#LISA KLINK

[delta-queerdrant]

where are your troubles now? forgotten? (Resistance, s2 e12)

(POV you’re watching the Barbie intro but it’s Star Trek screenwriters. Please indulge me.)

Once, in another century, there was a show called Star Trek Voyager. (Cue 2001: A Space Odyssey music.) A lady and two dudes created it. Occasionally other ladies cowrote episodes. But by the time Season Two rolled around, there were not so many ladies. Actually there was just Jeri Taylor, and by god she tried. But one lady cannot be all things to all people.

Then in November 1995, a great miracle happened. A new lady was hired to write a teleplay. It was fresh, inventive! Something was happening!

Her name was (music crescendos)

L I S A K L I N K

I don’t know much about Lisa Klink, except that “Resistance” marks the beginning of her multi-season involvement in Voyager, and that she was a five-time Jeopardy winner. (I do not watch Jeopardy, I would not be good at Jeopardy, but Jeopardy people are nevertheless my people.) Mostly I know that I turned on “Resistance” and, despite my general disinterest in the show’s production history, immediately asked: who the FUCK wrote this?

“Resistance” is not a perfect episode, but after half a season of flailing, it is a revelation. Klink, writing the script for a story by Michael Jan Friedman and Kevin J. Ryan, has a clear vision of what Voyager can be - a show that’s grounded, emotionally resonant, and trusts its actors. 

I am partial to the gritty, Blade Runner-inflected, Firefly/BSG brand of science fiction television, so when we started in media res, our heroes in civvies doing deals in an outdoor market, I died and went to cyberpunk heaven. (Neelix’s coat alone is worth the price of entry.) Instead of swanning across the galaxy like tourists in a slightly under-resourced cruise ship, the Voyager gang are finally the scrappy underdogs they ought to be.

This is our second Janeway episode of the season, and the first episode, perhaps of the series, that really gives her a character mandate beyond “strong but feminine captain who loves her dog.” Mulgrew has her work cut out for her, acting against JOEL FUCKING GREY, but they’re both marvelous. Waking in the home of the enigmatically batty Caylem (in a claustrophobic sequence whose stagey absurdism recalls a Beckett play), Janeway slowly grows to understand that Caylem, who’s decided she’s his daughter, might be her best ally for escape. The growing emotional connection between the two is so tender and understated; as a writer, Klink has mastered the light touch.

Janeway and Caylem end up collaborating with the local resistance movement to rescue Torres and Tuvok, who have been imprisoned by the lawful evil overlords of this world. Our characters genuinely feel like they are in big trouble! Torres and Tuvok’s prison stint is rough. (I did enjoy B’Elanna’s beatnik dissident prison garb. She looks like it is approximately 1956 and she is a French student who has been arrested for throwing a baguette at a cop.)

The only weak sequence is the prison break itself, which feels too easy and relies on a tired “sex worker disguise” subterfuge. But the ending is so satisfying and will break your heart.

Once Janeway’s back in uniform, it feels like we’ve truly been on a journey, one that brings to mind iconic episodes like “The Inner Light.” Voyager is a long way from home, and I want these characters to go through transformative experiences. The boldness of this episode gets us a little bit of the way there.

A radical reimagining of Voyager, and the best episode of season two in my estimation. I award this one 4.5/5 melon hats.

[tuttle-did-it]

"Favourite Son" - Star Trek Voyager

3.20 19 March, 1997

Directed by Marvin V. Rush Written byLisa Klink

From Wikipedia-

Concept and development "Favorite Son" focused on Harry Kim, a character played by Garrett Wang (pictured in 2013). In her original script, Lisa Klink intended for "Favorite Son" to reveal Harry Kim was really an alien, a storyline that would have continued throughout the series.[3][4] The character would have remained part of Voyager's crew after struggling with the news.[5] Kim's actor Garrett Wang explained in a 1998 The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine interview that this would have included him keeping the alien prosthetics in future episodes.[4] The series' writing team thought it would be ironic to have Kim be an alien since he was the crew member most eager to return to the Alpha Quadrant.[5] According to the director, Marvin V. Rush, "Favorite Son" underwent more rewrites than an average episode.[6] The writers found Kim's alien identity "just too wild a turn",[5] and revised the script so he remained human.[3][5] As a result, "Favorite Son" was one of several Star Trek: Voyager episodes to focus on alien possession and the manipulation of a crew member's memories of their home.[7][8] When discussing these changes, Klink said the focus remained on Kim's identity crisis, explaining: "He gets to take a walk on the wild side, and then of course discovers that he is who he thought he was all along."[9]

