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Characters who were supposed to end up as more than they were.

That's pretty much my list - Leffler, Gomez, K'ehleyr and Selar. I adore all three actresses and wish they'd been able to stick around.

All three were great characters on TNG as was Sito

A real shame not even one of them became regular recurring cast
 
I've read somewhere that Mike Barrier was intended to have a recurring role as Assistant Engineer DeSalle, to take over for Scotty when Scotty was taking over for Kirk and Spock. I don't know if that is apocryphal or not, but it does seem like something was up, with him taking the center seat out of the blue in "Catspaw" and then never heard form again.
 
I get the feeling that Doctor Selar was supposed to be a more permanent addition, than just one episode too. Suzie Plakson really did mesh well with the TNG production imho
Yes. Writer Tracy Torme wanted Dr. Selar to return and have a romance with Worf. He was disappointed that they went in the more expected direction with a Klingon love interest for Worf.
Ro Laren was supposed to be the XO on DS9, but Michelle Forbes didn't want to commit to a series, so the writers invented Kira.
Then they offered her a role on Voyager as well (which is why they wrote her into being Maquis) but she again turned it down, so they created Torres instead.
It's interesting that Forbes agreed to be a series regular on Homicide: Life on the Street just a couple of years later. Her first episode aired November 1st, 1996 and her last as a regular aired on March 6th, 1998. I wonder if her career goals on primarily doing movies changed or if she just didn't want to be a regular on a Star Trek series.
 
Future Guy (ENT) - He was this mysterious figure from the future pulling the strings behind the TCW set up during season 1 of Enterprise. In the end, all we learn about him is that he is.....a mysterious figure from the future pulling the strings behind the TCW. We've all heard he could have been a Romulan or a future version of Archer (:cardie:), or some other random zany menacing character (chef), I personally thought it was going to be Soval when Enterprise premiered. In the end though, he ended up being.... who knows?
I'm not sure I'd count Future Guy as a character who was supposed to be more than he ended up being. Both he and the Temporal Cold War storyline were only added to Enterprise at the behest of UPN, who had little faith in a prequel.
 
If they'd have kept Kes in VOY then it would have been interesting to see her age more and more in each successive series! Eventually by the time they miraculously returned to earth she would have been a wizened old lady with white fluffy hair! That or she would have melded with a super being that gave her immortality or a lifespan equal to humans!
JB
 
I'm not sure I'd count Future Guy as a character who was supposed to be more than he ended up being. Both he and the Temporal Cold War storyline were only added to Enterprise at the behest of UPN, who had little faith in a prequel.

And how right they were! I was never a fan of Harry mudd to be honest but if it ain't Roger C.Carmel in the role then it isn't the TOS reality for sure! DSC was just too silly to be believed! :thumbdown:
JB
 
1. Sonya Gomez (TNG)

She was originally going to be a recurring character and love interest for Geordie. Personally I liked her on screen, she seemed to have a likeable personality and I think could have been very good as a reoccurring and brought a more "human" personality than main cast TNG often did.

2. Melora Palzar (DS9)

Was going to be a main character on DS9 but was replaced by Dax.

I think she would have been really interesting and they could have done a lot with her but her one episode was poorly done and a bit condescending.


Any others you can think of?

I don't think Melora is really accurate. Based on what I can find, the DS9 producers originally wanted a low-gravity character for the science officer, and that has since been described as 'Like Melora', but if they had actually been developing Melora specifically to be a main character, I'd think her episode would've made it into the first season (so as to get some good use out of the work they put into her).

The first one that came to my mind was Lt. Hawk (First Contact) and the whole story of him being Trek's first gay main character only for him to die halfway through the movie with no development. But looking that up, I see the FC producers actually denied the rumors of him being Trek's first gay character were ever actually true in the first place (though the novels took the idea and ran with it, anyway). The way he was introduced in the movie did still make me feel like he was supposed to be a new major character (like the 'Saavik' of the TNG movies), but that was apparently not to be, either.
 
