your argument is that because Harry Kim has a generic bridge role where he gets to say things like "tachyon emissions are reading at x percent" that he's MORE valuable as a character than Kes? That makes no sense to me. What that says is that they could easily have replaced Harry with a rotating role of "bridge ensign" who said three lines a week and got paid a lot less.
Why was Kes written off the show?
- Thread starter Kooz
- Start date
your argument is that because Harry Kim has a generic bridge role where he gets to say things like "tachyon emissions are reading at x percent" that he's MORE valuable as a character than Kes? That makes no sense to me. What that says is that they could easily have replaced Harry with a rotating role of "bridge ensign" who said three lines a week and got paid a lot less.
No.
I already stated my argument was to show that Kes role decreased during s3 and was not expanding as someone claimed. Kes was getting less screen time and dialog by s3, none of the other cast had their roles decreased by this piont but Kes. Harry was still on Tv more and saying more lines than Kes by s3, regardless of whether it was generic dialog or not. Development or character value has nothing to do with it. We the audience are still seeing and hearing Harry more than Kes by that point. If she has less dialog and screen time than all her peers, then how are they expanding her character?
That is the argument.
Yes, by that logic, Lieutenant Ayala was a wonderfully developed secondary character that was indispensable to the show
Its amazing the things people will argue on this forum.
Yes, and in that case Morn was a more valuable character for DS9 than Jake Sisko.
Morn paid for his drinks.
He kept that bar in the black.
What did Jake's pinko philosophy ever accomplish?
He kept that bar in the black.
What did Jake's pinko philosophy ever accomplish?
I don't get what you're arguing here. Sonak pretty much just paraphrased your post. And your post was about Kim's screen time, not Kes's supposedly diminishing role.
IMO, Kim and Kes can't really be compared. Kim didn't go anywhere, metaphorically speaking. He entered Voyager as an annoyingly wholesome ensign, and left a slightly more seasoned ensign. Kes, on the other hand, changed a great deal. She went from being a naive teenager to being an interesting adult. Her story was so much richer and more engaging. Kim was often used as window dressing, but if that was meant to do the character a favor, I don't think it worked.
Morn was a more valuable character than Jake.
He had an episode centered around him and never spoke a word. And he never made the audience watch him get it on with a creepy cougar.
Personally, I don't think there was that much difference in the amount of screentime between Kes in season 2 and season 3 *especially* if we don't consider Elogium which was supposed to air in season 1.
Parturition (kind of)
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Tuvix
vs
The Swarm
Warlord
Darkling
Before and After
Pretty even
Parturition (kind of)
Persistence of Vision
Cold Fire
Tuvix
vs
The Swarm
Warlord
Darkling
Before and After
Pretty even
Screen time-the amount of time you physically see the character on the TV screen per episode per season
Not to be confused with character development or the amount of episodes a character is featured in each season. Screen time isn't limited to the amount of eps. that character is featured in but rather how many times does the audience physically see that character on their TV within in each episode.
For example: Harry is in the entire two parter of "Future's End", Kes has two small scenes. You see Harry in "Macrocosm" Kes isn't in it all. I don't think she's in "The Chute", "Remember" or "The Q and he Grey" either but all the rest of the cast is.
Last edited:
again, I'm confused. Help me out here:
are you admitting that Kes got more character development in less screen time than Harry? If so, it kind of dashes the "hard to write for" excuse, doesn't it? And simultaneously makes the character of Harry Kim pretty replaceable, right? I mean, you keep writing about all this bridge screen time he had.
Well ok, I accept that for the sake of argument. But if it's generic bridge dialogue, then you don't need a main character slot taken up by a guy who is just reading generic lines. That's why you have walk-on ensign roles.
You need to remember how cheap Voyager was.
They were really not interested in their exra's expressing dialogue if it trippled their pay rate.
They were really not interested in their exra's expressing dialogue if it trippled their pay rate.
Nope, you can still write for a character and hit brick walls in developing them.