This was a missed opportunity. Klink was right in the first place. Kim had basically no personality other than 'the permanent ensign who always misses the action, really wants to go home and also plays musical instruments.' This would have given him a lot more to do, and would have been more interesting than just 'oh it was fake.'

[christianfriedelfan]

Christian Friedel as Reinhold Gräf in Babylon Berlin Season 4 Episode 1

[holishkes]

I love logging in to tumblr.com and seeing a Word of God post about one or another 90s tv show franchise just after it’s been posted and thinking oh boy this is going to have Consequences

[castrotophic]

not sure if anyone is interested in this but here is a list of the most joyfully vital poems I know :)

You're the Top by Ellen Bass

Grand Fugue by Peter E. Murphy

Our Beautiful Life When It's Filled with Shrieks by Christopher Citro

Everything Is Waiting For You by David Whyte

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Is Alive! by Emily Sernaker

Instructions for Assembling the Miracle by Peter Cooley

Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

Barton Springs by Tony Hoagland

Footnote to Howl by Allen Ginsberg

Song of the Open Road by Walt Whitman

Tomorrow, No, Tomorrower by Bradley Trumpfheller

At Last the New Arriving by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

To a Self-Proclaimed Manic Depressive Ex-Stripper Poet, After a Reading by Jeannine Hall Gailey

In the Presence of Absence by Richard Widerkehr

Chillary Clinton Said 'We Have to Bring Them to Heal' by Cortney Lamar Charleston

Midsummer by Charles Simic

Today by Frank O'Hara

Naturally by Stephen Dunn

Life is Slightly Different Than You Think It Is by Arthur Vogelsang

Ode to My Husband, Who Brings the Music by Zeina Hashem Beck

The Imaginal Stage by D.A. Powell

Lucky Life by Gerald Stern

Beginner's Lesson by Malcolm Alexander

Presidential Poetry Briefing by Albert Haley

A Poem for Uncertainties by Mark Terrill

On Coming Home by Lisa Summe

G-9 by Tim Dlugos

Five Haiku by Billy Collins

The Fates by David Kirby

Upon Receiving My Inheritance by William Fargason

Variation on a Theme by W. S. Merwin

Easy as Falling Down Stairs by Dean Young

Psalm 150 by Jericho Brown

Pantoum for Sabbouha by Zeina Hashem Beck

ASMR by Corey Van Landingham

A Welcome by Joanna Klink

From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

At Church, I Tell My Mom She’s Singing Off-Key and She Says, by Michael Frazier

Hammond B3 Organ Cistern by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Sorrow Is Not My Name by Ross Gay

You Can't Have It All by Barbara Ras

We Were Emergencies by Buddy Wakefield

To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably In the Next Stall by Kim Addonizio

Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller

[dalesramblingsblog]

Yeaaah I know I'm not the first person to say this, but Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night really doesn't land its central themes too gracefully. I can understand, in the abstract, why Kira might react to the knowledge of what happened to her mother the way she did, given how strongly and unrepentantly she holds to her identity as a terrorist resisting Cardassian oppression, but in spite of Sisko's dissenting opinion in the final scene, the conclusion to the episode doesn't really manage to adequately capture the disproportionate and misogynistic response faced by women in the sort of situation faced by Kira Meru.

(Ironically, despite my generally finding Voyager to be an uncomfortably conservative show in terms of its politics, even The Killing Game's fleeting acknowledgments of the hostility shown towards Brigitte end up feeling more substantial than anything in Wrongs, and that episode is only really trying to be a fast-paced holographic blockbuster rather than a weighty and serious representation of the sexual coercion endured by comfort women. It's still not exactly groundbreaking stuff but it's... there, at least.)

