How did viewers respond to the death of Tasha Yar at the time?

[RomulanCommander]

I remember being very surprised that they actually killed her.

I don't recall being particularly attached to the character, though.

That was my reaction as well. Plus, as I recall, it wasn't that big of a secret Denise Crosby was leaving the show. I remember being spoiled when reading Starlog magazine a couple weeks before the episode aired. I was surprised they actually killed her off. Up to that point, Yar was only the second main Star Trek character to be killed off, first being Spock.

 

[Christopher]

I remember thinking that Worf suited the role of Security better than she did.

My problem with that is that it doesn't seem right to me to equate security personnel with soldiers or warriors as ST tends to do. I mean, security means safety, comfort, reassurance. Their job should be to prevent violent situations from breaking out in the first place, to defuse tensions, to be negotiators able to talk people down and work out mutually beneficial solutions, to be detectives skilled at finding the truth. They should be more like police than warriors -- well, police done right, not the hypermilitarized force the US police have increasingly become.

But ST has usually portrayed security personnel either as soldiers/fighters or as just passive spear-carriers whose main role is to get killed. The closest they've come to getting it right is Odo, and Tuvok somewhat.

 

[ALF]

Tasha Yar was a beloved character only one season in... but I think it ended up being a great setup for Worf to take over. He even carried the sadness of replacing a fallen comrade and took pride in continuing her work. I can't answer the OP question as I started around season 3 but I recall friends and family saying 'start watching TNG reruns from the beginning and - OMG the original security chief died by the "hands" of a black pool of tar.'

Regarding the drug speech, TV shows made in the mid/late 80s had a mandate to deliver an anti-drug message thanks to Nancy Regan. There was a "Just Say No" episode in many shows at the time.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Regarding the drug speech, TV shows made in the mid/late 80s had a mandate to deliver an anti-drug message thanks to Nancy Regan. There was a "Just Say No" episode in many shows at the time.

It wasn't mandated in the sense of a legal mandate.

And anyway, TNG was syndicated. In TNG's case, it was entirely elective, or in other words self-inflicted. It wasn't even fashionable by then, since the campaign had been going on for several years at that point.

 

[Refuge]

It's women with short blonde hair that Star Trek doesn't like. Tash and Kes. Co-incidence? I think not.

 

[Christopher]

It's women with short blonde hair that Star Trek doesn't like. Tash and Kes. Co-incidence? I think not.

Actually Kes's hair had grown out toward the end of her final season (or rather, Jennifer Lien had ditched the short blond wig in favor of her natural strawberry-blond curls, in part so she didn't need to wear the ear makeup so much -- I think it was irritating her skin).

 

[Jetboogieman]

For myself, I never really cared for her character all that much and so I wasn't heartbroken or anything.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Let's be honest she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. Cringe worthy.

I don't normally care to critique the acting quite that way, because it seems like an attack on the actor/actress, rather than a critique of an element of the actual show. But... yes. Lords yes. And I only feel okay with saying that because I can also positively report that based on her much more recent performance on "The Walking Dead", her acting has gotten A LOT better.

As an aside, it just occurred to me to wonder if her appearance on that show and the way actors network had anything to do with Sonequa Martin-Green getting the lead on Discovery...

 

[Mojochi]

I hadn't heard anything about it. I wasn't up on the behind the scenes news. So, I remember being a little surprised, because Star Trek hadn't really gone there with a main cast member, but likewise, I also remember not being shocked, because, it was pretty clear how unsettled the cast was. People looked different than they had in the pilot. Some folks weren't even sure what their job or place was. The cast choices were rather unorthodox. I was actually pleased once she was gone though. It helped to smooth things over in the cast dynamic, & she was imho one of the weaker links, the other being Troi, who I think survived those initial seasons on her feminine appeal alone. Hell, I think Frakes survived on similar grounds. Nobody was secure, & it was obvious. I think, the quirk characters with sci-fi angles like visors or being an android or Klingon, had something of a edge, but that's about it.

