I would add Elizabeth Shelby to that list. What I find I like about Pulaski, Ro and Shelby was that she shook up the other characters a bit and introduced a degree of conflict that made them and those around them more interesting. I was happy having Beverly back, but I still think Pulaski got the short end of the proverbial stick and would love some references to her here and there.
Considering Shelby's knowledge and interest in the Borg, if she was still around by the time Voyager returned I would not be surprised if she was the lead in anything involving Borg technology the Voyager crew brought back.
While the books aren't canon, Shelby ending up as the XO of the Ambassador-class U.S.S. Excalibur in Peter David's "New Frontier" novels and dealing with being the right hand of her ex-boyfriend, forner teenage planetary warlord Mackenzie Calhoun, certainly gave the character a chance to evolve into more than a go-getter brash enough to be eyeing Riker's job during "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1".
I've heard that at one point, both Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner were going to leave the show. Plan was to bring Jellico in as new captain and Shelby as new 2nd officer, leaving Riker stuck between a captain who hates him and a Lt. Commander who wants his job. Glad it didn't happen.
Thank you for the T'Rul love! I've always thought her just disappearing was such a loss for the myriad storylines a Romulan character could have brought to the show. Plus, Martha Hackett is fabulous.
Yeah exploring the Romulans through T'Rul would have been so interesting. There's several stinkers in each later season that could have been replaced with T'Rul plots.
It would have been interesting to see how they coped with her presence in episodes like "In the Pale Moonlight". I'm sure Garak would have a plan for her (probably not assassination as that would point suspicion back onto the station).
@@BodyMusicification Tryin so very hard to NOT make the obvious joke about a certain public figure.... But yes. I've noticed that when I color lineart. I have to mix yellow, red, and black to get the the skin tones I want.
Dr Pulaski might get at least a mention in Picard seeing as how Dr Moriarty seems to be in the trailer for season 3 and he did promise to give her tea and crumpets when they last met so he might remember her. Bit of a long shot, I know...
Sela's potential is not wasted in Star Trek Online. In fact she's one of the major staple villains and she's directly behind kicking off the Iconian War story arc, which is one of THE best campaigns in the entire game.
Honestly thought Sela should somehow have been involved in Nemesis. It really is otherwise a mystery why the Romulans would clone an otherwise random Starfleet Captain serving on a run-down ship decades before the Romulans would return to the galactic scene during the season 1 finale of TNG. Perhaps whatever information the Romulans got from the survivors of the Ent-C might have been what compelled them to do so. Could be why the project got shelved as well as Sela's regard in the Romulan hierarchy wavered due to her misadventures. Might have also informed their development of the D'deridex if they thought the near "future" Galaxy class battleship would be a relative giant of local space.
I think they cloned him later around the time he was captain of the enterprise D which was the federation flag ship and did something to cause him to mature faster. I could be remembering this wrong because I haven't seen the film in a while but I think they mention that is part of the reason for his illness.
It is suggested that B4 and Shinzon were both Romulan creations, meaning that they would have had to get access to both of them -- which was possible in the episode "Unification" where they both went to Romulus. Of course, that would mean that Shinzon was cooked up in a lab, and grown to adult size in less than 8 years for him to start doing Dominion War stuff. But we also know that Shinzon had a childhood of some kind, forced to work in the mines. Essentially, Nemesis broke the timeline in a bunch of places.
Not bad concepts. I really liked that movie, and Tom Hardy did an admirable young Picard clone. Didn’t care for Data’s death, and while B4 was something of a consolation prize, he was a poor facsimile of Data.
@@Bitchslapper316 Sorry for the late reply, but you were on the right track. The original plan was for Shinzon to replace Picard at some point after being rapidly aged, but Shinzon explains that the Romulan government changed hands and the project was shelved before that could happen, so the rapid aging process was never activated, which led to Shinzon's body stalling out and falling apart. It wasn't designed to skip the aging process, so it shut itself down and killed him.
@@tetravega567 apparently Michael Dorn felt that was a route their characters were going to go down if she stuck around. I guess maybe that was a homage to her?
Thomas Riker might still be alive, as there's no mention of him after his appearance on DS9...maybe work him into the Section 31 plot on Lower Decks? Pretty sure Prime Timeline Gabriel Lorca is dead, though.
When I was a teenager watching Deep Space 9 I always wondered what happened to the Romulan. She would have been a great addition to the crew just like Martok the Klingon. Too bad.
Martha Hackett got drafted by Voyager. It's a shame - Seska was fine, but the idea of the DS9 writers developing a Romulan/Romulan culture and adding another interesting female character to the show is tantalizing.
While the character of Pulaski wasn't my favorite, I really liked the set up for her story arc with Data.... It would have been really great if we got to see her journey from dismissing Data as just a tool or appliance to being his greatest champion as a fully sentient life form. We ended up with a couple of the best episodes of TNG and the first season of Picard exploring that question, but it would have been really cool to see it build up throughout the whole series in small ways
I thought her returning in Season 1 of Picard would have been a cool journey for her character. If she was somehow helping the synths in the face of Federation abandonment and Romulan persecution.
Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln are greatly used in the Eugenics War books by Greg Cox. I listened to the audio book versions and got a great dose of those two characters.
That's true. And as far as the show that Roddenberry wanted to start, it never got picked up (as well as Teri Garr wasn't interested in doing a science fiction show).
Trying to recreate the Spock-McCoy dynamic with Data and Pulaski was a huge miscalculation. Unlike Data, Spock was not an innocent with no life experience or knowledge of how life worked, so he could give as good as McCoy, whereas whenever Pulaski gave data a hard time, it was seen like she was kicking a puppy.
