Character Insight No. 221: Best of Travis Mayweather

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue the "Best Of" series for Enterprise with a profile of Travis Mayweather, the ensign and primary helmsman aboard Archer's Enterprise.  He's a character that could steer the ship by [HEART].

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp221

In the season 1 episode Fortunate Son, Mayweather alludes to his background and family ties aboard spacefaring vessels when discussing a freighter that the Enterprise needs to help.  This helps explain why he is passionate about helming the new Warp-5 capable Enterprise:

Sub-Commander T'Pol: The Earth cargo ship: "Fortunate". Y-class freighter. Maximum speed warp 1.8. Crew complement 23.
Ensign Travis Mayweather: Not counting newborn babies.
Captain Jonathan Archer: Ensign?
Ensign Travis Mayweather: I grew up on a J-class. A little smaller, but the same basic design. And one thing I can tell you is that at warp 1.8, you got a lotta time on your hands between ports. That's how my parents wound up with me.

In the season 2 episode Horizon, we see Mayweather go back to visit that family, still running their freighter, during a slow time aboard Enterprise.  The death of Mayweather's father presents some of his best character bits of the series, but this dialogue before those events stands out as showing some of his views on the future of Starfleet space flight:

Ensign Travis Mayweather: Starfleet really ought to think about putting families on starships.
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed: You must be joking.
Ensign Travis Mayweather: No one would ever get homesick.
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed: Yes... Well, they'd better post a psychologist on board, because I'd need one if my parents were roaming the corridors.

There are parallels to character development of other helmsmen like Sulu, as shown when Mayweather is first confronted with taking command of the Enterprise in Season 1's Cold Front:

Ensign Hoshi Sato: Aren't you gonna take the chair?
Ensign Travis Mayweather: What?
Ensign Hoshi Sato: [winking to the Captain's chair] You're in command!
Ensign Travis Mayweather: [laughs sheepishly] I'm fine right here.
Ensign Hoshi Sato: Haven't you ever wondered what it's like?
Ensign Travis Mayweather: I can wait till I'm promoted.

Mayweather starts out with some strong episodes in the first two seasons of the show, but he becomes more of a face in the ensemble crowd in latter seasons, as others become the star characters. Unfortunately, that leaves a lot that could have been done much better in the development of this character.  He's kind of a one note character:

Closing quote
From Strange New World, season 1: Ensign Travis Mayweather: I couldn't call a place home unless it came with a pair of warp nacelles.