By season 2 when Beverly disappeared, I remember thinking... "Yeah, this whole thing is up in the air right now. How you gonna take the kid's mom off the show?" By the end of Skin of Evil, I'd stopped feeling any kind of surprise, & started thinking about what a shit way it was to handle it. lol

 

[Qonundrum]

The teaser aired during commercial breaks tried hard to hide the fact, but ruins the episode in saying how only one is going to die.

It didn't help that she died so early on - at least with Dax it comes somewhat unexpectedly, though I never saw the teaser for the season 6 finale. But why so early on, when the rest of the episode plays tricks that have no increased payoff for the viewer. Everyone knew Riker would survive.

At the time, I thought it was sorta cheesy even though some scenes, such as Armus (no relation to the producer!) moving Geordi's VISOR around, with Data realizing the game and why, and refused to play.

Oh, Crusher should have said "amps", not "volts".

The ending scene with the Windows XP wallpaper in the holodeck was touching, but Yar seemed certain the crew would never transfer or anything.

What I did like is how a cheesy death led to some decent scenes in "Legacy" and "The Measure of a Man" that retroactively improve on what was pure cheese.

Armus, as a monster/villain, was pretty novel, to be honest. A couple scene rewrites could have kept the tension going until the last possible moment, keeping Yar injured or recovering to return to the planet.

The episode could have been better but it had potential.

 

[DonIago]

There's some retroactive irony to the fact that Yar's death in the episode is essentially pointless (which is, I suppose, the point), but that that very pointlessness becomes a plot point in "Yesterday's Enterprise".

Personally I'm not a fan of the concept that every "hero" deserves a heroic death, finding it unrealistic, but seeing it brought up in this manner was nifty.

 

[Christopher]

It didn't help that she died so early on - at least with Dax it comes somewhat unexpectedly, though I never saw the teaser for the season 6 finale. But why so early on, when the rest of the episode plays tricks that have no increased payoff for the viewer. Everyone knew Riker would survive.

There's more to storytelling than surprise. I think it was good that her death came early in the episode, because that meant most of the episode was about the others dealing with the loss, which is the part that's far too often glossed over in episodic television. Aftermath is important.

There's some retroactive irony to the fact that Yar's death in the episode is essentially pointless (which is, I suppose, the point), but that that very pointlessness becomes a plot point in "Yesterday's Enterprise".

Personally I'm not a fan of the concept that every "hero" deserves a heroic death, finding it unrealistic, but seeing it brought up in this manner was nifty.

I hate what "Yesterday's Enterprise" did with Tasha's death. I think it's offensive to say her death was pointless. Armus killing her was pointless, but Tasha gave her life in an attempt to save other lives, and it's a gross insult to every police officer, fire fighter, rescue worker, and anyone else who's ever died while fighting to save others to say that such a selfless, heroic undertaking is pointless. It doesn't matter whether she succeeded; what matters is that she tried, and that is absolutely heroic and it infuriates me that the writers of YE dismissed it like that. "Skin of Evil" was a smart, mature approach to death and heroism because it acknowledged the realistic truth that death is often arbitrary, while YE replaced it with a cliched, melodramatic notion of a "heroic" death as somehow being a "better" way to die than any other. It was a major step down in maturity and honesty.

And look what happened afterward, according to "Redemption." Alternate Tasha didn't get a more "meaningful" or "heroic" death after all. She was captured by the Romulans, raped by one of their officers (for all that Sela spoke about a "deal" to become his "consort," it was still made under duress and thus could never be considered consensual), and then killed in a failed attempt to escape with her daughter. How is that any less "pointless" than Tasha's original death? If anything, it's far more degrading to the character. Tasha grew up on a planet terrorized by "rape gangs," was probably a rape survivor herself, and she fought hard to get away from that life and build something better -- and she ended up condemned to being a Romulan general's sex slave for the last five years of her life? It's disgusting and profoundly sexist that the writers didn't see a problem with condemning her to that fate -- especially since the only reason it was done was as an excuse to justify bringing Denise Crosby back as a new character who never really worked well anyway.

 

[cgervasi]

"Welp, no more drug speeches".

I liked her comment on drug abuse. I was 12 at the time. I had only heard simplistic explanations about drug abuse being evil. I think her comment was much more honest than what other people told me as a 12 y/o.

