Summary. Jennifer Lien's departure from Star Trek: Voyager was due to creative limitations and the ill-judged romance angle between Kes and Neelix. Kes's short lifespan as an Ocampa limited the storytelling possibilities for her character, contributing to her departure from the show.
Neelix was looking for a steady bed and source of meals when he joined the Voyager crew. However, over time, he was as much a nut for meeting new species and studying new phenomena as the rest of them. Thus, it seems like it makes sense that Neelix would leave behind where he came from for the great unknown.
Lien has suffered issues with mental health and substance abuse for many years. It's likely the reason that her career on Star Trek: Voyager was cut short, and why she was unable to find other long-term roles in television or film despite being very attractive when she was younger.
She retired from the series (and the franchise) in 1998, handing over her position of Executive Producer and showrunner to Brannon Braga, but continued to serve as creative consultant for the show during its last three seasons.
First appearance of Kes's longer hair style instead of the very short hair style from seasons 1, 2, and part of 3. Jennifer Lien, the actress who played Kes, was apparently sensitive to the make-up and adhesive used to apply her Ocampa ears.
'Star Trek: Voyager' Actress Arrested for Allegedly Exposing Herself to Children
Did Jennifer Lien wear a wig?
Kes's wardrobe primarily consisted of tunics, and Lien wore a bob cut wig. Lien tested combinations of wigs and prosthetics, which cinematographer Marvin V. Rush filmed for Berman's final approval. Westmore kept the prosthetic simple to facilitate working on 30 Ocampa characters for the pilot episode.
Summary. Jennifer Lien's departure from Star Trek: Voyager was due to creative limitations and the ill-judged romance angle between Kes and Neelix. Kes's short lifespan as an Ocampa limited the storytelling possibilities for her character, contributing to her departure from the show.
Kate Mulgrew's opposition to Seven of Nine as a character led to Mulgrew treating Jeri Ryan poorly on-set, and a rumored feud arising between the two actors while Star Trek: Voyager was in production.
Unlike previous Star Trek series, Voyager's ending was not a surprise. The plan to end was already in place when producer Branon Braga left after season 6 to begin work on Star Trek: Enterprise.
(AOL chat, 1999) Moore quickly became frustrated by the atmosphere in Voyager's writers' room and left the series after writing one episode and co-writing the story for another; as a result of this experience his relationship with Braga soured(X) for a time.
Lien left the show because Kes's character wasn't working the way producers Rick Berman and Jeri Taylor initially envisioned. According to Taylor, the studio also weighed in on her fate. "The studio felt that we had too many characters," she said in Braving the Unknown, a special feature on the fourth season DVD.
Neelix came across as a slimy, jealous character a lot of the time. While Kes did eventually outgrow him, and they split up in a moment pioneered by her, it felt less sad and more of a relief that audiences won't have to be subjected to their uncomfortable relationship anymore.
The showrunners reluctantly terminated Lien's contract as a member of Voyager's main cast due to unresolved personal issues that affected her performance. She was replaced by a new character, Seven of Nine, played by Jeri Ryan.
After Seska and the Kazon abduct Tom Paris from the Talaxian ship, Neelix suggests on his broadcast that it was Paris who had betrayed them all. Captain Janeway privately reveals to Neelix that Paris's insubordination, departure and joining the Kazon was all part of an act to flush out a suspected traitor on board.
Did the actor who played Neelix also play a Ferengi?
In 1990, he began his Star Trek career playing the Ferengi doctor Farek in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ménage à Troi". He went on to play the Talaxian character Neelix on Star Trek: Voyager in 1995, and stayed with the series through its entire seven-season run.
Seven of Nine, with the aid of Ambassador Spock and the Enterprise-E crew, manages to communicate with Janeway's consciousness, buried deep within the Queen's mind. During a brief moment of contact, Janeway helps them destroy the Borg cube, with all hands on board. Although Seven manages to escape, Janeway is killed.
When Suzanne Dodd's team transmitted a routine command to Voyager 2 on July 21, the unthinkable happened: They accidentally sent the wrong version, which pointed the interstellar probe's antenna slightly away from Earth. When they next expected to receive data, they heard nothing at all.
While on NBC, Star Trek's Nielsen ratings were low and the network canceled it after three seasons and 79 episodes. In the United Kingdom the series was not broadcast until July 12, 1969, coinciding with the Apollo 11 mission to land the first humans on the Moon.
"We lost over a dozen crew members." (Kim in "Nightingale"). Assumption: 141 original crew as stated by Stadi -18 dead +36 Maquis +Tuvok +Paris +Kes +Neelix. The Maquis crew is based on the statements in "Repression" (see below). In "Shattered", on the other hand, Janeway says the ship started off with a crew of 153.
No matter how they came together, and despite how many times their struggles were seen from a man's point of view, Janeway and Seven of Nine set a surprising standard for relationships between two strong, successful female characters. They had vastly different worldviews. They didn't even really get along.
Fellow Star Trek: Voyager (1995) actors Ethan Phillips and Robert Picardo are among her closest friends. She remarked at a convention that they got her through Voyager's seven-year run. Husband Timothy Hagan proposed to her on the set of Star Trek: Voyager (1995).
Neelix departs the show in the seventh season's 23rd episode "Homestead". The ship encounters a colony of Talaxians, the last of his species that he is likely to see as the ship travels further from his home, and he chooses to stay with them. The character returns for a cameo in the series finale, "Endgame".
Chakotay died in 2394, following Voyager's return, and Admiral Janeway visits his grave marker in that episode. This future was undone by the future Janeway travelling back in time to Voyager to return it to Earth sooner.
Kate Mulgrew is the main reason Janeway and Chakotay never happened. While it may seem like Voyager's creative team dropped the ball, it was a request from Kate Mulgrew that stopped the Janeway/Chakotay romance in its tracks.
