Board 8 > Eight Board-Eighters Rank Star Trek Characters

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39. Kathryn Janeway
Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than Hell itself That is coffee.

Kathryn It is Insane that I Reached Admiral Janeway. If I was going to actually pick out every insane or illegal action she takes during the series, this writeup would be as long as the top ten combined. She is that crazy. Kate Mulgrew herself directly stated that she played Janeway as schizophrenic because there was no other way to justify her behavior.

Janeway is the worst captain, both as a character and as an actual professional captain. Archer has some problems, and well get to him, but Janeway is a whole different situation.

I can imagine the writers sitting down to hammer out this character and immediately running into a problem: whats her shtick? Kirk is adventurous and relies on cunning and bluffs, Picard is philosophical and relies on diplomacy and renown, and Sisko is more of a warrior. Whats this new captains skill going to be? They obviously settled on science, which creates two problems: first, it obviates the need for Harry Kim (the science officer), second, a smart person can write a dumb character, but a dumb person cant write a smart character, and the writers of Voyager were very, very dumb. Spock and Data are how you do science characters right. Jadzia Dax is how you do science characters okay. Science isnt about spouting technobabble, its about puzzling through possibilities until you arrive at a solution. There was no better comparison to science in all of Star Trek than Spock referencing his ancestor Sherlock Holmes, because detectives are the nearest fictional equivalency you can make.

The writers of Voyager disagreed with me, however. Janeways science skills consist of two things: technobabble and analogies. What I mean by analogies is that whenever Janeway runs into a science thing, shell make an analogy, then solve it by using the analogy literally. That dimensional rift is expanding like a balloon! Now we just have to make a pin and stick it into the surface to pop it. Thats Voyagers understanding of science, and no one suffers from that more than Janeway, because shes both the science character and the main character, so shes given the largest possible number of opportunities to prove herself to be a complete moron.

Then you have Janeways sketchy morality. Sometimes shes so unfailingly loyal to the ideals of the Federation that she wont budge on the smallest details; early on she meets the whatever species who can send her all the way to Earth, and offer to do so if shell give them a floppy disk with all of Earths literature, and she says no because its against the prime directive, but she sure as hell has no problems. Another time she wont kill alien organ harvesters to save Neelix, but still another time she kills Tuvix to save Neelix and Tuvok (possibly the most upsetting moment in all of Voyager). Shes super inconsistent with her logic in a way thats designed to create tension for the viewer, but does so only by making her completely unreasonable.

I guess I should mention the topic of romance. I feel like her being a woman is the reason the writers were so awkward about it. Kirk, Picard, and Sisko sure as hell had no problems with getting romantic, but with Janeway, it gets weird. In the first episode, shes established to have a fiance, which is the reason she doesnt get together with anyone as the ship travels. Later she contacts him and hes like lol I thought you were dead, heres my new wife, so shes back on the prowl and has one awkward scene with Chakotay.

The only thing Janeway ever did well was her relationship with Seven of Nine. Feeling sympathy for a Borg and wanting to help her reexplore her humanity (even to the point of refusing to let her return to the Borg) is an interesting idea, and its too bad that even this was done better by the Doctor. Its also worth noting that Kate Mulgrew wanted Jeri Ryan removed for being too fanservicey, as if thats the actress fault, and according to everyone was extremely rude to her.

To sum it all up, I think Janeway is probably the single greatest contributor to Voyagers failure to engage audiences. Even if the writing had been equally terrible, a decent captain would have at least made up for a little.

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Anagram setting phasers to "blast past all you slackers." I approve tbh.

Murphiroth posted...

The most interesting thing about Kes is her actress' arrest for indecent exposure in my family's tiny hometown of Harriman, TN. There's only like 6000 people there.

https://variety.com/2015/tv/news/jennifer-lien-arrested-star-trek-voyager-1201594328/

Heavily agree. Based on what little is known of Lien these days, she's not exactly doing all that much better today either.


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Also I really look forward to disagreeing with some of these write-ups of yours once I reach these particular characters, Ana.

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SaveEstelle posted...

Anagram setting phasers to "blast past all you slackers."

Yep.

38. Phlox
Oh, I just happen to have a Glorbulan grossworm here, perfect for treating exactly what ails you!

A lot of people love Phlox, and I dont get it. This character exists solely because every Star Trek is required to have a doctor, and the writers were like Well, we had the professional-but-dickish McCoy, the professional-and-caring Crusher, the professional-but-annoying Bashir, and the unprofessional-but-skilled Doctor, so what does that leave?

The difference between Phlox and a true non-character like Sulu or Chekov is that Phlox actually does get a little bit of characterization here and there, but hes still definitely trapped in supporting character hell. Unlike Hoshi, Mayweather, and Reed, Phlox actually does get a moment to shine. Theres always going to be that one episode about how youre a doctor and you have to use your doctor skills and your medical ethics to do something (McCoy refusing to let a psychic kill herself to save him, Crusher trying to convince Worf not to accept experimental back surgery, Bashir trying to save a planet of sick people, the Doctor having to work with a hologram of Doctor Mengele), and Phloxs is that they find a planet of two types of aliens. The dominant group is sick and the subordinate group is healthy. Theyre like lol can you save us? and Phlox is like Yes, but your DNA is killing you on purpose because evolution has decided that the subordinate group is supposed to be in charge, not you, so I wont intervene. This is Star Trek canon, by the way.

I guess if Im being honest, Phlox is actually one of the more memorable characters out there. The writers didnt really have enough for him to do, so they gave him a lot of weird, gross skills. Unlike all of the other doctors who use sterile medical technology, hes a fan of weird herbs and space leeches. Yeah, in the future, Phloxs spacefaring species never figured out how to put those animals secretions into syringes, okay.

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#54 Geordi La Forge
"Rerouting the neurotypical sensimatrix kidsdubooyubee hypospray should be as easy as mitochondriating midichlorophorm dilithium unimatrices, Reg. I don't know what to tell you."

If anyone here is keeping score, yes, Geordi has bowed out of my list prior to Wesley Crusher. A mistake? No. Wesley has some serious issues, which we'll address reasonably soon. But Geordi is not only the franchise's biggest fount of inane technobabble -- yes, Anagram and Kaelee, I truly believe that he alone is even worse than anything Voyager ever throws at us -- he's also kind of a dick.