 

[cgervasi]

Was the fact that Denise Crosby was leaving the show spoiled for the fandom in advance, or was this a really shocking event?

I was 12 y/o. I had read about it in a magazine a while before the show aired. My friends and I were excited. We though if a main character was going to die, it was going to be a really good episode. I was surprised she died the way redshirt dies to show situation is serious.

 

[Leviathan]

I liked her comment on drug abuse. I was 12 at the time. I had only heard simplistic explanations about drug abuse being evil. I think her comment was much more honest than what other people told me as a 12 y/o.

Their point about it was rather made by the story. The speech was hitting the nail with a jackhammer and seemed very 'executive approved'.

 

[mos6507]

I liked the fact that her death was random and pointless. Even though it was precipitated by the actress quitting, it's more representative of how real life works, which was rarely expressed in early TNG. It also makes you think about the death of all those red-shirts which were usually in ways similar to Yar. Why do we shrug those red shirts off and not Yar? It makes you think about how we process grief differently based on whether someone is in our inner-circle or not.

Compare that to how Spock and Kirk's death was contrived to be honorable. Yes, it satisfies the fans to do that, but in real life few people enjoy that privilege.

 

[Gary7]

On a related note... does anyone know anything about the production aspects of "Skin of Evil?". There were some very strange things about it. One thing that really surprised me was the look of the shuttle, with its big bubble front window. Never saw any shuttle look like that later.

Another thing... that oil slick was a very strange choice. The CGI sucked. How did Frakes handle being fully dipped into that oil slick? It sure looks like him, as there's the scene of him being tossed out, all covered in the oil. That nasty stuff looked like it would be tough to keep out of your eyes, nostrils, ears, etc.

 

[Christopher]

Another thing... that oil slick was a very strange choice. The CGI sucked.

I don't think it even was CGI. It was probably just video animation created by hand, someone painting a moving black blob onto the video frame by frame in 2D.

The original intention was to show Armus rising from the pool by filming a wax miniature melting and running the film in reverse. They couldn't get it to work, so they had to settle for just lifting a guy in a suit up out of a pool of black goo. They eventually did use the reverse-melting effect in "Tin Man" for the shot when Gomtuu created a seat for Tam Elbrun.

 

[Sakonna]

Another thing... that oil slick was a very strange choice. The CGI sucked. How did Frakes handle being fully dipped into that oil slick? It sure looks like him, as there's the scene of him being tossed out, all covered in the oil. That nasty stuff looked like it would be tough to keep out of your eyes, nostrils, ears, etc.

From Memory Alpha:

When Riker was sucked into Armus, Jonathan Frakes was in fact submerged in a pool of Metamucil and printer's ink. During a break in filming while Frakes was lying on the beach, covered in the sludge, LeVar Burton approached him and said, "Frakes, I never would have done that!" (Journey's End: The Saga of Star Trek: The Next Generation) Recalling the experience, Frakes himself said, "I suffered physically like a fool with Mikey – sure, I'll get in that black fucking Metamucil shit. That was absurd." (Trek: The Next Generation Crew Book)

 

[Gary7]

I don't think it even was CGI. It was probably just video animation created by hand, someone painting a moving black blob onto the video frame by frame in 2D.

The original intention was to show Armus rising from the pool by filming a wax miniature melting and running the film in reverse. They couldn't get it to work, so they had to settle for just lifting a guy in a suit up out of a pool of black goo. They eventually did use the reverse-melting effect in "Tin Man" for the shot when Gomtuu created a seat for Tam Elbrun.

From the way it looked moving across the sand, I'd agree -- looked more like animation overlay. But when it went over the shuttle, it looked like it had a CGI effect.

Yep, that reverse melting of the seat for Tam Elbrun reminded me a lot of the graphics quality in the Dennis Quaid movie "Dreamscape."

Thanks for the reference, Sakonna. I was hoping there might be more details somewhere. I expect the stunt man (Mikey?) never came in skin contact with the Metamucil slick, due to wearing a special suit integrated into the pool liner, so they'd raise him up/down, while still being able to breath easily underneath. But you see Frakes going completely under, soaking into his hair as his head goes underneath. Of course, they used a Riker dummy head for that scene when he partially emerges. That was just disgusting.