Underrepresented Characters
- Thread starter Antonovus
- Start date
Indeed, and they also had unique Delta Quadrant experiences - experiences that were tainted with their crimes. Lots of interesting stories, IMO.
From an entire franchise standpoint - Romulans. A major power that was far under-utilized.
TOS. DeSalle. He had a couple of prominent episodes and then, poof.
Aww, poore Joe Carey.
TOS. DeSalle. He had a couple of prominent episodes and then, poof.
Aww, poore Joe Carey.
Why would they? They were pre-warp. Same as Malcorians.
Ayala was on nearly every episode, but he does have lines occasionally. His first line is in Basics Part 2, though it's just something like "yes ma'am" when Janeway tells him to do something. When Kes returns in Fury and is tearing up the corridors, Ayala runs up to her with a phaser rifle and yells "freeze." And finally in Renaissance Man, he gets to report technobabble and bridge jargon.
Some of these have already been mentioned, but here goes:
Lt. Charlene Masters
Dr. M'Benga
Illia
Willard Decker
Demora Sulu
John Harriman
Captain Tryla Scott
Tomalak
Calvin Hudson
Aquiel
Edward LaForge
Silva LaForge
Captain Geordi LaForge
Lt. Hawk
Ensign Kell Perim
Lt. Daniels
Thomas Riker
Lower Decks group
Science Officer 0718 (really a lot of the crewmen on the Enterprise, etc, in the new film)
Martin Madden
Lt. Charlene Masters
Dr. M'Benga
Illia
Willard Decker
Demora Sulu
John Harriman
Captain Tryla Scott
Tomalak
Calvin Hudson
Aquiel
Edward LaForge
Silva LaForge
Captain Geordi LaForge
Lt. Hawk
Ensign Kell Perim
Lt. Daniels
Thomas Riker
Lower Decks group
Science Officer 0718 (really a lot of the crewmen on the Enterprise, etc, in the new film)
Martin Madden
Indeed. Especially given his billing as "Trek's first openly gay character", he was given ZERO character development. I guess TPTB thought they could have their cake and eat it, too - make the LGBT community happy to be "represented", without offending the non-LGBT community by doing something as drastic as actually putting anything that would let people know that he was gay on-screen. And then killing him off immediately, just to be extra safe.
Yes. Her and M'Benga - who has now been mentioned several times, but hadn't been when I pressed quote on this post.
I think this is part of why we didn't see them more - the regular cast probably would have had a problem with the introduction of a reason to exclude them from large swathes of screen time (flashbacks to events on the Equinox, for example), when little enough was being done with some of them as it was.
Indeed - and then MISused. Diane Duane had laid out the Rihannsu *beautifully*, and then they went and contradicted all of that... out of spite? To keep from paying her royalties? I don't know. But I also don't know what the hell a "Reman" is - because those don't exist in MY head canon.
Basically Voyager had too big a regular cast, and not enough recurring characters. Regulars ended up getting big pay packets, but limited screen time or dialogue, except for their one featured episode a season.
You could have cut it down to Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor, Tuvok, Paris, Torres, and later Seven of Nine. Neelix and Kes would have been better as recurring characters, as would Harry Kim.
Deep Space Nine always made a big point about having recurring characters because the station was in a fixed place, and would have to deal with the consequences.
That should have been even more true for Voyager, which had just 150 people, and no crew transfers or rotations. Everyone on that ship should have been a close-nit community, but it never felt like that. It was the elite at the top, and a load of nameless and often faceless ensigns. Equinox seemed more realistic, although without the alien torturing/murdering.
You could have cut it down to Janeway, Chakotay, the Doctor, Tuvok, Paris, Torres, and later Seven of Nine. Neelix and Kes would have been better as recurring characters, as would Harry Kim.
Deep Space Nine always made a big point about having recurring characters because the station was in a fixed place, and would have to deal with the consequences.
That should have been even more true for Voyager, which had just 150 people, and no crew transfers or rotations. Everyone on that ship should have been a close-nit community, but it never felt like that. It was the elite at the top, and a load of nameless and often faceless ensigns. Equinox seemed more realistic, although without the alien torturing/murdering.
While mostly true, at least the Voyager characters actually had some presence, for the most part the Enterprise cast were literally just filling starship staff positions and very little was established about them beyond their jobs. And even then, their backstories were often a reflection of their job, Reed loves weapons and explosions, so he's the tactical officer, Hoshi is adept at languages, so she's the communications officer, Mayweather grew up in space, making him an expert pilot. Really the main cast for that show really should have just had Archer, T'Pol, Trip and Phlox in the main cast, Reed and Hoshi as recurring characters, and rotating extras as the helmsman, like TNG did in their final two seasons.
Actually, "stop where you are".
Otherwise, from Voyager, Harren, Ballard (at least once before she died), Lang, Kaplan, Tal Celes, Chell, Hogan, Durst, the Borg baby, and last, but not least, Ensign Samantha Wildman.
TOS- LaSalle, Riley, Kelowitz, Kyle, Masters, Stiles, Tormolen, and an episode where one could see how Bailey had gotten on with Balok!
Kind of off topic, but I've always felt Ashes to Ashes should have used Ensign Jetal from Latent Image rather than create Ballard, a new but similar character.
Another very underrepresented character is Michael Sullivan-appeared in two episodes in Voyager season 6, the first controversial and the second awful but by the end of the second he and Janeway were still close, then no mention let alone appearance in all of season 7.
What happened to the Fair Haven characters anyway after Voyager's return? There was a lot of fuzz about Vic Fontaine, also in the novels. Fair Haven wasn't mentioned again. A question kept for KMFB.
Nowadays when a show puts out an episode like 'Lower Decks' it's sometimes seen as an attempt to perhaps re-launch a series with newer (and cheaper) characters and obviously that wasn't the intention with TNG but I would've been quite interested to see how those characters developed and progressed through Star Fleet.
Well, except for poor Sito Jaxa. RIP
Well, except for poor Sito Jaxa. RIP
Not on screen, but they are mentioned in a number of novels and Data mentions her by name a few times - Sarjenka even regains her memories of that episode.
I would like to have seen more or read more about some of the often seen, but rarely heard characters such as Allenby. Gates, Jae (her actress now follows ME on twitter) and McKnight. Now yes, they all happen to be the female Conn officers, but I've always wondered what they got up to.
From DS9, I'd pick Saghi - that girl always makes me laugh in her few appearances. I also like her the writers, in her two appearances, gave her a deep rooted religious background as she was very distressed at the Orbs all going black in "Tears of the Prophets". Always found that a nice and sweet little touch
I think Jae was only a conn officer in Generations. Throughout the series she usually wore gold, though in First Contact she switched to blue.
Does that negate her inclusion as a Conn officer? For all we know, she might have worked the Conn between episodes to keep up her competency ratings! We just didn't see her in that role until Generations. This might well be "fact" as Worf switched back and forth from the aft consoles to Conn
Well, the fact she wore gold is a pretty good indication she wasn't a conn officer until Generations when she began wearing red, and likewise had moved on from conn in FC when she began wearing blue. Remember, when Worf switched back and forth from the aft consoles and the conn he was wearing red at the time. And to be fair, this was back in the days when his duty was to fill the vacant bridge station.
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