..and how she exemplifies everything wrong with voyager
This is my first post in this forum and so I'll start off by introducing myself. I was born in 1973 and grew up watching TOS on Saturday nights in the late 70's and 80's. I saw all the original ST movies when they were first released and watched TNG and DS9 on their first run. Just about all my family and friends were Star Trek fans to varying degrees and so it was just part of the culture in which I grew up in.
This post was inspired by both some recent conversations I've had with other 'old school' Trek fans from work and by a previous post (dating back to 2017) I happen to come across on this forum where someone offered their theory on why Kes wasn't a beloved ST character. The poster seemed to like the character and clearly had no idea whatsoever why most people rejected her. As such, their theory on why Kes was/is rejected (some nonsense about sci-fi fans not liking certain types of innocent or girl next door type characters) missed the mark by a country mile.
As one that did reject the character and who has heard their opinion echoed by many, many others, I think I can offer a much better explanation.
To get it out of the way, the reason that people rejected the Kes character had nothing whatsoever to do with performance of the actress, Jennifer Lien. Opinions of Lien range the entire spectrum. I happen to like Lien's performance. I never found her to be unpleasant in the least. If you don't like Lien, you can substitute in any actress you want. It doesn't matter. The problem is with the character. Lien just had the misfortune of being cast to play a character that couldn't work no matter who played her.
Voyager was, from its debut onward, the black sheep of that era of the ST family. It was the first ST series that I lost interest in during the first season (I only went back and watched the entire series years later online). Most people I knew were never interested in the series to begin with and it was the least favorite ST series of even my most die hard trekkie friends.
All the other ST series were plagued by many of the same shortcomings that plagued Voyager; bad writing, stupid and/or pointless episodes,wooden acting, annoying characters, underdeveloped characters, etc. But Voyager managed to get something wrong that those other series got right and made mistakes that those series managed to avoid.
And Kes was the personification of everything that Voyager got wrong all wrapped up in a single character.
We're introduced to Kes in the seasons premier and we learn that she is a two year old alien with a seven year life span. The problem is that she's clearly not a child and not particularly alien either. They would rather cast a grown woman to play a two year old than a child because child actors are notoriously difficult to work with. And so they cast a grown woman and get around it by saying she's an alien.
But then she's neither written nor directed to act as either a child or alien. She acts just like millions of normal human woman that are the same age as the actress. Aside from utterly baffling biology, she's easily interchangeable with a dozen other female human characters in the ST universe. Both the klingons and the vulcans were more alien than Kes.
And She's not going to last any longer on the series than seven years.
What this tells the audience is that the creators and the writers aren't going to stick to the premises Instead, they are going to cheat.
Just as she's not really a child, the crew of Voyager isn't really in any particular danger despite being stranded 70,000 light years from federation space. Almost every episode hit the reset button and all damage to the ship and expanded resources were restored. The series treated the severity of their situation with all the seriousness of Gilligan's Island.
Just as Kes isn't really particularly alien, neither is anything that they run into in the delta quandrant particularly unfamiliar. The Kazon were just ghetto klingons. Most of the aliens they encountered could have just as easily been human as any other race.
And as Kes has only seven years left to live, the series is going to last for seven seasons and they aren't getting home before that.
Add on top of this the relationship between Kes and Neelix. The relationship is clearly wholly inappropriate, tarnishes the Neelix character and establishes him as a real creep right from the start of the series. This is done to a character that the creators and writers intended for the audience to like and be a comic relief.
And the tarnishing of Neelix is done solely through the premise, not by anything that we actually witness between Kes and Neelix on the screen. If we were not told that Kes was only two years old, we wouldn't necessarily think anything about it or even necessarily pay attention to it. They'd just be another odd alien couple to add flavor to the background. Which is what the writers apparently intended all along.
The writers clearly didn't think this out very good at all.
And just as the writers clearly didn't think through the Kes-Neelix relationship, they clearly had no consistent or unified idea of Captain Katherine Janeway. Much has been made of her waffling adherence to the prime director. Kate Mulgrew, the actress who played Janeway, complained herself on numerous occasions about the inconsistencies in the character she was portraying.
