Why did they get rid of Tasha Yar?
- Thread starter WendyNotsid
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You know, when I think about it, the whole franchise has had a lot of problems with creating and evolving good female characters. I mean, even from the very beginning. It's happened a lot over the years where they had potentially good characters and the writing or the acting or both kind of ruined the potential. Even with Number One.
Granted, you could credit the response to her as a character from test audiences with the time period when the show started but I have to admit that even I didn't like her much, and I consider myself a hardcore feminist. I mean, I didn't think she was "pushy" or that she was "trying too hard to fit in with the men" like the test audiences supposedly said. That I attribute to sixties-era-sexism, because it looked to me like she was just doing her job. But I think the problem with her was that she was kind of humorless. They sort of made Spock into the male version of her, but Spock had a degree of humor to him. And despite the fact that she was supposed to be all-logic, she usually had an angry expression on her face. Spock rarely ever looked angry and he didn't talk like one of those digital answering machine voices. And I don't mean to slight Majel Barrett, because Lwaxana Troi is one of my favorite characters and she did a great job playing her, but the portrayal wasn't right. I also think it would have helped if she wasn't the only female on the bridge and the only one who seemed to hold any sort of authority. The bridge should have been more integrated in the pilot.
I do agree that Denise Crosby wasn't very good. I mean, what we did learn about Tasha is that she grew up on this ghetto, crime-ridden planet, was abandoned by her parents as a child and that she had to have a lot of street smarts and learn to avoid and fight off gangs of rapists. You'd think the actress playing the character would play as being hardened, suspicious and tense... instead we got a bunch of smiles and cutesy-sweetness that would make Shirley Temple blush. If you ask me, Tasha should have been more like Vanna from "The Cloud Minders".
I felt that Troi did eventually get better, but that's not saying much and the growth of her character was too little, too late.
I always liked Uhura as a character because to me she always seemed to have a good sense of humor and a good deal of wit. To me it showed a lot in "Charlie X" and "The Naked Time" ("I'll save you, fair maiden!" "Sorry, neither!"). And she didn't seem to be willing to take a lot of crap. Problem was she was shoved in the background.
I also liked Rand because she had guts, but once again, shoved in the background and eventually removed. I think it actually would have been great if she served as Chief of Security or something.
I have to get DS9 credit: it seemed to do the best with their female characters. Sure, Kira kind of got off to a rocky start and they seemed to struggle with Dax at first, but eventually they became really great characters. Although Ezri was really annoying. But Jadzia is one of my favorite characters in the whole franchise.
Janeway, though? I wanted to like Voyager so much... but I couldn't. And it wasn't just that Janeway was a bad character, almost all the characters on Voyager were bad. But Janeway... It's like the writers said, "Hey, why don't we create a male character who has all of the obnoxious personality traits stereotypically attributed to male jerks and put him in a female body!"
Dr. Crusher to me was just... blah. She reminded me of every "sensitive, caring teacher who actually reaches out to her students" in every movie about a kid who struggles for some reason or another. She's the loving mother and... not much else.
Granted, you could credit the response to her as a character from test audiences with the time period when the show started but I have to admit that even I didn't like her much, and I consider myself a hardcore feminist. I mean, I didn't think she was "pushy" or that she was "trying too hard to fit in with the men" like the test audiences supposedly said. That I attribute to sixties-era-sexism, because it looked to me like she was just doing her job. But I think the problem with her was that she was kind of humorless. They sort of made Spock into the male version of her, but Spock had a degree of humor to him. And despite the fact that she was supposed to be all-logic, she usually had an angry expression on her face. Spock rarely ever looked angry and he didn't talk like one of those digital answering machine voices. And I don't mean to slight Majel Barrett, because Lwaxana Troi is one of my favorite characters and she did a great job playing her, but the portrayal wasn't right. I also think it would have helped if she wasn't the only female on the bridge and the only one who seemed to hold any sort of authority. The bridge should have been more integrated in the pilot.
