VOY: Someone To Watch Over Me

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The thing about VOYAGER is that because the ship is so small and that there’s no transfers going on, you’d assume we get more recurring characters a lot more than previous shows. But that never really happened, because the writers didn’t care about their show anyway.

We both said that the ship is very small to substantiate our point. Can you give an instance that a small ship would mean more recurring characters? What do you mean by no transfers?

Not sufficient because the writers don't care isn't very descriptive.

[clearspira]

The thing about VOYAGER is that because the ship is so small and that there’s no transfers going on, you’d assume we get more recurring characters a lot more than previous shows. But that never really happened, because the writers didn’t care about their show anyway.

We both said that the ship is very small to substantiate our point. Can you give an instance that a small ship would mean more recurring characters? What do you mean by no transfers?

Not sufficient because the writers don't care isn't very descriptive.

1) A ship of 150 people compared to a ship of 1000 should have more recurring faces.
2) In real life, crew members are transferred from other ships all the time. The D is a ship of 1000 cycling faces. Voyager cannot do that, they are stuck with the same people until they get home.

[bronnt]

On TNG, we had 9 main characters (including Wesley, 10 if you include Tasha). We also still managed to get to know non-main cast members like O'Brien, Keiko, Guinan, Ogawa, Ro Laren, and Barclay. All of them were very memorable, either getting their own featured episodes or having important roles in big episodes. Somehow, on a ship with a thousand crew, we had time to learn about these, in addition to a few other smaller characters.

On Voyager, we also had 10 main cast members (counting both Seven and Kes, but not at the same time), and a small list of recurring characters. The most common recurring character was Lieutenant Extra Man, who spoke maybe 3 lines in the entire series run so he got to be named eventually (Lieutenant Ayala).

So what do we get for memorable B-cast members? Icheb, Seska, and Naomi Wildman. Seska was dead at the start of season 3, Icheb didn't join the crew until season 6, and Naomi doesn't really become a character until season 4. Ensign Vorik was boring as hell but did get one episode focused on him. I honestly can't tell you anything memorable about Samantha Wildman that isn't related to the extremely long pregnancy and her daughter. Reginald Barclay gets more character development on Voyager than most of the Voyager B-cast.

What happened to all those characters from Learning Curve? I think Chell is the only one who was ever mentioned again. What about the characters from Good Shepard? Only one of those seemed to ever show up in another episode. We get to see more of Dr. Chaotica than we do Lieutenant Baxter.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Fair points really. Though with a smaller ship I still think there would be less story with side characters unless woven into a soap opera format, which is what they did with Tores and Paris.

[jstrahan]

I have found, over the years, that a charge of racism is often used to stifle or end debate, even though no actual racism was involved. It's like a Godwin's Law for discussion and arguments, only replace "You're a Nazi" with "You're a racist".

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Agree to disagree.

[FaxModem1]

Fair points really. Though with a smaller ship I still think there would be less story with side characters unless woven into a soap opera format, which is what they did with Tores and Paris.

That's not a bad thing, if handled well. Lt. David Corwin, the CnC officer who is Ivanova's subordinate could have been played by anyone, and replaced with a bit actor each week(heck, in the pilot, we see a young Mr. Morden in the role). But seeing that one guy consistently made him feel like a real character, and made CnC feel more like a real work environment. What do we know about the guy? He's physically attractive, hates being the center of attention, is scared to death of Ivanova, loves Reebo and Zooty, and owns a love bat for therapy purposes. Not exactly a well laid down character, but enough to where we see him as a nice guy who is a bit of a dork.

As a counter-example, what exactly happened to Lou Welch from Babylon 5? David L. Crowley(Lou Welch's actor) left the show. That can be a problem. But, at the same time, B5 felt enough to feel like a community with recurring subordinate characters.

It also gives the show a chance, if a main character isn't working out, to add someone the audience likes to the main cast or have the track laid down for bringing in a new main cast character. Nog, on DS9, was always a guest character, but by season 6, he was pretty much a main character in all but name, same for Garak.

On Voyager, not including later additions like Naomi or Icheb and the rest of the Borg Children, we have Carey(who disappeared for years), Vorik, Suder, Samantha Wildman. Vorik is Torres's constant subordinate, we always saw him after Carey got lost in the hallways for 5 years. Being the producer's son helped, I'm sure. Suder was another example, although unintentional, in that they forgot about the fact that they had a psychotic killer onboard and realized that they needed to deal with him. But he was interesting enough that the show was richer with him around dramatically. And Samantha kind of disappeared after her dramatic shuttle crash in season 5. It made you wonder if Chuck is right and she did die, and Neelix and Seven really are the ones looking after her now. That's jarring, seeing her occasionally on one mission or another would have helped.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Fair points really. Though with a smaller ship I still think there would be less story with side characters unless woven into a soap opera format, which is what they did with Tores and Paris.

That's not a bad thing, if handled well. Lt. David Corwin, the CnC officer who is Ivanova's subordinate could have been played by anyone, and replaced with a bit actor each week(heck, in the pilot, we see a young Mr. Morden in the role). But seeing that one guy consistently made him feel like a real character, and made CnC feel more like a real work environment. What do we know about the guy? He's physically attractive, hates being the center of attention, is scared to death of Ivanova, loves Reebo and Zooty, and owns a love bat for therapy purposes. Not exactly a well laid down character, but enough to where we see him as a nice guy who is a bit of a dork.

As a counter-example, what exactly happened to Lou Welch from Babylon 5? David L. Crowley(Lou Welch's actor) left the show. That can be a problem. But, at the same time, B5 felt enough to feel like a community with recurring subordinate characters.

It also gives the show a chance, if a main character isn't working out, to add someone the audience likes to the main cast or have the track laid down for bringing in a new main cast character. Nog, on DS9, was always a guest character, but by season 6, he was pretty much a main character in all but name, same for Garak.

On Voyager, not including later additions like Naomi or Icheb and the rest of the Borg Children, we have Carey(who disappeared for years), Vorik, Suder, Samantha Wildman. Vorik is Torres's constant subordinate, we always saw him after Carey got lost in the hallways for 5 years. Being the producer's son helped, I'm sure. Suder was another example, although unintentional, in that they forgot about the fact that they had a psychotic killer onboard and realized that they needed to deal with him. But he was interesting enough that the show was richer with him around dramatically. And Samantha kind of disappeared after her dramatic shuttle crash in season 5. It made you wonder if Chuck is right and she did die, and Neelix and Seven really are the ones looking after her now. That's jarring, seeing her occasionally on one mission or another would have helped.

Sure there's a window for anything. They coulda probably made it work. I just don't think the premise called for it as much, or at least in the same fashion. The ship is small enough so that the leg room of the several characters focused on in the episode cover it easily. Recurring characters would just be run into all the time and it's less of a happenstance.


I don't know though it's weird. Samantha Wildman gets like two scenes in the entire series, and it's like "where the hell is she hiding all the time?" Also, I sort of imagine that the Maquis as a collective would make for a claustrophobic situation if they were a regular issue, but I'm glad to hear ideas with them.

[Makeshift Python]

Lt. Carey's disappearance was the strangest. It seemed like he was going to develop into a recurring character looking back at the first season. However, after "State of Flux" his next appearances were usually in time travel episodes set in the past. I have to wonder if the writers somehow mistakenly thought Carey got killed off, probably mixing him up with Lt. Hogan. Once they realized he wasn't killed off, they brought him back very late into season 7's "Frendship One", only to arbitrarily kill him off.

[Yukaphile]

Probably Carey became Hogan.