I kind of like Pilot Neelix

[CharlesPhipps]

He's a lying scheming piece of crap and clearly a smuggler/criminal of some kind.

It's only afterward he's suddenly a lovable goofball and the ship's cook.

What if VOY had kept him as a Quark like figure or Doctor Smith, always running side hustles and con games.

I think the show would have been very improved.

[clearspira]

Even just after the Pilot we still had a nice combination of the two. In The Cloud he was there criticising Janeway's dumb decisions to fly into the cloud in the first place.

I stick by my opinion that the Pilot is one of the best episodes of Voyager there is. Every character has more nuance than they would have later on.

[McAvoy]

He's a lying scheming piece of crap and clearly a smuggler/criminal of some kind.

It's only afterward he's suddenly a lovable goofball and the ship's cook.

What if VOY had kept him as a Quark like figure or Doctor Smith, always running side hustles and con games.

I think the show would have been very improved.

Well like everything about Voyager they dropped anything that would have truly set it apart after the first few episodes. Having a someone like Neelix as presented in Caretaker was one of those.

His character though would have been difficult to write as originally intended. Straddling the line between untrustworthy and truth worthy. Stray too far and Neelix could have easily been left behind and even made unlikable (for different reasons) by the audience because of his loyalty to the crew.

Probably could have done I think if they had better writers. Like those on DS9 when scripts were being done for Quark and Garak.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think they would have to affect the idealism of VOY by having someone like "Bastard Neelix" actually have some sort of use. Like, his contacts in the Underworld and wheeler-dealing helps the ship in unpleasant situations.

Weirdly, the best example I can think of being Rygell from Farscape.

He's a pompous fool but very useful at times because, yes, he's GOOD at what he does.

[stryke]

I think the problem is they didn't trust the audience to have respect for their first female captain if she got too much pushback. That's what neutered the maquis, neutered Neelix, and meant they couldn't be properly confrontational to Janeway's authority.

[CharlesPhipps]

I think the problem is they didn't trust the audience to have respect for their first female captain if she got too much pushback. That's what neutered the maquis, neutered Neelix, and meant they couldn't be properly confrontational to Janeway's authority.

Which shows the writers didn't believe in their female captain.

Mind you, Jeri Taylor said Janeway had no flaws so....yeah, some weird vibes there.

[McAvoy]

I think the problem is they didn't trust the audience to have respect for their first female captain if she got too much pushback. That's what neutered the maquis, neutered Neelix, and meant they couldn't be properly confrontational to Janeway's authority.

Which shows the writers didn't believe in their female captain.

Mind you, Jeri Taylor said Janeway had no flaws so....yeah, some weird vibes there.

Well Jeri Taylor tended to write Janeeay like a fanfiction character in her own image, almost like a Mary Sue.

One of many issues is that they were all over the place when it came to Janeway which is why we got the SFDebris Janeway. They just couldn't nail her character down to the point where she is at least consistent with each writer. But that applies to everyone on the show really.

[CharlesPhipps]

Well Jeri Taylor tended to write Janeeay like a fanfiction character in her own image, almost like a Mary Sue.

One of many issues is that they were all over the place when it came to Janeway which is why we got the SFDebris Janeway. They just couldn't nail her character down to the point where she is at least consistent with each writer. But that applies to everyone on the show really.

Yeah, I introduced my wife to Trek with TNG and then DS9. She also loves Lower Decks and SNW.

We're trying to watch VOY now.

Oof.

[Nealithi]

He's a lying scheming piece of crap and clearly a smuggler/criminal of some kind.

It's only afterward he's suddenly a lovable goofball and the ship's cook.

What if VOY had kept him as a Quark like figure or Doctor Smith, always running side hustles and con games.

I think the show would have been very improved.

He was a salvager and conman, I didn't get 'criminal' out of him. He was not smooth like a Han Solo. He was a junkyard guy. He could have been using his ship for many of the trade deals Voyager needed to keep running. And had many of them on screen instead of off, like his trading for cheese, etc. Neelix in the Void (I think that was the episode name) was what he should have been. An ally that was loyal to the crew because they were loyal to him.

One of the good scenes in the show was with another talaxian who asked why Neelix tried so hard with the Voyager crew. Neelix wanted to not be left behind. His incompetencies were him trying to do everything even if he wasn't great at it.

That I think would have had him adding his own personal subplot to the show.

[clearspira]

I think the problem is they didn't trust the audience to have respect for their first female captain if she got too much pushback. That's what neutered the maquis, neutered Neelix, and meant they couldn't be properly confrontational to Janeway's authority.

Which shows the writers didn't believe in their female captain.

Mind you, Jeri Taylor said Janeway had no flaws so....yeah, some weird vibes there.

Well Jeri Taylor tended to write Janeeay like a fanfiction character in her own image, almost like a Mary Sue.

One of many issues is that they were all over the place when it came to Janeway which is why we got the SFDebris Janeway. They just couldn't nail her character down to the point where she is at least consistent with each writer. But that applies to everyone on the show really.

It says a lot that even Kate Mulgrew thought that Janeway was bipolar.

Its like Chuck said, their mistake was writing the WOMAN captain as opposed to the captain who happens to be a woman. It is a mistake that is still routinely made today. Ellen Ripley for example is a part written for a man and it shows in that she is just another member of the crew. When the crew had a go at Ripley for following procedure by stopping an infected person board the ship, there was no sense that sexism was behind it, it was just raw emotion.