Yeah honestly Spock's Vulcan superiority earned some of the guff he got. But Data was a relative innocent. I think I would have liked if Pulaski had also been involved on that synth planet having had a conversion over the decades.
However Data didn't have feelings to hurt, while Spock did. While Vulcans are excellent at suppressing their emotions, if the do snap it is really bad. If a Vulcan has an emotional breakdown I would much rather them having good feeling towards me than being a bother.
Aside from it seeming a little odd to me that the traders had gone out that far ahead of the explorers, I thought Travis as a space boomer had a lot of potential , having grown up dealing with other species. He really only got used well during Season 4, in the Babel arc and the Terra Prime arc. Pulaski I really liked, and Hemmer...😭
I definitely agree one of Discovery's shortcomings was the semi anonymous bridge crew. I'm glad they started getting a little more time in the past two seasons. While I do love Discovery, I hope future series avoid the Burnham "responsibility hoarding" type of character. Nana Visitor was so amazing as Kira that I don't really think too much about Ro being on DS9. And if there is a spinoff for Captain Shaw w 7 of 9, I hope they assign Elnor to the Titan. He was one of the most lovable and unique characters in Picard. I get that it was probably impossible to include him in the final season of Picard, but I seriously hope they find a spot for him in a future series.
@@tetravega567 They did a decent job with Detmer. I don't think the other characters have even had a chance to be anything but bland. Can't blame the actors for lack of opportunity.
I understand where Discovery was coming from by trying to move away from some of the ensemble cast that hallmarked 90s era Star Trek, but it's unfortunate that Burnham ended up being so...uncompelling. The actress has good range, the backstory is rooted in classic Trek lore, and the concept of the main character being a non-captain is also interesting, but as written, she feels more like a character developed by a marketing committee to check boxes rather than by a writer with a vision--the same could be said about Discovery generally, if I'm being honest. It's a shame, because we're given tantalizing glimpses as interesting characters, relationships, and backstories we're probably never going to see on screen.
@@QuintusAntonious It took awhile for me to warm up to Burnham, but once they paired her up with Book, I feel she became a lot more interesting. There were moments in Season 2 with Spock that played off as real sibling moments as well. But I disliked her involved with Ash. I do love Discovery, but I pretty much am happy to forget about the slow talking Klingons and Ash.
I don't know about that. They wrote the character into a corner from the start with her limited lifespan and inexplicable attachment to Neelix. In fact, I actually think that they unintentionally created a character that didn't have *enough* potential, and when they realized this after two seasons, they decided that they needed a new direction.
Still makes me sad that Airiam died in season 2 of Discovery. I would've love to see her evolution in the 32nd century, she's probably gonna used Borg technology to restore her some of her skin organ. Hemmer death also makes me sad, I really loved to see him as a regular character in Strange New Worlds future seasons.
Agree 100% with #1, one of my favorites. Here’s one you didn’t mention: Dr. Helen Noel, arguably Star Trek’s first female badass, with a spunky and refreshing, endearing persona. She had the potential to become a fantastic major character in the cast…and sadly, we only met her once. Easily one of most underutilized Star Trek characters of all time. Absolutely love her.
I'm hoping we have a bit more from Sela in STO...after her last appearance, I really want to see if she actually can change from it or not because that part of it seemed like something that could be interesting there. She should have been in Nemesis as well. For Ro Laren, I've wondered if part of the thing with her is if she got hit, partially, by the same thing that ended up creating Tom Paris where it's a royalties thing mixed in with other things since there seemed to have been plans for her to be in DS9 but that never went anywhere
@@AzraelThanatos Forbes turned down the DS9 role so she could get into movies, back when that was still frowned upon in Hollywood. She was otherwise intended to move from Enterprise to DS9 just like O'Brien was.
@@MishraArtificer I was meaning with the offers there. More of an underhanded stunt to shift things there. O'Brien had a lot more spread out, while Ro had fewer, focused episodes, so going under what would be considered fair as an offer or other things while she might have been going for movies and such at the same time can also influence things.
I actually liked Dr. Pulaski. I never truly understood what people didn't like about her. I felt that her character grew through out season 2. Unfortunately we will never know how DS9 would have turned out if Michelle Forbes had reprised her roll as Ro Laren. Both her and Nana Vistor are entirely different actors.
The actress was superb, her character was laid down from the first episode she appeared in. I liked her icy exterior and willingness to say what was on her mind. The look of the character was also interesting.
it's funny you ask what Sela was up to when the Romulan home world was destroyed, because the Star Trek Online game answers that spectacularly. it actually expands on the character a quite a bit. that game is really awesome for it's writing and the way it blends all the canon Star Trek shows into one cohesive universe.
Lt. Leslie (Eddie Paskey) from TOS is the most significant omission from this list, he's in over 50 episodes and even sat in the center seat a few times, yet we know very little about him. Why did he keep changing jobs? how did he get resurrected after being killed on an away mission?
I highly recommend watching an episode of The Outer Limits called - A Stich in Time. ??? Staring Michelle Forbes and someone named Amanda Plummer. Yes. Watch it! Forbes can absolutely play a leading character. And someone else still likes to use po. . . (Watch it!) Props for putting Ro first.
Regarding the Disco bridge crew - 55 episodes of Discovery are just about equivalent to two seasons of earlier series. We definitely did not receive that level of characterization for Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu during all of TOS, and I'd argue that we got just as much from Owosekun and Detmer than, say, Dr. Crusher or LaForge during the same length of time.
Well to be fair, Chekov wasn't even on the show in the first season. And you picked the minority characters (and a woman) from a 60's action TV show which should be telling. Why that matters is even in the 70's Uhura and Sulu were originally not intended to be in TAS until Nimoy put his foot down.
