I've always wondered why Voyager and Enterprise never bothered to develop a stable of secondary characters to round out the cast and make their starship environments seem more believable.
This was obviously a conscious choice on the part of the writers and producers given that by the late 90s (and certainly by the turn of the century) such characters were the staple of many shows.
I should clarify that when I say "secondary characters," I'm not talking about recurring guest stars. I'm talking about characters who have names, speak and are apart of the fabric of the show but not (at least initially) and integral part of anyone episode. As an example, on TNG, Chief O'Brien was on the Enterprise from day one. In the early years, he was rarely a central part of any story. However he was there on a regular basis doing a job and creating the atmosphere that the Enterprise was a "real" place. As the years progressed he occasionally got a plot line or two. Nure Ogawa was a similar character. Conversely, Barkley was a recurring guest star. The only times he appeard was if they were doing a "Barkley" story. In that sense he's like Q. I'd say that Guinan and Ensign Ro blurred the line between the two (especially since Guinan was actually called a "special guest star").
Even TOS had characters like Lt. Kyle on hand.
DS9 was positively overflowing with these characters. Garak, Nog, Rom, Morn, Leeta, Damar etc....some of those characters would go on to have more character development than most of the main cast of either Voyager or Enterprise (I actually believe that Nog had the most fully fleshed out character arc of ANY character in modern Trek after 7 years).
I point this out because these types of characters were not uncommon in other scifi shows running concurrently with Voyager or Enterprise. Say what you will about the Stargate franchise, but one of the things that the showrunners did really well was create fully fleshed out home bases full of recurring secondary characters. Walter only had one obvious job at the SGC and that was calling out chevrons...yet it was obvious when he was not there doing so and he became a regular fixture of the show. Atlantis had Maj. Lonre, Dr Zelinka etc.
NuBSG had so many fleshed out characters that it was not always obvious who rounded out the main cast.
What's really odd is that Voyager and Enterprise had environments conducive to such characters but never bothered to develop them. In Enterprise's case it was intentional. I recall an early interview with Berman where he mentioned something to the effect that fans could expect to see a number of recurring characters on the NX-01. Fans immediately thought that he was talking about like the great secondary's on DS9. But Berman would eventually go on to clarify that what he meant was characters like Ayala on Voyager. On hearing that I remember that my first question was...WHO? I watched Voyager for 7 years and had know freaking idea who they were talking about. I later learned that he was a guy that was essentially a glorified extra that had maybe 4 lines during the course of the show.
For Voyager the situation was even worse since they started out atleast TRYING to develop these characters before they were unceremoniously dumped (Joe Carey I'm looking at you).
I suppose that shows that could not even bother to flesh out their main cast just stopped trying to create a viable cast of secondary characters.
It just seems unfortunate.
This was obviously a conscious choice on the part of the writers and producers given that by the late 90s (and certainly by the turn of the century) such characters were the staple of many shows.
I should clarify that when I say "secondary characters," I'm not talking about recurring guest stars. I'm talking about characters who have names, speak and are apart of the fabric of the show but not (at least initially) and integral part of anyone episode. As an example, on TNG, Chief O'Brien was on the Enterprise from day one. In the early years, he was rarely a central part of any story. However he was there on a regular basis doing a job and creating the atmosphere that the Enterprise was a "real" place. As the years progressed he occasionally got a plot line or two. Nure Ogawa was a similar character. Conversely, Barkley was a recurring guest star. The only times he appeard was if they were doing a "Barkley" story. In that sense he's like Q. I'd say that Guinan and Ensign Ro blurred the line between the two (especially since Guinan was actually called a "special guest star").
Even TOS had characters like Lt. Kyle on hand.
DS9 was positively overflowing with these characters. Garak, Nog, Rom, Morn, Leeta, Damar etc....some of those characters would go on to have more character development than most of the main cast of either Voyager or Enterprise (I actually believe that Nog had the most fully fleshed out character arc of ANY character in modern Trek after 7 years).
I point this out because these types of characters were not uncommon in other scifi shows running concurrently with Voyager or Enterprise. Say what you will about the Stargate franchise, but one of the things that the showrunners did really well was create fully fleshed out home bases full of recurring secondary characters. Walter only had one obvious job at the SGC and that was calling out chevrons...yet it was obvious when he was not there doing so and he became a regular fixture of the show. Atlantis had Maj. Lonre, Dr Zelinka etc.
NuBSG had so many fleshed out characters that it was not always obvious who rounded out the main cast.
What's really odd is that Voyager and Enterprise had environments conducive to such characters but never bothered to develop them. In Enterprise's case it was intentional. I recall an early interview with Berman where he mentioned something to the effect that fans could expect to see a number of recurring characters on the NX-01. Fans immediately thought that he was talking about like the great secondary's on DS9. But Berman would eventually go on to clarify that what he meant was characters like Ayala on Voyager. On hearing that I remember that my first question was...WHO? I watched Voyager for 7 years and had know freaking idea who they were talking about. I later learned that he was a guy that was essentially a glorified extra that had maybe 4 lines during the course of the show.
For Voyager the situation was even worse since they started out atleast TRYING to develop these characters before they were unceremoniously dumped (Joe Carey I'm looking at you).
I suppose that shows that could not even bother to flesh out their main cast just stopped trying to create a viable cast of secondary characters.
It just seems unfortunate.
