What main cast members if any do you think were bad actors?

[JarodRussell]

Avery Brooks is a fantastic actor. People have problems with his voice and his heavy breathing, but that's how he speaks in real life as well.

Also when they consider his "It's real" meltdown to be overacted. No meltdown can EVER be overacted. I've witnessed two. Seriously, there is no such thing as overacting a serious meltdown. Brooks did it wonderfully.



Sometimes I think Brent Spiner, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan headed into the wrong direction with their characters (especially Picardo as the EMH), but that doesn't mean they acted badly. But sometimes it appeared they forgot about the logical and even artificial nature of their characters.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Avery Brooks is a fantastic actor. People have problems with his voice and his heavy breathing, but that's how he speaks in real life as well.

What does it have to do with acting then? I think Avery Brooks lets a lot of his real life awkwardness flow into his roles. I don't really consider him an actor. He's just... weird?

 

[JarodRussell]

Avery Brooks is a fantastic actor. People have problems with his voice and his heavy breathing, but that's how he speaks in real life as well.

What does it have to do with acting then? I think Avery Brooks lets a lot of his real life awkwardness flow into his roles. I don't really consider him an actor. He's just... weird?

But who doesn't? It's almost impossible not to do that, unless you make the effort to completely change your persona down to your mannerisms and way of speaking, like perhaps Heath Ledger did with the Joker. But as a regular main character in a TV show, you usually cast actors for who they are and for how they naturally behave.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

Majel Barrett Roddenberry in the role of Nurse Chapel. She's a two-dimensional damsel in distress.

Yeah but she came back as the computer voice and Lwaxana Troi. It was only in the '60s that she played that type of character.

 

[Captain Kathryn]

Sometimes I think Brent Spiner, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan headed into the wrong direction with their characters (especially Picardo as the EMH), but that doesn't mean they acted badly. But sometimes it appeared they forgot about the logical and even artificial nature of their characters.

Ahhhhh! No disrespect intended, but I could not disagree with this more. By the way, they changed over time because of the writing too, mind you. Stuff like that is normally not up to the actors entirely.

Those four characters' are some of my favorites! And their entire purpose was to contrast humans and eventually find a piece of humanity within themselves so their evolution was inevitable. In the case of Seven of Nine, she actually was biologically human even though she was Borg. Therefore her transition from total Borg to Human/Borg was the logical progression for the character. For Data...I won't even go there. But Data was FANTASTIC. He is literally the only reason I fell in love with TNG. He is so endearing.

And of all the Voyager criticisms I have heard, normally they never revolve around The Doctor. He was HILARIOUS and grew from a stagnant computer program into a sentient and extremely valuable and humorous individual with feelings for the crew.

And I won't even touch Spock. Spock is untouchable.

Of all the people to pick for this...how could you pick those four!!!

Again, no disrespect intended. I just don't get what you would have wanted from these characters. They couldn't just stay the same and not grow.

 

[Commishsleer]

Look I thought that mostly all the regulars in the series were OK at worst and brilliant at best. Certainly a lot better than a lot of actors in recent TV dramas.

Maybe some of the TNG cast were a bit off during Seasons 1 and 2 or maybe they just looked bad compared to the great Patrick Stewart or maybe it was the pompous dialog.

There are two incidents I can think of.

When Rene in DS9 was possessed by one of Dax's previous trills (the 'Old Man') I thought to a certain extent he was the Old Man. I never thought Terry Farrell's Dax was really a man in any previous life. Before that I thought Terry Farrell was just fine and pretty and funny. After that episode I just thought she wasn't as good as Rene.

The other incident was that episode in VOY when the ship went into time fractures you could see the change in Picardo's character (EMH) over VOYAGER's journey. I thought this showed good acting. But this may only be me as I don't think this episode was too popular.

 

[Admiral Bear]

I really don't think anyone was BAD, per se. I think a few people(Beltran, McFadden, Blalock, Montgomery and Wang spring to mind) just showed up and said their lines, but even some of them gave pretty good performances when they were given decent material (I'm thinking of McFadden in "Remember Me").

Agree with all of this. Watching the TNG Bluray sets, I was quite shocked to be reminded just how mediocre an actress McFadden mostly was during TNG. When she had some decent screen time in BOBW, Remember Me, and Darmok, she was decent enough, but much of her delivery across 6 seasons was wooden. I much preferred Diana Muldaur during season 2.

That said, being somewhat harsh, only Stewart, Spiner and Dorn from the main cast could act. Because TNG was mostly so story driven, as viewer, I tended to over look that none of the others could really act. Frakes got better over time, but he's a much better director and correctly quit acting for a life behind the camera.