All attempts to salvage Kes only served to make the character worse. The more we learn about Kes, the more we learn how little thought and planning actually went into this character. She's remarkably skilled, mature and self confident for being only two years old. Like she has preprogrammed knowledge and experiences. She also has telepathic abilities. And she only reproduces once in her life and has to give birth to the offspring standing up.
Something like this could not evolve naturally in the real world. And there's nothing in the ST universe to suggest that they can naturally evolve that way in that universe either. The more intelligent races with greater mental abilities are longer lived, not shorter lived, than the other races.
A more likely explanation is that it's a genetically engineered species created for the purpose of slave labor. But that's never stated or even hinted at in the series. It's apparently only on accident that the occompa comes out looking like a genetically engineered race and not as a result of planning and forethought.
The reason that people rejected the Kes character was/is because the character concept itself shattered suspension of disbelief in ways that no previous reoccurring ST character had before. And in doing so, drew attention to things we're not supposed to notice or think about while we are trying to enjoy a story.
People don't necessarily expect a fictional universe to conform to the same rules as the real world. In fact, they rarely do. What people expect is for the fictional universe to consistently operate according to it's own rules.
The occompa broke the rules. And their presence in the series drew attention to all the other ways that ST: Voyager was breaking the rules. And they drew attention to all the other ways that Voyager hadn't been planned or thought out as well as what we might have hoped for.
She was a poorly thought out character and her presence in the series drew attention to all the other ways that the series hadn't been particularly well planned out.
And so a lot of people checked out of the series. Some people watched the pilot episode and never watched another. I got about halfway through the first season and checked out. Some made it a little further but still eventually lost interest. The trekkies kept watching but complained that the series was crap.
Despite the complaints that Voyager became the 7o9 show once she came aboard, I have never once heard or read anyone saying that the show was actually better with Kes instead of 7. What I have seen is plenty of articles about how Kes is a 'textbook example' of how not to design a character.
Again, none of this is intended as a criticism of Jennifer Lien. The character was doomed to the scrap heap from inception regardless of who portrayed her.
This is my first post in this forum and so I'll start off by introducing myself. I was born in 1973 and grew up watching TOS on Saturday nights in the late 70's and 80's. I saw all the original ST movies when they were first released and watched TNG and DS9 on their first run. Just about all my family and friends were Star Trek fans to varying degrees and so it was just part of the culture in which I grew up in.
This post was inspired by both some recent conversations I've had with other 'old school' Trek fans from work and by a previous post (dating back to 2017) I happen to come across on this forum where someone offered their theory on why Kes wasn't a beloved ST character. The poster seemed to like the character and clearly had no idea whatsoever why most people rejected her. As such, their theory on why Kes was/is rejected (some nonsense about sci-fi fans not liking certain types of innocent or girl next door type characters) missed the mark by a country mile.
As one that did reject the character and who has heard their opinion echoed by many, many others, I think I can offer a much better explanation.
To get it out of the way, the reason that people rejected the Kes character had nothing whatsoever to do with performance of the actress, Jennifer Lien. Opinions of Lien range the entire spectrum. I happen to like Lien's performance. I never found her to be unpleasant in the least. If you don't like Lien, you can substitute in any actress you want. It doesn't matter. The problem is with the character. Lien just had the misfortune of being cast to play a character that couldn't work no matter who played her.
Voyager was, from its debut onward, the black sheep of that era of the ST family. It was the first ST series that I lost interest in during the first season (I only went back and watched the entire series years later online). Most people I knew were never interested in the series to begin with and it was the least favorite ST series of even my most die hard trekkie friends.
All the other ST series were plagued by many of the same shortcomings that plagued Voyager; bad writing, stupid and/or pointless episodes,wooden acting, annoying characters, underdeveloped characters, etc. But Voyager managed to get something wrong that those other series got right and made mistakes that those series managed to avoid.
And Kes was the personification of everything that Voyager got wrong all wrapped up in a single character.
We're introduced to Kes in the seasons premier and we learn that she is a two year old alien with a seven year life span. The problem is that she's clearly not a child and not particularly alien either. They would rather cast a grown woman to play a two year old than a child because child actors are notoriously difficult to work with. And so they cast a grown woman and get around it by saying she's an alien.
