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Did Natasha Yarr deserve that sort of death?

The angry towards a total stranger for their career choices is frankly downright odd.

Precisely. She rolled the dice and took a risk. How many of us can say that in our careers? Sometimes those risks pan out and sometimes they don't. But, at least, she took it.
 
The angry towards a total stranger for their career choices is frankly downright odd.

Precisely. She rolled the dice and took a risk. How many of us can say that in our careers? Sometimes those risks pan out and sometimes they don't. But, at least, she took it.

Fine and great. But then she took the results of that risk, didn't like them, and has been trying to un-do her mistake ever since.
 
But then she took the results of that risk, didn't like them, and has been trying to un-do her mistake ever since.

So people are not allowed to back pedal? To attempt to fix a mistake? Crosby missed her friends; is she never allowed to work with them again because she made a decision that seemed right for her career at the time?
 
One night I saw her in the soft-core porn Red Shoe Diaries and all I could think of was "She left Trek for this???"
 
The character, not really. The actress? Oh definitely. Sometimes I wonder if she sets up at night wondering, "what if?" Talk about passing up the opportunity of a life time.
 
The angry towards a total stranger for their career choices is frankly downright odd.

Precisely. She rolled the dice and took a risk. How many of us can say that in our careers? Sometimes those risks pan out and sometimes they don't. But, at least, she took it.

Fine and great. But then she took the results of that risk, didn't like them, and has been trying to un-do her mistake ever since.

Why are you so upset by this? People do it all the time.
 
That's the key thing she broke the contract.

No. Crosby asked to be released and Paramount could easily have said "No", and then it would be up to her to either see out four more years, perhaps grumbling and griping all the way like Robert Beltran did on VOY, or simply stop reporting to the set (like Farrah Fawcett-Majors on "Charlie's Angels", or Valerie Harper on "Valerie") and get sued for breach of contract.

makes it look like she was somehow better than the show
Or simply that the role did not evolve the way it was originally pitched to her: that she would have major screen time whenever an away team was called.

It was absurd for her to expect the world inside of one season.

Unless, of course, that's precisely what she was promised, which she claims was the case.

That Nichelle Nichols had been so badly under-utilized in TOS was no big secret to Crosby or anyone else, and Crosby had said from the very start that she was only interested in being in TNG if they could assure her that she wouldn't share the same general fate. And, from what I hear, they made a lot of promises that this wouldn't be the case, yet before the first season was out, Crosby's character had pretty much become Uhura 2.0, equally under-utilized, and with her dialog often whittled down to little more than parroting Uhura's signature catch-phrase from decades earlier: "Hailing frequencies open, Sir".

Under those conditions, there was nothing remotely prima-donna-ish about Crosby's ultimatum, which was that they simply live up to their contractually obligated promises, or let her walk.
 
I don't see anything wrong with Yar's death. She died trying to do her duty, she died quickly, and if you've gotta go, is that really such a bad way to go?

I never did understand Guinan's comment that it was an "empty" death. It puzzled me the first time I heard it, and it puzzles me when I see that episode again now. What in the world was so empty about it? Are the only meaningful deaths those that include full orchestration, dramatic lighting, and set speeches about making the ultimate sacrifice? I don't think so.

I also agree with those who have pointed out that her death was supposed to be shocking - it was supposed to send a message that sci-fi doesn't send very often, which is that space is dangerous and everybody who dies out there won't do so gloriously and photogenically. And that's exactly what it did. Works for me.

And, just for good measure, I also agree with those who have pointed out that as an actress, Crosby was no big loss. She might have gotten better, of course - several of the regulars did - but what she showed us in her one season seldom went above mediocre, even when they gave her something meaningful to do, which they usually did not.

And I also don't see anything prima-donna-ish about her saying, "This is a pretty boring part, and it's not what you promised me. I'm going to try to find another job." It was a boring part. It wasn't what they promised her. Where her plan broke down was in the "finding another job" part. Perhaps she would have had more luck if she had been a better actress...but then again, I, at least, might possibly have considered her a better actress if she'd been given anything decent to do. She did OK - not brilliant but OK - in her few appearances in the later seasons.
 
I liked the character of Yar and also Crosby herself. Wish she would have stayed, but enjoyed all her guest eps later in the series.
 
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