Spoilers Underused Star Trek characters

[The Overlord]

I saw these videos from Steve Shives, talking about underused Star Trek characters:

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Do you agree with those choices or have choices of your own for underused characters. Note, some spoilers near the end for both videos.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

I like Steve's content, even beyond what he makes for Star Trek, but I think his criteria are not sound in this case. It seems that he judged each character solely in terms of the number of lines and stories s/he got. He should have reflected on the ability and willingness of the actors to give more. Some actors were not strong enough (or not developed enough) to carry weightier parts. I don't care that we didn't see more of Uhura, Troi, Montgomery and Kim. DeBoer had talent, but she got a lot to do in her own season. OTOH, Takei, McFadden, and Penny Johnson had acting tools that were poorly exploited. Forbes and Chao had some good chops, but neither wanted to commit to their respective series in meaningful ways.

 

[Tribble Threat]

Troi had an awesome power. If written right, it could have driven a whole episode.

 

[Danny99]

Troi had an awesome power. If written right, it could have driven a whole episode.

Telepathy is always tricky to use. It sucks all the drama out of a show if someone can just pluck the villain's plan out of their mind. The writers instead left her with "I sense..." and then stating the bloody obvious. Her counselling position could have been used for some interesting stories. Just think of a story between "Best of Both Worlds" & "Family," where Picard is diagnosed with PTSD from his experience and she is engaged to help him. Or a scene in "The Wounded" where she has a meaningful conversation with O'Brien about the effect of what happened to him during the war. That is the uncomfortable angle that Trek of that era didn't want to show.

I would've voted La Forge for TNG anyways. His storylines were falling for a girl while acting like a dork or somehow getting tortured.

 

[Tribble Threat]

Danny99, I like the way you think. About making a Troi story work, and about LaForge. They can also have a few stories with aliens who only Troi can talk to. In TOS, the writers gave Spock telepathy just so he can talk to a rock alien. Troi never used her powers to talk to anyone Spock did. Also, Troi could do her counseling with people from alien planets too.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Troi had an awesome power. If written right, it could have driven a whole episode.

"The Loss" was basically a Troi episode, and not a bad one at that.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

TOS: Sulu and Uhura, honourable mention for Number One
TNG: La Forge and Troi, honourable mention for Guinan and Ro
DS9: Jake and Kasidy
VOY: Kes, honourable mention for Seska
ENT: Sato and Mayweather

 

[F. King Daniel]

Those bridge characters on the USS Discovery who are pretty much just names.

 

[eschaton]

Let's see...going through the classic series:

TOS: Everyone was under-used to some extent besides Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (even the latter is arguable). I mean, the secondary characters never even really got an episode (except arguably Scotty in Wolf in the Fold, or the awful B plot with Chekov having the hippie-ex in This Way to Eden). It's hard for me to really judge the acting chops of the secondary cast, but I think they'd all at least have the chops to do an episode.

TNG: I've long felt Riker, LaForge, Troi, and Beverly were underwritten on the show. Oh, they got plenty of episodes here and there, but they never were really given much in the way of concrete personality traits. I'm also of the opinion that Wesley was just fine after the first season (where just about everyone was atrocious) and it's a shame they de-emphasized him and more or less forced him off the show due to annoying fans.

DS9: For some reason, the writers lost interest in Jake Sisko like halfway through the series. I mean, in the final season I'm pretty sure Nog appears more than Jake - and Garak might as well. Cirroc Lofton did fine acting on the show (though his career went nowhere afterwards) and I think he could have done more. I get the impression that once they decided his path wasn't Starfleet, and he wanted to be a writer they just didn't have a clue what to do with him, and thus left him out of many episodes. Which is a shame, because the bond between Ben and Jake is the emotional core of the series - and it was just lost over time.

VOY: I'll be controversial and say I would have liked more Neelix. Here me out. Ethan Phillips is a fantastic actor, who was horribly miscast in the annoying clownish role they turned Neelix into. But whenever he actually got a chance to play the role with some pathos - like Jetrel or Mortal Coil - it was magnificent.