I do agree that Denise Crosby wasn't very good. I mean, what we did learn about Tasha is that she grew up on this ghetto, crime-ridden planet, was abandoned by her parents as a child and that she had to have a lot of street smarts and learn to avoid and fight off gangs of rapists. You'd think the actress playing the character would play as being hardened, suspicious and tense... instead we got a bunch of smiles and cutesy-sweetness that would make Shirley Temple blush. If you ask me, Tasha should have been more like Vanna from "The Cloud Minders".
I felt that Troi did eventually get better, but that's not saying much and the growth of her character was too little, too late.
I always liked Uhura as a character because to me she always seemed to have a good sense of humor and a good deal of wit. To me it showed a lot in "Charlie X" and "The Naked Time" ("I'll save you, fair maiden!" "Sorry, neither!"). And she didn't seem to be willing to take a lot of crap. Problem was she was shoved in the background.
I also liked Rand because she had guts, but once again, shoved in the background and eventually removed. I think it actually would have been great if she served as Chief of Security or something.
I have to get DS9 credit: it seemed to do the best with their female characters. Sure, Kira kind of got off to a rocky start and they seemed to struggle with Dax at first, but eventually they became really great characters. Although Ezri was really annoying. But Jadzia is one of my favorite characters in the whole franchise.
Janeway, though? I wanted to like Voyager so much... but I couldn't. And it wasn't just that Janeway was a bad character, almost all the characters on Voyager were bad. But Janeway... It's like the writers said, "Hey, why don't we create a male character who has all of the obnoxious personality traits stereotypically attributed to male jerks and put him in a female body!"
Dr. Crusher to me was just... blah. She reminded me of every "sensitive, caring teacher who actually reaches out to her students" in every movie about a kid who struggles for some reason or another. She's the loving mother and... not much else.
I think Nicelle Nichols and Grace Lee Whitney were good enough actresses to have warranted having more to do with their characters. I'm not so sure Majel Barrett at the time was good enough to continue with Number One if the series had gone forward with "The Cage" version of Star Trek. I think a better actress would have been needed. The thing with Number One with what little we saw is she projected so little to really make us curious to know more.
Gates McFadden was clumsy in the beginning, but so were the rest of the TNG cast and she got better along with the rest of them.
Gates McFadden was clumsy in the beginning, but so were the rest of the TNG cast and she got better along with the rest of them.
One of the problems I have with Denise Crosby portraying a Head of Security is that she would have had to have come up through security presumably (although Worf didn't), Tasha just doesn't physically look the part. Think about imagines of female marines and female police officers that you have seen, now think of Tasha. the two imagines don't exactly line up do they? Yes, I know that the majority of her fighting would have been with energy weapons of some kind, but you think the girl would be packing some muscle too.
^^^ I see your point about Tasha not having the build for a security chief. But then again IRL, I see police and security personnel in a LOT worse shape and build than Tasha. So who knows?
Plus... if she was tactical officer, in charge of phaser banks and torpedoes, she wouldn't need to be that huge. Of course that would be different from security, which would be more MACO/Marines-type of service.
But ST never did get that right.
Maybe we could have had Yar as Tactical Officer, Worf as Security Chief...
Plus... if she was tactical officer, in charge of phaser banks and torpedoes, she wouldn't need to be that huge. Of course that would be different from security, which would be more MACO/Marines-type of service.
But ST never did get that right.
Maybe we could have had Yar as Tactical Officer, Worf as Security Chief...
As far as test audiences not liking Number One, an awful lot of that (most of it, even) is pure myth propagated by Gene Roddenberry. Neither the test audiences nor the much-derided NBC executives had a problem with a female second-in-command; the problem they had was with Majel Barrett. The test audiences had more or less the same problem with her that you had--they just didn't like her portrayal--and the execs had that same problem, coupled with the fact that she was known to be the mistress of the (at the time, married) Roddenberry.
