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Happy Birthday jennifer Lien!

I did a google news check on Jennifer just to make sure that she was on the straight and narrow.

Some weird hick up said that a ten year old article about "the incident" was only from 23 hours ago and that she had flashed more children.
 
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the last news i heard
come from a strange jennifer liens facebook page

there someone claims that jennifer was arrested again at the end of last year (about 10 months ago) for public intoxication
but the person did not provide any evidence.

(in the voyager documentary thread someone said that producer Lolita Fatjo said that an interview with jennifer lien was not possible.
that would fit, because it wasn't said that she said no)
 
the last news i heard
come from a strange jennifer liens facebook page

there someone claims that jennifer was arrested again at the end of last year (about 10 months ago) for public intoxication
but the person did not provide any evidence.

(in the voyager documentary thread someone said that producer Lolita Fatjo said that an interview with jennifer lien was not possible.
that would fit, because it wasn't said that she said no)
Let us hope that it's only rumors.
 
The public nudity charges were apparently dropped, for what it's worth.
It's not a great story.

The neighbours kid would not stop screaming.

Jennifer had some advice for her neighbour.

Sensing she was losing the argument, Jennifer disrobed.

The children were possibly not her target, but they were near enough.

Hours later, still naked, watching TV, Johnny law had a dickens of a time getting her into their cruiser.

Couldn't afford bail or didn't want bail, she spent months in county wanting for her court date.

If you apologize and agree on a sum of money to change hands with your victims, which is the custom in the boondocks, all charges are dropped.
 
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Kes was my least favorite character in VOY and I'm very grateful 7/9 replaced her but I really liked her performance in the episode when she was posessed by an evil warlord.

AFAIK she is great
 
Let us hope that it's only rumors.
I don't scrutinize stories closely or often, but when doing a pretty throughgoing search recently, in advance of sending Ms. Lien a card for the occasion, I found nothing even suggesting she's been involved in any contact with law enforcement since the 2018 incidents. She appears to still live in the same place as has been the case for some years.

Like you, and undoubtedly so many other folks, I can only hope her situation is stable and she is able to find some measure of satisfaction in her life.
 
Kes was my least favorite character in VOY and I'm very grateful 7/9 replaced her but I really liked her performance in the episode when she was posessed by an evil warlord.

AFAIK she is great
According to the account provided in the Voyager Celebration book, published about 4 years ago, Ryan's addition to the cast long preceded the final determination to terminate Lien and in no way can be considered to have been done as a replacement.

Given the sources cited had no reason to have commented on the matter whatsoever, other than to finally set the record straight after well over two decades, I find the explanation to be a very convincing one. One can probably still pull up the pertinent section of the book online if so inclined.
 
It's not a great story.

The neighbours kid would not stop screaming.

Jennifer had some advice for her neighbour.

Sensing she was losing the argument, Jennifer disrobed.

The children were possibly not her target, but they were near enough.

Hours later, still naked, watching TV, Johnny law had a dickens of a time getting her into their cruiser.

Couldn't afford bail or didn't want bail, she spent months in county wanting for her court date.

If you apologize and agree on a sum of money to change hands with your victims, which is the custom in the boondocks, all charges are dropped.
It's ancient history, but IIRC, at least part of the lengthy interval between being charged and the case's final disposition, found Lien spending time in a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and treatment, so she wasn't continually in the hoosegow for an extended period, FWIW.
 
According to the account provided in the Voyager Celebration book, published about 4 years ago, Ryan's addition to the cast long preceded the final determination to terminate Lien and in no way can be considered to have been done as a replacement.

Given the sources cited had no reason to have commented on the matter whatsoever, other than to finally set the record straight after well over two decades, I find the explanation to be a very convincing one. One can probably still pull up the pertinent section of the book online if so inclined.

They wanted to fire Wang.

He was a drunk who could not remember his lines, and did not know when the work day started.

Wang was out and Ryan was in.

Then Wang was declared one of the 50 sexiest people in the world by People Magazine, so Paramount told the Voyager Producers that they were not allowed to fire Wang.

Too much cast, not enough money.

Second choice to shit can was Jennifer.

Point is that if they could have fired Wang, Jennifer would have been fine. If Wang could remember his lines, they wouldn't have hired Ryan and Jennifer would have been fine.

Blame Wang.
 
the last news i heard
come from a strange jennifer liens facebook page

there someone claims that jennifer was arrested again at the end of last year (about 10 months ago) for public intoxication
but the person did not provide any evidence.

(in the voyager documentary thread someone said that producer Lolita Fatjo said that an interview with jennifer lien was not possible.
that would fit, because it wasn't said that she said no)
I'd imagine aside from practical or logistical issues, Lien simply is highly unlikely to wish to revisit that period of her life in any forum, basically making her potential availability a moot point.
 