ENT: I really don't know what to say here. Montgomery was an awful actor, and failed in every attempt they gave him to do something more weighty, so I don't think we could have seen more of our favorite boomer. Maybe a bit more of Reed? There was a lot going on under the surface with him, and he seemed a profoundly...unhappy...character in ways we seldom saw on Trek until that time.

 

[Qonundrum]

Danny99, I like the way you think. About making a Troi story work, and about LaForge. They can also have a few stories with aliens who only Troi can talk to. In TOS, the writers gave Spock telepathy just so he can talk to a rock alien. Troi never used her powers to talk to anyone Spock did. Also, Troi could do her counseling with people from alien planets too.

She picked up on the space jelly (mmmm, raspberry mint jelly nom nom nom ) in "Encounter at Farpoint", was great when placed against Tam Elbron, discussed to Picard on how an alien species could perceive a cup of tea, but that was about it. Or getting to share her mother's discomfort to Riker after being abducted by Ferengi. They couldn't do that every week but somehow I got the impression they could have done it more often.

 

[ThreeEdgedSword]

IF, as suggested, some actors are to weak to play decent character development, then you failed in the casting department. That's not an excuse for badly developed characters.

I pretty much agree with Steve Shives' coments about underused characters for the shows I know (I cannot comment on ENT, TAS or the Kelvin movies) and as far as I remember.

 

[Orphalesion]

Personally I'd say:

TNG: Troi, Beverley and Ro. Tasha too for the short period she was on board.

DS9: Ziyal, would have loved to see more of her and her relationship with Kira. I also feel Kai Opaka was written off too soon.

Voy: Kes, definitely.

Telepathy is always tricky to use. It sucks all the drama out of a show if someone can just pluck the villain's plan out of their mind.

The X-men have like 5 telepaths lying around their school at any given moment and still manage to have drama so, no, I do not accept that excuse for the writers being lazy in regards to Troi's telepathy.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

IF, as suggested, some actors are to weak to play decent character development, then you failed in the casting department. That's not an excuse for badly developed characters.

That's neither here nor there. Mr. Shives' subject is "wasted potential." If there isn't sufficient acting talent, then there isn't any wasted potential. Sure, characters could have little details of their lives filled out with little asides, etc. However, I would not want to see stories around those characters. The episodes focusing on Mayweather, for instance, didn't want me to see more of him, even though I can admit he didn't get much to do. From what I understand, Anthony Montgomery has improved as an actor. By 2004,I could not have cared less.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

TNG: I'll echo "do more with main characters other Picard, Data, Worf and Wesley". I'd also add characters like Darien Wallace, Engineers Russell & Giddings, Ops Officer/Flight Controller Jae, Flight Controller Gates and Nurse Ogawa who all appeared in more episodes that some of the main cast, but no development and in some cases not even dialogue.

 

[eschaton]

That's neither here nor there. Mr. Shives' subject is "wasted potential." If there isn't sufficient acting talent, then there isn't any wasted potential. Sure, characters could have little details of their lives filled out with little asides, etc. However, I would not want to see stories around those characters. The episodes focusing on Mayweather, for instance, didn't want me to see more of him, even though I can admit he didn't get much to do. From what I understand, Anthony Montgomery has improved as an actor. By 2004,I could not have cared less.

The counter to this is so many recurring characters were expanded precisely because they were good actors. I know for DS9 Garak, Martok, and Weyoun were all originally supposed to be one-and-done, but the writers found the characters as portrayed by the actors so compelling they kept writing more material.

 

[Orphalesion]

Especially with TNG I often wonder that certain characters falling to the wayside was just a result of the way the show was created. If you look at the series bible it seems like some of the characters were just created because somebody (mostly Roddenberry) wanted them to exist, but with no/little plan on what to actually do with them once they exist and very little in the realm of potential plots.
I think it's especially obvious with Troi, Dr.Crusher and Gerodi. Troi was especially odd since they created her to have psychic powers and then the series bible stresses that they didn't want stories about psychic powers.

Many of the characters in Voyager suffer the same problems.