I believe that Exidor (From Mork & Mindy) was actually a Vulcan who got stranded on Earth and went crazy. He clearly has the Vulcan face going, and his hair hides his ears.
One of my all time favourite character. I quote him all the time when I do my "mentally unbalanced schtick" People really laugh or believe me. I never tell them I owe the act to Exidor
Shouldn't Uhura from TOS be mentioned? Probably even as number 1? A character so underused, the actor Nichelle Nichols threaten to leave and had Martin Luther King talk her into staying... and that didn't even get a first name until way after TOS was finished. Her only "character trait" was, that she can sing, since this is something Nichols did as well.
You missed out on not mentioning Ensign Sonya Gomez. (I think she's a captain in a couple of Lower Decks episodes) Really liked Lycia Naff in the part. Thought it was great to include a mexican crewman.
I often wondered what happened to Ro Laren. We last see her near the end of TNG joining the Maquis, and we know they were decimated by the Jem’Hadar in DS9. So was she killed, or did she survive?
There were a series of DS9 books that continued after the series with new crew members joining the remaining DS9 regulars - that included Ro Laren (she and Kira don't hit off well at first) giving a really nice character arc.
Deanna Troi absolutely deserves to be on this list. As an empath and professional therapist on a series the routinely explored the question "What does it mean to be human?" her potential was completely squandered. Her entire character arc can be summed up as Pretty girl, love interest, victim, unreliable psychic, stand-in mother figure, Picard's secretary, officer only valuable when doing things out of her scope of expertise, and now in Star Trek: Picard; stay-at-home mom and neglected wife.
A character I was looking forward to seeing again on ST: TNG was the Vulcan Dr. Selar played by Suzie Plakson. This character appeared in only one episode and was mentioned by name in a later episode but that was it. Although Ms. Plakson was playing an emotionally restrained Vulcan as expected, she none the less exuded an incredible sensuality in that role that quickly caught my attention. She played other aliens in the franchise, but the character of Dr. Selar was indeed an example of wasted potential !
Don't forget SHELBY. Giving Ryker a protagonist. But like Dr.Polaski a character that push to hard and becomes devicesive..Creating character that is to confrontational that fans were left with a bad connection to.A school teacher you liked but didn't want to be around This like hate relationship was inevitable to end with a whimper or just disappear entirely 🤔 .Good Video 😎
Two characters that I truly hope don't end up on this list are Chief Kyle from Strange New Worlds and Agnes Jurati/Soji from Picard. In Strange New Worlds Chief Kyle bearly appears in the first season and we only really ever here other people talk about him rather than any real character or development. Hopefully season 2 fixes this. And while Agnes did get an arc in becoming the new Borg Queen, I'd still like to see whats next for her. It would be interesting to see if she starts making synth Borg as a way to avoid the need for assimilation of other cultures and what road that would take her down. Speaking of Synths. Soji was the center of season 1 of Picard but then she becomes an ambassador and nothing more develops. She is the daughter of Data and still has his memories as a part of her. They could have her struggle to live up to his legacy and a longing for her to get to really know her father. Since de-aging tech is actualy getting better you could do a holodeck scene where she gets to have an actual conversation with the hologram of her father. And who doesn't want to see Star Trek: Doctor Who with Wesley and Kore off on time hopping shenanigans lol
@@StephenLeGresley Hey, Picard Season 3 has been great so far. Will they stick the landing? I don't know, but its almost halfway in and its still between that and Strange New Worlds for the best season of Trek I've seen in many years.
I'd add Ensign Suder on Voyager to this list as the Patron Saint of underused Voyager guest stars. If any show was begging to have a deep bench of interesting recurring characters, it's the one about a crew of 150 people lost in an unfriendly part of space. Suder was immediately fascinating and some sort of stop and start redemption arc for him could have been played out for longer than what we got - he easily could have bene Voyager's Garak. As it was, most of the recurring guest cast was killed off by "Basics, Part 2" and after that an actor would be lucky to get a line as a crewman and not be dead within a month of uttering it.
19:53 I think it's safe to say that she bit the big one during that conflict as Chakotay referenced the "fate" of the Maquis was one of complete and utter defeat! IF and I premise IF Ro Laren survived then it was out of cowardice.. something this character is not known for. Therefore I say, she died a hero saving people from the Dominion so they could escape to safety.
Killing off Hemmer was criminal! That's like killing off Spock at the end of the first season of the original series, or Data at the end of Next Generation season one. Such a good character.
@Erik Jerks I mean like after after. Over years of time to learn new information and grown understanding. Also she was a special case, what about the Maquis who didn't get treated so well.
I am extremely glad that the exact person I was thinking about when I saw this list (Aside from two characters played by Denise Crosby) was the first person mentioned. I really wanted them to play her exactly like you said, similarly to T'pol and growing on the human crew. Could also have given her some time with Garak since they're both outsiders who are forced to stay on a federation station.
I agree with Ro Lauren but probably safe to say she died during either the Cardiassian war or when the Federation finally took care of them. If the actress was willing, Ro could have shown up in Voyager and continued trying to fit back into Starfleet.
I would add Thomas Riker to the list. How Kira was critiquing his attack plan, I think he was supposed to be more than just another unhappy member of Starfleet running away to join the Maquis.
In that episode Face of the Enemy when Troi was disguised as a Romulan on the Romulan ship the Tal Shiar that was something for sure between the Romulan Empire & the Federation & Starfleet.
I think if the TNG crew gets a revisit followed by DS9 getting a series, Ro would be a great character to be brought back into canon given the importance of Bajor.
@@GabePuratekuta if nothing else at least a reference as to her fate. I’d love that she was so badass that she survived the Maquis and the Dominion War.