I don't think Melora is really accurate. Based on what I can find, the DS9 producers originally wanted a low-gravity character for the science officer, and that has since been described as 'Like Melora', but if they had actually been developing Melora specifically to be a main character, I'd think her episode would've made it into the first season (so as to get some good use out of the work they put into her).

The first one that came to my mind was Lt. Hawk (First Contact) and the whole story of him being Trek's first gay main character only for him to die halfway through the movie with no development. But looking that up, I see the FC producers actually denied the rumors of him being Trek's first gay character were ever actually true in the first place (though the novels took the idea and ran with it, anyway). The way he was introduced in the movie did still make me feel like he was supposed to be a new major character (like the 'Saavik' of the TNG movies), but that was apparently not to be, either.

The novels had the tendency to kill off new characters as soon as they became interesting.
 
Maybe Melora was a character concept they originally envisaged for the show but didn't go through with it but they liked the idea of her species and it's plight with gravity enough to write an episode about her?
JB
 
Maybe Melora was a character concept they originally envisaged for the show but didn't go through with it but they liked the idea of her species and it's plight with gravity enough to write an episode about her?
JB

That's basically what I think happened, except I doubt the character as she was conceived really bore that much in common with the one who actually appeared. The change to Dax was apparently made just because it was too much effort/money to keep showing the low gravity nature of the character, which I suspect means some or maybe many of the character ideas originally conceived for this character likely just got transferred to Dax, anyway. And if there had already been a fully formed character separate from Dax ready for use, I don't think it would've taken them all the way to season 2 to bother using her. Most likely Melora was a new character based on similar ideas since they still wanted to use those ideas.
 
That's basically what I think happened, except I doubt the character as she was conceived really bore that much in common with the one who actually appeared. The change to Dax was apparently made just because it was too much effort/money to keep showing the low gravity nature of the character, which I suspect means some or maybe many of the character ideas originally conceived for this character likely just got transferred to Dax, anyway. And if there had already been a fully formed character separate from Dax ready for use, I don't think it would've taken them all the way to season 2 to bother using her. Most likely Melora was a new character based on similar ideas since they still wanted to use those ideas.

Quite possible. And Melora showed up aboard Titan in the novels where financial issues weren't a problem anymore.
 
Was Melora the one with the chip on her shoulder and was portrayed as being effectively disabled by the higher artificial gravity used on the station. That whole thing baffled me. They’ve unlocked the graviton and mastered gravity, but they couldn’t give this lass a customised Segway to ride around on, with its own gravity setting. It was easy enough to add a gravity plate to the solar sail ship that Cisco built.

I didn’t really engage with that episode, so I’m probably not remembering it properly.
 
Was Melora the one with the chip on her shoulder and was portrayed as being effectively disabled by the higher artificial gravity used on the station. That whole thing baffled me. They’ve unlocked the graviton and mastered gravity, but they couldn’t give this lass a customised Segway to ride around on, with its own gravity setting. It was easy enough to add a gravity plate to the solar sail ship that Cisco built.

I didn’t really engage with that episode, so I’m probably not remembering it properly.

I remember Melora as stubborn and not fond of all technological wonders that might help her.
 
Melora was played by Daphne Ashbrook, who was one of the assistants in the one off American co-production Doctor Who in 1996 that didn't end up being picked up for a full series. Given her character was once concieved as a regular, that's two major sci fi franchises she didn't quite manage to star in :p
 
The first one that came to my mind was Lt. Hawk (First Contact) and the whole story of him being Trek's first gay main character only for him to die halfway through the movie with no development. But looking that up, I see the FC producers actually denied the rumors of him being Trek's first gay character were ever actually true in the first place (though the novels took the idea and ran with it, anyway).
Actor Neal McDonough also denied the character was meant to be gay, though when it was brought up in an interview, he thought it "neat" that Hawk is gay in the novels.
 
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