Favorite AND least Favorite Female Character?
- Thread starter UnipolarUnicorn
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The same could be said about Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, and Archer!!!
True to a certain extent - Sisko for instance discovered the wormhole, became the Emissary and was the catalyst for the wars with Klingons and Dominion. I think though previous Star Trek series were more of an ensemble and while the Captain did receive a lot of the focus, other main characters were sufficiently interesting enough on their own while Discovery focuses almost entirely on Burnham and expects her to carry the show all by herself with the rest of the characters being bland personality vacuums that exist in the background.
I don't think so. In 14 episodes we have one about Saru, two about Pike, two mostly about Stamets, two about Spock and the other characters like Jett Reno, Georgiou, Tilly get a lot of action and we see them quite often. Sure all in all Burnham gets most of the focus but as I said it's true of all the Captains. She's not a Captain but she's the main character.
I think it's was ballsy to make an ST spinoff where the eponymous ship appears only on the third episode. Where the main character starts by being a criminal despised by all even the people she cared about... They never tried that before. Instead five times in a row it was the captain (or soon to be captain in the case of Sisko who was the main focus) and not someone rejected by society.
Burnham feels more central because DSC has FAR fewer side stories and filler episodes (in real numbers). Take DSC as written and translate it to an episodic 22-26 episode season and she would not feel any different than any of the others.
Burnham being central is not the character's problem. Insofar as she even has a problem, it's entirely a question of the writing.
Burnham being central is not the character's problem. Insofar as she even has a problem, it's entirely a question of the writing.
Personally, I hate her and because the series is centered largely upon her at the moment it's soured me to it.
Every series of the franchise is centered around a character, up until now it was around the captain (Kirk, Picard, Janeway, Archer) or soon to be captain (Sisko). I like that they got out of this pattern which was seriously getting old.
I'd argue there was significant variation in the structure of the older shows.
TOS - Experimented early in season 1 with different formats, including an ensemble cast and Kirk as the sole lead. Eventually settled into Kirk as lead, with Spock/McCoy as his co-leads, with everyone else given very little focus.
TNG - Picard was still the clear lead, but the other characters got higher billing than in TOS. Early on they tried to make Riker into a sort of co-lead as the "action star," but ultimately as Data and Worf ended up the breakout characters they ended up getting lots of focus.
DS9 - The most clearly ensemble based show of all. Sisko may have been the lead and gotten the most lines overall (certainly the overall arc made him "epic" in a way other Trek leads were not), but there were plenty of weeks where he was barely present - maybe there for 3-5 minutes for a few scenes in his office before they went into Ferengi comedy or whatever. There were entire episodes of the show which were led by characters who weren't even part of the main cast (Nog, Garak, etc).
VOY - Consciously built on the TNG-style format, with Janeway more prominent than Sisko but not overpowering. As with TNG, they eventually realized they had two breakout characters (Seven and the Doctor) and began writing a preponderance of episodes for them.
ENT - Again, self-consciously aping an earlier show, with the attempt to develop an Archer-T'Pol-Trip triumvirate. Although secondary characters like Phox and Sato were fleshed out to a far greater degree than someone like Scotty or Uhura ever was.
I don't mind the fact that they decided to center it around a character other than the captain. I just don't like Michael Burnham so it doesn't matter to me if she's captain, prisoner, admiral, Lt. Commander or whatever.
Favorite: Janeway. Sadly there aren't a lot of great female characters in Star Trek. Most of my favorite characters are males.
Least Favorite: Pulaski, by a million miles. Not a bad actress, but really had no chemistry at all with the cast, and just did not fit into the Star Trek universe at all. I found her presence distracting, taking me out of the story. When Crusher came back it was like, "ahh, this is what we've been missing."
Least Favorite: Pulaski, by a million miles. Not a bad actress, but really had no chemistry at all with the cast, and just did not fit into the Star Trek universe at all. I found her presence distracting, taking me out of the story. When Crusher came back it was like, "ahh, this is what we've been missing."
I'm kind of surprised by the Crusher dislike as well! I'd list in her in my top 3 female characters. Smart, very empathetic but still logical, and I enjoyed her relationship to Picard. Her and Guinan were basically the only ones that could really influence his opinions and decisions.
I can see finding her not the most exciting maybe, but least favorite? I can't see what she possibly would have done to deserve that.
I agree Pulaski had at least some personality. Crusher is highly forgettable in all her interventions.
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