If Geordi had remained helmsman

[Christopher]

I guess the more important question - and one I've never seen addressed - is WHY the show runners decided NOT to have a main character serve as Chief Engineer at the beginning of the series???

The same reason they didn't have a chief science officer or a communications officer or separate helm and navigation officers, and why they had an operations manager, a counselor, and a regular security chief when TOS didn't. One, they didn't want to copy what TOS had already done, but wanted to try a different, fresh dynamic. Two, they wanted to show that technology had advanced to the point that the ship could pretty much take care of itself and you didn't need as many people to handle its functions. The original TNG bible called it "Technology Unchained," the idea that technology had become so autonomous that humans were freed from drudge work and could devote themselves to intellectual or artistic pursuits with technology supporting their endeavors.

But as the season went on, they realized that a lot of the episodes needed someone in the engineer role to give exposition about what was going wrong with the ship and so forth, so in season 2 they decided to have a regular chief engineer after all.

Worf was characterized as being kind of dumb at first so he wasn't going to be engineer.

Young, impulsive, and having a lot to learn, sure, but nobody "dumb" gets to be a Starfleet officer. Worf was defined as a new-fledged command-track officer gaining experience through his watch-officer post, and expected by Picard to "learn, learn, learn" ("Lonely Among Us"). It was implicit that he would grow and learn over time. And really, a generalist like season 1 Worf would've been a more plausible candidate for a permanent engineering posting than a flight control specialist like Geordi.

Although if we're talking about alternate character positioning, maybe have Yar be a hotshot pilot and have Geordi and Worf in their regular positions to start with. Her sitting next to Data up front would have also given them opportunity to build that relationship a bit more. Maybe Crosby never leaves the show in this instance with everyone having a clearly defined role to start with.

I don't see that happening, since Yar (originally "Macha" Hernandez) was modeled on Vasquez from Aliens. So being the resident fighter was the foundation of her character.

 

[Empok Nor Station Manager]

Considering that they weren't even going to build a Main Engineering set originally, it's not much of a stretch that they didn't have a chief enginner regular character planned originally.

I don't know if I've ever seen that reference? Could you point to where that is documented? I'd be interested in reading that...

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

It was pretty widely reported. I think it was in one of the official magazines back in the day, but haven't read those in literally decades. Roddenberry didn't want to re-create the old cast's dynamic, so they went out of their way to create new main roles (counselor, security chief, Ops) and downplay or eliminate the old ones (science officer, communications, chief engineer). Roddenberry eventually decided to add a couple scenes set in Engineering to the pilot. If they hadn't included it in the pilot with its extensive construction costs, it's doubtful that they would ever have had the budget to build them.

Ex Astris Scientia mentions it in their review of the first season rotating chief engineers.

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/inconsistencies/chief_engineers_tng.htm

And Starbase 79 mentions this in their annotated TNG writer's guide, which was issued after the decision to use the standing sets.

http://www.starbase79.com/Images/TNGWritersGuide/page24.htm

 

[Legate Duhmar]

A lot of the less/under devolped characters in various shows, but especially TNG, sounded really interesting in the series bibles, but that just didn't translate in the actual episodes. Tasha is a prime example.

Tasha is a unique example but she was killed off early so its hard to judge, in fact her later arc with the Enterprise B is quite the redeeming appearance.

The apex of underdeveloped characters is Dr Crusher, she was completely thin and wooden so as to be nearly pointless. Other characters like Riker, Geordi and Troi get marginalized in later seasons but are themselves more or less "developed characters" with a decent amount of feature episodes overall in the series. Lazier writing in seasons 6 and especially 7 is a big culprit here, the writers just were not able to transition to a more character driven style after exhausting morality plays and exploring space.

 

[Christopher]

Tasha is a unique example but she was killed off early so its hard to judge

Not really. Strange New Worlds's La'an is virtually the exact same character as Tasha -- a tough Enterprise security chief who joined Starfleet because a Starfleet officer saved her from the horrific conditions of her human colony group -- and she got more development in the first episode than Tasha got in almost an entire season. Tasha didn't lack development because she was killed off -- she was killed off because Denise Crosby was frustrated at her lack of development and left the show.

Lazier writing in seasons 6 and especially 7 is a big culprit here, the writers just were not able to transition to a more character driven style after exhausting morality plays and exploring space.

Huh? TNG had been written in a character-driven style since Michael Piller took over in season 3. That was Piller's whole deal as a showrunner, always reminding his writers to focus on character and make sure every story affected or revealed a character in some way.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Not really. Strange New Worlds's La'an is virtually the exact same character as Tasha -- a tough Enterprise security chief who joined Starfleet because a Starfleet officer saved her from the horrific conditions of her human colony group -- and she got more development in the first episode than Tasha got in almost an entire season.

Character is not the same as backstory.

 

[Oddish]

The apex of underdeveloped characters is Dr Crusher, she was completely thin and wooden so as to be nearly pointless.