My biggest criticism of Discovery is that we got so little of the bridge crew beyond a handful of characters, the show really missed out on some great storytelling, but that's the sacrifice you make when you tell a highly focused story.
There was the lieutenant that was supposed to become G. LaForge's main love but then disappeared after two or three episodes never to be seen ever again. The killing of Alexander's mum while Worf was still TNG before he was moved over to DS9. As well as the romance between Worf and Jadzia could've been explored more before Jadzia was killed by Dukat. Lastly, a love triangle between Worf, Ezri, and Bashir I think might have been interesting to have seen. Plus Leela was severely under utilized in my opinion.
I much preferred Pulaski to the sugary, sometimes vacuous, Crusher. Pulaski was a crusty individualistic ship's doctor in the tradition of McCoy or the EMH Doctor. Likewise, Hemmer. He had so much potential. If a main character had to die - and I'm fine with that - why did virtually the only Aenar in the entire franchise have to go? Again, he was a bit different to the rest of the crew. I always found TNG main cast a bit bland, with the exception of Picard. Likewise, the SNW main crew became a bit smiley/bland post-Hemmer.
Without spoilers, I immediately love how quickly aspects of this list didn't age well
😅 right?
That's a spoiler
The producers were listening LOL
Who would have thought that Ro Laren would make a comeback 2 days AFTER you posted this!? Terry Matalas sure is trolling (or satisfying) us!
I would add Elizabeth Shelby to that list. What I find I like about Pulaski, Ro and Shelby was that she shook up the other characters a bit and introduced a degree of conflict that made them and those around them more interesting. I was happy having Beverly back, but I still think Pulaski got the short end of the proverbial stick and would love some references to her here and there.
She was young and very driven on TNG, so I imagine that she made Captain and got her own ship not after too long.
Considering Shelby's knowledge and interest in the Borg, if she was still around by the time Voyager returned I would not be surprised if she was the lead in anything involving Borg technology the Voyager crew brought back.
While the books aren't canon, Shelby ending up as the XO of the Ambassador-class U.S.S. Excalibur in Peter David's "New Frontier" novels and dealing with being the right hand of her ex-boyfriend, forner teenage planetary warlord Mackenzie Calhoun, certainly gave the character a chance to evolve into more than a go-getter brash enough to be eyeing Riker's job during "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1".
I've heard that at one point, both Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner were going to leave the show. Plan was to bring Jellico in as new captain and Shelby as new 2nd officer, leaving Riker stuck between a captain who hates him and a Lt. Commander who wants his job.
Glad it didn't happen.
Read new frontier by Peter David. Great book series, and it has Robin Lefler
Gotta love how you did this the same week as one of the characters made a comeback 😂
WOW!! did not see this aging so badly, so quickly, for one of these characters!!!!!
Ya it aged like spoiled milk in the sun
Thank you for the T'Rul love! I've always thought her just disappearing was such a loss for the myriad storylines a Romulan character could have brought to the show. Plus, Martha Hackett is fabulous.
Yeah exploring the Romulans through T'Rul would have been so interesting. There's several stinkers in each later season that could have been replaced with T'Rul plots.
It would have been interesting to see how they coped with her presence in episodes like "In the Pale Moonlight". I'm sure Garak would have a plan for her (probably not assassination as that would point suspicion back onto the station).
@@johnpotts8308 right? That would have been such an interesting layer to the story.
I have never seen a Trek culture video age so fast… “those answers may never come”…. 😂😂😂
Travis and Hoshi were so underused that Shran called humans "Pinkskins,"and nobody called him out on it!
Personally, I always considered myself 'beige'....
Technically we're all different shades of orange
Shran was a Blue Meanie (referencing Yellow Submarine)
@@BodyMusicification Tryin so very hard to NOT make the obvious joke about a certain public figure....
But yes. I've noticed that when I color lineart. I have to mix yellow, red, and black to get the the skin tones I want.
Humans are all a shade of brown, but I imagine going that way might be seen as insensitive due to abundant real life racism.
Wow. Just 3 days until your "Numba One" was completely paid off. That's timing!
Dr Pulaski might get at least a mention in Picard seeing as how Dr Moriarty seems to be in the trailer for season 3 and he did promise to give her tea and crumpets when they last met so he might remember her. Bit of a long shot, I know...
Was giving her tea and crumpets and euphemism for something?
I'd add Hoshi Sato to the list. For a "main character" she really got less development than some guest characters throughout the franchise.
That's a character I personally thought belonged on the list as well. I love super linguist Hoshi!
Stop asian hate
I agree with you but let’s face one fact, she finished strong in an alternate universe “Empress Hoshi Sato!!
@@paddy7812 Definitely can't deny that.
Solid list, if I had to add an addendum to it I'd possible place the borg kids in voyager and K'Ehleyr, Worf's baby mama :P
That character was a lot of fun.
*Warsong vs Duras before her death
My boyfriend's back & you're gonna be in trouble!
K'Ehleyr, K'Ehleyr, my boyfriend's back!
Sela's potential is not wasted in Star Trek Online. In fact she's one of the major staple villains and she's directly behind kicking off the Iconian War story arc, which is one of THE best campaigns in the entire game.
Honestly thought Sela should somehow have been involved in Nemesis. It really is otherwise a mystery why the Romulans would clone an otherwise random Starfleet Captain serving on a run-down ship decades before the Romulans would return to the galactic scene during the season 1 finale of TNG. Perhaps whatever information the Romulans got from the survivors of the Ent-C might have been what compelled them to do so. Could be why the project got shelved as well as Sela's regard in the Romulan hierarchy wavered due to her misadventures. Might have also informed their development of the D'deridex if they thought the near "future" Galaxy class battleship would be a relative giant of local space.
