Nope.
What was the plan with Diana Muldaur?
- Thread starter JesterFace
- Start date
Nope.
How could we be in the position to compare their (relative) competence? Nearly all Starfleet personnel, doctors and technicians seem to be miracle workers, anyway. When the script calls for it.
I wasn't rating their skill, just how I felt about their respective characters. Beverly wasn't bad, I just liked Pulaski better.
Ah, it's because you said 'she was the better of the two doctors' (and not something like 'the more likeable of the two characters'), so I thought you were possibly rating them on that dimension.
I'm not sure how I rate them (as characters). Pulaski might have grown on me more had she been longer in the series than just a single season. When I was young I thought Crusher was more likeable, but these days I'm leaning over more to the idea that she didn't seem to have a real personality of herself. She seemed to be more Picard's potential love interest, or mother-of-Wesley, or chief-doctor-of-the-ship slot filler than a character in her own right. Even Deanna Troi had a more outspoken personality than she did.
And while I'm not sure I necessarily like Pulaski, she certainly has personality.
I saw it as Pulaski slowly growing to realize Data really seemed to be sentient and agreed. Her biggest tonal shift started with "Pen Pals" where she's actively agreeing with a decision he came to on his own, and the relationship seemed to improve from there. Despite early poking at him, the makers appeared to move it in a positive direction.
Yeah, I read that about Mulgrew as well. They'd made up since, as I recall. It's weird because it never showed on screen and their double-act, despite a rehash in some ways, still was one I could relate to far more easily than "Data/Picard". Seven wasn't a robot; she was a human being...
Ryan being blamed for Lein is like blaming a squirrel that caused a multi-car pile-up except said squirrel was nowhere near that road when the issue occurred.
The acting chemistry was a huge plus, even if it was a partial rehash of "Data and Picard", which was a rehash of "Spock and Kirk". The origins and follow-through both felt original.
Pulaski not being a pure sycophant to Clique Leader Picard was awesome and I wish more had. Things didn't get refined until Ro came along...
This in a big way. Worf sometimes butted heads with the others, but even that was more "security chief doing his job" than "conflict of personalities". Everyone else on TNG, I've seen more interpersonal conflicts in a Wee Sing video. Ro and Pulaski didn't always get along, and that's what made them interesting characters. And Pulaski coming to respect Data was one of the best things in that season, even if it was reportedly unintentional.
I totally don't agree with the assertion I sometimes see that Data was a defenseless target for Pulaski's snark... Data stood up for himself as much as he needed to, such as his assertion in "The Child", when she got his name wrong: "One is my name. The other is not." Simple, and it got the job done; Pulaski used his name right after that.
Jeri Ryan is a fine actress, so nothing against her personally - but it seemed clear to me at the time that a producer wanted to indulge his Sex Doll Ice Queen Fetish™ and attract more teenage boys to the audience, and the Cute Girl Nextdoor™ had to go to accommodate the budget.
Not that I'm a natural-born cynic or anything.
Not that I'm a natural-born cynic or anything.
^Yes.
Credits to her acting ability that despite that and the somewhat tired problems she faced into her Journey to Explore what it Means to be Human she still turned out a moderately compelling character for those of us that weren't staring ourselves blind on her, erm, three-dimensionality.
Credits to her acting ability that despite that and the somewhat tired problems she faced into her Journey to Explore what it Means to be Human she still turned out a moderately compelling character for those of us that weren't staring ourselves blind on her, erm, three-dimensionality.
Like a lot of things, we will never know how she would have developed had she remained on the show until the end. Same with Denise Crosby. Of course, Denise leaving opened the door for them to develop Worf. How would Worf have developed had Denise stayed on the show? The speculation is fascinating.
The only thing I didn't care for about Dr Pulaski was that she was presented as an analog for McCoy as an Old school type doctor with a fear of transporters. On the other hand, Pulaski was a quite different character than Crusher, which is a good thing.
I'm pretty ambivalent on Dr Crusher. I don't think the show would have missed a beat had she never returned.
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Jeri Ryan is a fine actress, so nothing against her personally - but it seemed clear to me at the time that a producer wanted to indulge his Sex Doll Ice Queen Fetish™ and attract more teenage boys to the audience, and the Cute Girl Nextdoor™ had to go to accommodate the budget.