I think, to state the obvious, this is partially influenced by the unanimous maleness of the DS9 writers' room, though it's also worth noting that perhaps Voyager's second most prominent female writer, Lisa Klink, was credited on episodes like Favourite Son and Retrospect during the only period of Berman Era Trek to be overseen by a female showrunner. So while DS9 definitely should have hired more women (God they really let Jane Espenson slip through the cracks), I think it's also fair to say that there existed pretty substantial and deeply-rooted failings in Star Trek's handling of sex and gender that also contributed.

(And to be clear, the lack of female writers is a part of those failures as well.)

[isagrimorie]

I love Star Trek but sometimes they do storylines that even for their time was really terrible. Or done at cross purposes like Voyager’s “Retrospect” it ends up being a terrible “don’t believe the victims” type of storyline.

Lisa Klink, one of the writers of the episode tried to clarify that it was supposed to be about false and implanted memories that were infamous during the ‘90s. About a family accused of doing that and basically ruining their lives.

Unfortunately, Bryan Fuller revealed as noble the goal was, to his shock and horror, the moment Jeri Taylor and the other women in the writer’s room left the men in the room started sharing stories about “punishing bitches”. He was just a new writer back then and couldn’t do anything nor say anything.

TLDR— instead of being a story about implanted false memories it became a “don’t believe the victims” story. (The first mistake, I think was using Seven of Nine for this— if they used as Garret Want proposed, Harry or Tom instead, it would probably play differently. Or maybe even the Doctor).

In DS9, its the fact that Sisko was conceived from Sarah, a woman who was basically possessed by a Prophet and forced to conceive and give birth to Sisko.

The moment Sarah came back to herself she ran away and when Ben’s dad contacted her she supposedly was in an accident before they got to meet again.

I completely forgot this happened until I rewatched again— and I was flabbergasted to find out up to this day there are many who don’t consider it rape and even excuse the Prophets.

(The writers were obviously trying to recreate the Immaculate Conception of Mary with Sisko’s mother. And yet, the 90s version is more horrific.)

Edited to add: What the Prophets did is akin to what the Goa’uld to people they possess, except the only good thing maybe is Sarah was not aware of what’s happening. It’s still terrible waking up months or even a year later married with a child she doesn’t remember having.

But in Stargate SG-1 this was why Goa’uld were considered villains…

And then what happened to Kurn, Worf’s brother— they basically mind wiped him. Instead of trying to convince Kurn to live and find a way back to honor, they just mind wipe him and pretend he was from another House.

And then, a season or two later, Worf is adopted into another House and restored honor. The very thing that Kurn yearned for, but Kurn would never have that because they wiped his mind.

I’m sure there are more egregious examples but those are the ones that come to mind.

I just wanted to write it down because it’s been on my mind lately. Star Trek has some of the best and high minded concepts, and a hopeful future but as a consequence of being written in their time or by people in our era…

Starfleet also has, in-universe, I think a problem addressing mental health of their traumatized people.

[writergeekrhw]

hi, i’m a huge fan of ds9! ive noticed that some ds9 episodes were originally pitched and/or written by people who were not on the ds9 writing staff. i believe bryan fuller’s first tv writing credit was for a ds9 episode he wrote. what was it like working on the scripts written by these “outsiders”? did you find that they sometimes had trouble grasping the voices of the characters? did these writers challenge you to think about the characters and situations in new ways?

We used a lot of freelancers back on DS9. That was the practice back then. Shows had small staffs, did a ton of episodes, and relied on freelance scripts to fill the gaps.

Working with freelancers was a somewhat mixed bag, to be honest. Many of the people we worked with were getting their very first script, and that means the scripts were often pretty raw and needed a lot of reworking by the staff. A lot of time, tone and voice were the issues there, but also lack of the experience needed to execute to our standards. This wasn't a huge issue for us, though, because we expected to have to clean up those scripts and built that into our work schedules.

That said, freelancers also sometimes delivered spectacularly (for example, Lisa Klink's great freelance script got her a spot on VOYAGER). And they often brought fresh and exciting ideas for episodes we never would have come up with on our own, like Toni Marberry & Jack Travino for "Little Green Men."

