How Star Trek: Voyager Wastes The Perfect Character
Ask most fans of Star Trek: Voyager who the most annoying character is and most of them will blurt out “Neelix” even before you finish the question. This Talaxian was a native of the Delta Quadrant and ostensibly a valuable guide, diplomat, and even cook for the crew, but for audiences at home, the character is mostly a source of one cringe-worthy moment after another. But here’s something even tougher than a raw leola root for you to chew on: Neelix was actually a perfect character in the pilot who got subsequently dumbed down and became the mascot for Voyager’s many wasted opportunities.
Neelix Seems Quite Stupid When He’s Introduced
For this argument to make any sense, I’m going to need to remind you a bit more about the Neelix of Voyager’s first episode, “Caretaker.” Now, this episode has some of the weird character moments Neelix would come to be known for, including taking a bath so weird he’d get banned from Twitch (thanks for that haunting visual, Paramount) and addressing Tuvok as “Mr. Vulcan.” Between this and some of the crew immediately getting captured after following his navigational advice, you might assume that Neelix is simply an idiot and was always meant to be an idiot.
But Is It All An Act?
But then something funny happens … Neelix slyly demands a dialogue with the Kazon leader and entices him with Voyager’s ability to replicate water. He tries to use the water to barter for a young blonde girl that we will come to learn is his girlfriend, Kes. When negotiations break down, Neelix threatens the Kazon leader with a secret weapon, forces his men to drop their weapons, and then shoots the water tanks Janeway beamed down to create a distraction so everyone can safely escape.
We Got Hapless Misadventures Instead
This was his big moment, and after helping the crew out with a few more tasks, Neelix formally requested that he and Kes be allowed to join the crew. Janeway says yes, leading to seven seasons of awful Neelix misadventures, including becoming such an awful cook that his cheese nearly destroyed the ship (it’s a long story).
Oh, and it turns out that his girlfriend is only one year old in that first episode, and if you can get over the implications of this, you still have to put up with him being a jealous freak toward her every other episode until she finally peaces out.
Neelix Could Have Been A More Complex Character In The Right Context
If you haven’t caught on, I hate Neelix even more now than I did when I was a teenager and hate watching his every scene during the show’s original run. Why, then, am I claiming that Voyager wasted a perfect character? Simple: the Neelix of the pilot was basically like Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, a character who merely pretended to be an idiot in order to obscure how wise and cunning he really was.
Think about it: Neelix wasn’t being goofy for the sake of being goofy in “Caretaker”… instead, he acted like a court jester in order to lower the guard of Captain Janeway and the rest of the crew. That way, they wouldn’t notice that he was manipulating them into a secret plan to rescue his underage girlfriend.
Certainly, they had no way of expecting that their quirked-up new friend had a secret weapon that he would use to threaten an alien leader before destroying Starfleet property in order to further his own, secret agenda.
A Missed Opportunity
If Neelix had been continuously written like this, he could have been Voyager’s best character, someone who puts on a cheerful mask that obscures his real intentions. Many fans and critics over the years have assumed that Neelix’s character was an attempt to copy Quark from Deep Space Nine, but this didn’t work because Quark is a relatable schemer and Neelix is an unrelatable jackass.
With better writing, Neelix could have been a killer combo of Quark and Garak…someone whose pleasant exterior masked a deadly mind, one that wouldn’t hesitate to make calculated and even cruel decisions.
So Much Potential Lost With Neelix’s Character
Unfortunately, none of us can pull a Janeway and travel to the past to make things better. That means Neelix will remain the worst character in Voyager and quite possibly the entire Star Trek franchise. Maybe it’s a good idea this dude stayed behind in the Delta Quadrant…if he came home with the rest of the crew, that weird romance with a one-year-old might have rightfully landed him in a Federation prison.
