It seems that if a person is half of one and half of the other, in their younger years they try may be more a whole of one than Thou, while seeming to reject the other half of their heritage. Leonard Nimoy, playing Spock, did this with finesse through TOS and the ST movies. We learned his Human side wasn't dead and was a great resource. Sela? I would say good idea/bad execution. I could see Half Human/Half Romulan on the Fed side of the Neutral Zone being a fanatical Fed, but, having to make peace with their supressed inner Romulan. There is no plot opening for Sela to do this. A more interesting take was "The Drumhead". This struck me as the most realistic. Simon Tarses has Romulan ancestry and wants to hide it. Tarses is ambivalent as well. It raises a whole slew of questions of the enlightenment and tolerance of the Federation. One of their citizens felt the need to lie on a Star fleet application. In real life I've seen Americans of Arab descent be simultaneously appalled at Islamic terrorism and their medieval societies and at the same time be appalled at flippant jokes against Arab culture. They seem to be American as all get out and most are Christian.
I would have believed her character was half-Romulan more if she had black hair. Otherwise, she was okay.
Evil twin/clones are a huge, huge sci-fi cliche. You have that cheesed-out, cliche reaction to deal with right off the bat. It can still work, but it has to be damn good. There are a lot of original aspects to Data and the Soong androids, a sort of mini-mythology going on. Lots of history which told us a lot about Data. Thomas Riker worked because he had more dimension, and also because of the subtext of the story, similar to that of "Tapestry". But Sela just doesn't work as well. The cliche overwhelms the situation. She might have been a far more interesting character if NOT played by Denise Crosby. Nothing against her, but when she emerged from the shadows as Sela, my reaction was of the "give me a !@$#%^* break!" variety.
^ I agree that the character might have been more interesting if she'd be played by a differnet actor - which is ironic, really, since the whole thing was devised as a Crosby vehicle. I think Sela would have worked better, too, if there had been more going on with her than her invasion plans, or whatever it was. I'd have liked some character moments. Maybe meeting Picard, who her mother had spoken about; or Data who Yar was obviously fond of. Hell, in her short time on the Ent, Tasha had managed to have some nice character moments will all the guys. It would have been interesting (although I know we've seen it before) to have her in conflict with her differnet heritages. There seemed to be nothing to her other than she came back to be a villan. She could even have had a revelation about her mother and her father. She is sympathetic to her father but hostile to her mother. It would have been interesting if she'd had the revelation that her mother had felt the need to escape, that she had been a captive, that her father was not the be-all and end-all. The revelation to adult children that their parents are not infallible gods is a harsh life lesson, might have been an interesting story point to see it happen here.
Well, it was an innovative way to bring Denise back, that's for sure. I didn't hate the idea, but I didn't love it either. I guess if the Romulans had remained more clearly as the main villains, she could have been put in better use.
Sela was a good character, the episodes she was in i enjoyed. I jus dislike the way she was introduced to the series, her back story was just a little too bland... it came across too much as just an excuse to get denise back in the show...
Personally, I kinda liked Sela in "Redemption". In that scene with Picard, there were some stong hints of "internal conflict". Note how worked up she gets when she tells the captain how SHE betrayed her mother to her death. It seems, to me at least, as if the ghost of her mother has been tormenting her since her death...and Sela's trying to justify what happened--to herself, as well as Picard. It also seems like she's trying to get some kind of reaction from Picard, when she says, "All that's left in me is Romulan--NEVER DOUBT THAT!" When Picard shrugs it off, Sela looks a little stung.... Anyway, her stint in "Unification" seemed rather simplistic in comparison. It seems like the writers just brought her in as a plot point--probably, they intended to make her a reocurring villian like Tomalak, or the Duras Sisters, but apparently, nothing came of that....
Sela was one of the all-time worst ideas in TNG. And unlike another really bad TNG idea--the Borg Queen--the execution of that idea was just as bad as the idea itself. Chalk a lot of that up to the gulf that separates the talents of Alice Krige and Denise Crosby.
A half-human, half-Romulan in the Federation would just be a half-human, half-Vulcan, no? Yet Tarses told the truth. He claimed he was part Vulcan. Which raises a troubling notion--he really didn't lie, unless the application was so specific that Starfleet asks you not just what species you are, but what ethnic group from that species. Hey, I wonder if they asked Sisko if his ancestry was from Africa? The more you expound on this idea, the more sold I am. It avoids some of the questionable aspects of Sela's past while preserving the value of the character. How come? We've had Vulcans display significant morphological diversity. Blonde hair's the least of it.
I enjoy both Redemption and Unification very much. The character Sela did not add anything nor did she take anything away from them in my eye. It was simply a convenient way to give Denise Crosby a paycheck and explore the consequences of the alternative Picard's decision to allow Yar to serve aboard the Enterprise-C.
I'm inclined to agree that Sela is not that great of a character, and Tomalok was a good alternative in "Redemption." One reason I consider "Yesterday's Enterprise" my favorite TNG ep is that the writing was so strong. We got to see the sort of Tasha Yar who would have made a cool regular, who seemed well developed compared to how she was used in some of the S1 eps. It always impresses me how well written Tasha is in this ep, even though her "revival" is short and ultimately temporary. Letting her die honorably is a great component of the story.
There's also this to consider - Denise Crosby dubbed in lines for the episode where the Romulans brainwash Geordi and a different actress was seen entering the room and walking off to the shadows - a woman who can be seen with the standard Romulan hair. Perhaps Sela actually does have the Romulan black hair but cut and dyed it to play up her resemblance to Tasha, in the hopes of having a psychological advantage with the Enterprise crew.
I am shocked and appalled. I admit she didn't have quite the chops of some of the other cast members, but I thought she was a decent actress. And if I ever doubt her ability, all I need to do is watch "Yesterday's Enterprise". I truly believe she gave a tremendously intense and emotional performance in that episode. While lot of the credit for that episode's resonance is due to the writing and the performances by the rest of the cast (I love the way Patrick Stewart plays Picard's frustration at Guinan's vagueness about her feelings), I am certain that Crosby's acting was an integral part of what made that episode work so beautifully. She may have been a limited actress, but given the right dialogue and character arc (neither of which she quite had in "Unification", to get back on topic), I think she was capable of some great work.
Too Much, you are such a nice person... I have to say that I have never admired Denise Crosby's acting, either - she did fine in "Yesterday's Enterprise" (although even there, I thought she overdid it here and there) but most of her other performances ranged from either workmanlike to...not very good. The really bad one that comes to mind is "Code of Honor" - an awful performance in an awful, awful episode. But of course, there weren't that many good episodes in the first season, and she would probably have done better with better material. But most of the other regulars didn't make me cringe even with the bad material, and I'm sorry to say that Crosby did.
Liked her a lot. Liked the stories that featured her. Understand that others disagree, but I liked Denise's acting as well. But hey, isn't that the beauty of fandom. We ALL know how it should have been done so much better - all these years later.
I have to admit that her acting kind of jumped around. I thought she did great as War Tasha in YE, but when I saw her as Sela explaining how she was "all Romulan" in Redemption I was somewhat disappointed. Maybe it's the material and directing?