I'm just going to have some fun with this one. Thanks to vultan and Electric Monk for valuable feedback with the original idea, and of course to Brainbin for starting this whole recent pop culture TL craze.
They thought that she was going to quit, if not on the first day, then shortly afterwards. They were wrong. She'd been tempted to be sure, but Genevieve Bujold was an actress, and an actress does her job...or at least that was her way of thinking while they shot the first few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. No matter the grueling schedule, the pages of dialogue she was required to memorize daily, or even the poor relationships that were developing with other cast members, she would do her job. She would learn her lines and hit her marks. Even when the producers called her in to their office and tried to make it clear that they had no use for her, she got her agent to play hardball with the network, and to hold threats of major legal action over the head of the network that could least afford uncertainty. The producers were told to keep her. Even when Berman threatened to walk, they called his bluff.
The problem was, even the most professional woman can only take so much. She'd been at the top of her game not too long ago, winning a Golden Globe for best actress and nominated for the same category at the Academy Awards. Now here she was, reduced to ridiculous lines of indecipherable technical nonsense. Phase inducers? Warp coils? Even that wouldn't have been so bad if she'd been given a real part to work with, but the mixture of horrible writing, poor characterization, and the enmity of her fellow castmembers proved to be too much. Disregarding the advice (and ignoring the efforts) of her agent, Ms. Bujold walked away from Voyager immediately after wrapping the episode "Time And Again".
The producers were stunned and angered by this turn of events, with Michael Piller going so far as to send an "I told you so" memo to the network. This may have been a mistake. Network executives have one major goal, which is to make money, and one major way to keep making money in the face of catastrophe, which is to shift the blame onto others. At a meeting with the various heads of Paramount, one thing was made clear to them: UPN and Paramount would not be taking the blame for losing the lead actress on their flagship program only three episodes into the season. Instead, Piller and Taylor would be falling on their swords over this, and would specifically be blamed for not creating a more reasonable work environment for Ms. Bujold.
The decision came down: Jeri Taylor would still maintain the title of Executive Producer, but her actual powers would be severely curtailed. As the creative input of staff writer Brannon Braga had been a major complaint of Ms. Bujold, it was determined that in order to forestall such complaints in the future, he would be let go from the show. Mr. Piller, already tiring of the increasing melodrama behind the scenes, decided to move on to greener pastures, though he still retained a creative consultant credit.
Taylor and Piller grudgingly accepted this state of affairs. Brannon Braga did not. Instead, he protested so strongly that it was rumored that Paramount Security nearly had to be called to throw him off of the lot. When he got home that night, he called his agent to get the best deal that he could possibly get in the event of being released from the show. Not wishing for an ugly spat played out in the pages of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount offered him a multi-pilot development deal. This was acceptable to Mr. Braga, and he left the show with his head held high.
Ronald D. Moore found himself in a mess. While he didn't want to upset his friend Brannon Braga or Jeri Taylor, he found the entire storyline of the first season to lack any compelling narrative. However, the departure of the Captain opened up some intriguing possibilities, and gave him an excuse to scrap the episode "Phage" (or, as some were calling it, "Neelix's Lungs"). Instead, he gave a dignified goodbye to Captain Nicole Janeway in the episode "The Vessel Grim And Daring", opening with a memorial service in which the audience learned that the good captain had sacrificed herself for her crew on an alien planet. He also promoted First Officer Chakotay to the Captain's chair, and switched Tuvok from Security to Command to make him the First Officer. Finally, he inserted story seeds of discontent among a Starfleet crew suddenly finding themselves under the command of a Maquis Captain, and of Tuvok finding himself torn between feelings of duty to the chain of command and a mistrust of a Captain he'd previously attempted to bring to justice as a traitor to the United Federation of Planets.
This was going to be an interesting show, indeed....
So here's the rules: I am totally willing to listen to any feedback, any suggestions, any ideas. This isn't AWOLAWOT: I'm not putting that kind of pressure on myself right now, and I don't especially care to come up with everything. If you come up with an episode idea that seems to fit, I'll take it.
I do already have the season finale for the first season planned out (it's in the pinned Core Pop Culture Timeline thread), but while this isn't a Shared World, I do want to hear everyone else's ideas about where this could go. I just claim the power to say yea or nay to any of them.
