Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Neelix
3. Ocampa & Company
When names were decided on, two were put together. In fact, more than one version of the Star Trek: Voyager series bible gives "NEELIX AND KES" as a single entry. Inseparable on the page, the pair were hardly made for each other on the screen. The at best bizarre age gap notwithstanding, Neelix and Kes were always "a truly odd couple," as the (season one) series bible put it.
According to the same version of the bible, Neelix and Kes were also meant to "become oblique commentators on the human condition" along the lines of Spock, Data, and Odo. In the words of executive producer Michael Piller, quoted in Star Trek: Voyager — A Celebration, "We'd never seen that done with a male and female, but it just didn't seem to work". The couple broke up officially-unofficially in season three's Warlord. More on that in our upcoming article about Kes.
Neelix and Kes weren't the only 'odd couple' aboard Voyager. Neelix and Tuvok filled that role, too, despite the latter's (sometimes violent) protestations. Behind the scenes, Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ had become fast friends from day one on set. Not even Tuvix could take that away — a role, moreover, which was originally planned for Phillips. Odd, indeed!