Just What Was Up With The Treatment of Travis Mayweather?

[sonak]

It's no secret that the character of Mayweather wasn't treated very well. He became little more than a glorified extra at times, his role much like those rotating bridge ensigns in the middle of TNG's run, where they'd get a few lines of plot-functional dialogue in an episode and that's it. IMHO,he was the least developed of any regular character in Star Trek history, with the possible exception of the non-Big Three characters in TOS.


In an age of heightened sensitivity on matters of race, gender, ethnicity, etc. this situation was made more awkward by the fact that Mayweather was the only Black character on the show. When the issue of "tokenism" in casting is a much-discussed one, this character is almost a caricature of the way it could play out.

My question is why? On this message board, members often bring up behind the scenes info which I'd never heard before. Is there some kind of info like that on this issues? Did the writers just think Anthony Montgomery wasn't a very good actor and wouldn't be able to handle a larger role?

the character seemed likable enough when he got screen time, plus he had one of the character and family backgrounds which would have given him more potential. Yet he just got lost in the background.

 

[Admiral Shran]

I don't know the behind the scenes stuff, so this is pure guesswork....

My guess is that when the powers that be decided to focus on the Big Three (Archer, T'Pol, Trip) like TOS had done, the other characters were simply left in a lurch.

They were able to come up with at least a few interesting stories for everyone else, here and here. However, with the vast amount of attention going to the Big Three, the other characters had to be economized. With the little amount of attention left over, Phlox got the most development, Hoshi got the next largest amount and Reed got the next largest. That left Mayweather, who they did give some episodes to, with the least available screen time that could be devoted to him.

I doubt racism had anything to do with it.

 

[sonak]

I don't know the behind the scenes stuff, so this is pure guesswork....

My guess is that when the powers that be decided to focus on the Big Three (Archer, T'Pol, Trip) like TOS had done, the other characters were simply left in a lurch.

They were able to come up with at least a few interesting stories for everyone else, here and here. However, with the vast amount of attention going to the Big Three, the other characters had to be economized. With the little amount of attention left over, Phlox got the most development, Hoshi got the next largest amount and Reed got the next largest. That left Mayweather, who they did give some episodes to, with the least available screen time that could be devoted to him.

I doubt racism had anything to do with it.

just to clarify, I wasn't saying racism had anything to do with it. There have been other Black characters in Trek that've gotten pretty good development.

I was saying the issue of race just made it a little more awkward.

 

[Mach5]

I remember reading a quote from Berman (or was it Braga?), saying something like: "he's a helmsman, what the hell was he supposed to do anyway?"

Yeah, Tom Paris was a glorified extra too, wasn't he?

 

[Nerys Myk]

Montgomery wasn't a very dynamic/interesting actor. I think writers tend to gravitate towards actors (and the characters they play) who give them something to play with.

 

[JiNX-01]

I remember reading a quote from Berman (or was it Braga?), saying something like: "he's a helmsman, what the hell was he supposed to do anyway?"

Exactly. They could have saved a lot of money by just having an "extra of the week" sitting at the helm (just like on TNG.

I think Travis should have been security chief. Anthony certainly had the bod for it.

 

[jerriecan]

The character was just so... dull. I would have thought the Boomers would have been the first to bend or break the rules - that's how they survived alone in the deep black, by doing what they had to. He should have known the regions, the hazards, the shortcuts, not just the sweet spot with no gravity. He should have been a valuable source of experience. Instead, Travis was just... there.

 

[JiNX-01]

The character was just so... dull. I would have thought the Boomers would have been the first to bend or break the rules - that's how they survived alone in the deep black, by doing what they had to. He should have known the regions, the hazards, the shortcuts, not just the sweet spot with no gravity. He should have been a valuable source of experience. Instead, Travis was just... there.

Boomers were the space-based version of the pioneers of the old West, surviving largely on their own and having their own code. for survival. Travis really should have been written as a lot more interesting than what we got.

 

[Skywalker]

Yeah, Tom Paris was a glorified extra too, wasn't he?

But they gave Paris a lot more to do than just helmsman stuff. He was the Doctor's assistant in sickbay, he had his Captain Proton adventures on the holodeck, his relationship with B'Elanna, etc. It also helped that Robert Duncan McNeill had a lot more charisma than Anthony Montgomery, which endeared his character to fans and made the writers want to give him more to do.

 

[T'Girl]

... to bend or break the rules - that's how they survived alone in the deep black, by doing what they had to. He should have known the regions, the hazards, the shortcuts ...

Similar to Neelix maybe?

 

[jerriecan]

... to bend or break the rules - that's how they survived alone in the deep black, by doing what they had to. He should have known the regions, the hazards, the shortcuts ...

Similar to Neelix maybe?

Similar in concept, maybe, but not in execution. Neelix was like a tour guide - all happy and perky. I think Travis should have been more like an Old West scout - experienced, world-wise, cautious when necessary. Less concerned with protocol and more with pragmatism. And a scout-type character would have fit very well with the exploration theme of the series.