At first glance Geordi is an interesting character. His VISOR isn't just a nifty little symbol of 1980s tech nonsense, it's a symbol. A statement. "The blind can succeed. In the future, we will overcome any obstacle to better ourselves, and none shall be left behind." Early on in the series, Geordi's unique vision perception is utilized in a handful of missions. This does happen later on, though not quite as routinely, because there are only so many times it can feasibly factor in creative ways.

Unfortunately, this is pretty much where the fun bits conclude. Unlike most things TNG, Geordi seems to move backwards qualitatively over time. When the newer, generally superior writers started penning episodes for the Enterprise-D's Chief Engineer, a common focus was his difficult love life. This was clearly designed as a sort of overview of what it's like to be a nerdy science guy who fails at classically trite romance, which is sleep-inducing in and of itself but not downright offensive. The problem is that Geordi La Forge is... a stalker. He gets downright creepy. The infamous story folks love to mention is that he uses a hologram version of a fellow scientist to fulfill his "needs" and he reconfigures the woman's personality to better suit his own. This should be a morality play on not being a fucking weirdo but instead the woman winds up deciding that it's endearing. I have a suggestion for anyone who walks away from that episode feeling similarly: get help.

Geordi's friendship with Data is, to some fans, a highlight of TNG's cast chemistry. This would have potential if it weren't for the fact that every damned Data/Geordi buddy episode involves Geordi invariably getting fed up with Data and acting like a jerk. Sometimes he apologizes; sometimes he does not. Yet again, the writers try to craft something enjoyable but just wind up with a bland jackass who bounces technobabble off of Brent Spiner until he's irritated and then he walks away.

I resent Geordi La Forge because he's supposed to come across as a lovable romantic oaf and a great pal to Data who is super smart. In practice, he's a bad friend and a sexual stalker whose actor gets all the bonus points because he managed to pronounce sheer nonsense for seven seasons and four feature films.




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#53 Reginald Barclay
"I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I l-l-like t-tits."

Speaking of creeps, behold the "comical" Barclay who undermines poor, lovable Geordi La Forge multiple times. Before you quit reading, at least let me tell you that Dwight Schultz voices Maechen in Final Fantasy X. And that, as they say, is that.

You've gotta credit Schultz where credit is due. He tries his damnedest to make the ultimate "geek stand-in" work but it's just sorta insufferable. He's always suffering from social disorders and I think nowadays medical professionals tend to acknowledge that this is, to varying degrees, a fairly common thing. But back when TNG was on the air, it was still treating as stigmatizing, so it's supposedly this rad, rad thing that Deanna Troi consistently tries to ease poor, nerdy, hey-that's-me-hahaha-I-suck-at-women-too Reg. The problem, of course, is that many of us are women and many of us men don't behave like Barclay. But I digress.

Barclay's episodes on TNG are always about Barclay suffering from a thing and then overcoming it. In his introductory episode, he designs holograms of title character women aboard his ship and makes them lust after him. As you'll note from the Geordi write-up, I do not like this. Barclay's always stammering and making other people upset but he has a heart of gold or whatever. Schultz has presence in the role but whenever I stop to think about the character my eyes roll uncontrollably.

At least Reg is a bit better in Voyager. By now, he's not quite as irritating, and he has a surprisingly solid arc which factors into how Voyager's crew eventually make it home. I like him more here, but only somewhat, and it's just not enough to offset the bad from the good. And there's enough bad in TNG Barclay to thump him down at the unenviable 53rd spot.

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I love Barclay, but that's because (as previously stated) I absolutely adore bad Trek. The worst episodes (Like "The Game") are my favorites. Watching them bring back Barclay time and time again in TNG and keeping him as this kind of awkward creepo with really out-there plotlines revolving around him is super enjoyable for me and probably only me.

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You missed the time that Geordi grows a hilarious beard.

37. Paul Stamets
Badger badger badger badger MUSHROOM MUSHROOM.

If theres a single thing in Star Trek Discovery I hate the most, its the idea of the Force. And lets not dance around the issue, we all know the Mycelial Network concept is just the Force. Can I just ask why they decided its interdimensional mushrooms that connect all life? What do mushrooms have to do with anything? Bacteria would at least make more sense. Very odd.

Anyway, looking at Stamets independently of that, hes a serviceable engineer character. Insufferable genius pressed into using his powers for war, got it. Scientist who doesnt have the resources he needs to do his work, so he uses himself as a test subject, got it. Hes got some decent interactions with Burnham and Tilly (both are at their best when theyre supporting someone else), and hes downright tolerable when Lorca pushes him into stuff. The plotline he has where his boyfriend comes back to life and dumps him is like a little heartbeat of personal interestingness in a show about a time-traveling angel trying to blow up the universe.

Actually, does he count as the ships engineer? Im honestly not sure, theres also that grimy woman they rescue. What an awkward dynamic that is. I get that theres supposed to be this opposition between them where Pauls technology is clean and futuristic and hers is mechanical and greasy, but her whole aesthetic is not Star Trek-y at all. Then again, neither is the Force, so shows what I know.

Lastly, I just want to say that if the interdimensional mushroom psychic ghost that infects Tilly doesnt know what crying is, and thats how Burnham determines its a ghost and not a hallucination, then it should also not know to describe Stamets as whiter than Lorca.

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36. Belanna Torres
You cant just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

Torres is the anti-Worf. Writeup: Complete.

Okay, but seriously, thats a pretty good idea for a character. What if Worf, but she wants to embrace her human side, and her Klingon urges keep overcoming her? That could be top 20-worthy if done right. But here we are at 39, so you can guess how well it was done.

For all the show tells us that Torres is a master engineer, I never once got the impression that she was anything above competent, same with Trip. It doesnt help her case that her main character trait is that shes always angry and beats up people who disappoint her, which is everyone lower in rank than her.

I think the writers eventually realized they had nothing for her to do, which is why she has that epic romance with Tom Paris. And hey, of every romance on the show, its by far the most plausible and well-written. Janeway has sex with a hologram, then deletes its hologram wife. Seven of Nine surprise bones Chakotay halfway through the final episode (by the way, I checked, hes 21 years older than her). Harry Kim is turned into an alien so space succubi can the life out of his balls and turn him into a corpse. Neelix has sex with a two-year-old, and Kes has sex with a garbage collector. Lets not even talk about the Doctor. Only Tuvok manages to have a normal relationship, and thats just because hes already married.

Im not even really making a joke here. Because you know from the start that the distance Voyager has traveled doesnt matter since its only way home is to find a god alien or a piece of super technology, any progress is irrelevant. That means the only possible progression in the series is character stuff, and Torres actually does have a nice little arc of coming to terms with her Klingon heritage, falling in love, and having a daughter. That and Seven of Nine discovering her humanity are the closest things Voyager has to an ongoing plot.

