• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Is Okona a really terrible character?

Bad episode, sure. Bad character? He was TNG's Harry Mudd, the over the top free spirit con-artist that you can't help but like. He was fun, just wish he'd gotten a better intro episode; had they been inclined, he'd fit right in with DS9.
 
Giving Okona such period-specific hairdo and stubble was something of a mistake IMHO. Harry Mudd milked on the timeless gypsy look rather than its specific 1960s variants, giving us something that's not immediately identifiable as a 1960s pimp, or at least not solely so; Han Solo tried to catch the 1930s adventure movie feel despite bowing to some 1970ism; even the Viper pilots of classic BSG at least made an effort at "being out of time". Okona might have been far more memorable in a silent movie moustache...

Timo Saloniemi

Honestly, Okona looks a lot less silly than Mudd did.

RAMA
 
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Had Okona returned, what might his angle have been? Mudd came back once in a mirror image of himself, sort of: the smooth operator now was the underdog begging for our heroes to save him. And then he came back again as a likeable victim of circumstances, the very role he always tried to play but this time had to face for real.

Okona tried to run circles around our heroes in the introductory episode, too, and got defeated but not humiliated in the end; he was left in pretty much the same limbo as Mudd. What sort of a calamity would you have wanted to see befall him for his "I, Okona" return? Be creative. Be cruel. You know he deserves it...

Timo Saloniemi
 
People are how they are and i figured this guy was just an ass. But a good guy he doesnt bother me at all.
 
Hmmm, yeah. Not a bad guy.

Thinking on it, I kind of wonder if he was really a 'Walter Mitty' type. That is, someone who always dreamed of being a space-pirate / scoundrel /whatever. He finally scrapes together enough cash to get his own ship AND is able to dress and behave how he thinks someone in that line of work should. Just a thought.
 
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Had Okona returned, what might his angle have been? Mudd came back once in a mirror image of himself, sort of: the smooth operator now was the underdog begging for our heroes to save him. And then he came back again as a likeable victim of circumstances, the very role he always tried to play but this time had to face for real.

Okona tried to run circles around our heroes in the introductory episode, too, and got defeated but not humiliated in the end; he was left in pretty much the same limbo as Mudd. What sort of a calamity would you have wanted to see befall him for his "I, Okona" return? Be creative. Be cruel. You know he deserves it...

Timo Saloniemi

Well, I think he did alright.

He got two people who clearly were in love to see each other, at the risks of their over protective, and honor bound parents; and was willing to take the rap for it, when the parents thought he both knocked up that chick, and stole that diamond. And he did not kill anyone while doing so.

Plus he impressed Worf by standing up to him with that, "Let's step outside" stare down they had.

I think, with some more writing, he'd be a pretty likable character, I like him already.

If I can get my comic underway, maybe I'll toss him in a few stories, as well.
 
Hmmm, yeah. Not a bad guy.

Thinking on it, I kind of wonder if he was really a 'Walter Mitty' type. That is, someone who always dreamed of being a space-pirate / scoundrel /whatever. He finally scrapes together enough cash to get his own ship AND is able to dress and behave how he thinks someone in that line of work should. Just a thought.

Maybe he's running away from a previous life he wants to forget about. Maybe he's from a world, like what we saw in the episode "First Contact", wanting to see what's out there, have some adventures, but stuck on a world where the society, or at least the government, is so intent on maintaining the old ways, and so he up and left.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top