Should have been involved in Picard Season 1 as well. Lets do heaps of Romulan stuff and then not include Sela.
I think they cloned him later around the time he was captain of the enterprise D which was the federation flag ship and did something to cause him to mature faster. I could be remembering this wrong because I haven't seen the film in a while but I think they mention that is part of the reason for his illness.
It is suggested that B4 and Shinzon were both Romulan creations, meaning that they would have had to get access to both of them -- which was possible in the episode "Unification" where they both went to Romulus. Of course, that would mean that Shinzon was cooked up in a lab, and grown to adult size in less than 8 years for him to start doing Dominion War stuff. But we also know that Shinzon had a childhood of some kind, forced to work in the mines.
Essentially, Nemesis broke the timeline in a bunch of places.
Not bad concepts. I really liked that movie, and Tom Hardy did an admirable young Picard clone. Didn’t care for Data’s death, and while B4 was something of a consolation prize, he was a poor facsimile of Data.
@@Bitchslapper316 Sorry for the late reply, but you were on the right track. The original plan was for Shinzon to replace Picard at some point after being rapidly aged, but Shinzon explains that the Romulan government changed hands and the project was shelved before that could happen, so the rapid aging process was never activated, which led to Shinzon's body stalling out and falling apart. It wasn't designed to skip the aging process, so it shut itself down and killed him.
I reckon Worf has been spending time with Pulaski in his time away from the Enterprise, hence why he's back on the camomile tea.
I always wondered if he had a crush on her since their tea date.
A warrior choosing a skilled healer as a mate means he can get into bigger fights.
@@tetravega567 apparently Michael Dorn felt that was a route their characters were going to go down if she stuck around. I guess maybe that was a homage to her?
There's only so much prune juice you can drink before you shit your pants.
e
e
What about KIM?
Besides the ones you guys mentioned in the video, I'd say Thomas Riker springs to mind. And Prime Universe Lorca!
Thomas Riker might still be alive, as there's no mention of him after his appearance on DS9...maybe work him into the Section 31 plot on Lower Decks?
Pretty sure Prime Timeline Gabriel Lorca is dead, though.
Jonathan Frakes thinks Thomas is still alive, but he's leaving the details up to the fans. (I asked him during a video chat a couple years ago.)
When I was a teenager watching Deep Space 9 I always wondered what happened to the Romulan. She would have been a great addition to the crew just like Martok the Klingon. Too bad.
Martha Hackett got drafted by Voyager. It's a shame - Seska was fine, but the idea of the DS9 writers developing a Romulan/Romulan culture and adding another interesting female character to the show is tantalizing.
While the character of Pulaski wasn't my favorite, I really liked the set up for her story arc with Data.... It would have been really great if we got to see her journey from dismissing Data as just a tool or appliance to being his greatest champion as a fully sentient life form. We ended up with a couple of the best episodes of TNG and the first season of Picard exploring that question, but it would have been really cool to see it build up throughout the whole series in small ways
I thought her returning in Season 1 of Picard would have been a cool journey for her character. If she was somehow helping the synths in the face of Federation abandonment and Romulan persecution.
Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln are greatly used in the Eugenics War books by Greg Cox. I listened to the audio book versions and got a great dose of those two characters.
I love you, Teri Garr!
That's true. And as far as the show that Roddenberry wanted to start, it never got picked up (as well as Teri Garr wasn't interested in doing a science fiction show).
John Byrne also did an Assignment Earth limited series for IDW Comics, furthering the adventures of Seven and Lincoln.
Trying to recreate the Spock-McCoy dynamic with Data and Pulaski was a huge miscalculation. Unlike Data, Spock was not an innocent with no life experience or knowledge of how life worked, so he could give as good as McCoy, whereas whenever Pulaski gave data a hard time, it was seen like she was kicking a puppy.
Yeah honestly Spock's Vulcan superiority earned some of the guff he got. But Data was a relative innocent. I think I would have liked if Pulaski had also been involved on that synth planet having had a conversion over the decades.
However Data didn't have feelings to hurt, while Spock did. While Vulcans are excellent at suppressing their emotions, if the do snap it is really bad. If a Vulcan has an emotional breakdown I would much rather them having good feeling towards me than being a bother.
@@toddfraser3353 The point is, the audience did, and they didn’t appreciate Pulaski picking on Data.
Well I liked those interactions
I laughed way too hard at your edit with them dragging Pulaski out of the room...'and we never heard the slightest mention of Pulaski ever again'
You can always get Sean to go find the Bajoran Orb of Time and have him go back to the past and tell the show runners to fix their grievous errors. 😉
He doesn’t already have one??!?
@@gateauxq4604 I'd be surprised if he didn't. 😆
Bajoran Orb of Retcon
And at Number One:
It's Travis Mayweather.
Poor Travis. Kid just can't catch a break.
Yep even in the future black folks can't catch a break
Aside from it seeming a little odd to me that the traders had gone out that far ahead of the explorers, I thought Travis as a space boomer had a lot of potential , having grown up dealing with other species. He really only got used well during Season 4, in the Babel arc and the Terra Prime arc.
Pulaski I really liked, and Hemmer...😭
@@susanscott8653 mc hemmer....you can't see this😎🤦🤣🤣
I definitely agree one of Discovery's shortcomings was the semi anonymous bridge crew. I'm glad they started getting a little more time in the past two seasons. While I do love Discovery, I hope future series avoid the Burnham "responsibility hoarding" type of character.
Nana Visitor was so amazing as Kira that I don't really think too much about Ro being on DS9.
And if there is a spinoff for Captain Shaw w 7 of 9, I hope they assign Elnor to the Titan. He was one of the most lovable and unique characters in Picard. I get that it was probably impossible to include him in the final season of Picard, but I seriously hope they find a spot for him in a future series.
