Hoshi and Shran are my faves. Shran should've been a regular, kind of like how Farscape made the evil Scorpius a regular. (Where is the Andorian smiley when you need it?) -- RR
I know there was a heavily mixed opinion on Shran joining the cast in Season 5, but I agree Red Ranger, I would have loved to have seen Jeff Combs as a regular. I always particularly enjoyed those episodes he was a part of. I felt they really paid special attention to how they visually shot the character and Jeff always received the benefit of some of the best (not-so) subtle EFX work with the antennae in ENT. The "swirling" of his antennae when he took a swig of Romulan ale sitting at the table with Archer in "Proving Ground" was priceless. :-)
In that case, for a crew of 80 it would have been Captain Archer Commander T'pol Commander Tucker Commander Shran Why not throw in an admiral too lol
Agreed on having too many chiefs. The only thing I can say, and it's only slightly related, was Enterprise was a ship that was obviously a black hole for promotions. At least 3 people made it to commander somehow, even if two were by default, their ranks achieved and carried over out of respect from their own previous service fleets. Tucker was the only home-bread Commander of the bunch. But still, when you consider a then 8 person regular cast, and 4 were of that high a rank - you're absolutely right, it doesn't work out. And as much as I do like Shran, and stand by my statement that I would've liked to have seen him as a regular, that would've been a mighty tricky fit, and an extremely contrived chunk of writing is handled inappropriately (being made to fit in on the Enterprise bridge with the rest of the regulars. There's no way I can see Shran sitting a Reed-type console providing sensor analysis, etc.) --- rhodeschroma
Shran could have been a regular, but perhaps not on Enterprise all the time. He could have been given a part-time exchange assignment on the ship but would return to his own Imperial Guard vessel from time to time to supervise his own missions.
I completely agree. I think too there should have been a very good reason for him being on Enterprise, a reason that benefitted his people. Cultural exchange would not be a good reason given that Andorrians were not overly interested in such things. Otherwise it would have been forced and odd. Also I would have liked it if there had been a cloud of suspicion as to his motives surrounding him while he was stationed on Enterprise. Just integrating him into the crew would have sucked.