Spoilers Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

[Arilyn]

I think my main problem with Keiko is she's filling the role of "TV wife." This was a common trope in old shows, in particular: The wife has me on a diet. The wife's out of town, so let's have a Poker Night. Wife's upset that I was out too late with the boys. Wife has me sleeping on the couch again.

Now Keiko does have a little more going on. She's unhappy because she doesn't have a fulfilling job since they left the Enterprise. Miles wants to help, albeit a bit clumsily. This all makes sense. Keiko ends up opening a school. But of course she does. All women love children, right? She can be the school marm, out on the frontier! Keiko is a trained scientist. No science needed on DS9? No knock on teaching. I'm a teacher, but that's not Keiko's speciality.

When the school fizzles, Keiko finally gets her shot as a botanist. Yay! Good for her. When she does come home for visits, however, it's more like she's in the way.

In a show with strong female characters like Kira and Dax, Keiko feels like she falls into a lazy the wife trope because nobody knew quite what to do with her. I think they genuinely tried and she does have moments, but to me she never really felt like a believable fleshed out character.

 

[payn]

I think my main problem with Keiko is she's filling the role of "TV wife." This was a common trope in old shows, in particular: The wife has me on a diet. The wife's out of town, so let's have a Poker Night. Wife's upset that I was out too late with the boys. Wife has me sleeping on the couch again.

Now Keiko does have a little more going on. She's unhappy because she doesn't have a fulfilling job since they left the Enterprise. Miles wants to help, albeit a bit clumsily. This all makes sense. Keiko ends up opening a school. But of course she does. All women love children, right? She can be the school marm, out on the frontier! Keiko is a trained scientist. No science needed on DS9? No knock on teaching. I'm a teacher, but that's not Keiko's speciality.

When the school fizzles, Keiko finally gets her shot as a botanist. Yay! Good for her. When she does come home for visits, however, it's more like she's in the way.

In a show with strong female characters like Kira and Dax, Keiko feels like she falls into a lazy the wife trope because nobody knew quite what to do with her. I think they genuinely tried and she does have moments, but to me she never really felt like a believable fleshed out character.

Some fair points. On the other hand, with Kira and Dax running around bucking trends, it was nice to see a traditional female type character for contrast. I think the big idea was this kind of relationship between Keiko and Miles must be enacted out all over the federation. You often dont see it as its all under the hood in TNG, but must be very common. On the other other hand, with the amount of episodes and the sheer amount of characters that get development in DS9, its amazing you still get a few on the outskirts type characters still (which are far more common in 8 episode modern series format).

 

[Ryujin]

Some fair points. On the other hand, with Kira and Dax running around bucking trends, it was nice to see a traditional female type character for contrast. I think the big idea was this kind of relationship between Keiko and Miles must be enacted out all over the federation. You often dont see it as its all under the hood in TNG, but must be very common. On the other other hand, with the amount of episodes and the sheer amount of characters that get development in DS9, its amazing you still get a few on the outskirts type characters still (which are far more common in 8 episode modern series format).

I sometimes feel like Morn got more character development than Keiko.

 

[MarkB]

I think my main problem with Keiko is she's filling the role of "TV wife." This was a common trope in old shows, in particular: The wife has me on a diet. The wife's out of town, so let's have a Poker Night. Wife's upset that I was out too late with the boys. Wife has me sleeping on the couch again.

Now Keiko does have a little more going on. She's unhappy because she doesn't have a fulfilling job since they left the Enterprise. Miles wants to help, albeit a bit clumsily. This all makes sense. Keiko ends up opening a school. But of course she does. All women love children, right? She can be the school marm, out on the frontier! Keiko is a trained scientist. No science needed on DS9? No knock on teaching. I'm a teacher, but that's not Keiko's speciality.

When the school fizzles, Keiko finally gets her shot as a botanist. Yay! Good for her. When she does come home for visits, however, it's more like she's in the way.

In a show with strong female characters like Kira and Dax, Keiko feels like she falls into a lazy the wife trope because nobody knew quite what to do with her. I think they genuinely tried and she does have moments, but to me she never really felt like a believable fleshed out character.

There's also the factor that Molly, as a child actor(s?), is around even less than Keiko, and almost never without her, which kind-of gives the impression that Keiko is doing somewhere around 90% of the child-rearing, with Miles only occasionally involved.

 

[payn]

There's also the factor that Molly, as a child actor(s?), is around even less than Keiko, and almost never without her, which kind-of gives the impression that Keiko is doing somewhere around 90% of the child-rearing, with Miles only occasionally involved.

While true, I do like that they addressed Molly a bit in the O'Brien family dynamics.

 

[Gradine]

We do get a lot more of the O'Brien family as a whole when the family... grows for a while

 

[pukunui]

We do get a lot more of the O'Brien family as a whole when the family... grows for a while

Yes, that's where I'm up to ... Keiko and Molly just returned after their year away. Yes, Miles groused a bit about losing his bachelor life with Julian, but Keiko saw that he was pining around, and she cared enough about Miles to arrange for him and Julian to spend some time together again (more than just a pint at the bar after work). She also saw Molly reject Miles - she didn't want to play darts anymore but wouldn't let him color with her either.

TBH, I think she was also annoyed by his moping around like a sad dog while she was trying to concentrate on her own work:

Keiko: "This cataloging is going to take me another three hours. Why don't you go spend some time with Julian?"
Miles: "Yeah, I guess I can spare an hour to play darts with him."
Keiko: "Why not make it two?"


I get the "TV wife" criticism, and that's a fair point. However, I still just find their relationship to be one of the most genuine, authentic fictional marriages I've seen on TV. Their relationship is neither a fairytale "happily ever after" sort of thing nor a toxic, abusive one. They're just two ordinary people with ordinary foibles, and they love each other enough to want to work through life's challenges together. And so far, at least, they've always come out stronger for it.

On a side note: does Keiko ever find out that OG Miles died and she is now living with a version of her husband who came from a few minutes into the future (at the time)?

 

[bloodtide]

Keiko feels like she falls into a lazy the wife trope because nobody knew quite what to do with her. I think they genuinely tried and she does have moments, but to me she never really felt like a believable fleshed out character.

I mostly agree.

The big problem with Keiko is that she just does not fit in the the group of 'space adventure people'. When you have a subspace doo dad inverting reality it just does not fit to say "find the botanist lady and see if she can reconfigure the subspace DNA!"

Keiko is on the sub show "days of our lives in the future". And after season five she really has to take a back seat to all the "war characters". And Worf. And Cassidy Yates.

It is too bad they never got around to explaining just how she lived in the 24th century. Like she was a civilian botanist just hanging out on the Enterprise? How does she have quarters and get things like food and clothing? Was she "hired" by Starfleet? When she moves to DS9 who would pay her bills? (other then Starfleet through Miles). Do Federation Citizens get free money like it seems Starfleet people do?

Of course, you get the same questions for Jake. Once he becomes an adult, where does he get money from? DS9 and Bajor use money.

 

[Staffan]

It is too bad they never got around to explaining just how she lived in the 24th century. Like she was a civilian botanist just hanging out on the Enterprise? How does she have quarters and get things like food and clothing? Was she "hired" by Starfleet? When she moves to DS9 who would pay her bills? (other then Starfleet through Miles). Do Federation Citizens get free money like it seems Starfleet people do?

I'm pretty sure Enterprise-D crew were allowed to bring families along for the ride (they even had kindergarten there), but I think TNG were pretty silent on whether or not they were just passengers or if they actually did work there as well.