Overall, I liked having freelancers contribute, and I think the death of the freelance episode in TV is sad, even if it's understandable.

[trekkiehood]

Wip Ask Game!

Rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet of it or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have wips.

Tagged by: @frau-wilhelm-klink

I'm dividing it by fandom and including things that are currently updating.

Supernatural

Shoes

Faith

What is this fever dream

Michael - Suit

Dean Starving

Demon John - spn fanfic

Dean the martyr

WIAWNSB brotherhood

Dean gets his GED

Evil Dean

Dean and Lisa AU

Mute Dean

Immortal - spn fanfic

Dean is chewing out Sam for Something is there supposed to be plot?

Original

9/11 story

Moments

9/11

The Marine

Detective Story

Story

The 50s

Some scifi story

True heroes

The stone wall

Robyn Hood

Fantasy story

Dream

Ella Writes the story

Personal - Story

Letters from the past

The Dome

The Last Case

Alone in alignment

And I'm done typing so here are the rest :)

Some are repeated but I'm not editing so you can gaze at the chaos of my docs.

So NEXT TIME you want to yell st me for posting so many fics and sometimes being slow to update, just know, I'm actually restraining myself :)

Tagging: @pricelesstrashpanda @evangeliamerryll @wind-at-her-heels and whoever else wishes to do it :)

[isagrimorie]

I recently revisited Endgame, I agree with you. I enjoyed it a lot but my nitpick still has to be that I felt that I wish it lingered 5 minutes longer.

I’m a fan of Elementary so this was a pleasant surprise and most of what he wrote for Voyager were things I liked. (But also, Q2– what was up with that?).

“I like the way Doherty approaches smart, abrasive characters! Or at least how he wrote both Seven and Sherlock Holmes—I think he nailed the mix of smartassery and vulnerability for both of them”

Same! I really love that about his writing of both Seven and Holmes. They hit the kind of character type I really like.

There’s another Voyager writer I like and learned about recently, Lisa Klink I thought wrote Seven well in the early season.

“#robert doherty sure loved a good seven has difficult emotions episode”

I didn’t know he was part of the writing team on Voyager!

Looking through his writing credits, I like most that he writes for Seven.

honestly I hadn't realized Doherty had been in the Voyager writing room either until I got to the end of my Elementary rewatch. (For context, Robert Doherty is the creator of Elementary). I assumed all the Trek jokes were because of Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who also produced and wrote a considerable amount of DS9 and Elementary episodes. But no, at this point I think that the easter egg of naming very secondary characters on Elementary after Voyager actors (it's a thing that happens a lot in the early seasons) was due to Doherty's past association with the show.

Doherty's credits on Voyager are interesting, if a bit hit and miss. For example, “Imperfection” is a bit too melodramatic as an episode imho, and “Repentance” (which he didn't write alone) and “Q2” are a mess, but he still authored a lot of my favorite parts of Seven's characterization, especially themes about guilt and responsibility that Seven has to confront about her actions as a drone. He wrote “Bliss” and “Tsunkatse”, for example, and the salvageable moments of “Repentance” are a good segue of the latter.

I can now see an interesting continuity between the way Doherty wrote Seven and his take on Sherlock Holmes, who is definitely riddled with the same kind of guilt Seven is, having done terrible things when he wasn't in control of himself. I have no idea if it was on purpose, but imho there is a connection. Holmes is already at the part where that guilt has turned into a moral imperative to right the wrongs he sees in the world, often breaking the rules in doing so. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that Doherty wanted to suggest a similar trajectory for Seven. (It's interesting that Seven also got there, eventually, on Star Trek: Picard.)

Most of all I have to admit I like the way Doherty approaches smart, abrasive characters! Or at least how he wrote both Seven and Sherlock Holmes—I think he nailed the mix of smartassery and vulnerability for both of them. Obviously neither Voyager nor Elementary are perfect shows (far from it), but it was interesting to me to find this bit of connection between them.

