Would you like the regular "silent characters" to get more of a role?

[Pauln6]

In Trek, there are:
Main Cast - Obvious
Guest Star - One shot, usually name actors. Jean Simmons in TNG, Sarah Silverman in Voy, Brent Spiner, in Ent, etc.
Recurring Guest Stars - "Guest" characters who may have storylines and appear in multiple episodes. Vorik in Voy, Q in various series,
Recurring Characters - Occasionally given rudimentary dialogue usually expository. Nurse Ogawa, Nurse Chaple, Yeomen Rand, DSC bridge crew..
Extras - No lines, strictly background fill in.

Yeoman Rand was actually the female lead while employed in the first half of season one, not merely a recurring character, she just wasn't in the opening titles as she was only guaranteed to appear in a minimum number (presumably 8 out of the first 12) of episodes. The status of the other supporting cast fluctuated.

Discovery is currently adopting a four tier approach which is a small key cast, recurring guest stars, recurring support characters, and guest stars. Most similar to DS9.

The role of the supporting characters is similar to Ogawa and O'Brien in that they might be bumped up a level in the future.

Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 had a more complex structure with second and third tier main cast who appeared in fewer episodes but were tied to contracts. That said, Andrea Thompson asked to leave B5 because she was only guaranteed 6 or 7 episodes per season and was denied the ability to do other work in between episodes.

I prefer the multi tier approach as characters can get bumped up or down as story requires and you can bump off characters while having spares ready to step up.

 

[tomalak301]

Yes. I want an entire episode about Ariam (the robot girl) and who she is. Also develop Detmer's relationship with Burnham more. There might have been something there when Burnham first arrives on Discovery.

 

[Pauln6]

Yes. I want an entire episode about Ariam (the robot girl) and who she is. Also develop Detmer's relationship with Burnham more. There might have been something there when Burnham first arrives on Discovery.

Yeah Barclay was showcased in about one episode per season, maybe the support characters could get a spotlight issue once per season. Landing party duty or some such. I hope Airiam is one of the Cygnus aliens from TOS Tomorrow is Yesterday. It would be a cool Easter egg.

 

[The Wormhole]

Barclay was showcased in about one episode per season

That was when the seasons were 26 episodes long and were entirely stand-alone. 13-15 arc based episodes make it a bit more difficult for someone outside the main cast to get attention.

Landing party duty or some such

Season 1 only featured one landing party, and that was studio mandated.

 

[tomalak301]

That was when the seasons were 26 episodes long and were entirely stand-alone. 13-15 arc based episodes make it a bit more difficult for someone outside the main cast to get attention.

Season 1 only featured one landing party, and that was studio mandated.

Hopefully season 2 has a few more.

 

[Pauln6]

That was when the seasons were 26 episodes long and were entirely stand-alone. 13-15 arc based episodes make it a bit more difficult for someone outside the main cast to get attention.

Season 1 only featured one landing party, and that was studio mandated.

Yes, it's unlikely that they will get a stand alone episode revolving around them but that doesn't preclude an increased role.

The problem with Talia Winter was that, apart from a couple of episodes where her telepathy was needed for the plot, her character was all or nothing - a story revolving around her or no appearance at all. This was frustrating for the actress.

Discovery isn't doing that at least. The actors are there and can be bigged up or not.

That said, it's interesting to note that as O'Brien became more popular and was involved in plot elements in season four of TNG, the number of episodes he appeared in went down as cameos ended, presumably as his fee went up. This seems to have been the problem with Yeoman Rand, she often only had a few lines but her appearance fee was high, so rather than write more for her, they fired her.

 

[eschaton]

That said, it's interesting to note that as O'Brien became more popular and was involved in plot elements in season four of TNG, the number of episodes he appeared in went down as cameos ended, presumably as his fee went up. This seems to have been the problem with Yeoman Rand, she often only had a few lines but her appearance fee was high, so rather than write more for her, they fired her.

I have heard before that the reason Andrew Robinson turned down being part of the main cast of DS9 and stayed a "fake guest character" was because he preferred to only be brought on when the writers had a story need for his character. He was worried that if he was brought on full time, they'd give him the "busy work" scenes that the main cast were pretty much required to have each week, and he thought it would take away from his character.

 

[gblews]

Saw this in the article on Culber's return to the show next season:
"Cruz was a recurring character in Season One, but this year he’s part of the main cast. And in Season Two, fans will get to “find out a lot about Culber – who he is, what he wants, what makes him tick, what his ambitions are – separate and apart from this relationship,” said Cruz. “But we get to learn a lot about this relationship and it is put through the test.”

“We are really are going to expand the presence of Culber and who he is and all of those..."

I thought the quote above was germane to the topic of this thread. It states that in season 2 will see a much greater exploration of Dr. Culber, but ties it to Wilson Cruz' promotion from "recurring character" to main cast.

What it indicates, or may indicate, is that the other recurring characters, meaning the bridge officers, will likely not get much more than what we saw them get in season 1.

I'm not hoping we don't see more of them, I wouldn't mind seeing more, as long as it's interesting, but I understand if we don't get more of them.

 

[Succubint]

I think it would be cool to learn more about some of the background characters, what makes them tick, etc. However, I suspect that with only 13 episodes ordered, we're not going to get as much extra character screen time or development as some fans would like. I get the impression that there are certain story-lines they want to focus on: Pike coming aboard as acting captain, Spock being missing, the Red Burst anomalies needing to be investigated, L'Rell being Chancellor, Culber still being a part of the show in some fashion. There won't likely be a lot of time to explore other story arcs - Airiam's unique origin or Detmer's thoughts on Burnham's previous mutiny, for example, unless it's directly pertinent to the matter at hand.

 

[Kytee]

I think DIS could benefit from expanding the story to include more crew for sure. Take a queue from DS9 and really give the supporting roles a few moments to shine each season would do wonders for expanding the world a bit ,

 

[starsuperion]

I wonder if we will see an Organian again.. They were godlike beings who effectively shut down the Klingon and Federation stopping the cold war escalations from their home planet. It would be interesting in a Q sort of way to have a single organian show up and be interested in observing the federation.