If you've followed my Trek rantings and ravings for a while, you'll know there are few characters I despise more than Tom Paris. He just feels like your average affluent frat boy with a history of petty crime and sexual assault who is given an undeserved second chance because of his rich daddy.
Not that Tom's second chance is because of his dad, or that he has a history of sexual assault that we know of (but we can all tell, right?), but it's the exact same vibes of an overprivileged jerk who gets an undeserved second chance (and third, and fourth, and…)
If by "interesting character" you mean "effective at making my blood boil" and by "good at playing him" you mean "so convincingly snotty it makes me wanna land my fist on his nose", then yes.
Ok but does anyone ever notice how the depth of the V-collar varies wildly between characters on Voyager and DS9?
I can't put my finger on it and I haven't counted, but I get the distinct impression that the collars are cut deeper for women and more shallow for men…
Funny enough, evne though I agree with most of the first half, it's the Enterprise pilot review where I have to massively disagree with Steve Shives:
"Scott Bakula as Captain Archer is – well, he's Scott Bakula, he's one of the most innately likable and watchable actors to ever be on television."
No.
I don't wanna say it's because both Bakula and Shives are unremarkable white dudes in their 40s, but…
Scott Bakula is boredom personified. He is one of Enterprise's weakest links (of which there are many!), possibly the weakest, because while Conner Trineer gets to dial up the fake Florida accent and Dominic Keating gets to scowl all the time, Bakula is… just kind of there.
He looks boring, he sounds boring, he acts boring, he brings zero gravitas or passion to the role, his superpower is probably being invisible by being terminally unremarkable. Most of the time, his line readings could be replaced with Siri and his physical presence with a pool noodle and the result would be livelier than his performance.
I've heard he's done some good acting before and after, I don't know I haven't seen it, but in Enterprise, he is anything but likable and watchable.
First Officer Blow-up Doll, who is supposed to appeal to 1) horny teenagers, 2) incels, and 3) people who like to make shitty jokes at the expense of minorities
Chief Engineer Florida, whose personality is Florida
Doctor Alien Suburban Dad, who is mostly there for his disturbingly cheerful exterior, token polyamory, and homeopathy
Security Officer John Doe, whose personality is "guns guns daddy issues guns"
Helmsman Token Black Dude, who is usually sidelined after 5 minutes, unless they need him for an episode about unassimilated subcultures full of bad stereotypes who don't respect the rule of law
Comms Officer Human Translator, who happens to be Asian but that never plays a role and who mostly gets to be google translate and rarely gets anything else to do
But the weakest links are definitely Bakula, Trineer, and Keating, not always through their own fault though, because the writers just don't give them any good material.
And you can't help but notice that following shows with several female and nonwhite protagonists, Enterprise has but two nonwhite characters, both of which almost never get to do anything (not counting piloting and translating, I mean they rarely get any good character episodes).
That Star Trek went from having a black captain with his black son and black love interest, with a black security chief, an english-arabian doctor, and a central recurring plot about colonisation, imperialism, and terrorism as self-defence against oppression…
…to a ship full of white dudes whose only asian character's role is "smart about languages, martial art, usually in the background" and whose only black character's role is "drive and occasionally talk about his family who don't assimilate into society and get an episode about the rest of their subculture who violate the law to dish out street justice". And whose mission is to colonise in the glorious name of America–sorry, of United Earth headquartered in American and run exclusively by Anglo-American dudes.
And that Star Trek went from "female captain with a female chief engineer and a female protegee and two female recurring characters"…
…to "our female first officer is mostly there to be made fun of and sexualised and the other female officer occasionally gets to join in on the being sexualised. Later we put one of them into a relationship with Florida man after destroying her cultural identity, also we'll show her naked."
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