ETA Robert Doherty also co-wrote “Endgame” for which I have a warmer opinion than most Voyager fans—and I probably still like it better than the S7 finale of Elementary lmao

[harrypotterhousequotes]

SLYTHERIN: "Paranoia is a way of life for you, isn't it?" –Lisa Klink + Rick Williams (Emergency Medical Hologram: Star Trek: Voyager: Message in a Bottle)

[holishkes]

I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting where the Voyager production staff decided that Andrew Robinson would direct the Pon Farr episode.

[aceofwands]

Jeri was also the one who came up with that stupid gothic holonovel for Janeway right? I've been catching up on The Delta Flyers recently and they had Lisa Klink on talking about Resolutions and how Jeri was the one who best understood Janeway's character and was her champion and I just thought to myself, hmmmm idk about that. A lot of her choices actually felt pretty stale and old fashioned when it came to the female characters especially imo.

I also coincidentally am 3/4 of the way through the podcast episode on Basics Part 2 where they were talking about that exact showrunner transition behind the scenes being the reason that things swerved. Robbie, Garrett and Martha (who was a delightful interview guest, I adore her so much) were all talking about how ... questionable some of the choices were in that episode, including the fact that Seska would never make a mistake like that, and how it didn't really make sense lmao, and they're so right.

Lbr it also just would have been so much more interesting for Chakotay to be forced into the position of undesired fatherhood and raising this half-Cardassian baby and all the complicated feelings around that. And would have given him something more interesting to do for the latter half of the show lmao. So I think Piller's choice would have been wayyyy more interesting overall. (Though also I wouldn't be surprised if the studio wanted to veto it for that same reason)

totally not chakotay’s son

[paris-torres-month]

FEVER FEBRUARY DAY 14: LISA KLINK APPRECIATION DAY ❤️💕🥰💋🔥

Valentine’s Day seems a fitting time to honour the Queen of nascent P/T, Lisa Klink. She saw what we saw, and brought Tom & B’Elanna’s irresistible, magnetic attraction to fruition through her finely crafted words… and sparked hundreds (thousands?) of missing scene fanfics and codas in the process because we always want MORE.

Lisa Klink was a writer for Star Trek Voyager. According to imbd, she had her (typing) fingers in 74 episodes, either as a staff writer, executive story editor, or lead writer. Oh how we wish she had stayed until Endgame! According to the lovely and talented woman herself, she wrote four of our favourite episodes: Blood Fever, Displaced, Revulsion, & Scientific Method.

Lisa’s were some of the best Tom & B’Elanna early episodes, then she appeared to move on, alas. But she set the groundwork for one of—if not the—best Trek romances ever. Through Lisa Klink’s words, superbly acted by Roxann Dawson & Robert Duncan McNeill, Tom and B’Elanna became more that just characters manipulated on a page, they became real people navigating a relationship through trying circumstances.

We P/Ters will always be grateful to our Queen, our Goddess, Lisa Klink for her humour & her romantic heart & her ability to beautifully complicate Tom & B’Elanna’s path to true Love.

❤️❤️❤️

BLOOD FEVER:

“You've never been hard to get, Tom.” “Well, I'm making an exception. I can't let you do this.” “Oh, I'll bet you wish you could. All those invitations to dinner. And on the holodeck, the way you would stare at me when you thought I wasn't looking, and get jealous when I'm with someone else. You can't tell me you're not interested in me.” “You're right. I can't.” “Then don't push me away.” “Oh, believe me, I'd like to, but I know this isn't really you. You've made it clear that you're not interested, and I have to accept that's how you feel, even now.” “No. No, it isn't. I was, I was just afraid to admit it. You see, I've wanted this for so long...Just let it happen.” “I hope someday you'll say that to me and mean it.”

❤️❤️❤️

DISPLACED:

“I have tried this, and now I am finished. Got it?” “Look, if you don't like the programme, that's fine. But why do you always have to get so hostile?” “I am not hostile!”

💕

“Nice day.” “Beautiful.“ “Things were pretty chilly there for a while.” “I guess they were.” “It feels good to be warm again.” “Yeah, it sure does.”

❤️❤️❤️

REVULSION:

“B'Elanna, this is ridiculous. It's been three days and we haven't said a word to each other.” “I know, I know. We have to talk.” “About what you said. I mean, the part about being in love with me. I realise you were suffering from oxygen deprivation and we were literally seconds away from death, so I know you probably didn't mean it.” “No, no, I meant it. But I don't expect you to reciprocate. Really, you can just pretend that I didn't say it. In fact let's just pretend that I didn't—” “Shut up.”