I liked Detmer, but some of the others were kinda bland, and just there.
Too little too late for the DIS bridge crew
@@tetravega567 They did a decent job with Detmer. I don't think the other characters have even had a chance to be anything but bland. Can't blame the actors for lack of opportunity.
I understand where Discovery was coming from by trying to move away from some of the ensemble cast that hallmarked 90s era Star Trek, but it's unfortunate that Burnham ended up being so...uncompelling. The actress has good range, the backstory is rooted in classic Trek lore, and the concept of the main character being a non-captain is also interesting, but as written, she feels more like a character developed by a marketing committee to check boxes rather than by a writer with a vision--the same could be said about Discovery generally, if I'm being honest. It's a shame, because we're given tantalizing glimpses as interesting characters, relationships, and backstories we're probably never going to see on screen.
@@QuintusAntonious It took awhile for me to warm up to Burnham, but once they paired her up with Book, I feel she became a lot more interesting. There were moments in Season 2 with Spock that played off as real sibling moments as well. But I disliked her involved with Ash. I do love Discovery, but I pretty much am happy to forget about the slow talking Klingons and Ash.
I still have very fond memories of the times I got to interact with Ms. Grace Lee Whitney at Tulsa's Trek Expo. She was fun and delightful.
Doctor Pulaski was a badass! Her interactions with Data were perfect!
I agree, thought it was a good change
Kes had so much potential they just didn't know what to do with.
I don't know about that. They wrote the character into a corner from the start with her limited lifespan and inexplicable attachment to Neelix. In fact, I actually think that they unintentionally created a character that didn't have *enough* potential, and when they realized this after two seasons, they decided that they needed a new direction.
It’s hard to do with a character whose race has a lifespan of nine years.
Still makes me sad that Airiam died in season 2 of Discovery. I would've love to see her evolution in the 32nd century, she's probably gonna used Borg technology to restore her some of her skin organ.
Hemmer death also makes me sad, I really loved to see him as a regular character in Strange New Worlds future seasons.
Agree 100% with #1, one of my favorites. Here’s one you didn’t mention: Dr. Helen Noel, arguably Star Trek’s first female badass, with a spunky and refreshing, endearing persona. She had the potential to become a fantastic major character in the cast…and sadly, we only met her once. Easily one of most underutilized Star Trek characters of all time. Absolutely love her.
Who?
@@smroussel - TOS “Dagger of the Mind,” played by Marianna Hill.
Empress Sela (STO) and Ro Laren had such awesome potential that it's one of my few gripes about TNG outside of the first season.
I'm hoping we have a bit more from Sela in STO...after her last appearance, I really want to see if she actually can change from it or not because that part of it seemed like something that could be interesting there. She should have been in Nemesis as well.
For Ro Laren, I've wondered if part of the thing with her is if she got hit, partially, by the same thing that ended up creating Tom Paris where it's a royalties thing mixed in with other things since there seemed to have been plans for her to be in DS9 but that never went anywhere
@@AzraelThanatos Forbes turned down the DS9 role so she could get into movies, back when that was still frowned upon in Hollywood. She was otherwise intended to move from Enterprise to DS9 just like O'Brien was.
@@MishraArtificer I was meaning with the offers there. More of an underhanded stunt to shift things there.
O'Brien had a lot more spread out, while Ro had fewer, focused episodes, so going under what would be considered fair as an offer or other things while she might have been going for movies and such at the same time can also influence things.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Grace Lee Whitney appeared in Star Trek VI but not in Star Trek V.
I actually liked Dr. Pulaski. I never truly understood what people didn't like about her. I felt that her character grew through out season 2. Unfortunately we will never know how DS9 would have turned out if Michelle Forbes had reprised her roll as Ro Laren. Both her and Nana Vistor are entirely different actors.
People were upset that Beverly was gone
Aside from her grievances with A.I., she is pretty much blank, no personality. She was much more charming in her appearances in TOS (and way hotter).
The actress was superb, her character was laid down from the first episode she appeared in. I liked her icy exterior and willingness to say what was on her mind. The look of the character was also interesting.
it's funny you ask what Sela was up to when the Romulan home world was destroyed, because the Star Trek Online game answers that spectacularly. it actually expands on the character a quite a bit. that game is really awesome for it's writing and the way it blends all the canon Star Trek shows into one cohesive universe.
Troi was another character that wasted her potential.
Nah, her potential was to be the series sex symbol. She lived up to that role
Lt. Leslie (Eddie Paskey) from TOS is the most significant omission from this list, he's in over 50 episodes and even sat in the center seat a few times, yet we know very little about him. Why did he keep changing jobs? how did he get resurrected after being killed on an away mission?
I'm here after seeing the season 3 episode 5 of Strek Trek Picard. Number one hits differently after that
I liked Ro Laren's line to Riker in Conundrum: "You don't strike me as a man who needs a Holodeck to have a good time."
I highly recommend watching an episode of The Outer Limits called - A Stich in Time. ??? Staring Michelle Forbes and someone named Amanda Plummer. Yes. Watch it! Forbes can absolutely play a leading character. And someone else still likes to use po. . . (Watch it!) Props for putting Ro first.
Someone named Amanda Plummer?!?!?! Please watch "Pulp Fiction" and get back to us.
Was that the one where she was investigating a time travelling woman who killed abusive men?
Regarding the Disco bridge crew - 55 episodes of Discovery are just about equivalent to two seasons of earlier series. We definitely did not receive that level of characterization for Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu during all of TOS, and I'd argue that we got just as much from Owosekun and Detmer than, say, Dr. Crusher or LaForge during the same length of time.