I love how the actress got pregnant in season 6, so they went to great lengths to hide her pregnancy by shooting around it, etc. Then in season 7, when she wasnt pregnant, they declared the character was pregnant, and she had to shoot all of her scenes with a fake pregnant belly. How incredibly dumb.

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35. Rom
Uhhhhh well ummm uhhhh

Im torn on Rom. On the one hand, he has genuine character growth, a complex perspective on Ferengi and Starfleet life, and adds a lot to Quark as the satellite character he is. On the other hand, hes just so, so annoying. Hes a step about Lwaxana Troi, but not by a lot, and we get way more of him than Majel Bennett. Rom is so annoying that I dont even want to go into detail about why its hard to talk about him, so I wont.

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34. Reginald Barclay
Computer, create a medieval torture dungeon filled with twenty naked holographic versions of Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher, each of whom is ten feet taller than me. Remove their arms and replace them with giant whips, and give them sharp vampire teeth. Fill each one with an unquenchable thirst for small, balding men and the idea that all other males in the galaxy are dead, then disengage safety protocols.

Barclay is interesting in that hes pretty much the first imperfect human character in Star Trek. Everyone before him was a heroic character or an extra, and if they had flaws, they were heroic-level flaws. Barclays the first whos more-or-less a normal dude with some social anxiety issues.

A lot of people love him, and I see it. Youll never meet a Picard in real life, but you will meet a few Barclays. But hes also less interesting than the main characters, so eh. I wouldnt have minded more of him, like if hed gotten transferred to Voyager ala Miles OBrien, but I dont mind what we got.

If were being completely honest here, Barclay is more interesting than Crusher, Troi, and Geordi, but they either have better stories from being main characters or have better actors, and thats why hes below them for me.

For me, the defining Barclay moment isnt the time he had sex with holographic slave versions of his superior officers, its the time he turned into a spider.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-TNrIzyY96qM/T9rTkf5WyTI/AAAAAAAABeE/0Maf5DyRwtw/s1600/barclay+spider.JPG
That episode, Genesis, is actually very good if you can ignore how stupid everything in it is.

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Whoops, forgot that Paul Stamets-on are in Fine Tier.

- Fine Tier -
Fine characters rise above being mere filler and reach the lofty heights of mediocrity. They actively make the show just a little bit better by their inclusion but not by much.

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something I wanted to talk about for a while is the recent-ish comic Star Trek TNG: Mirror Broken which is a mini series based in the Mirror universe starring the TNG cast (if you couldn't figure that out by the title)



i really like that all the characters get these overly edgy redesigns (Data gets an evil robot eye later on) but Barclay is still just Barclay because there is literally no way to make him look cool

I guess Crusher also looks pretty bland in the mirror universe but there's not many ways to make an evil doctor

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The Mirror Universe is so much fun, anything associated with it is great.

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I can't stop laughing at ripped sleeveless Data that is great

I was laughing about the fact that nothing is really different about Troi. Still just there to show off some cleavage.

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33. Beverly Crusher
In the future, people will still dye their hair red. Look, shut up.

Crusher is the defining Im here for the whole duration, and nothing interesting will be done with me ever character of fiction, even though she misses season 2. Everyone else grows as a character, even if in negative ways, but season 1 Crusher and season 7 Crusher are distinguishable only through their haircuts.

They needed a doctor. Done. Thats why shes in the show. Its not to tell really interesting Beverly Crusher stories, its because the ship logically has to have a doctor and that doctor logically has to be a main character so the camera can zoom in dramatically when someone has medical problems. Shes a doctor and shes a girl, so she gets the caring persona to contrast with everyone else. Thats probably all the thought they put into this character before casting her. I want to believe they named her Crusher because its so inappropriate for a doctor, but its probably just a coincidence.

60% of the reason Crusher is above non-characters like Sulu is that she does provide one very important use in the show: Picard treats her differently from everyone else. Crusher and Guinan are the only characters who can through Picards persona and get him to speak his mind, but Guinan is like this otherworldly immortal being while Crushers still a human on equal terms. Shes a satellite character, but at least she has the good sense to be a satellite for a much more interesting and important character.

Crusher also has one really killer episode, the one where people keep disappearing from the ship and only she remembers them, and she has to logically deduce whats going on. That one episode of a tertiary TNG character puzzling out whats happening to her friends is worth a million times more than all of the I like sciences of Discovery and Voyager combined. Very often, Star Trek doctors arent portrayed as particularly geniuses, and theyre just sort of smart compared to the Worfs and Tom Parises, but no Crusher is a scientist and she should be able to figure things out in the same way as Spock or Data, just not as well. Those rare occasions when she gets to do stuff besides patch up wounds show so much untapped potential.

By the way, Crusher is my first TNG character to drop since Yar and Wesley. TNG has by far the strongest cast in the franchise and its not even close.

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haven't you only dropped Ron from DS9?

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NFUN posted...

haven't you only dropped Ron from DS9?

Spoilers: DS9 people are going to drop soon.

I'm actually uncertain of which series places better because Worf throws everything into a loop.

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32. Tom Paris
Why yes, I do happen to have a fascination with 1990-2000 history, how did you know?

I had to look up if his name was actually Thomas, I wasnt sure if the writers bothered to give him a full name.

So I invented in my mind this idea years ago that Tom Paris was intended to be the Han Solo of Voyager. That in the shows original pitch of two crews working together but barely, he was going to be a wildcard who would side with either crew and youd never know his intentions, since he obviously wants to return home but is a felon with no real loyalty to either side. I have absolutely no idea if that was their actual plan, but I do know that my imagined Tom Paris is more interesting than the one we got. Again, Im not sure if Tom Paris is this high because hes genuinely okay or because his competition includes the likes of Neelix, but who cares? Aside from Seven of Nine, hes the only human character on the show with any kind of pathos. Even though his motive is still just I want to get home like the non-Seven/Doctor characters, having that soiled past makes him inherently more interesting than most of the others.

Tom Paris actually gets quite a lot to do in the series, enough so that Id say he rises above mere supporting character and into being an actual character. He has a wide variety of interests and skills that are consistently mentioned (compare this to Chakotay, who has a different hobby every episode) and round him out in a somewhat-believable way, if you can forgive his expertise on the time period Voyager was aired in and he has a little romance arc with Torres.