Seems like nearly every Trek of that era had a few neglected characters. DS9 was the exception to the rule.

 

[Orphalesion]

Tasha is a unique example but she was killed off early so its hard to judge, in fact her later arc with the Enterprise B is quite the redeeming appearance.

Still, some years back a user here posted about the early scripts of TNG before they were reworked quite intensely and a lot of them featured Tasha/Marcha Hernandez in a much more prominent role which ended up being removed.

DS9 was the exception to the rule.

Because the characters on DS9 were characters first and their roles second, as opposed to TNG and VOY were it seems like they felt forced to make up characters just to fill roles like the Chief Engineer or Ship's Doctor with main characters just to have them. Like Beverly started out as the ship's teacher who was then changed over to CMO because they couldn't think of another character for the doctor.
A lot of the beloved characters on TNG and VOY became what they are because of their actors (Picard, Data, and even though I don't like him, the Doctor)

Though there is a case to be made for DS9 neglecting Keiko somewhat who ended up being awkwardly shuffled off to Bajor (then again she was a secondary character, at the most)

 

[Snowdrop82]

Question is, if he was the Helmsman, who would be the Chief Engineer? I think Data would make a good fit.

 

[Oddish]

Data did spend a lot of time in Engineering.

 

[Snowdrop82]

Data did spend a lot of time in Engineering.

With a mind like his, he'd be able to solve any ship issue far before anyone else could.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Data was already basically the Science Officer in all but name, so I'd be hesitant to put him in Engineering, particularly given that his people skills aren't the best...

I'd think that they either would be bought in a new actor/character or kept Biff Yeager's LT-CDR Argyle.

 

[Oddish]

Because he had a cool name, if nothing else.

 

[Wally]

Question is, if he was the Helmsman, who would be the Chief Engineer? I think Data would make a good fit.

Well, let's look at the possibilities at the time, who was free.

DATA - No. He already has an established department head position and is already 2nd officer.

GUINAN - unlikely. Not quite a regular, but close. The benefit would be in moving her to engineering, Troi would actually have more to do. I know it makes no sense for the character as we know her, but 2nd season was when she was introduced. She could have just been introduced as the new Chief.

O'BRIEN - Unlikely. Seems like a no brainer given where he ended up on DS9, but by end of Season 1 TNG he was still nothing and this would have resulted in expanding the cast list, which the show probably wouldn't want to do.

WORF - Likely. Thus far, he had been a general purpose bridge officer, and was already a regular without a real job. The catch would then be filling the Security Chief role.

WESLEY - Most likely. The one working at the helm anyways, and already established as an engineering wunderkind, plus Picard would readily rubber stamp any decision to get him out of his face. Sure, the ranks don't make sense but really .. did they ever on TNG?

 

[Orphalesion]

Why even have a Main Character as the Chief Engineer?

Why not just have a recurring character who shows up whenever you need...engineering stuff...?
As I wrote above, having a main character as the Engineer just to have a main character as the Engineer leads to characters being neglected like Geordie and Dr.Crusher.

I mean TNG was sometimes not that good with recurring characters, but they managed to have a couple over the years who appeared with some frequency (Barclay, O'Brien, Keiko, Ro, technically)

 

[McCoy's Disco Collar]

Why even have a Main Character as the Chief Engineer?

Why not just have a recurring character who shows up whenever you need...engineering stuff...?

That's essentially what they did in the first season, only with a rotating cast.

But as much as Roddenberry wanted to avoid repeating the old roles, the production team realized they actually needed a Chief Engineer; the Science Officer and Communications Officer roles in the story could easily be divided up amongst other cast members, but Engineering was a lot harder to work around.

 

[Christopher]

But as much as Roddenberry wanted to avoid repeating the old roles, the production team realized they actually needed a Chief Engineer; the Science Officer and Communications Officer roles in the story could easily be divided up amongst other cast members, but Engineering was a lot harder to work around.

Hmm... The original thinking was basically that the ship was advanced and intelligent enough to repair itself. What if they'd taken that farther and had the ship's computer be a sentient character, as with Roddenberry's Starship proposal, or Rommie in Andromeda? Just have Majel's voice going "There's a hazardous tetryon buildup in my warp core, and it really stings!"

 

[Kor]

If Geordi had stayed in a bridge assignment, then we never would have gotten to see him execute that awesome roll under the engine room isolation door as it was closing.

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Kor

 

[Orphalesion]

But as much as Roddenberry wanted to avoid repeating the old roles, the production team realized they actually needed a Chief Engineer; the Science Officer and Communications Officer roles in the story could easily be divided up amongst other cast members, but Engineering was a lot harder to work around.

Then how come Geordi ended up being one of the most neglected characters on TNG?

I'm not saying they don't need one, but a recurring one would have done fine imo.

 

[Herbert]

If Geordi had remained helmsman?

He would have been killed by Nagilium