The beginning of season two has some decent female characters. Carolyn Palamis always frustrated me (not in that way) because she was so unprofessional. I hate her question to McCoy as to why she should be part of the landing party. She's an anthropologist and archaeologist - surely she should be on landing party duty every other episode - never mind the yeomen. I can see that it was clumsy exposition to explain her background but there must have been a way to introduce her that made her look less stupid. Chekov often suffers as the character who asks dumb questions to allow the smart characters to explain things to the audience but when it's not him the writers use either the women or mono-syllabic security guards. McCoy doesn't seem stupid when he is used this way so I'm not sure if the credit lies with DeForest Kelly or the fact that the writers were more confident with his dialogue.
Mirror Mirror is definitely Uhura's best episode and Kirk lets Marlena take the lead in order to gain intel, which is refreshing. George and Walter have a ball playing their evil twins. Part of me thinks this would have been a good episode to guest Grace Lee Whitney. Evil Rand could have been great!
It is interesting that both Palamis and Moreau play pivotal roles in saving the day. Much like Helen Noel and Marla McGivers, they behave foolishly but then pull it back in the final act. Marlena in particular was great. What a cool addition to the crew she would have made if she'd been allowed to beam back with them!
I have noticed that the writers rarely bothered to put in a female crewman at all unless there was a man to go gaga over, excluding Uhura, whose ethnicity made her somewhat unavailable and whose role gave her some straightforward dialogue. Apart from the other comms officers used in the same way, I can only think of Masterson, Mears, Tamura, Zahra, and Thompson who don't have a male character as an appendage and of them, only Masterson, another black woman, had any notable personality. Rand's feelings for Kirk featured in more than half her appearances and the main one that didn't featured a teenage stalker instead. Chapel's crush on Spock dominates most of her most prominent episodes apart from the one where she's in love with Korby.
This might go some way to explain why so few women featured in seasons two and three; they defaulted to male extras unless there was some reason in the plot to feature a woman. Landon probably would not have featured at all if the plot had not required the introduction of snoo snoo to the natives in the Apple.
Mirror Mirror is definitely Uhura's best episode and Kirk lets Marlena take the lead in order to gain intel, which is refreshing. George and Walter have a ball playing their evil twins. Part of me thinks this would have been a good episode to guest Grace Lee Whitney. Evil Rand could have been great!
It is interesting that both Palamis and Moreau play pivotal roles in saving the day. Much like Helen Noel and Marla McGivers, they behave foolishly but then pull it back in the final act. Marlena in particular was great. What a cool addition to the crew she would have made if she'd been allowed to beam back with them!
I have noticed that the writers rarely bothered to put in a female crewman at all unless there was a man to go gaga over, excluding Uhura, whose ethnicity made her somewhat unavailable and whose role gave her some straightforward dialogue. Apart from the other comms officers used in the same way, I can only think of Masterson, Mears, Tamura, Zahra, and Thompson who don't have a male character as an appendage and of them, only Masterson, another black woman, had any notable personality. Rand's feelings for Kirk featured in more than half her appearances and the main one that didn't featured a teenage stalker instead. Chapel's crush on Spock dominates most of her most prominent episodes apart from the one where she's in love with Korby.
This might go some way to explain why so few women featured in seasons two and three; they defaulted to male extras unless there was some reason in the plot to feature a woman. Landon probably would not have featured at all if the plot had not required the introduction of snoo snoo to the natives in the Apple.