Well to be fair, Chekov wasn't even on the show in the first season. And you picked the minority characters (and a woman) from a 60's action TV show which should be telling. Why that matters is even in the 70's Uhura and Sulu were originally not intended to be in TAS until Nimoy put his foot down.
That's a fair point. TOS was not an ensemble piece at all. The bridge crew (and Scotty) were mainly known for their culture/ ethnicity/ job.
I really loved Capt. Rios from Picard. I would’ve loved for him to stick around with Picard, Raffi, and the bunch for more story and development.
That thumbnail just took on a whole new meaning.
I believe that Exidor (From Mork & Mindy) was actually a Vulcan who got stranded on Earth and went crazy. He clearly has the Vulcan face going, and his hair hides his ears.
I don't quite agree with you. But you get a +1 simply for the reference.
One of my all time favourite character. I quote him all the time when I do my "mentally unbalanced schtick" People really laugh or believe me. I never tell them I owe the act to Exidor
Im still hoping that Matalas is just straight up lying to us and that Sela is, in fact, in the show
Really hope she's not.
Thanks for the nice pictures of Dr Pulaski. She is always my favourite!!
Hear me out, the Female Q from Voyager, the sass alone is on point, just with the puppy comment 😂
I liked Polaski. She stood her ground when she knew she was right and was willing to concede when was was wrong.
Came here to say the last entry on this video aged like curdled milk in a very good way! Haha
harry kim
As a local radio personality and podcast host, I can assure you that no one notices when you’re sick. You don’t need to admit it. Sounds great! 😉👍
The DS9 novels set post "What We Leave Behind" have Ro on DS9, right alongside Kira.
And their interactions are a blast to read...wouldn't mind seeing it onscreen, personally.
Well, Ro came back...and left forever.
Shouldn't Uhura from TOS be mentioned? Probably even as number 1? A character so underused, the actor Nichelle Nichols threaten to leave and had Martin Luther King talk her into staying... and that didn't even get a first name until way after TOS was finished. Her only "character trait" was, that she can sing, since this is something Nichols did as well.
Can't she also do a strip-tease fan dance?
Great timing with this video
Well at least we got closure on Ro'Laren with Picard "Imposters" episode.
As usual stellar performance Bree
Another good video. 👍 Thanks...
Headcanon: Gary Seven is Seven of Nine's son.
Hmm🤯
They do have a resemblance...
You mean great-great-great-great-great-etcetera grandfather?
@@GabePuratekuta Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.
I'm convinced that Pulaski and Worf were intimate after the tea ceremony. All the dialogue suggests that.
You missed out on not mentioning Ensign Sonya Gomez. (I think she's a captain in a couple of Lower Decks episodes) Really liked Lycia Naff in the part. Thought it was great to include a mexican crewman.
She was very cute, I think she was intended to be a love interest for Geordi.
I'm glad that I'm not the only one who doesn't know the bridge crew of Discovery
Even Trek Culture admits that's Discovery is basically the Michael Burnham show
Great video. Thanks
Hi TrekkieBrie!!! Great Job!!!
I often wondered what happened to Ro Laren. We last see her near the end of TNG joining the Maquis, and we know they were decimated by the Jem’Hadar in DS9. So was she killed, or did she survive?
If you liked the character she was captured,if not then she died.
There were a series of DS9 books that continued after the series with new crew members joining the remaining DS9 regulars - that included Ro Laren (she and Kira don't hit off well at first) giving a really nice character arc.
There's an answer to that question.
Deanna Troi absolutely deserves to be on this list. As an empath and professional therapist on a series the routinely explored the question "What does it mean to be human?" her potential was completely squandered. Her entire character arc can be summed up as Pretty girl, love interest, victim, unreliable psychic, stand-in mother figure, Picard's secretary, officer only valuable when doing things out of her scope of expertise, and now in Star Trek: Picard; stay-at-home mom and neglected wife.
I just laughed out loud over your wesley warp bubble joke
At least we finally found out what happened to Ro Laren in the latest episode of Picard (S3 E5).
“Those answers may never come”, 2 days later Terry Matalas: “We got you,Trek Culture”
Sela did get the fan recognition in Star Trek Online… she’s part of a few large storylines in the mmo
A character I was looking forward to seeing again on ST: TNG was the Vulcan Dr. Selar played by Suzie Plakson. This character appeared in only one episode and was mentioned by name in a later episode but that was it. Although Ms. Plakson was playing an emotionally restrained Vulcan as expected, she none the less exuded an incredible sensuality in that role that quickly caught my attention. She played other aliens in the franchise, but the character of Dr. Selar was indeed an example of wasted potential !
T'Rul wanted to stay on the defiant but was having issues carrying out her duties wearing a giant oven mitt.
boy ...... are you going to be pleased with the 5th episode of picard ;)
...well. I think this list holds the record for going from accurate to outdated.😅
Don't forget SHELBY. Giving Ryker a protagonist. But like Dr.Polaski a character that push to hard and becomes devicesive..Creating character that is to confrontational that fans were left with a bad connection to.A school teacher you liked but didn't want to be around
This like hate relationship was inevitable to end with a whimper or just disappear entirely 🤔 .Good Video 😎
🖖😎👍Very nicely well done and well executed indeed.
This list aged interestingly.
Well, at least the last one has been revisited
Two characters that I truly hope don't end up on this list are Chief Kyle from Strange New Worlds and Agnes Jurati/Soji from Picard.
In Strange New Worlds Chief Kyle bearly appears in the first season and we only really ever here other people talk about him rather than any real character or development. Hopefully season 2 fixes this.
And while Agnes did get an arc in becoming the new Borg Queen, I'd still like to see whats next for her. It would be interesting to see if she starts making synth Borg as a way to avoid the need for assimilation of other cultures and what road that would take her down.
