Lieutenant Leslie: Star Trek's very own Mementic Badass

[Lance]

TNG had a whole rostrum of immediately identifiable, regular-as-clockwork 'background artistes' who spanned the entire gamult from Season 1 right through. The character of Diana Giddings being a notable example (her appearances, especially in season one wearing the skant, have got an almost Leslie-like ubiquity to them. )

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Diana_Giddings

The skant harkens back to the TOS-era female miniskirt uniform, at least when worn by a female crewmember.

I like it, for that reason. Well, I like it on the female crewmembers, anyway...

I remember thinking when I first watched TNG S1 that Giddings was smoking hot, especially in 'The Naked Now'... I think it was the script for 'The Outrageous Okona' which called for him to shack up with "a well endowed female crewmember", and it turned out to be Diana Giddings...

I'm not saying this to stir the pot, or anything like that, but I always thought Lieutenant Leslie looked like an asshole. He shows up and I expect him to be starting shit, everywhere he went. But he even drove the bus, one time, that I can recall - taking over for Sulu, I think, when Sulu was left in command. At least they threw the guy a line, or two, as he certainly was around, alot, to help fill out the background and finding stuff to do, in a moment ...

He always does seem to have the same, dour look on his face everytime we see him... that time in "This Side Of Paradise" where Leslie tells Kirk to STFU right to his face (and Shatner looks absolutely stunned) is in character with how he usually looks... but then you get odd episodes where he's got more of a personality, like his laughing along with Uhura's song in "Charlie X", or throwing a 'Hey There!' point and wink to Scotty, Chekov and Freeman in the bar in "The Trouble With Tribbles".

 

[Robert Comsol]

The strangest scene revolving around Leslie, IMO, is the one from "And the Children ..." where Kirk talks directly to him but the kids garble up Kirk's orders.

Well, shouldn't he have at least said something like "Sir, I don't understand a word you're saying"?

(and Kirk probably thought "allright, this Leslie brother is going to accompany me on the next away mission, so finally we have one left and at least know which of the two or three left we are dealing with." )

Bob