EDIT: Further thanks to ColeMercury for pointing out some blatant flaws in the original post, ones that I've edited out.
They thought that she was going to quit, if not on the first day, then shortly afterwards. They were wrong. She'd been tempted to be sure, but Genevieve Bujold was an actress, and an actress does her job...or at least that was her way of thinking while they shot the first few episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. No matter the grueling schedule, the pages of dialogue she was required to memorize daily, or even the poor relationships that were developing with other cast members, she would do her job. She would learn her lines and hit her marks. Even when the producers called her in to their office and tried to make it clear that they had no use for her, she got her agent to play hardball with the network, and to hold threats of major legal action over the head of the network that could least afford uncertainty. The producers were told to keep her. Even when Berman threatened to walk, they called his bluff.
The problem was, even the most professional woman can only take so much. She'd been at the top of her game not too long ago, winning a Golden Globe for best actress and nominated for the same category at the Academy Awards. Now here she was, reduced to ridiculous lines of indecipherable technical nonsense. Phase inducers? Warp coils? Even that wouldn't have been so bad if she'd been given a real part to work with, but the mixture of horrible writing, poor characterization, and the enmity of her fellow castmembers proved to be too much. Disregarding the advice (and ignoring the efforts) of her agent, Ms. Bujold walked away from Voyager immediately after wrapping the episode "Time And Again".
The producers were stunned and angered by this turn of events, with Michael Piller going so far as to send an "I told you so" memo to the network. This may have been a mistake. Network executives have one major goal, which is to make money, and one major way to keep making money in the face of catastrophe, which is to shift the blame onto others. At a meeting with the various heads of Paramount, one thing was made clear to them: UPN and Paramount would not be taking the blame for losing the lead actress on their flagship program only three episodes into the season. Instead, Piller and Taylor would be falling on their swords over this, and would specifically be blamed for not creating a more reasonable work environment for Ms. Bujold.
The decision came down: Jeri Taylor would still maintain the title of Executive Producer, but her actual powers would be severely curtailed. As the creative input of staff writer Brannon Braga had been a major complaint of Ms. Bujold, it was determined that in order to forestall such complaints in the future, he would be let go from the show. Mr. Piller, already tiring of the increasing melodrama behind the scenes, decided to move on to greener pastures, though he still retained a creative consultant credit.
Taylor and Piller grudgingly accepted this state of affairs. Brannon Braga did not. Instead, he protested so strongly that it was rumored that Paramount Security nearly had to be called to throw him off of the lot. When he got home that night, he called his agent to get the best deal that he could possibly get in the event of being released from the show. Not wishing for an ugly spat played out in the pages of Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount offered him a multi-pilot development deal. This was acceptable to Mr. Braga, and he left the show with his head held high.
Ronald D. Moore found himself in a mess. While he didn't want to upset his friend Brannon Braga or Jeri Taylor, he found the entire storyline of the first season to lack any compelling narrative. However, the departure of the Captain opened up some intriguing possibilities, and gave him an excuse to scrap the episode "Phage" (or, as some were calling it, "Neelix's Lungs"). Instead, he gave a dignified goodbye to Captain Nicole Janeway in the episode "The Vessel Grim And Daring", opening with a memorial service in which the audience learned that the good captain had sacrificed herself for her crew on an alien planet. He also promoted First Officer Chakotay to the Captain's chair, and switched Tuvok from Security to Command to make him the First Officer. Finally, he inserted story seeds of discontent among a Starfleet crew suddenly finding themselves under the command of a Maquis Captain, and of Tuvok finding himself torn between feelings of duty to the chain of command and a mistrust of a Captain he'd previously attempted to bring to justice as a traitor to the United Federation of Planets.
This was going to be an interesting show, indeed....
So here's the rules: I am totally willing to listen to any feedback, any suggestions, any ideas. This isn't AWOLAWOT: I'm not putting that kind of pressure on myself right now, and I don't especially care to come up with everything. If you come up with an episode idea that seems to fit, I'll take it.
I do already have the season finale for the first season planned out (it's in the pinned Core Pop Culture Timeline thread), but while this isn't a Shared World, I do want to hear everyone else's ideas about where this could go. I just claim the power to say yea or nay to any of them.
EDIT: Further thanks to ColeMercury for pointing out some blatant flaws in the original post, ones that I've edited out.
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