Speaking of Synths. Soji was the center of season 1 of Picard but then she becomes an ambassador and nothing more develops. She is the daughter of Data and still has his memories as a part of her. They could have her struggle to live up to his legacy and a longing for her to get to really know her father. Since de-aging tech is actualy getting better you could do a holodeck scene where she gets to have an actual conversation with the hologram of her father.
And who doesn't want to see Star Trek: Doctor Who with Wesley and Kore off on time hopping shenanigans lol
Who cares about anyone from Picard. Even Picard
@@FlowersInHisHair If you don't then why are you watcing this or commenting on it?
@@StephenLeGresley Hey, Picard Season 3 has been great so far. Will they stick the landing? I don't know, but its almost halfway in and its still between that and Strange New Worlds for the best season of Trek I've seen in many years.
I really don’t want to see more of Brent Spiner as Data. (Neither does he!) The makeup and SFX for him in PIC season 1 was AWFUL.
@@KristenK78 That was my point, they've come a long way with de-aging since then, They did a good job on Riker and Picard this season.
I'd add Ensign Suder on Voyager to this list as the Patron Saint of underused Voyager guest stars. If any show was begging to have a deep bench of interesting recurring characters, it's the one about a crew of 150 people lost in an unfriendly part of space. Suder was immediately fascinating and some sort of stop and start redemption arc for him could have been played out for longer than what we got - he easily could have bene Voyager's Garak.
As it was, most of the recurring guest cast was killed off by "Basics, Part 2" and after that an actor would be lucky to get a line as a crewman and not be dead within a month of uttering it.
While I agree with Ro Laren as #1, I could also argue for Thomas Riker as #1 as the most wasted potential in Star Trek
"those answers may never come"
...... 2 Days later 😂
Perfect comment is perfect 🤣
19:53 I think it's safe to say that she bit the big one during that conflict as Chakotay referenced the "fate" of the Maquis was one of complete and utter defeat! IF and I premise IF Ro Laren survived then it was out of cowardice.. something this character is not known for. Therefore I say, she died a hero saving people from the Dominion so they could escape to safety.
So I have News for you…
And now Ro's Story has come to conclusion
Killing off Hemmer was criminal! That's like killing off Spock at the end of the first season of the original series, or Data at the end of Next Generation season one. Such a good character.
About Ro... This video was made before Picard Season 3 Episode 5, right? 😂😂
I've always wondered what the feelings of the Maquis crewmembers of Voyager when they got home to learn the Maquis was destroyed.
They deal with this within Voyager. B'hlonna in particular has an entire episode dealing with the loss.
@Erik Jerks I mean like after after. Over years of time to learn new information and grown understanding. Also she was a special case, what about the Maquis who didn't get treated so well.
I am extremely glad that the exact person I was thinking about when I saw this list (Aside from two characters played by Denise Crosby) was the first person mentioned.
I really wanted them to play her exactly like you said, similarly to T'pol and growing on the human crew. Could also have given her some time with Garak since they're both outsiders who are forced to stay on a federation station.
Good list Bree, hope you're feeling better soon.
I agree with Ro Lauren but probably safe to say she died during either the Cardiassian war or when the Federation finally took care of them. If the actress was willing, Ro could have shown up in Voyager and continued trying to fit back into Starfleet.
One I've long thought could have been used better was Thadin Okanna. He cold gave been the new Harry Mudd.
He seems to have a new role in Prodigy. May have been a one off, but he could be back.
I would add Thomas Riker to the list. How Kira was critiquing his attack plan, I think he was supposed to be more than just another unhappy member of Starfleet running away to join the Maquis.
In that episode Face of the Enemy when Troi was disguised as a Romulan on the Romulan ship the Tal Shiar that was something for sure between the Romulan Empire & the Federation & Starfleet.
I think if the TNG crew gets a revisit followed by DS9 getting a series, Ro would be a great character to be brought back into canon given the importance of Bajor.
But would they have to recast her?
@@GabePuratekuta if nothing else at least a reference as to her fate. I’d love that she was so badass that she survived the Maquis and the Dominion War.
@@adambraziel5669 Agreed.
@@GabePuratekuta I don't see why they would, unless Michelle Forbes turns down the chance again...
@@MishraArtificer She will.
Even though i liked Ensign Ro, I am sooooo glad that we got Kira Nerys. She was absolutely amazing!
My biggest criticism of Discovery is that we got so little of the bridge crew beyond a handful of characters, the show really missed out on some great storytelling, but that's the sacrifice you make when you tell a highly focused story.
Our favorite blonde commander, portrayed by Denise Crosby. Commander Sela a Romulan.
There was the lieutenant that was supposed to become G. LaForge's main love but then disappeared after two or three episodes never to be seen ever again.
The killing of Alexander's mum while Worf was still TNG before he was moved over to DS9. As well as the romance between Worf and Jadzia could've been explored more before Jadzia was killed by Dukat. Lastly, a love triangle between Worf, Ezri, and Bashir I think might have been interesting to have seen. Plus Leela was severely under utilized in my opinion.
R.I.P. Ro Laren!
I much preferred Pulaski to the sugary, sometimes vacuous, Crusher. Pulaski was a crusty individualistic ship's doctor in the tradition of McCoy or the EMH Doctor. Likewise, Hemmer. He had so much potential. If a main character had to die - and I'm fine with that - why did virtually the only Aenar in the entire franchise have to go? Again, he was a bit different to the rest of the crew. I always found TNG main cast a bit bland, with the exception of Picard. Likewise, the SNW main crew became a bit smiley/bland post-Hemmer.
Ro Laren and Pulaski were two characters i liked to see on screen as much as Data and Picard. Certainly would have liked to see more of them.