They wanted to fire Wang.

He was a drunk who could not remember his lines, and did not know when the work day started.

Wang was out and Ryan was in.

Then Wang was declared one of the 50 sexiest people in the world by People Magazine, so Paramount told the Voyager Producers that they were not allowed to fire Wang.

Too much cast, not enough money.

Second choice to shit can was Jennifer.

Point is that if they could have fired Wang, Jennifer would have been fine. If Wang could remember his lines, they wouldn't have hired Ryan and Jennifer would have been fine.

Blame Wang.
So, by virtue of your sticking with that long accepted explanation (which certainly seemed plausible), you reject the account presented in the book, which quoted Jeri Taylor and cast members not heard from before regarding the matter? If so, why?

While it sounds like it would've made sense, there seems to be no firm basis to accept a truly pressing financial need existed to pare the cast payroll. Also, Wang has denied the whole People Magazine rationale rabbit hole, though I suppose one can argue he might well be inclined to retroactively remove himself from ever having been on the precipice of being terminated, even if he's owned up to his irresponsible behavior back then

I don't think it's a stretch to believe both Wang and Lien were concurrently on thin ice for reasons fully unrelated to any supposed budgetary pressures. The latter's unwillingness to accept help for her behavioral challenges (or apparently, being unwilling to even address them), seems to have left the showrunners with no option other than to sever her employment, even after the 4th season's production schedule got under way. Perhaps, Wang sufficiently got on the straight and narrow by then, allowing the show being spared from facing the scenario of axing TWO regulars in short order.

It's nice to interact with you, even briefly, after all these years!!!
 
The book says she had mental problems, which is why she was picked second, but Wang was a dick who got on their tits, so he was picked first.

Quiet problem vs. Loud problem.

I read an article where he admitted that People Magazine saved him.

And as far as the book goes, I really don't trust these people to tell the whole truth, because they are still protecting friendships, even if it is unlikely that any one is going to sue any one at this late date, unless what really happened is too much for us wee pearl clutchers.
 
The thread has drifted off course and I’m partly to blame. Maybe Jennifer Lien/Garrett Wang and the thin ice both stood on are better placed in another discussion?

Regardless, happy birthday Ms. Lien. I enjoyed and still enjoy your character.
 
So, by virtue of your sticking with that long accepted explanation (which certainly seemed plausible), you reject the account presented in the book, which quoted Jeri Taylor and cast members not heard from before regarding the matter? If so, why?

While it sounds like it would've made sense, there seems to be no firm basis to accept a truly pressing financial need existed to pare the cast payroll. Also, Wang has denied the whole People Magazine rationale rabbit hole, though I suppose one can argue he might well be inclined to retroactively remove himself from ever having been on the precipice of being terminated, even if he's owned up to his irresponsible behavior back then

I don't think it's a stretch to believe both Wang and Lien were concurrently on thin ice for reasons fully unrelated to any supposed budgetary pressures. The latter's unwillingness to accept help for her behavioral challenges (or apparently, being unwilling to even address them), seems to have left the showrunners with no option other than to sever her employment, even after the 4th season's production schedule got under way. Perhaps, Wang sufficiently got on the straight and narrow by then, allowing the show being spared from facing the scenario of axing TWO regulars in short order.

It's nice to interact with you, even briefly, after all these years!!!
I must admit that I do have my doubts about "the accounts written in the book" for reasons stated below.

I wrote a post about it about a year ago and I'll quote it here:

With the "Celebration book", we finally have the true story why Jennifer Lien was fired and the character Kes was dumped……………..or have we?

Let’s take it from the beginning. In the beginning of season 4, Kes is suddenly dumped from the show. After three years of good performances in the series, Kes have an important role in the cliffhanger “Scorpion” and then she is suddenly written out of the series in the following episode, a badly written one which seems to have been made in a rush, only to get rid of the character as soon as possible..

The official explanation was that “Jennifer Lien left of her own free will”. Nothing more, no comment from Jennifer herself, nothing.

Of course, such a lousy explanation didn’t go down among the fans. Almost immediately rumors started to spread that Jennifer Lien had been fired. So those in charge came up with a new version.

This time we were told that “the writers could no longer come up with good stories for the character” and that Jennifer had to go and that it was a “mutual agreement”. Now, everyone with the slightest knowledge of the entertainment business knows that “mutual agreement” means “fired” and that there is foul play involved.

To come up with something so silly that experienced writers after three years of coming up with many good stories for a character all of a sudden lose the ability to continue with that is downright insulting to the fans and, as expected weren’t accepted either. Instead there were more rumors spreading about what really happened.