Voyager couldn't afford to keep the guy playing LT. Carey as a regular re-arrcurring character. Why would they hire and pay out more for a nobody to read lines when they already had someone on the payroll to do it. It's a budget, EVERYBODY and BUSINESS lives on one.
Kes is in Macrocosm.
So they couldn't keep Carey for economical reasons. Still, it was rude to kill him off.
But they could add characters like Vorik, Naomi Wildman and Icheb to the cast despite the fact that those characters added less than Carey to the ongoing story and the cost for those probably was higher than the cost for keeping Kes on the show. Not to mention that Kim contributed only little more than Carey.
If they were so tight on money, why didn't they kill off all the main characters, only keeping Seven. That would have been something for those in charge, wouldn't it?
Yes, and she's in "Remember", "The Chute" and "The Q And The Grey" too.
<snippage>
Vorik, Naomi and Icheb were FAR more interesting than Carey who really was not interesting at all. For one thing they were all aliens, though Naomi's alien half was never a story issue. Her story issue was that she was alien in being the only child on the ship. Carey is is just Joe Goldshirt.
Harry was Joe Gold too and they only tried to chuck him under the bus once.
Vorrik climbed out of Jeri Taylor's cooch.
And still that's all the screen time he managed to squeeze out of the writing room.
Naomi cost less because she was a child, what about Icheb?
And remember.
When they killed Joe, they thought that we'd be into it.
Nostalgia and closure.
the bs were not trying to offend us.
Vorrik climbed out of Jeri Taylor's cooch.
And still that's all the screen time he managed to squeeze out of the writing room.
Naomi cost less because she was a child, what about Icheb?
And remember.
When they killed Joe, they thought that we'd be into it.
Nostalgia and closure.
the bs were not trying to offend us.
He was less Joe Gold because he was Asian.
I barely registered that he'd been on the show before when he died.
Who would you have registered?
We've been through the numbers before, but if the producers wanted to bring someone back from the past to celebrate that the journey was important, who we would recognize and cherish they were poorly regarded for choices.
Lets see?
Including Friendship One, Joe had been in 7 episodes.
That made him a Star.
6 episodes.
Vorrik was in 8 and Samantha was in 9 compared to a staggering 17 episodes by one of the actresses who played her daughter (there were three others counting the baby.).
Hogans dead, Seska's dead, everyone else was an extra or Borg Child.
Voyager just didn't have a very large extended cast.
We've been through the numbers before, but if the producers wanted to bring someone back from the past to celebrate that the journey was important, who we would recognize and cherish they were poorly regarded for choices.
Lets see?
Including Friendship One, Joe had been in 7 episodes.
That made him a Star.
6 episodes.
Vorrik was in 8 and Samantha was in 9 compared to a staggering 17 episodes by one of the actresses who played her daughter (there were three others counting the baby.).
Hogans dead, Seska's dead, everyone else was an extra or Borg Child.
Voyager just didn't have a very large extended cast.
If Samantha had died it would have been tragic because we would care about her through her 17 episode daughter. It would be a total of 26 episodes.
I would have cried if Samantha had died, thinking about Naomi arriving home without her mother and her nanny to a father she had never met.
I would have cried if Samantha had died, thinking about Naomi arriving home without her mother and her nanny to a father she had never met.
Nancy and Scarlett were only in one episode together.
Sam should been the one to kill if you were after a barrel full of pathos.
However what she did in Fury is worse. Creating an effective defense against the Vodiians in season one because Kes left a seat open in the conference room after her future self put herin a draw, which means that the Vodiians couldn't touch Voyager and she'd only have the one baby instead of raising a changeling.
Sam should been the one to kill if you were after a barrel full of pathos.
However what she did in Fury is worse. Creating an effective defense against the Vodiians in season one because Kes left a seat open in the conference room after her future self put herin a draw, which means that the Vodiians couldn't touch Voyager and she'd only have the one baby instead of raising a changeling.
Similar threads
