Was Pulaski not liked by the crew?

It seems like a lot of the crew butted head with Dr. Pulaski. Was it designed that she not be liked by the crew? She seemed to openly not like Data, her and Picard were openly hostile with each other at times, she didn't seem to interact with LaForge, O'Brien, or Worf a whole lot, she and Troi seemed the closest yet nothing like Troi and Crusher were.

 

Let's see... in her debut Pulaski goes to the bar instead of reporting to the captain. When Picard goes down there to call her on this, she interrupts him. That's a terrible first impression. Sure she was right to check in on Troi, but a comm call could've been made to avoid that whole situation.

Riker... she slept with his dad that he hates. Not gonna warm him up to her.

Worf and her had something of an interaction. She covered up an embarrassing injury for him, he read her poetry and did a Klingon tea ceremony. And they both seemed to like arguing with one another.

O'brien... well he didn't have much to do with anyone in season 2 for the most part beyond being an extra with lines. I think they were at one of the poker games together.

LaForge... can't really think of them interacting.

Troi.. as you mentioned they seemed to be something of friends.

Data... boy she's lucky she never ran into Lore. If she treated him like she treated Data he'd slap her silly, then go to work.

I can't say I personally cared for her either, but she did bring an interesting element and a bit of drama to the too sterile bubble that was the TNG command clique.

 

I never got the sense that the crew didn't like her. She socialized fine with the crew plenty such as Worf's Age of Ascension, Riker's poker games, Riker's breakfast, the Sherlock Holmes holodeck simulation, Data's farewell in Ten Forward, ect. The only real conflict was with Picard, but that had more on how they approached work differently than anything else and it made for some really good interaction between Muldaur and Stewart.

As for her not liking Data, I find that statement to be false. Of course, many Trekkies for whatever reason like to pretend she was mean to Data the whole season and hold onto that perception just because the first two episodes had her treat Data more like a machine and less as a person. I actually thought it was nice for once to have a character not embrace Data as a person at first. The way it was written in the first two episodes, I will admit was clumsy with the whole "Dah-ta" thing, which was thankfully dropped early. Naturally, she would have to warm up to him otherwise having her treat him like a machine throughout the whole season would have shown she's incapable of growing. I think the best way the writers handled it was in "Elementary, Dear Data", where she's harsh on Data's attempt at humanity not just to be mean but as a way to encourage him to rise above his programing. After that episode it should be obvious that she was beginning to respect Data, like in the episode "Unnatural Selection" where they work together.

DATA: I am sorry I could not be more helpful, Doctor Pulaski.
PULASKI: You did everything you could, Commander. As androids go, you're in a class by yourself.

Then there's the extended version of "The Measure of a Man" that revealed a moment where she entourages him to make his own life after resigning Starfleet.

As for how I feel about the character herself, I always liked her and thought it was a shame she left after one season. I found her to be much more interesting and warm as a person than Dr. Crusher. I always felt TNG should have had much stronger female characters consistently. Yar was already killed off and before that was unfortunately underused. Ensign Ro was one of the best additions of TNG, and it was even more unfortunate that she wasn't around that much. She should have easily been a new main cast member that added something new to the dynamic than just be a recurring guest that only appeared in 8 episodes. Pulaski was something like that for the second season, but it's too bad Muldaur quit too.

 

As far as I know Muldaur didn´t quit, she was let go because of bad fan reaction.

 

From what I understand Muldaur quit because she wasn't comfortable with the medical technobabble and the make-up experience in "Unnatural Selection" was enough to make her never do sci-fi again. I don't quite buy the fan reaction rumors, because if that were true you'd think Neelix would have been immediately thrown out the airlock.

 

I think her character was already on the vege of turning that corner to where most of the crew like her. I think they simply ran out of time to fully flesh out her character.

 

Getting horrible feeling of deja vu of 'what are the crew member fans hate?' threads.

This kinda says it. Character was different to Crusher (zzzzz), some/many say attempt to replicate Bones. Don't care. Great actress. Did her bit exceedingly well. The red-haired one came back. The end.

 

I just recently finishing rewatching the entire TNG run and near the end of season 2, she started to be less of a crumudgeon so I think they started to like her a little better.

 

I don't think the crew disliked her. She was argumentative so a lot of her screen time was taken up by her arguing with people, and she was stoic which contrasted with the overt sentimentality of the rest of the crew. She didn't see Data as a person at the beginning but she was won over somewhere between Elementary Dear Data and Measure of a Man.

Yeah, she had a prior relationship with Riker's father, but Riker's a grownup, he got over it. Picard secretly likes being argued with and challenged. I think a better characterization of the crew was they found her annoying but liked her as a person. She didn't have a chance to develop relationships with the crew because the writers really had no idea how to deal with a character besides making them sentimental about something.

 

I always liked Pulaski, even though she started out as a thinly-veiled McCoy rehash.

She had opinions, she argued, she was confident/stubborn, and she could hold her own. Compared to Troi or Wesley, she was a breath of fresh air.

It did seem odd for a new character to join the show and immediately put down Data after he had become a fan favorite. That could easily set the fans against her. They didn't emulate the McCoy/Spock balance at first, but by the end of the season, they got it right.

What came of Pulaski in the books/comics?

 

Uhhh... I'm pretty sure her and Worf were close to doing the deed!

 

I don't think she ever became one of the "family." Myself, I did not care for her but I have to say the years have softened my attitude. But I am glad Crusher came back.

 

I agree with the poster above who said she seemed to get on very well with Worf. Does this say something about her? Both characters might have a predeliction towards keeping the others at an arms length on a personal level. Worf is an outsider, and so is Pulaski really.

Sometimes I do look favorably on Pulaski's clashes with the rest of the crew, because I reason that's who her character is. She was intended to provide conflict in the existing character dynamic. I think this is probably why people tend to either love her or hate her, both now and at the time of first broadcast. We have a natural disposition towards rooting to the 'established' crew, so when Pulaski seems to rub everybody (except Worf) up the wrong way then the natural reaction is not to like her.

 

Her and Worf got along well. As many have already said and Worf isn't easy.

 

Not sure, but the crew had questionable taste--perfect example, they preferred Crusher.

 

I like the idea that it was only the six members of the command crew who loved Crusher and hated Pulaski, and that the remaining 1008 people on board the ship all felt exactly the opposite way, and were all united in their disappointment when Doctor Bev returned.

 

Who cares about them? They're not in the command clique. They're only there to do the dirty work and get killed.

 

I liked her. It didn't hurt to me that she was a Star Trek veteran, having appeared twice on the original series, but I just liked her presence in the 'new normal' that was Star Trek. "It...does know how to do these things, doesn't it?" in reference to Data was such a great line to me. As has been mentioned above, it was interesting that she didn't automatically accept Data as a living individual. Seriously, would any of us be any different, meeting an artificial being? There were probably many viewers (my old girlfriend among them) who were just checking out the series for the first time, and Pulaski's views probably spoke to many of them. If anything, her early views of Data helped cement the Data character as a person in his own right.

 

On the blurays the actress said that she did prepare a lot for the role by learning about the fictional medical devices as much as she could, so I dunno if she would quit over technobabble. Surely she would have known that the role had a lot of it before signing up.

I like Pulaski, she fits right in the TNG universe. I prefer Crusher because of her ties to the rest of the crew ( wesley, Picard romance, Jack Crusher backstory ) but I think it would have been cool to have some overlap where both doctors were on the ship.