❤️❤️❤️

SCIENTIFIC METHOD:

“We have been a little out of control lately.” “Do you think we really were?” “What?” “Out of control. Those aliens could have just been messing around with our hormones just to see what would happen.” “You're right, they could have. And we don't know how long they were on board. They could have been tampering with us for months“ “Well, when you think about it you did have a pretty abrupt change of heart a couple of weeks ago. What made you realise that you love me all of a sudden?” “Just a feeling. So our whole relationship might be based on some alien experiment.” “You never know.“ “Well, I think that explains it.” “I guess we should just call it off, then.” “I think so.” “Thank God we found out in time.” “Thank God.” “I don't know about you, but I'm curious to see how this experiment turns out.”

❤️❤️❤️

We know how it turned out: with a perfect baby and Tom & B’Elanna’s happily (though never smooth and boring) ever after.

[dalesramblingsblog]

Oh for fuck's sake Voyager are we doing the Great Replacement now? Really? "Don't trust seemingly confused and helpless aliens because they might secretly be scheming masterminds who want to subvert your entire culture?" Christ almighty.

Look, I really do try and give Voyager the benefit of the doubt. From the third season alone, episodes like Distant Origin, Remember, and even Future's End rank as some of my favourite pieces of Star Trek ever. I'm not some guy who's gonna go around blithely hating Voyager for the sake of its being Voyager.

But this ugly reactionary streak keeps manifesting and I'm really getting tired of it.

Warlord: "Oh man Kes is in a skintight jumpsuit and might want to kiss Galyn Görg, isn't that so creepy but also kinda hot?" Why thank you Warlord, I'm glad we could make up for Deep Space Nine's not having any Mirror Universe episodes this year.

The Q and the Grey: "Oh man wouldn't it be so funny if Q's ex showed up just to call the franchise's first female captain to headline a TV series a bitch? Let's also have Q make dated '50s sitcom ahh references to his newfound wife as 'the ball and chain.'"

Blood Fever: "Now listen, don't go repressing your sexuality, because that might lead to bad things. But also if you try to force yourself on your superior officer we're not gonna reprimand you in any way because you're just following your biological urges. And feel free to beat the snotters out of each other by the way."

Favorite Son: "Wouldn't it be so cool if you got to hang out with Howard Hamlin on a planet of smoking hot women and practise polyamory? No, it wouldn't! Because female sexuality is an inherently corruptive and evil force and only evil space vixens would dare wield it against our poor stout male heroes!"

Real Life: "Aren't *those people* with their hip ho- sorry, Klingon opera and their gang initiations so scary? I sure am glad we can all come together as a white heterosexual family unit, which is the only worthwhile family unit by the way. No, what even is a gay person, somebody call David Livingston to stop those extras holding hands. Anyway, since you didn't ask, here's what *I* thought about the 1992 LA riots."

Look, to a certain extent I'm just dicking around here, and I know that there are all manner of problems of this kind to be found in the long history of Star Trek. Deep Space Nine, just this same season, did Let He Who Is Without Sin..., and we're barely a year away from Profit and Lace, so please don't think that this is just a case of me . But equally, when you lay it out like this... I dunno, man. The third season of Voyager seems, to me at least, particularly regressive.

And I know I've said this before but what the hell happened to Lisa Klink between Seasons Two and Three? Like, four of the episodes I cited were written by her, and nothing prior to Warlord gives off the vibes of "Yep this person has weird views about the world." What, did she spontaneously pick up reading 4chan as a hobby over the summer? Is it just a case of being handed awful scripts and trying desperately to craft a functional teleplay out of them? In all honesty, probably.

But even so, it's very unfortunate, particularly for someone who proved they could write some truly great episodes with Hippocratic Oath, Resistance and Remember.

I know I've got some people in my audience who seem to consistently enjoy Voyager a lot more than I do so I do apologise if I've caused offence with this one, but it just... really wouldn't leave my mind.