Because the show forgets about the Maquis/Starfleet drama immediately, Tom Paris provides the only actual inter-ship conflict, even if that conflict is just Janeway or Chakotay occasionally getting irritated at him. Its actually one of the biggest missed opportunities in the show that everyone is willing to just accept Paris, too. There needed to be a solid season or two of everyone mistrusting him and Tuvok taking Janeway aside and being all Captain, we cant trust the safety of the ship to this guy and her being like We dont have the resources to keep a guy in the brig for years, and we cant dump him out into space, so Ill give him a shot, and Paris feels alienated in the school cafeteria while girls giggle behind his back and the principal threatens to expel him if he gets into one more fight, and eventually he has the chance to leave the ship and roam space on his own or something, but comes back and saves everyone at the last minute so they finally accept him. Instead, everyone is like Well, we kind of dont trust you, but you also want to get home, so whatever, and Paris is just a normal crewman after three episodes. Its the one time in Star Trek where everyone behaving reasonably makes things worse.

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31. Jake Sisko
Dad, it turns out Nog isnt a Ferengi at all. Hes a 50 thirty-year-old man dressed in Ferengi makeup circa 1993.

Is the most unbelievable thing in DS9 that Jake Sisko has a hard time finding a girlfriend on a planet where his father is Jesus? Can you imagine Jesus coming back to life today and saying Hey everyone, this is my son Terrance, say hi, Terrance, and that kid not drowning in girls?

As the main character with the dubious honor of most missed episodes of any main character, both in absolute and proportional terms (105 episodes missed, or 60%), I think well all agree that hes a satellite character. What makes it interesting is that hes a satellite for two others: Ben Sisko and Nog. Nog is the kid character on DS9 who grows up and changes and actually affects the story, and Jake is very important to that for the first three years or so. Then Nog goes to the academy and war and stuff, and Jake ceases to matter.

Jakes basic purpose on the show is to let Sisko explore his dadness. Whats it like to be a dad? How does dadding affect his duties? Its basically just an elaborate excuse to show Sisko interacting with someone in a way different from how he interacts with all of the Starfleet people. This is similar to Crusher and Picard, except that Crusher serves a real purpose independent of Picard. And in this, Jake does his job extremely well.

Thats the reason why Jake is so high. I dont really view him as a true character, I view him as a parasite attached to Sisko, draining him of life so that he can live himself and obtain more screen time running through the promenade. Sisko is a great character, so being part of Sisko catapults you to the lofty heights of Fire Tier.


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30. Ezri Dax
LOL IM DAX NOW

Ezri Dax is the single Star Trek character who has the least right to exist. Id go so far as to say she shouldnt exist at all.

So you have a problem: you have a season all written out when one of your actresses bails. Solution? Hire a (younger) actress to be her alien reincarnation.

Ezri probably would have been a great idea if Jadzia had died in season 4 or season 5, but she dies in the last episode of season 6. Ezri has exactly one season to show her stuff, and that means she has like two episodes to integrate into a cast thats been together for six years. Its a hard task that she does not succeed in but I like her anyway.

Im not sure what it is about Ezri Dax I find appealing, because its sure not her character. Shes younger and more inexperienced than Jadzia, and she gets into trouble a lot because she didnt train to carry a symbiote like shes supposed to have. Shes a counselor, but no one on DS9 really needs counseling (and it was questionable enough as it was to have Troi on the Enterprise in the first place). She has a romance with Bashir that is so forgettable that even I was surprised by it on my third rewatch of DS9. She gets like two genuine Ezri episodes, one where she has to track down a serial killer, by the way, that episode is better than anything in Star Trek Discovery because it involves logical deductions and figuring things out instead of spouting technobabble (I cant stop insulting Discovery, sorry, maybe I need counseling), and the other where Worf just assumes theyll continue dating and shes not into it.

I guess what I like about Ezri is her potential. She could have been a better version of Deanna Troi, the redemption of the concept that proved it was a good idea all along but she wasnt. She just shows up early in season 7, says LOL IM DAX NOW, and thats it. That, and her actress. I think her actress actually does a great job with what shes given, she just was brought into the show way too late.

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Anagram posted...

She has a romance with Bashir that is so forgettable

i completely forgot about this to the point where i still remember nothing about it!

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NFUN posted...

i completely forgot about this to the point where i still remember nothing about it!

I had to be reminded about it myself when I mentioned Bashir not ending up with anyone and got corrected.

29. TPol
These humans are so useless, Im tpolling all the weight around here. Thanks everyone, Ill be here all night.

A lot of people like TPol. Shes okay. Shes fine. I dont hate her. But of all characters on this list, she does the least with the amount of time given to her. Shes the second main character of Enterprise, shes the Spock to Archers Kirk, she gets an incredible amount of focus, more than all other non-Archer characters combined, and she uses it to be okay. Ive read that Jolene Blalock was a big fan of TOS and was super excited to play a Vulcan, how must she have felt about the first episode having her character strip down to her underwear and slathering gel all over herself?

Ill give TPol this: she isnt just a generic Vulcan character like Tuvok, and she isnt a retread of Spock. Shes her own thing, and that contributes a lot to her placement on this list. Vulcan gets addicted to a drug that makes her emotional because its necessary for her job is a take we hadnt seen before. TPols journey as she slowly loses control of herself and learns more about humans is kind of interesting, but Im going to go ahead and say that it needed to happen before season 3 (the first two seasons of Enterprise are hard to get through).

Enterprise has a problem with Vulcans, in that it turns them into kind of smug jackasses. There was technically precedent for this with the DS9 baseball Vulcan who hates Sisko, but that was one guy. Almost every Enterprise Vulcan acts in a way thats technically logical but obviously going to anger non-Vulcans and cause problems, and that includes TPol. In the first episode, theres a Vulcan who gets angry and yells at Admiral Whatever. This unfortunately extends into Discovery, where the non-Sarek Vulcans continue to behave illogically because the show wants to make a statement about racism and normal people wouldnt care about Tellarite Supremacists.

Got off-topic there for a second, sorry. Point is, Enterprise has a serious problem with writing Vulcans, and that affects TPol. The difference is that TPol has a drug and psychic mind meld addiction, which mitigates it because at least she has an excuse after season 3, but thats the half of the show people care about. Remember the season 1 episode where they go to the human colony no ones visited in thirty years and its turned into a caveman planet? No one does.

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28. Gabriel Lorca
Yes, Im evil. I had to shave my mustache because I was pretending to be good, but when it grows back, Ill start twirling it again, I promise.