But then she's neither written nor directed to act as either a child or alien. She acts just like millions of normal human woman that are the same age as the actress. Aside from utterly baffling biology, she's easily interchangeable with a dozen other female human characters in the ST universe. Both the klingons and the vulcans were more alien than Kes.
And She's not going to last any longer on the series than seven years.
What this tells the audience is that the creators and the writers aren't going to stick to the premises Instead, they are going to cheat.
Just as she's not really a child, the crew of Voyager isn't really in any particular danger despite being stranded 70,000 light years from federation space. Almost every episode hit the reset button and all damage to the ship and expanded resources were restored. The series treated the severity of their situation with all the seriousness of Gilligan's Island.
Just as Kes isn't really particularly alien, neither is anything that they run into in the delta quandrant particularly unfamiliar. The Kazon were just ghetto klingons. Most of the aliens they encountered could have just as easily been human as any other race.
And as Kes has only seven years left to live, the series is going to last for seven seasons and they aren't getting home before that.
Add on top of this the relationship between Kes and Neelix. The relationship is clearly wholly inappropriate, tarnishes the Neelix character and establishes him as a real creep right from the start of the series. This is done to a character that the creators and writers intended for the audience to like and be a comic relief.
And the tarnishing of Neelix is done solely through the premise, not by anything that we actually witness between Kes and Neelix on the screen. If we were not told that Kes was only two years old, we wouldn't necessarily think anything about it or even necessarily pay attention to it. They'd just be another odd alien couple to add flavor to the background. Which is what the writers apparently intended all along.
The writers clearly didn't think this out very good at all.
And just as the writers clearly didn't think through the Kes-Neelix relationship, they clearly had no consistent or unified idea of Captain Katherine Janeway. Much has been made of her waffling adherence to the prime director. Kate Mulgrew, the actress who played Janeway, complained herself on numerous occasions about the inconsistencies in the character she was portraying.
All attempts to salvage Kes only served to make the character worse. The more we learn about Kes, the more we learn how little thought and planning actually went into this character. She's remarkably skilled, mature and self confident for being only two years old. Like she has preprogrammed knowledge and experiences. She also has telepathic abilities. And she only reproduces once in her life and has to give birth to the offspring standing up.
Something like this could not evolve naturally in the real world. And there's nothing in the ST universe to suggest that they can naturally evolve that way in that universe either. The more intelligent races with greater mental abilities are longer lived, not shorter lived, than the other races.
A more likely explanation is that it's a genetically engineered species created for the purpose of slave labor. But that's never stated or even hinted at in the series. It's apparently only on accident that the occompa comes out looking like a genetically engineered race and not as a result of planning and forethought.
The reason that people rejected the Kes character was/is because the character concept itself shattered suspension of disbelief in ways that no previous reoccurring ST character had before. And in doing so, drew attention to things we're not supposed to notice or think about while we are trying to enjoy a story.
People don't necessarily expect a fictional universe to conform to the same rules as the real world. In fact, they rarely do. What people expect is for the fictional universe to consistently operate according to it's own rules.
The occompa broke the rules. And their presence in the series drew attention to all the other ways that ST: Voyager was breaking the rules. And they drew attention to all the other ways that Voyager hadn't been planned or thought out as well as what we might have hoped for.
She was a poorly thought out character and her presence in the series drew attention to all the other ways that the series hadn't been particularly well planned out.
And so a lot of people checked out of the series. Some people watched the pilot episode and never watched another. I got about halfway through the first season and checked out. Some made it a little further but still eventually lost interest. The trekkies kept watching but complained that the series was crap.
Despite the complaints that Voyager became the 7o9 show once she came aboard, I have never once heard or read anyone saying that the show was actually better with Kes instead of 7. What I have seen is plenty of articles about how Kes is a 'textbook example' of how not to design a character.
Again, none of this is intended as a criticism of Jennifer Lien. The character was doomed to the scrap heap from inception regardless of who portrayed her.
Conjecture about a much loved character and central to the development of Voyager.