What happened next was that those in charge of the show did all they could to erase all memories of the character. She was never mentioned in the series again and all focus was on her successor Seven Of Nine until those in charge decided to bring back the character with the one and only intention to ruin and destroy the character in an episode which is regarded as one of the worst ever in any TV series and honestly never should have been made.

And now, more than 20 years later we get this new and final statement that Jennifer Lien was fired and Kes written out because of Jennifer Lien’s increasing mental problems.

Can we really assume that this is the absolute truth or is it just an attempt to use Jennifer Lien’s recent problems as an excuse to justify that she was fired from Star trek Voyager back then?

Personally I do have some problems with this. They have lied about this twice so how do we know that they are not lying again and using recent sad events to make up another story which will make them look all innocent?

Note that Jennifer wasn’t put in some institution back then or inactive in any way. She had an important role in “American History X” and were also in a movie called “SLC Punk”, she got married, had a child, continued to participate at conventions, studied art and had what looks like a normal life. In an article at startrek.com called “catching up with Jennifer Lien” in 2010 she seems to have a normal, happy life. In the article she stated that: "I have kids, I study, and I'm active with a life that doesn't involve acting anymore." She added that she was taking college courses with the goal of becoming a nurse, dietician, or nutritionist — whatever would give her the most time with her family.

Then everything went quiet until she all of a sudden shows up in Harriman, Tennessee and having trouble with the law.

The only disturbing thing I noticed during those years were her sudden weight gain, which may have been a result of her earlier pregnancy and the following struggle with that but also may have been the result of mental problems. She lost weight then gained weight again and so on. But that can happen to anyone. However, I’m not a doctor and I don’t know Jennifer so I won’t speculate about what might have happened which caused that or triggered recent events.

But let us now be kind to those in charge of the show and assume that their latest statements actually are the truth and nothing but the truth. If that’s so, then I still have to ask: Why didn’t they tell the truth from the beginning?

OK, I can truly understand that they couldn’t or wouldn't come up with a statement like “Jennifer is having mental problems and we can’t keep her in the show”. But they could at least have come up with something like “Jennifer Lien is finding the filming schedule and the long days of work too stressful and will therefore leave to focus on other projects”. That, added with some comment from Jennifer herself or her management would have settled the whole thing.

Instead, they came up with all those ridiculous lies about writers not being able to do their job, mutual agreements and on top of all the constant BS about how good it was to get rid of Kes so that the show could have Seven Of Nine instead and how Seven saved the show.

What all that did was to create more rumors, more distrust and more controversy. I must admit that if they had bothered to come up with a decent explanation from the beginning, I would have accepted that instead of becoming so involved in this thing and acting the way I did back then.

However, I wasn’t the only one to react that way. There were letter campaigns to have Kes back and a lot of questions from more people than me. However I may have been the worst one which I have realized in recent years and isn’t too proud about.

But I must also state that a glimpse of the old, angry Lynx actually did show up when I read the statement from Jeri Taylor about “We knew that there was something going on,” Taylor admitted. “But she wouldn’t talk or let us offer to help.”

Well, I can understand that it can be impossible to have a very troubled person in the cast. I know about rock musicians who have been kicked out of their bands for less worse things. So I understand that there might have been necessary to do what they did, if the recent story tells the truth. But what they did after that was to more and less to try to erase the character from everyone’s minds and by doing so disregard and neglect Jennifer‘s work on the show, then bring her back to make a fool of herself in the worst episode ever made for a TV show and then more and less pretend that she never existed. With “friends” and “help” like that, she probably doesn’t need any enemies.


Anyway, what has happened to Jennifer Lien is a sad and tragic story. I’ve experienced a similar thing happen to a person who was very close to me once and this whole Kes/Jennifer thing has for me been to experience the nightmare once again.

It’s so tragic that an obviously nice and shy person and a talented actress should end up the way she has done. We can only hope and pray that she can get her life back in order. The support from family and friends are important but she also need inner strength and determination to overcome this. Let us hope and pray for the best.

Let us also hope that Jennifer will have more credit for her contributions to the series than she has had in the recent years after her dismissal from Voyager and that the character Kes will be restored in future books and stories. That would be a nice tribute to Jennifer as well."


The thread has drifted off course and I’m partly to blame. Maybe Jennifer Lien/Garrett Wang and the thin ice both stood on are better placed in another discussion?

Regardless, happy birthday Ms. Lien. I enjoyed and still enjoy your character.

Unfortunately it has, but you're not the only one to blame.

It looks like these issues always will come up when Jennifer Lien and/or Kes is mentioned. And who am I to complain and accuse anyone when I have contributed to it myself?

But since "the recent information in the book" was brought up, I just had to add my thoughts about it.

Anyway, whatever has happened and has been I guess that we all want the best for Jennifer and wish her a happy birthday, a good life and more credit for her contributions to Voyager. Maybe a rectification for the character Kes too.
 
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