To me, one of the highlights of Discovery is when Admiral Psychologist says the real Captain Lorca was trapped in the Mirror Universe? Well, hes probably dead, no point in looking for him, and no one makes any attempt to rescue him.

Lorca gets this high based purely on his association with the Mirror Universe. Because he has the good fortune to miss season 1s opening and closing and all of season 2, he avoids most of the shows worst moments. Like hes fine when hes pretending to be a Starfleet guy, hes like We need to be willing to do bad things to win and I respect Michael because she tried to stop the Klingons before they could do their nonsense, but once he reveals hes evil, he immediately becomes hilarious. The first thing he does when he goes into evil mode is kill a guy while talking about how he enjoyed ****ing his sister. My personal favorite Lorca moment comes in the next episode, when he says Good thing I packed a spare black leather trench coat, and gets rid of his Starfleet uniform. Have you ever watched 24? Every time a friendly Muslim reveals that hes actually a terrorist, he loses his American accent and starts talking with an Arabic accent, and its ****ing hilarious. Its the same kind of thing here.

Lorca even dies in a great way. Michael betrays him in the most obvious way ever (like if you fall for the trick she pulls, you deserve to die), then beats him in a fight and says I cant kill you because you pretended to be my friend once, but Georgiou is like No prob, bro, Ill do it, and then stabs him in the back and pushes him into a star-mushroom-engine-thing where he disintegrates.

I love how the show makes no attempt to explain anything about Lorca. How did he infiltrate the Federation without any knowledge of what it was? How did he learn about the super-secret ship that was the only way in the universe to return to his dimension? How did he get assigned to it? How did he know how to calculate a vector back to the Mirror Universe when hes a soldier and not a scientist? Shut up, none of that matters.

As far as completely stupid emperors go, Lorca is nowhere near as much fun as Palpatine, but hes still a lot of fun, and I approve of how completely stupid the show becomes once he reveals hes actually evil.

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27. Jadzia Dax
Careful, or you might get me Madzia Dax.

Okay, so you have an immortal character with the wisdom of a thousand years or whatever. What kind of personality do you give her? Do you go with the Galadriel-esque Im an ancient being beyond your comprehension, or do you make her an anime teenager whos bouncy and acts like a five year-old? I bet you didnt expect Star Trek to err toward the latter.

Jadzia is supposed to be this ass-kicking warrior/scientist/philosopher/sage/adventurer whos still into things like gambling, sex, and booze, and she pulls it off okay. Shes okay, thats all Ive got for her. Of DS9s main cast, she definitely has the least to do after OBrien. Sisko has his whole Jesus and war storyline, Odo and Worf are Torn Between Two Worlds, Kira has a lot of baggage from her Resistance fighter days, Quark handles all of the comedy episodes, and Bashir has his embarrassment about being a genetic augment. Meanwhile, Dax borders on being happy-go-lucky. What Im saying is that of all the non-Jake characters, she has the least to do and the least growth.

And yet, DS9 is just so good that she still climbs her way to Okay Tier. Everyone on DS9 gets so much to do that even its weaker characters are above-average by everyone elses standards. I like Jadzia being a Klingaboo, I like her silly little love triangle where she just doesnt care about Bashir at all (she tells him he was her second choice, which, ouch, better to say nothing at all), and I like her acting like a mentor to Sisko because of the Trill reincarnation thing. She lacks the real depth of the other core DS9 characters, but shes still a solid supporting character. She could have been more, but what we have is still good.

Id also like to say that she has a disappointing death. Star Trek is very bad at giving characters satisfying deaths, and the one time it succeeded with Spock, it undid it. Later Spock dies of old age or whatever in the Abrams universe, but not before skyping Zachary Quinto and telling him that Khan is dangerous instead of Quinto just looking him up on Wikipedia.

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25. Saru
My sister is a primitive hut-dwelling savage. Oh look, there she is flying a spaceship after ten minutes of training!

Discounting Christopher Pike and Spock, Saru is the highest-ranking Discovery character on my list. He probably doesnt deserve to be this high, but hes the only Discovery character who could have been on a real Star Trek, so I give him some leeway.

I kind of like the idea of a species thats constantly frightened because they can sense the coming of death, even if that makes no sense. I also enjoy how they hedged their bets with season 1 by avoiding telling us anything about Sarus species except that hes the first one in Starfleet. Youd think that would come up in conversation after the part where his people are like primitives, but okay.

The idea of Im a primitive hut-dwelling alien, but through a bunch of silly coincidences, I got picked up by the Federation and now I feel obligated to prove Im not a primitive by being the best at everything is really strong. I dont think they did much with it, but its a great premise.

Nothing about the setup makes any sense, of course. Sarus species was once a dangerous predator, so the prey developed advanced technology and enslaved them, and told them dude if you live long enough youll go insane and die, so kill yourselves while youre young. So ignoring any questions about how a species continues developing new abilities and stuff like this while in adulthood, why did the prey species just murder them all to avoid any chance of exactly what happens happening? Anyway, the situation is resolved when Captain Pike completely ignores the prime directive. Im sorry, General Order One, because prime directive sounds too nerdy.

In a series full of dumb stuff, the dumbest thing in Discovery might very well be Sarus species being given space fighters to help in the final battle because we need it to be more like Star Wars. This isnt really Sarus fault, so I didnt ding him for this, but if you write a gigantic space battle scene with laser explosions and a bad guy being kicked into a disintegration booth and his face exploding because you want to stop HAL 9000 from eating all sapient life in the galaxy, then you have completely misunderstood what Star Trek is.

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Man, I'm going to be such an outlier on this ranking.

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Anagram just blowing away the rest of us! Ill probably make some comments on these the next time I write.

scarletspeed7 posted...

Man, I'm going to be such an outlier on this ranking.

I know the feeling

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- Okay Tier -
Okay Tier is for characters who are okay. Not great, but they have genuine reasons to be on the show, are written mostly well, and are pretty cool guys who dont afraid of anything.

25. Geordi LaForge
Is it weird if you make a hologram of an attractive woman, program it to think youre the hottest man alive, and have sex with it while pretending its the real person? Asking for a friend.

Star Trek has a well-deserved reputation for technobabble, but TOS isnt guilty of it at all. The most technical that happens in TOS is Scotty complaining about energy or wiring. The true criminal here is Geordi LaForge, in more ways than one.

