My top candidate right now is Dr. Beverly Crusher. She's a few steps, at most half a floor, beneath being Carol Brady or a Stepford Wife. I mean she has no depth, no hint of any ill-thoughts or darkness in her mind. I don't think Beverly ever thought a bad thought in her life. She needed to be shown consciously doing something bad, wrong, & no “apologies” for it, no going back. This could be done in flashback maybe too. IE1: She sickened or incapacitated a top competitor med student for a few days so she could advance to(wards) the top of the med school in said student's absence. IE2: Show her blackmailing a Starfleet Academy admin to guarantee Wesley premiere “preferential” placement & dorm residence. Something like those sort of things. Not those exact things necessarily. But point is well made. Dr. Bashir was more of a real person than Bevvy. Ditto for The Doctor(EMH) from V'GER {ironic huh?.} In contrast Gul Dukat was Trek's deepest character. But then TPTB ruined him by making him: 1st- Dictator of Cardassia after his out-of-character marriage of Cardies to the Changeling Empire 2nd- Final demolition of Dukat's character when TPTB next made him a space age “wizard” with that Cost O'Mow-Gin/Pa'Wraiths stuff Made Dukat Bajor's “antichrist” to Sisko's being Bajor's “messiah”. Huh Dukat was a baddy in the process of becoming a goodie which made him complex & deep.Then they ruin him completely Doc Crusher was always an empty suitcase. And now it seems she'll stay forever a quasi-Carol Brady/semi-Stepford Wife Which ST characters are YOUR candidates for most unreal & not believable as ever being real people?
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva Why does everyone have to have a dark past or evil thoughts? There are some people in this world that are happy and try to do the right thing in all that they do. That doesn't make them less of a character in my mind. Adding some of the things you suggested for Beverly would make her character less honourable. Why is it so hard to grasp that Beverly is a smart, dedicated woman? Not every character needs a backstory like they're on Lost!
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva You're missing the obvious with Crusher: just make it so she had cheated on Jack with Picard. If they'd come out and made Wesley be Picard's son from an affair with his best friend's wife, they'd have added layer upon layer to the drama on that show. Of course, then Picard and Crusher wouldn't have been the Homo perfectans that GR envisioned. I also agree that taking Ducat down the path of the Pagh Wraiths was fairly ridiculous. But I never completely bought it when he turned 'good' - as he himself put it, "It never seemed quite...right...did it?" Self-serving and willing to switch sides depending on which way the wind was blowing made sense. Joining Cardassia with the Dominion (while probably planning to overthrow the founders once the Federation was dealt with) - sure, I buy it. In fact, Ducat trying to ally himself with the Pagh Wraiths with similar intentions made sense to me...but once he'd done so, Ducat as a character was gone (mostly so), and Crazy, Semi-Possessed Ducat was what we were left with, which wasn't so interesting. But for the "least like a real person" - my vote is Harry Kim. The man (boy?) was carved from wood. No personality at all, IMNSHO.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva He was always intended to be really, really bad. At no point were there plans to make him into a long-term good guy to any extent deserving of the description. Least real character... I have to say, I don't feel like Jadzia Dax came off very much like a real person. I don't really understand why they went to all this trouble to hire a good-looking actress, build up Curzon as this hard-drinking, skirt-chasing hellraiser-diplomat-honorary Klingon, make it clear that he was only the most recent in a string of notable lives, and then tell poor Terry Farrell to be all beatific and heightened like she's Buddha or something. It just didn't play well against Sisko, and her interaction with a sexually aggressive Bashir was downright painful to watch. Then she changed rather abruptly and started acting like she wanted to buckle her swash every week. Then we get Ezri Dax and she is all confused and uncertain, instead of instantly filled with confidence and knowledge like the asswipe who stole the Dax symbiont for two hours in the second season. None of this really added up to me. It's incredibly difficult to realize in writing the vast experience and unique perspective of a character informed by the experience of many lifetimes, and they could reduce the other selves to simplified versions for quick reference, but never figured out how to boil down Jadzia the same way. The actresses tried their damndest, but I don't think this character ever really came together and seemed real.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva ^ Agreed with JNG all all points! Mary Sue Dax was always came off as a cardboard character at best and an annoyance at worst. She is even worse in the novels.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva Harry Kim. Absolutely no distinguishing characteristics whatsoever. If I had to sum him up in a couple of sentences, I couldn't. Chakotay was quiet, and in the background, but he had a character. Albeit a quiet one, and one it is hard to imagine joining an armed rebellion, but he had something about him. Harry Kim was an empty uniform. An extra with a title card.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva I think Harry Kim too. I think at the beginning of TNG, the 'homo perfectans' (thanks, Sisko_is_my_captain ) suffered from that directive, but tended to break out of that mold by season three/four.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva Kes. In all my long life I have never come across anyone who comes close to being as sickly sweet as she is.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva Neelix Could any being be more a douche? And mean it? I'm not a hater. But that Talaxian was wak.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva Jadzia Dax. Always droning on and on about having lived multiple lives and knowing everything as a result, but she just comes across as pompous and like she doesn't really know anything at all (other than how to be promiscuous ). She never once said anything even remotely interesting, or articulate, or non-generic. Could have gave pretty much 100% of her lines to O'Brien, Kira, and/or another character and it would have made no difference at all. Any time dialogues are so generic like that as to be interchangeable, you know something is seriously wrong with that character.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva I agree with eepruls - there is no reason for every Trek character to be "dark" or have a dishonorable or nasty past. There really ARE some people, who, at least in their professional lives, are well-adjusted and self-aware enough to not be people who are untrustorthy. And I tend to agree with the poster who said Kes - I remember being turned off by her very early on in my viewing of VOY. She just seemed lacking in anything approaching realistic or believable depth. I also jave always found Riker somewhat generic. But not Jadzia. She was great, and a different invaluable part of what made DS9, and Sisko's character in particular, so great to watch.
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva I don't want to say worst character. There were wasted opportunities in the Star Trek franchise. For example: Kes: Hers is a species that only lives 9 years. They are going to have a different take on all aspects of life. voyager dropped the ball. Dax: A person joined to an intelligent parasite. They could have explored the conflicts of the young personality with the ancient being of many lifetimes. To give DS9 credit they did hint at political conflicts on Dax' homeworld. It was a sort of apartheid of the small joined and joinable minority and the Unjoinable majority. Wesley Crusher: A lot of fans have Derangement Syndrome over this character. If he had more fallibilty and was less of a Mary Sue Deux ex Machina, he would have been a likable character. Perhaps one episode he's brilliant and another makes a huge mistake. Uhura: The actress made the most of her part. However, most of her episodes were restricted to, "Hailing Frequencies Open".
Re: Which ST character is the least like a real person? Most unbelieva I fault the writers and the prevailing sexism of the time period for that one. On Jadzia Dax--I agree with Navaros about how in the end, it seems like it became about her sex life and not a real, in-depth character. Ezri Dax, on the other hand...for all her flaws, seemed more relatable as a person.