Travis Mayweather

On , Travis Mayweather is a navigator and helm officer on board the Earth starship Enterprise (NX-01). He was born in 2126 aboard the ECS Horizon, a human J-class cargo ship, and later visited many places such as Trillius Prime, Draylax, Vega Colony and both Tenebian moons. He is a "boomer", meaning he grew up in space on board cargo ships. This also means that he has more experience in space than the captain of the Enterprise, Jonathan Archer. Mayweather is a quiet and enthusiastic young man who is a highly skilled pilot and has some spelunking experience.

Criticism

Fan criticism about the under-use of minor characters on Enterprise began during the first season, but Mayweather has always been regarded as having received the worst treatment. The executive producers had long declared their intention to build up a new "big three" core character set of Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker, to mimic the previously successful Kirk-Spock-McCoy mechanic on the Original Series. This was tried previously on ', with Janeway, Seven of Nine and The Doctor reigning over the Voyager crew; this coincided with a steady drop in the quality of the series, and has been widely derided as a poor decision. Despite this, Star Trek's producers attempted to recreate the Big Three on Enterprise, and though Phlox received a certain amount of screentime (probably due to the charisma of his character), Reed, Hoshi, and Mayweather were the subject of few (if any) storylines devoted to them, and sometimes even lacked dialogue.

Related Topics:
Kirk - Spock - McCoy - Janeway - Seven of Nine - The Doctor - Phlox - Reed - Hoshi

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When Enterprise began, many critics, and the fanbase as a whole, expressed fears that he would become another "Harry Kim," a main character on Voyager whose underuse became legendary. Unfortunately, Mayweather surpassed the precedent set by Kim, and has replaced him in the Star Trek lexicon as the archetypal example of a useless and underdeveloped character. In four seasons, Mayweather only had two episodes devoted to himself, and he only had significant dialogue in a half dozen. Eventually it came to the point that Mayweather had few if any speaking lines in any episode (even including throwaway acknowledgement such as "Aye, sir"), and recurring characters like Shran were developed and characterized more than he ever was.

Related Topics:
Harry Kim - Shran

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Ironically, Mayweather and Sato, widely viewed as the characters with the least amount of dialogue and screen time in the 'normal' version of , seemed poised to take power over the Mirror Universe at the end of "In a Mirror, Darkly (Part II)". With greater irony, Travis and Hoshi eliminated Mirror-Archer without saying a word, just silently kissing as he lay dying.

Related Topics:
Mirror Universe - In a Mirror, Darkly

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