What main cast members if any do you think were bad actors?

[Gary7]

For me, the franchise is lucky in the sense that most of its performers are atleast solid and quite a few are excellent.

There are ofcourse, some weak links. The three that spring to mind are:

Denise Crosby: Just a very limited actress. She popped up in Lois and Clark and was just as bland. She does nothing for me on screen...she always FEELS like she is acting.

Jennifer Lien: I always scoff when I hear people mourning her departure in favour of Jeri Ryan. Jeri was simply a far better actress. If it wasn't for Lien's almost bizarre voice she would have faded into the background for me completely. I just cant engage with her at all.

Anthony Montgomery: Just...weak. He seemed like he was trying but I just dont blame them for limiting him. He is too green, to bland. Its like watching someone trying to learn how to act. Perfectly pleasant but meh.

+1 Couldn't have said it better. I thought Crosby had the right look, but she just couldn't act well enough. It was a good thing she left. It also provided an interesting opportunity for her reprisals that came later ("Yesterday's Enterprise" and the Romulan half-breed).

Lien was beautiful but flat in character personality. Granted the scripts weren't all that great for her, but she didn't make the best of them.

I was also not fond of Marina Sirtis. She started off TERRIBLE. She became reasonably good by the end of TNG though. Not fond of her movie work, though.

Gates McFadden also started off a bit rough, but she pulled through later in the 3rd season.

Scott Bakula really didn't know what his character was until late in the 2nd season. But by then it was too late. He really shined in the Mirror Universe episode.

 

[Kirby]

(Frakes, however, improved markedly after season one.)

I call this the 'Potsie Weber effect' Frakes really came into his own when he grew that beard. Same thing for Brooks shaving his head and growing the goatee.

Beltran always seemed to be phoning it in, but he wasn't happy with the Producers so never really tried very hard. Kind of stupid since they were paying him well.

I don't think anyone was a bad actors per se, I think they just never gave certain actors like Anthony Montgomery much to do. You can tell that they didn't give the character much thought since in TATV, 10 years into the future, he was still an Ensign.
Beverly Crusher, Harry Kim also got the short end of the stick too often too.

 

[T'Girl]

Robert Beltran seemed as though he didn't care, but his character wasn't used much considering his role on Voyager.

My take on "the wooden Indian" is that Chakotay was supposed to be reserved, and so Chakotay was. Like many Trek actors, he only really shined when he was given something to do, so I feel he was average as a actor, but not bad.

Marina Sirtis
She got better when she got the Uniform ....

How did changing her wardrobe result in a better actress?

... and the casting in JJ Abrams Trek is a master stroke.

Only in a few of the slots, Karl Urban is great in anything he does, and I liked Saldana as an actress prior to seeing her in Trek.

But I still don't buy Quinto as Spock, he wrong for the role. Pine's acting skills have improved since ST: Eleven, however he still at best an mediocre actor.

Beltran always seemed to be phoning it in, but he wasn't happy with the Producers so never really tried very hard. Kind of stupid since they were paying him well.

This isn't specific to Beltram, but of the actors that I met, while of course they want to be paid, most are in that field because they want to act, they want to display their craft.

 

[The Old Mixer]

My votes would go to Montgomery and Crosby, with honorable mention to Bakula for having the crappiest command presence.

 

[Sindatur]

My votes would go to Montgomery and Crosby, with honorable mention to Bakula for having the crappiest command presence.

I'm not a fan of Bakula's acting charisma*, but, I can't fault him for the way Archer was Played. I think he was meant to be played clueless and out of his league in those first couple seasons, before he became the hard-ass/ruthless Captain, so, he could have character growth.

*(I enjoyed Quantum Leap despite him being the lead, and expect I would've enjoyed it more with a different lead and wasn't happy to see him as the lead in Enterprise)

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I thought Bakula was good in Quantum Leap but I don't like the way he played Archer in Enterprise. Just his mannerisms rubbed me the same way, same with Keating. He frequently acted like he was annoyed by something, and had this manner of tilting his head while spitting out lines like he was dressing someone down. That annoyed me far more than Brooks' alleged hamming.

I think Marina Sirtis is more a victim of her scripts than not a good actress. My impression was she gave the directors what they asked from her.

 

[Sci Fi Fan]

I disagree. I think he played the part quite well. On a related subject, I wonder if most of the regular cast members were themselves fans of the series they played on? I'm sure some were (Michael Dorn-Worf, for example), but I wonder if that was regularly true.

 

[tomalak301]

Marina Sirtis
She got better when she got the Uniform ....

How did changing her wardrobe result in a better actress?

Maybe more confidence? I'm not sure, but I started to like her better when she got the uniform, and especially on Voyager. The same can be said with Frakes when he got the beard, which came with a little personality.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Anthony Montgomery: Just...weak. He seemed like he was trying but I just dont blame them for limiting him. He is too green, to bland. Its like watching someone trying to learn how to act. Perfectly pleasant but meh.

That was the Mayweather character, which was really gutted from what it was initially proposed during the early development of the series. In other roles I've seen Montgomery in, is far from green and bland (I actually think he would have made a better captain than Bakula if they had gone with the idea of a young intense captain). In comparison, Mayweather was little more than a glorified extra on ENT.

I don't think anyone was a bad actors per se, I think they just never gave certain actors like Anthony Montgomery much to do. You can tell that they didn't give the character much thought since in TATV, 10 years into the future, he was still an Ensign.
Beverly Crusher, Harry Kim also got the short end of the stick too often too.