 

[Gaith]

My best (yet totally uninformed guess) is that Montgomery was cast in a hurry for his good looks and ethnicity. By the time TPTB/the writers realized that he'd flunked out of the Keanu Reeves Academy for Blankless, he was already cast and a series regular. They didn't want to kill the character because they didn't want to fall into the "black guy dies first" trope, and also because they had no guts. They didn't want to kill him second because they liked everyone else, and had no guts besides.

So they stuck him there, gave him an ep now and then (mainly "then"), and he was lame.

Boomers were the space-based version of the pioneers of the old West, surviving largely on their own and having their own code. for survival. Travis really should have been written as a lot more interesting than what we got.

And yet, as Richard Whettstone notes,

I thought we were exploring new worlds? The Enterprise Bible clearly says:

Ensign Travis Mayweather: A unique product of 22nd Century life, Mayweather was raised on interstellar cargo ships much slower in speed than the Enterprise. As a result Travis is more "interstellar" than even the Captain. He's traveled to dozens of planets and met many different alien species. This, combined with the fact Mayweather has already been to the Rigel Ten Trade Complex before, clearly shows that space has been within our reach for awhile now.
​

If Ensign Mayweather could have been born out in space as even his parents were traveling through all these years, then why was Archer so obsessed with trying to take the hard way (if it was such a limit, what stopped the Mayweather family?), and how could the Vulcans have been limiting the humans in their space exploration when even Mayweather has already been there? And with people like the Mayweathers, wouldn't Starfleet or the Earth governments send out people to try to obtain more advanced technology from other races since the Vulcans were intentionally holding them back? We can't explore new worlds if other people have already been there, especially Mayweather with his little quips like "I've been here before. Nice people". Isn't the phrase "To boldly go where NO ONE has gone before"? Since when is space exploration now summed up with "To boldly go where Mayweather, his parents, and other people like him have gone before while Archer sat at home and bitched about the Vulcans."

​

A poorly conceived character with even worse casting.

 

[C.E. Evans]

The character was gutted when Montgomery got the part. Initially he was supposed to be a slighly older character named "Lieutenant Joe Mayweather," who was best friends with "Spike" (later known as Trip) and knew how to have fun when off-duty. His past experience with numerous alien races as a Boomer didn't make him a walking encyclopedia, but it did give him more "street instincts" when dealing with new aliens than anyone else on the ship.

"Ensign Travis Mayweather," however, well...

Sad thing is that I've seen Anthony Montgomery in other productions (most recently VH1's Single Ladies where he was hilarious), and while I won't say he's a great actor, I will say he was capable of doing more than what he was given to do on ENT. I think he does "angry" better than Bakula does, IMO.

 

[Skywalker]

A poorly conceived character with even worse casting.

The character was not poorly conceived (though I totally agree that he was terribly cast). What was poorly conceived was humanity's lack of progress by the 2150s. How does that make any sense? Earth didn't need the Vulcans' help to crack the warp barrier, so why would it have needed the Vulcans to develop beyond that? It was ridiculous that (supposedly) no other human crossed the Warp 2 threshold until the 2140s. Warp 3 should have been routine by 2120.

 

[Gaith]

A poorly conceived character with even worse casting.

The character was not poorly conceived (though I totally agree that he was terribly cast). What was poorly conceived was humanity's lack of progress by the 2150s.

A very convincing argument, and I did mean the character was poorly conceived within the series' basic framework. But if we say that humans should have been more developed, we start to run up against the great paradox of Trek, don't we? Namely, that if humanity is new to the space scene, and all these other races have been running around for centuries at least, how do they come to dominate the ranks of the UFP as greatly as they do by Kirk's time? I see the Vulcan antagonism angle of ENT as a way of getting around this question, as I'm not sure that any head-on answer could be satisfactory, but that doesn't mean that it really works, either.


Edit: Now, maybe if the series had expanded upon the Romulan war or something as a massive intergalactic cataclysm devastated all sorts of non-human races, thus allowing for their unlikely ascendancy, that might have been something - a truly bold retcon that nevertheless fit into the larger history, and thus really justified the series' existence. But after seeing "The Xindi", that sort of imaginative leap seems to have been utterly beyond TPTB.

 

[bluedana]

The commentary for Similitude by Manny Coto suggests that the dialogue for Star Trek series is really difficult to write. It's more formal speech than in other shows, and hard to capture without sounding stilted. Having seen Montgomery in I'm Through With White Girls, which is hilarious, I think his acting style and delivery was too contemporary to carry the way the character is supposed to speak.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

That's interesting bluedana.

I think his looks were very bland too, he just looked like a wide-eyed boy in his face. Very little expression. Despite having a really incredible body you don't see him much in the old chest threads, nor does he have his own OMG I LOVE HIM thread like Trip and Archer end up with. There just isn't enough personality there to work up any fannish attractions.

 

[T'Girl]

I think his looks were ...

Maybe they should have figured a way for him to take his shirt off in every episode.

Would that have helped?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I think his looks were ...

Maybe they should have figured a way for him to take his shirt off in every episode.

Would that have helped?

No. As the rest of my post said having a great chest does nothing if you have no personality.

 

[JiNX-01]

As the rest of my post said having a great chest does nothing if you have no personality.

That's the sad part. Anthony actually has a great personality.