We can all make fun of Geordi for the creepy sex stuff, and yeah, he deserves it. Theres the time he makes a hologram of a real person and falls in love with it, and when the real woman finds out, she apparently doesnt file a complaint at HR? I would think the best-case scenario for Geordi at that point is being transferred to a less prestigious ship, but she forgives him pretty quickly, and even marries him in an alternate timeline. Then theres the time he has to watch a video journal of a dead woman, falls in love with her, learns shes not dead, and creeps on her.

But I want to move past all that and talk about the most interesting aspect of Geordi, which is the acting. It wasnt until recently (about a year ago) that I read an article by LeVar Burton where he discussed what playing Geordi was like, and he was like I had to spend a lot of time getting down how to show emotion while wearing a thing on my face, and I was like man, that does sound hard. He talked about how he put everything into giving Geordi a constantly enthusiastic, happy outlook and personality, and that although you dont learn a lot about Geordi through his backstory (of which he has almost none), you learn a lot through the acting. Reading that gave me a huge amount of respect for Burton and Geordi, at least during the show era. Movie Geordi is basically just an extra.

Anyway, the technical aspects of Geordis character are sort of more interesting than the character himself, whos just the engineer. Non-Geordi episodes just have him drop in, say SHIELDS ARE AT 30% CAPTAIN, and disappear. Geordi/Data episodes have him as the supporting character for the immensely more interesting Data, where hes there to explain in human terms whatever new nugget of humanity Data has discovered, and invariably does a bad job of it. Geordi-specific episodes show him to be the most awkward person on the ship after Barclay. Aside from the romance episodes, what does Geordi even have? The episode where he turns into a shadow monster?

Fun fact, theres a commentary for the season 7 episode about Geordis mother where the writer describes the pitch. Someone had the idea for an episode about Geordis mother, and we were like *sigh* Are we running so low on ideas that this is where were at? Geordis family? Poor Geordi. By that point, wed had episodes about the families of Picard, Riker, Crusher, Data, Worf, and even Yar, but it was Geordi that was a step too far. And really, they were right. Season 7 is clearly where they just ran out of ideas in general, at least until the final episode.

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I just finished a TNG rewatch and yeah it's like Season 7's whole gimmick is everyone gets +1 family members to, you know, really round out their backstories. Geordi's mom, Bevs grandma and her ghost bootycall, Worf's half-brother, Picard's supposed secret son, Troi's secret sister. In the one where Data has a secret mom even Data is like "...oh buuullshit"

Time to get crackin' again, Quinton! I've decided that my goal for this weekend is to catch up to Ana

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Good luck.

Season 7 is clearly where they just ran out of ideas in general, at least until the final episode.

24. Jonathan Archer
I just read an article on dailymail.com that says people with elf ears are 12% more likely to be evil.

I think I understand Archer. More specifically, I think I understand why he exists.

We need a captain, said someone. Kirk is an adventurer, Picard is a diplomat, Sisko is a warrior, and Janeway pretends to be a scientist. What does that leave? The answer was adventurer again. Okay, okay, Archer is supposed to be an explorer. Hes in it just to see whats beyond the current borders of a map. But it leaves you as a viewer a little vague on the details of how his skillset differs from any of the other captains.

All of the other captains so far were very professional. What if our new captain is casual and chill? So Archer refers to most of the crew by their first names and just gives off a more casual vibe.

He needs to have some kind of conflict. What if he hates Vulcans? So Archer gets annoyed easily when he talks to Vulcans. I bet the writers thought they were being clever, that Archer would learn as the series goes on why the Vulcans have made the choices theyve made, and undergo some self-reflection and become a better man for it. And that soooooort of happens, but not really. It happens two times: when Archer refuses to save the planet of diseased people so another species can survive and says I WONDER IF WELL HAVE SOME KIND OF DIRECTIVE THATS GIVEN PRIME IMPORTANCE IN THE FUTURE and admits the Vulcans neutrality makes sense sometimes, and another time when he meets emotional Vulcans and is like okay yeah I agree with the emotionlessness now, my bad.

Archers standout moment is in season 3, when his ship is broken and he needs a part to save Earth. He finds an alien ship and is like dudes want to give me your warp drive and theyre like lol no. Archers been pretty adamant about doing The Right Thing up to this point, but out of options, he finally just steals their warp drive which looks like a donut, and leaves them enough food to get home at sublight speeds in two years. Then, after defeating the Xindi a few episodes later, he goes back, apologizes, and gives them a new warp drive so they were only inconvenienced by a few weeks naaaah haha.

If wed had more of this Archer, the Archer who has his beliefs challenged by the difficulty of the crazy space stuff he encounters, he would have been way more interesting. Thats what Ill give him, he was teetering on something cool and interesting.

One of my favorite elements of Archer is that the previous captains rarely lost fistfights. Scott Bakula was like I will absolutely get beaten up on screen, so the writers wrote way too many Archer is beaten up episodes. The result is that Archer successfully wins exactly one fistfight in four years: against a monk. And he doesnt even really win, he just survives long enough to grab a phaser.

So much of Enterprise feels like a weaker version of TOS, which is largely intentional (not the weaker part, of course). The greatest shame in Star Trek is Enterprise being cancelled just as it was finding its footing. That alternate dimension where we get a season 5 might be laughing at us right now. Maybe Star Trek never went through a dry spell there, and so it never had to deal with Discovery.

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23. Deanna Troi
Captain, that snarling Klingon may be hostile.

For all the crap Troi gets, shes not a bad character. Yes, its fun to make fun of her for giving obvious advice and constantly being ignored when she does give good advice, but honestly, the premise of this character is solid. The future is very clean and sterile and science-y, heres a psychologist whos all about emotions and who integrates it all into the futuristic society. Thats part of what I like about Star Trek, the basically optimistic future of people who solve problems with diplomacy, science, and philosophy, and who look at laser explosions and fistfights as a last resort. Troi is completely in keeping with this style of writing, so I actually kind of like her.

Troi benefits a lot from being the person who everyone else goes to for advice and support, so shes usually got something to do. She gets a bad rap, but if you actually sit down and watch Troi episodes, the only bad ones are either really about her mother or the one where an alien has sex with her in order to impregnate her with himself. And really, who hasnt been raped by an omnipotent energy being in their sleep at least once?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/MTwyb-A1oak/hqdefault.jpg

I will say this, however: Marina Sirtis is the worst actor in TNG, and its not by a small amount. Patrick Stewart is like a real actor, of course, Brent Spiner kills it as Data, LeVar Burton elevates a character who should be boring and lame, but Marina Sirtis doesnt do the same with Troi. I cannot imagine anyone else playing Picard, Riker, Data, or Worf, but I can definitely imagine another actress playing Troi and doing a better job of it.