By the way, your comments about Janeway are so completely what I've always thought about the character that I actually had to double-check that I wasn't somehow reading a post of my own!
Me too. I wasn't ever a fan of Tasha, sorry, and I was happy to see Worf become such a strong character in the series.
Its easy to forget that Yar was a popular character at the time. She certainly had a lot of exposure. Poorly written, but in the context of the first season nobody really came up smelling of roses.
There was plenty of weak character writing to go around.
Oh, and of course she regretted it. She wouldn't have come up with the idea to be romulan if she didn't want to come back.
There was plenty of weak character writing to go around.
Oh, and of course she regretted it. She wouldn't have come up with the idea to be romulan if she didn't want to come back.
Thanks for the replies to my question. I didn't mean to post it twice - it looked like it hadn't posted the first time.
Let's just say that I know some people who remember it differently. But if she posed for Play Boy before the show, then they had to know about it. And yeah, you'd have to be blind not to notice the left-leanings of the show.
Thanks, that makes more sense because of the sexual references I've already seen very early in the show.
Let's just say that I know some people who remember it differently. But if she posed for Play Boy before the show, then they had to know about it. And yeah, you'd have to be blind not to notice the left-leanings of the show.
Thanks, that makes more sense because of the sexual references I've already seen very early in the show.
That was Kim Cattrall
Originally the TNG was presented as an ensemble show with everyone more or less getting equal parts. I'm sure producers like the ensemble concept because it keeps any one actor from gaining too much leverage, but writers are going to write to the best talent and most interesting characters and someone always gets left behind. Obviously in hindsight, the original cast was too big and someone was going to have to go. I wonder if she might have felt like by asking out, she could avoid being pushed out.
Wow, Denise Crosby left TNG because Kim Cattrall posed for Playboy. Talk about revisionist history.
Well, the story is Kim let Playboy take some pictures of her in various stages of undress as Valeris...
...and Leonard Nimoy had the film destroyed. Apparently she wasn't plump enough
(cue the angry mob armed with flaming torches and pitchforks in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...)
Wow, Denise Crosby left TNG because Kim Cattrall posed for Playboy. Talk about revisionist history.
LOL well at least the Play Boy part was correct.
And, until they cast someone of the calibre of Patrick Stewart, there were ideas that Will Riker would have been the featured "leading man" character, especially when the captain would be left behind on the ship each week, and Tasha Yar taking charge on Away Missions.
The character who was slated to go was Deanna Troi. The writers were already complaining they were running out of ideas for her, and Marina Sirtis was reportably very upset that her character actually missed out on appearing in a few episodes.
After Crosby's announcement, plans were made to build Troi an office, hoping that would present more opportunities, and a bar set, where Troi could counsel crew out-of-hours - although then, of course, Whoopi Goldberg asked to participate and they cast her as an alien bar hostess (named for Texas Guinan). Sirtis then complained that many of her best Season Three lines in an episode would be rewritten as Guinan lines whenever Whoopi indicated that she was free to do an episode.
Worf, as I recall, was a late addition to the show. They only had a few references to him in the original TNG show bible. Becoming Security Chief gave him a bigger role on board the ship, more than if he remained Mr. Jack-of-All-Trades officer. But it would have been interesting to see how he would have developed. Myself, I always thought Tasha should have started out as a command officer and Worf whould have always been security chief.
Well, it's not like you can't see her naked outside of those pics...
...and Leonard Nimoy had the film destroyed. Apparently she wasn't plump enough
(cue the angry mob armed with flaming torches and pitchforks in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...)
In a bit of revisionist history, Berman says in some of the DVD interviews how "delighted we always are to have Denise Crosby back in the fold."
I've read elsewhere that Crosby nagged Berman unmercifully to come back in any type of Tasha related role, as she knew she'd killed her career by destroying the goose that laid the golden eggs (leaving TNG).
I was thrilled when she left: poorly written part that was terribly performed.
