 1-3 but was sadly shoved in the background in the following seasons. They had to come up with the Torres/Paris romance to show that she still was a main character.

Tom: Severe waste. He had a lot of potential to be the series action character which he showed in seasons 1,2 and 3. Instead he became a boring no-no in the rest of the series.

Harry: Extreme waste. No development at all for 7 seasons.

Neelix: Severe waste. A character with a lot of depth and the most interesting background story of them all. Just reduced to the ship cook and comical character.

Kes: Extremewaste. Had a lot of potential and if they hafd given her a human lifespan and made her a ship counselor and using her telepathic abilities, she would have been even better. Instead dumped for reasons and excuses which can't fool a child.

Naomi: What was she doing in the series?

Vorik, Durst, Carey, Samantha, Borglets, "Good Shepherd" trio, Dalby, Gerron, Chell, Henley, Ayala and too many others: Here I agree with the original poster which I've quoted:
"Severe waste of potential. Look at what DS9 did with Rom, Damar, Weyoun, Zek, Leeta, and especially Garak and Nog."

 

[Iamnotspock]

Leeta was a one-off character in "Explorers", and when Rosalind Chao was unavailable for "Facets", where Dax asks her closest friends to embody her previous hosts, they substituted Leeta for Keiko with a line about Jadzia and Leeta having been spending a lot of time together. The producers liked her work as both Leeta and Emony and it snowballed from there.

 

[Mage]

Torres is one of the high points in Voyager for me. She wasn't handled well, but she was an interesting character, and definitely one that grew a bit, though still had her struggles. Unfortunately, often let down by problematic writing.

Hardly any character was handled well in Voyager. Almost every episode took the piss out of Neelix in some way, making him look like a fool and sometimes even lacking empathy, and the crew making pretty awful jokes behind his back.
Except when it was a Neelix episode. He was suddenly very resourceful, empathic, a great problem solver. The crew gushing over him. And that's just one example.

 

[Lynx]

Nope.

She dumped a Changeling for a Ferengi.

Poor Bashir thinking about all the makeup intercourse waiting for him when he finally escapes from that Dominion prison camp, but that is not what is waiting for him in his hearth. It's Rom howling like a humpback whale, heard clearly through miles of corrugated foam rubber, space age sound proofing, half a station from their bedroom, with his genetically engineered super hearing.

Sorry, I have to correct you here with one of my nitpicking comments.

When I read your comment above, I started to think about something I've never noticed or thought about before:


Did the changeling who replaced Bashir dump Leeta so she couldn't reveal him?
And what about poor Bashir who returns from a Jem'Hadar prison just to find that his loved one has a relationship with Rom of all people?

Fortunately it wasn't that bad. Bashir and Leeta most likely broke up months or at least weeks before Bashir was captured and replaced by a changeling.

In the episode In Purgatory's Shadow, we have this dialogue when Bashir of all people shows up in the Jem'Hadar prison:

GARAK: When were you brought here?
BASHIR: Over a month ago. I was attending a burn treatment conference on Meezan Four. I went to bed one night and woke up here.

Now, the episode By Inferno's Light has the Stardate 50564.2 which according to my calculations is Wednesday 25 July 2373. As we all know, By Inferno's Light is the second part of a two-parter in which In Purgatory's Shadow is the first part.

In Purgatory's Shadow has no official Stardate but we can assume that it takes place some days or a week before By inferno's Light.

Unfortunately, DS9 has a lot of "Stardate Unknown" episodes which makes it difficult to come up with a definite timeline for the series. The episodes with an official Stardate which are closest in time to In Purgatory's Shadow are The Darkness And The Light and For The Uniform.

The Darkness And The Light has the Stardate 50416.2 which is Friday 1 June 2373 while For The Uniform has the Stardate 50485.2 which is Wednesday 27 June 2373.

Since Bashir states that he was captured "Over a month ago", he must have been captured shortly before 27 June 2373, maybe around or after the events in the episode Rapture.

Since Rapture takes place three episodes after Let He Who Is Without Sin, the episode in which Bashir and Leeta finally breaks up, Bashir and Leeta had actually broken up before bashir was captured by the Jem'Hadar and replaced by a changeling.