One of the funniest aspects of Troi to me is that Marina Sirtis and Denise Crosby were originally going to play each others characters. Can you imagine a TNG where Troi dies early on and Yar stays on the whole time, except played by a woman who does not look tough at all? Like I believe Denise Crosby when she acts tough, I would not believe Marina Sirtis. Have you watched Terminator Genisys where Emilia Clarke has to act like a badass warrior and its completely absurd? Thats how I imagine the original version of Yar.

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22. Tuvok
To be honest, its been hard being the only Vulcan whos not a scientist or a diplomat, but I have to go where my heart takes me.

I just realized that Tuvok is the winner of the dubious easiest name to make fun of award. Boo-vok, Screw-vok, Moo-vok. Has anyone ever made fun of his name before? If not, Im calling the rights.

Tuvok probably does not deserve to be this high. Hes here pretty much entirely because of the rest of Voyagers cast. He and the Doctor are all that hold the first two seasons up. Tuvok is the only person in the entire cast who at any point feels like he could actually be in a military. Hes the only person on the bridge who has even an ounce of professionalism, and for that reason, hes able to buoy a lot of scenes where Janeway, Chakotay, Harry, and Tom Paris act like idiots. I suspect Tuvok manages this feat because its impossible to write a Vulcan wrong without having him or her come off as a smug, condescending jerk. That happens in Enterprise and Discovery, but its not one of Voyagers (many) sins.

I dont want to say that Tuvok is the smartest person on Voyager, because thats obviously Seven, but he comes off as the smartest whos not also an idiot, if you get what I mean. Remember that early episode where Janeway says I wont trade away copies of our Earth literature for a space catapult that will return us to Earth because its against the rules? Tuvok just straight-up makes the exchange behind her back. Thats something Spock would have done.

I think theres just something inherently interesting and cool about someone who tries his best to behave logically and without emotion, but inevitably gets into a situation where his control is tested, because of course he does, thats the drama. Spock does it better, of course, but I think the concept itself is so fundamentally solid that even Voyager couldnt screw it up.

Heres a fun fact: Tuvok and Phlox are the only married characters in any show who have zero marital problems. Phlox is just like lol my species each marries like nine people at a time, so my wife doesnt care if I go adventuring, and Tuvoks wife is like Im a Vulcan, you think I mind waiting seven years for you to return? I wonder if they gave Tuvok a wife planning to make some kind of plot about it later, like hes tempted by a sexy Delta Quadrant woman who loves board games and meditation, then decided not to do it.

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Too much Chakotay hate. Not enough Neelix hate.

Riker better be top 5 on every list.


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21. Christopher Pike
Beep. Beep. Thats wheelchair for No, jackass.

Christopher Pike wins the coveted Only Thing in the Galaxy Not Ruined by Discovery award. Pike is absolutely the only thing holding up season 2 of Discovery for me. Hes the only thing in it that feels like something out of a real Star Trek. I would have preferred if the entire show was just about Pike and Number One having space adventures and Michael Burnham is just the science officer or something. Do you remember how at the end of season 1, Discovery was going to pick up its new captain, then Pike took over unexpectedly? I wonder what happened to the original captain. Do you think hes still waiting for his new ship, and no one told him?

I think back to The Cage, and Pike in it is thoughtful and morose in a way that no other captain ever would be. Hes a man whos not sure about the crazy space adventures hes had and the people hes lost, and slowly comes to realize theres still a place for him out there. Hes a captain whos smart enough to see through the basketball aliens illusions in a way that I think only Picard could match. How I would love a show about that Pike, the Pike who wants to find cool stuff in the galaxy and not question if its worth it. Sadly, Discovery takes place well after that, when hes more cheerful and normal, which actually does make sense. Im unclear if the writers were thinking about that, though, or if they just stumbled into something logical.

Isnt it amazing that one of the most recognizable Star Trek things, alongside the phaser and Vulcans and whatever, is Pikes stupid wheelchair? Its in one episode, but its more recognizable to a normal person than all of DS9, VOY, ENT, and DIS combined.

My biggest problem with Discoverys version of Pike is, of course, the big revelation about his later life. In TOS, Pike being in a wheelchair was just a random accident. A one-in-a-million chance that could have happened to anyone. A function of exploring space that happens because space is dangerous and you cant proof against everything. It could have as easily happened to Kirk or Bones or Spock, and although its a tragedy, its a tragedy that all Starfleet members know is a possibility. If were going to use real life analogies, its something like a ruptured wall on a submarine its always a possibility, but if you really want to explore the deep ocean, you just have to accept that.

No! says Discovery. Its not just a random accident, thats boring. Its destiny. Pike was such a hero that he willingly accepted becoming paralyzed in the future in exchange for a magical time crystal guarded by Klingon monks in a secret monastery on a forbidden moon needed to stop Michael Burnhams time traveling mother in a super technology spacesuit that she later replicates in five minutes with the help of three other people!

That really says it all, doesnt it? TOS: Slow, plodding, thoughtful. DIS: Fast, action-packed, explosion-y.

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RPGlord95 posted...

Too much Chakotay hate. Not enough Neelix hate.

Riker better be top 5 on every list.

Both are bad to me, but for completely different reasons.

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Hoping to get some time to finally start catching up but I have to say that Picard launched very, very well.

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scarletspeed7 posted...

Hoping to get some time to finally start catching up but I have to say that Picard launched very, very well.

Yes.

Yes, it did.

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20. Julian Bashir
Why yes, my real name is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Abdel Karim El Mahdi, how did you know?

Lets get our Game of Thrones jokes out of the way now, okay? Okay. Boy, the Dorne stuff in GoT sure sucked a lot. Its almost as bad as being stabbed by a Jemhadar. Alright, good enough, lets move on.

Bashir falls into the Crusher mold of I only exist because the show needs a doctor, but he does it much, much better. In particular, he actually has some personal drama to resolve over the course of the show: two relationships with Dax and the problems of being a genetic augment in a future where thats not cool.

I guess we can deal with early season 1 Bashir first. If I was just ranking him, hed be near the bottom of the list. That guy is way too pushy with Dax, and its forgivable mainly because Dax is like this super old and wise type who knows exactly how to deal with him. Hes also annoying in general, very jumpy and irritating. So, in a weird way, Bashir is the DS9 character who has the second highest jump in quality. Rom, of course, goes from unbearable to merely highly annoying, so he wins that title.

