TOS's Guinan/Quark/Neelix

[Richard S. Ta]

I’ll close with a more real world example. Decades ago my older brother asked me if it bothered me that our father never said “I love you” to us. With hardly a beat I said no, it didn’t bother me at all. I replied it didn’t bother me because I knew without doubt Dad loved us. His love was there in his words and actions. Whenever he called me up just to talk about hockey, cars or whatever. Whenever he asked me to do something with him. Whenever we did something together, Whenever he might ask my opinion. Whenever he teased me or we laughed together. And whenever I needed help he was wordlessly there. Dad’s love was there on display with everything he did and I didn’t need to be constantly reassured about it.

My Mom and my experiences were the same.

However, I really don't think some people requiring more emotional support than others is a modern phenomenon.

 

[suarezguy]

The original series barely cared about the characters aside from the big three (the small four really just doing their jobs), I really can't see there being another recurring character, let alone a recurring civilian character. I guess I can see McCoy or, if she had continued, Rand playing a similar role to other characters.

 

[kkt]

Yes, McCoy is the closest. Kirk's Enterprise was a much smaller ship than Picard's Enterprise so they didn't have a full-time bartender. And Voyager, well, Voyager was in a desperate situation for all seven seasons, or at least that's what the show claimed. It just doesn't make sense that they picked up a hitchhiker to be their cook, especially one who couldn't cook to save his life. I guess that's supposed to be the joke but it isn't funny enough to tell once, let alone be a running joke for seven years. They didn't owe Neelix anything, they could have sent him off in his ship anytime and drawn straws among the crew to find a better cook.
(And why do they have plenty of power to run the holodeck and none to run the food replicators? I'm willing to suspect disbelief but you've gotta meet me halfway.)

Quark on the other hand was a fully fleshed out character.