Star Trekkin: Neelix

 So, having watched six seasons of Voyager I feel somewhat confident in offering my opinion of the cast and crew of the USS Voyager. To be clear I'm not attacking the actors playing the characters. Not personal, just some ramblings.

So, Neelix. A good argument that fan favorites are made, not born. Yeah, in the press packet the heads at UPN declared Neelix would easily be the next Quark or Spock. Everyone was going to love him!

Yeah, no. 

You can't decide which character is going to be the fan favorite. The fans do that, hence the name, and nothing gets the fans more turned off to a character is when the show tells them they have to like said character. 

After watching six seasons, I can not believe they wrote the character the way they did and honestly thought "yes, this will be the one that everyone loves!". Why do I dislike the character so much?

Because Neelix, much like Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose, is almost the personification of 'Tell, Never Show'. He self-appoints himself everything and assume this gives him authority. Of course it seemingly does, since no one ever seems to point out "No, I don't have to listen to you". Like chief moral officer (who annoys everyone) or chef (who some how poisoned the ship, literally); he's a jerk of all trades and a master of none. 

Then there's his relationship with Kes. A paranoid obsessive, he seems to think Kes is about to drop trou with everything on two legs unless she's in his direct line of sight. I'm a bit at a loss how they stayed together or WHY?

Then there's his habit of turning every single line of conversation into either a proverb or somehow about him. He won't even let the crew cook their own meals.

Moving back to the 'tell, don't show', Neelix constantly tells us of his survivor skills. He manages to get several crewmembers killed or almost injured thanks to his stupidity. No one seems to mind though. I guess those crewmembers weren't popular?

I get the idea of the character though. Outsider, knows that strange region of space and thus can introduce things to the crew (and thus us). Expect he's a moron. He knows nothing but act like he does. He just blunders into everything and declares himself an expert. 

Can the character be fixed? With all they provided, I don't think so. This isn't tweaking a few lines or doing a script or two. No, I can only think the best way to improve the show/character would be get rid of Neelix at the first opportunity. Like when he tried to sell the crew to slavers in the pilot.