Sirtis, McFadden, Burton and Wheaton were almost uniformly not very good across 7 seasons.

 

[Danny99]

^^ Burton has been a decent to good actor in other things. I chalk any problems with him on TNG up to Geordi being written badly.

 

[Runetouch]

I really don't think anyone was BAD, per se. I think a few people(Beltran, McFadden, Blalock, Montgomery and Wang spring to mind) just showed up and said their lines, but even some of them gave pretty good performances when they were given decent material (I'm thinking of McFadden in "Remember Me").

Agree with all of this. Watching the TNG Bluray sets, I was quite shocked to be reminded just how mediocre an actress McFadden mostly was during TNG. When she had some decent screen time in BOBW, Remember Me, and Darmok, she was decent enough, but much of her delivery across 6 seasons was wooden. I much preferred Diana Muldaur during season 2.

That said, being somewhat harsh, only Stewart, Spiner and Dorn from the main cast could act. Because TNG was mostly so story driven, as viewer, I tended to over look that none of the others could really act. Frakes got better over time, but he's a much better director and correctly quit acting for a life behind the camera.

Sirtis, McFadden, Burton and Wheaton were almost uniformly not very good across 7 seasons.

This.

 

[Admiral Bear]

^^ Burton has been a decent to good actor in other things. I chalk any problems with him on TNG up to Geordi being written badly.

Agreed. But as with McFadden, when he had a decent story built around his character like Booby Trap, and Relics (to a certain degree), he was OK. I think what made it hard for Burton is that La Forge was never fleshed out as a character by Roddenberry at the start of the show, and further down the line, efforts to give La Forge some emotional depth were just overly forced. The couple of Let's do a La Forge tries to get a girlfriend episode efforts really weren't great.

 

[Armored Saint]

Persis Khambatta. I saw Warrior of the Lost World yesterday at a bar. Of course, it was a cheap Italian production, so even this poor Donald Plesance didn't really shine, but the Persis' performance made me realized that what she did at Illia was essentially showing all her acting skills.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

^^ Burton has been a decent to good actor in other things. I chalk any problems with him on TNG up to Geordi being written badly.

Agreed. But as with McFadden, when he had a decent story built around his character like Booby Trap, and Relics (to a certain degree), he was OK. I think what made it hard for Burton is that La Forge was never fleshed out as a character by Roddenberry at the start of the show, and further down the line, efforts to give La Forge some emotional depth were just overly forced. The couple of Let's do a La Forge tries to get a girlfriend episode efforts really weren't great.

LaForge was always the best friend, the reliable guy you could always turn to. Subsequently, he wasn't as interesting when the story focused solely on him. However, I couldn't imagine another character walking up to older Picard at the beginning of AGT and helping him to contact all the other characters, who had scattered to the wind.

 

[plynch]

The only one who was "bad," as in "wooden" and "didn't sound like an actor" is Robt. Beltran. I seriously don't get how the guy was an actor.

Many others named here were un-great, but they all sound like they're in the right profession. And blandness is often how the character is written. But that dude sounded like someone reading a script or something.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^ Burton has been a decent to good actor in other things. I chalk any problems with him on TNG up to Geordi being written badly.

Agreed. But as with McFadden, when he had a decent story built around his character like Booby Trap, and Relics (to a certain degree), he was OK. I think what made it hard for Burton is that La Forge was never fleshed out as a character by Roddenberry at the start of the show, and further down the line, efforts to give La Forge some emotional depth were just overly forced. The couple of Let's do a La Forge tries to get a girlfriend episode efforts really weren't great.

LaForge was always the best friend, the reliable guy you could always turn to. Subsequently, he wasn't as interesting when the story focused solely on him. However, I couldn't imagine another character walking up to older Picard at the beginning of AGT and helping him to contact all the other characters, who had scattered to the wind.

Roddenberry's original concept of LaForge changed as the series progressed, due perhaps to Roddenberry's decreasing involvement. In the early episodes, LaForge was the ship's resident smart-ass, the one with a quick sarcastic sense of humor who wasn't as wound-up tightly as others.

I have to disagree that LaForge wasn't interesting when the story focused solely on him, though. But that could be said for any character depending on how much you like that character and what you like to see.

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Persis Khambatta. I saw Warrior of the Lost World yesterday at a bar. Of course, it was a cheap Italian production, so even this poor Donald Plesance didn't really shine, but the Persis' performance made me realized that what she did at Illia was essentially showing all her acting skills.

According to Shatner, it took thirty four takes for her get the delivery of her lines right during the scene with her and Stephen Collins in the corridor after Decker leaves Kirk's quarters. Why so much trouble? She couldn't say the word no without help.

--Sran