This. While I do think some actors are better than others, I don't think anyone cast as a regular in a Trek series is a horrible actor or else they wouldn't have been cast. But with any TV series, some characters shine more than others, especially those characters that writers tend to favor or find easier to write.

 

[AgentCoop]

Well, whether it was they way he was written, the way he was performed or a combination of both, Travis Mayweather is possibly the dullest character I have ever seen in anything. Ever. He's so flat that I forget he exists when I'm not looking right at him. He's like those creepy dudes from Dr. Who, only not interesting.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

garret wang-fairly wooden
Jolene blalock-couldnt play "stoic" so she played "snotty"

I feel the same way though replace 'snotty' with 'pouty', especially in S1/2 whenever the script seems to call for a cold, clinic Vulcan look she just gives a trouty pout.

 

[TheGoodStuff]

Well, whether it was they way he was written, the way he was performed or a combination of both, Travis Mayweather is possibly the dullest character I have ever seen in anything. Ever. He's so flat that I forget he exists when I'm not looking right at him. He's like those creepy dudes from Dr. Who, only not interesting.

Agreed and i'm unconvinced this flat, bland performance was intentional. Though I agree that he had almost nothing to do and was relegated to the role of a glorified extra. When he DID get some Mayweather centered episodes....I wasn't blown away.

Was there not talk that he found it hard to play the gentle, properly spoken Mayweather? That the lack of edge [he wasn't going to be the wisened, freighter kid he was originally slated to be] and that this stunted the whole thing?

 

[Jedi_Master]

Robert Beltran. That guy gave up early on, and just showed up to collect his paycheck.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Well, whether it was they way he was written, the way he was performed or a combination of both, Travis Mayweather is possibly the dullest character I have ever seen in anything. Ever. He's so flat that I forget he exists when I'm not looking right at him. He's like those creepy dudes from Dr. Who, only not interesting.

Agreed and i'm unconvinced this flat, bland performance was intentional. Though I agree that he had almost nothing to do and was relegated to the role of a glorified extra. When he DID get some Mayweather centered episodes....I wasn't blown away.

Was there not talk that he found it hard to play the gentle, properly spoken Mayweather? That the lack of edge [he wasn't going to be the wisened, freighter kid he was originally slated to be] and that this stunted the whole thing?

IMO, Ensign Travis Mayweather was a pale shadow of the initial concept of the character--Lieutenant Joseph Mayweather--who would have originally been a slightly older and more forthright character as the most experienced space traveler on the ship (even more so than T'Pol), and would have been the one to tell Archer and the gang how to deal with alien races and when they might be going about it wrong. Instead, that aspect of the character went to T'Pol and Travis Mayweather became little more than the ship's soft-spoken young driver.

Also ditched was an originally proposed close friendship between Joe Mayweather and "Spike" Tucker in which the two would have been the ship's resident bad boys (in "Broken Bow" it basically went no further than Travis showing Trip a variable gravity area of the ship).

 

[HIjol]

Will Wheaton
Scott Bakula
Brent Spiner as Lor

I agree very much with those that did not like Avery, but it was not his fault...he was, and forever shall be "Hawk" from "Spencer For Hire"...

 

[Navaros]

What main cast members if any do you think were bad actors?

Terry Farrell: she has almost no ability to act, and her inability to act makes Jadzia one of the most bland, boring, one-dimensional cardboard characters ever.

 

[I am not Spock]

-Robert Beltran (wooden as wooden)
- Garrett Wang
- Denise Crosby
-Marina Sirtis
- Jolene Blalock
- Anthony Montgomery
- Nana Visitor (at least , early on in DS9)

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Maybe more confidence? I'm not sure, but I started to like her better when she got the uniform, and especially on Voyager. The same can be said with Frakes when he got the beard, which came with a little personality.

I think the key there was that Frakes didn't have to try modeling his character after Stephen Collins' performance of Will Decker in TMP. Roddenberry intended for Riker to be Decker 2.0, but as Decker's character wasn't fleshed out that well due to his appearing only in TMP, there wasn't much for Riker to go on. Once it was decided that Frakes could play Riker differently- and Gene was pushed aside (again)- his performance improved.

--Sran

 

[EmperorTiberius]

None.

People here unfairly judge actors based on how they liked characters, hence Crusher, Troi, Chakotey etc are picked. Predictable

There isn't much somebody like Wang can do with "Shield down captain". Most of these minor characters were never too developed, nor were intended to be that developed. They were stereotypes:
Wang- scared ensign
Crosby- serious security officer with hard life etc etc

 

[Mage]

I'm also going to say that non of them were really bad, they just had crappy material at times.
That being said, Anthony Montgomery never really hooked me, and Blalock seemed to realize all to well why she was cast and never seemed to try hard enough. Perhaps though, she really is a bad actress. I've never seen her in anything else then ENT.

Brooks is someone I loved, his at the times 'almost over the top' helped in certain moments. But sure, he had his plonkers too. Which were more a result of bad writing then bad acting in my opinion.

Bakula still gets a lot of shit for not being a good captain. I feel that a lot of that was on purpose. He was Earth's captain of a true interstellar starship, ofcourse the man had zero experience. The wonders and dangers out there are so unique and diverse, they is literally no way to train for that, no one would be truly qualified to take those first steps. So him messing up, coming across as slightly bumbling at times.... I liked it. And I think Bakula did that pretty well. That being said, Archer isn't my favorite character, and Bakula not the best of the actors in Trek.