What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
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   Tuesday, September 17, 2002

NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGER

Robert Beltran is the happy actor who recently ended a seven-year run on Star Trek: Voyager. He'd earned the wrath of Trekkies for complaining about the show in the press, describing the show's writing as "shit." His comments were obviously unprofessional and entirely right. Voyager was mostly crap, a waste of time that led Beltran to beg the producers to kill off his character. It didn't happen but, a year after the show's end, Beltran was asked this week if he's been freely watching its new replacement, Enterprise, and he replied:

"I have already done that, I know what it is about. I know that there is going to be a certain amount of shakes and bombings and the shields are going to go down to 20 percent and the warp core is gonna bust and some aliens are gonna try to kill everybody and they will make it through, so what's to see? I already know that. That's for the fans. I am not a fan."

Thanks to speeches like this, I am a fan...of Robert Beltran. I like his brutal honesty and refusal to play along only for the sake of money (though he was being very well-paid). If television is truly a collaborative medium, why can't the actors comment on the lines they're being given? Or why can't the writers comment on the acting? Anything that leads to a better program is a good thing, right? Robert Beltran may have simply wanted more interesting things to do but, as a viewer, I wanted to see him do more interesting things. Too bad we were both disappointed.