Not that I'm a natural-born cynic or anything.
I don't know about the fetish thing. That would be a supremely shallow, foolish, stupid, and immature justification for the character. However, I think there is some credence to them wanting to attract viewers by including a sex symbol on the show. Let's face it, T&A puts asses in the seats. Always has and likely always will.
Yup. Welcome to the entertainment industry, and the minds of male producers.
See also: T'Pol - a decent actress condemned to four years of shipboard ice queen duty in an inexplicable catsuit.
They should have written a crossover scene where 7 and T'Pol meet, discussing why they choose to wear those catsuits. Possibly also with Troi. Just to create a challenge for the writers and producers.
No intelligent reason whatsoever. We've seen her in uniform, and it was plenty flattering.
In the end all the women they forced into revealing jumpsuits; Troi, Seven and T'Pol looked better in the standard uniform. It's really unfortunate that Troi had to wait till Season 6 and that Seven only ever got to wear one in a couple of episodes.
I sure it was said somewhere that it was planned that Muldaur was credited in the opening titles, but it was changed (possibly by her agents etc...), to a Special Guest Star, as this was seen as being 'better' billing, than just being one of the cast, in the same way that a big star got the "and" as the last credited actor on tv shows in the 80's/90's.
It doesn't seem as if she was very close with the rest of the cast, although she has always been very polite about them, and praised their performances, but there seems to have been a bit of tension.
They were all close after working togther for a year and Muldaur never seemed to be one of the gang, they missed Gates and made no secret of wanting her back, she was a bit older than them, and had a lot more television experience than most of them, and was apparently getting a bigger salary than some of the cast because of that, which put a few noses out of joint.
It doesn't seem as if she was very close with the rest of the cast, although she has always been very polite about them, and praised their performances, but there seems to have been a bit of tension.
They were all close after working togther for a year and Muldaur never seemed to be one of the gang, they missed Gates and made no secret of wanting her back, she was a bit older than them, and had a lot more television experience than most of them, and was apparently getting a bigger salary than some of the cast because of that, which put a few noses out of joint.
I do think if Pulaski had been there from S1 she would've been better received - except for the anti-transporter thing, that was just too much copying McCoy to be believable.
The audience didn't know much about Data then either, and so her questioning of him "It does know how to do that, doesn't it?" probably would've gone down better, as we were learning about him at the same time, unfortunately, by S2 most of the audience loved Data, and they didn't like Pulaski having a go at him, and so it put them off her.
The supposed romance between Picard & Crusher was never going anywhere, but there wouldn't have been any of that with Pulaski anyway, and so you would've had an experienced doctor, and someone that could've been a confidant for Picard.
The audience didn't know much about Data then either, and so her questioning of him "It does know how to do that, doesn't it?" probably would've gone down better, as we were learning about him at the same time, unfortunately, by S2 most of the audience loved Data, and they didn't like Pulaski having a go at him, and so it put them off her.
The supposed romance between Picard & Crusher was never going anywhere, but there wouldn't have been any of that with Pulaski anyway, and so you would've had an experienced doctor, and someone that could've been a confidant for Picard.
I recall reading that after her experience with the age makeup in Unnatural Selection made her swear off doing a sci-fi series ever again (considering other actors talk about the heavy makeup, it’s not surprising), and that she’d even joined more from personal wooing by Roddenberry himself. So that’s always made me feel like she just didn’t particularly feel up to signing up for another year, and, with her leaving and Hurley gone, the door was wide open for Crusher to come back.
For what it’s worth, I always found Pulaski’s lack of instant mesh with the TNG characters produced some interesting sparks that at least breathed some life into the scripts that wasn’t there before, a side effect of the “no interpersonal conflicts” edict from Roddenberry when the show started. It gave her a bit more life to start with - Crusher came back, and they didn’t really develop her too much more, while Pulaski developed over just that one season.
For what it’s worth, I always found Pulaski’s lack of instant mesh with the TNG characters produced some interesting sparks that at least breathed some life into the scripts that wasn’t there before, a side effect of the “no interpersonal conflicts” edict from Roddenberry when the show started. It gave her a bit more life to start with - Crusher came back, and they didn’t really develop her too much more, while Pulaski developed over just that one season.
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