Then of course, we have the question in which episodes Bashir was replaced by a changeling.
We can assume that it was at least in the episodes Rapture, The Darkness And The Light, Things Past, The Ascent, The Begotten, For The Uniform, In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light where the changeling is revealed and the real Bashir (and the real Martok too) returns to the station.

I suppose that those episodes must now be watched closely to reveal some odd behavior by the changeling who replaced the real Bashir.

And maybe I should change my username to Nitpicker instead of Lynx?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Sorry, I have to correct you here with one of my nitpicking comments.

When I read your comment above, I started to think about something I've never noticed or thought about before:


Did the changeling who replaced Bashir dump Leeta so she couldn't reveal him?
And what about poor Bashir who returns from a Jem'Hadar prison just to find that his loved one has a relationship with Rom of all people?

Fortunately it wasn't that bad. Bashir and Leeta most likely broke up months or at least weeks before Bashir was captured and replaced by a changeling.

In the episode In Purgatory's Shadow, we have this dialogue when Bashir of all people shows up in the Jem'Hadar prison:

GARAK: When were you brought here?
BASHIR: Over a month ago. I was attending a burn treatment conference on Meezan Four. I went to bed one night and woke up here.

Now, the episode By Inferno's Light has the Stardate 50564.2 which according to my calculations is Wednesday 25 July 2373. As we all know, By Inferno's Light is the second part of a two-parter in which In Purgatory's Shadow is the first part.

In Purgatory's Shadow has no official Stardate but we can assume that it takes place some days or a week before By inferno's Light.

Unfortunately, DS9 has a lot of "Stardate Unknown" episodes which makes it difficult to come up with a definite timeline for the series. The episodes with an official Stardate which are closest in time to In Purgatory's Shadow are The Darkness And The Light and For The Uniform.

The Darkness And The Light has the Stardate 50416.2 which is Friday 1 June 2373 while For The Uniform has the Stardate 50485.2 which is Wednesday 27 June 2373.

Since Bashir states that he was captured "Over a month ago", he must have been captured shortly before 27 June 2373, maybe around or after the events in the episode Rapture.

Since Rapture takes place three episodes after Let He Who Is Without Sin, the episode in which Bashir and Leeta finally breaks up, Bashir and Leeta had actually broken up before bashir was captured by the Jem'Hadar and replaced by a changeling.

Then of course, we have the question in which episodes Bashir was replaced by a changeling.
We can assume that it was at least in the episodes Rapture, The Darkness And The Light, Things Past, The Ascent, The Begotten, For The Uniform, In Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light where the changeling is revealed and the real Bashir (and the real Martok too) returns to the station.

I suppose that those episodes must now be watched closely to reveal some odd behavior by the changeling who replaced the real Bashir.

And maybe I should change my username to Nitpicker instead of Lynx?

Bashir gets dumped wearing an old uniform in s05e07.

The new uniforms showed up in s05e10 Rapture.

Prison Bashir in S05e14 is still wearing the old uniform.

 

[Farscape One]

The only episodes before that two-parter we know for a fact it was Bashireling is "RAPTURE", "THE DARKNESS AND THE LIGHT", "THE BEGOTTEN", and "FOR THE UNIFORM" (though he didn't appear here). The uniform Bashir wore in the prison makes this clear.

Bashir was most likely taken between "THE ASCENT" and "RAPTURE". There would be too much time in-universe to go by for Bashir to be taken before or during "THE ASCENT".

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Alexander Siddig's uniform was an oversight. Can we leave it at a production and writing mistake, not some earth-shattering revelation of intent?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Alexander Siddig's uniform was an oversight. Can we leave it at a production and writing mistake, not some earth-shattering revelation of intent?

Can't grow a beard to save his life, but there was scruff.

Julian's been been wearing the same onsey for a month.

Okay...

This is what really should have been happening: Every time Worf Killed a Jem Hadar, there was an almost fresh suit of clothes, underwear and socks for the community to divide equitably... If the evil clones don't defecate massively at the point of expiration like humans do.

Unless sometimes the prisoners had enough water to clean their one change of clothes... Which means that whenever anyone is cleaning and drying their one change of clothes, they are very very naked while waiting.

 

[E-DUB]

I'm pretty sure she was put in as "eye candy", but she did bring a depth to the role, especially in the later seasons.