I wasnt really into Bashirs romance with Dax, to be honest. I never really understood why he was so into her? I guess the heart wants what it wants, but she never really seemed very into him, despite her later claim that shed have banged him but for Worf. I mean, yes, shes beautiful and a super genius, but its Star Trek. Everyone is a hot super genius. And as for Ezri, I already mentioned how I literally forgot he had a romance with her after watching the show three times. I would say that its unnecessary, that the arc of Bashir in this is getting over Dax after she chooses another man, but I cant rightly say that since I dont even remember the romance at all.

Even though the thing everyone remembers about Bashir is that hes a genetic augment, it actually doesnt come up that often. It comes up in like six episodes total, but its a really interesting idea. Bashir has to grapple with the fact that hes literally better than normal humans at anything he wants despite not really wanting to be, but acknowledge the bare truth that if he wasnt an augment, hed be mentally disabled. He looks at other genetic augments who are borderline-insane and knows that he dodged a bullet, all because the procedure isnt very reliable. Its a great premise and interesting setup, and I like it a lot. It also leads to funny moments when you rewatch the early episodes before the writers thought of that and see Bashir struggle with normal humans. Theres one episode where a pudgy guy tries to murder OBrien and Bashir barely manages to restrain him. So good.

You can mine a lot of drama out of doctor who sees crazy stuff during a war, and they sort of do that. Bashir grows a lot during the show, but not in a PTSD sort of way. Actually, a great comparison is the doctor in Babylon 5, whos also a doctor during a crazy war who sees stuff he shouldnt, but instead gets broken by it and has to walk to clear his mind for many, many episodes. Bashirs response is to just be a little grimmer.

Bashir/OBrien is an interesting friendship, partly because its one of the few just a normal friendships in Star Trek. Kirk/Spock/Bones, Geordi/Data, and Harry/Tom are sort of it, and even Geordi/Data is pushing it. The juxtaposition between Im literally superior and Im the most normal person in the galaxy produces a really cool relationship, and it makes complete sense that theyd bond over dumb stuff like medieval battles in the holodeck.

One of the main things about Bashir people remember is his relationship with Garak. Well save most of this for Garak, but the idea of I like screwing around as a pretend spy meeting I am actual spy and am kind of offended by your naivete is super strong.

Overall: a really good character, even if he's not one of the best DS9 has to offer.

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- Good Tier -
Good Tier characters are integral to their shows. They elevate things to the next level, and if removed, the show would be completely different.

19. Nog
I cant think of any funny fake Nog quotes, so Ill just write this and see if anyone responds.

Nog is up here pretty much for one reason: comparing him to Voyager is like a joke. Nothing in Voyager matters. Everything is always reset by the end of every episode. But Nog, a secondary character in DS9, has an entire storyline about the phantom pain of losing a leg. Sure, I kind of thought the Federation would be able to just regrow a leg or make a robot leg as good as your original, but whatever. Heres something I dont hate about Discovery, actually: actions have consequences that play out over the course of entire seasons. DS9 did it first, and better, but hey, thats the best youre getting from me.

Nogs a great example of character development. Starts out as a bratty kid, evolves into someone who cares about duty and hard work, momentarily alienated from his lazier childhood friend, eventually grows beyond that and becomes, dare I say it, an adult. He also has the advantage of being slightly disconnected from Quark and Rom after a while, which lets him join the serious storylines of the other characters.

Of course, like most kid characters, hes pretty annoying at first. Hes lucky the show lasted seven seasons and gave him the chance to grow up. Overall, hes a good character where theres not a lot to make fun of him for? Making bad jokes about thirty-year-old characters is all Ive got, sadly.

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Hey don't lazy out on me

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#52 Wesley Crusher
*I just wish adults would understand."

Wesley Crusher continues my trend of dropping TNG characters early in the game. Wil Wheaton did his best -- which to be honest wasn't all that great back then, but it was passable -- in order to infuse this character with boyhood charm. I think the biggest problem Wesley ever faced was Trek fans themselves. He was doomed, you see, by the below-average first season because there were entirely too many occasions in which no one listened to Wesley (because Wesley was a teenager) but Wesley was right (which was supposed to surprise the audience each and every time) and in the end Wesley's adolescent correctness was a pillar of the crew's success in overcoming a mission. This was drilled into skulls time and again until all but the most ardent supporters of this character (whom I'm not certain exist actually) were fed up with it. I guess the writers tried to balance this by having Wesley step on some grass at one point and nearly be killed for it but please reread this sentence and tell me if something doesn't add up here.

As Next Gen progresses, Wesley improves bit by bit until lo and behold he is no longer terrible. Unfortunately, it's too little and too late, and the fandom menace had long since decided his fate. Wil Wheaton amicably departed the series during the fifth season, though he made a few returns before the end. Mind you, I concur with the general sentiment that Wesley is well-utilized in "The First Duty", but "The First Duty" utilizes young Crusher as a plot piece more than an actual character -- it's Picard who shines brightest here instead. One of Wesley's guest appearances later on, "The Game", is pretty good despite its eye-rolling premise, but his final return in "Journey's End" is... less stellar.

Wesley ranks so low on my list by sheer weight of how many times I cringe when thinking about the first couple of seasons of the show relative to how little his gradual improvement counts for anything. Once he's no longer a dreadful centerpiece he stops functioning especially in most of his remaining episodes, which makes his departure rather shrug-worthy.



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#51 Travis Mayweather
"..."

Oh, Travis. My dear, sweet Travis. You're the butt of so many jokes between Kaelee, Eddv, and myself. It's not your fault; truly, we adore you. You were shunned like no other Star Trek main cast member has ever before been shunned. At first, you existed; then, quite suddenly, you did not. I'm not talking Tasha Yar here -- you didn't die, though who would have noticed if you had? Nor do I speak of Janice Rand -- you didn't exit the show out of nowhere, though again, who would have known? Instead, you sat at the helm for all four seasons of the undervalued Star Trek: Enterprise, the pilot whose identity could feasibly be a question seen during a Double Jeopardy square... on a nerds only episode of Jeopardy.

It's almost as if your very existence is the talk of triviamongers. "You remember Travis?" "Who?" "Travis. Travis Mayweather." "Yeah, no. Listen, you're kind of in my way; I need to get to the hardcore Star Trek convention downtown stat." Sometimes, sweet readers, it really do be like that. The writers gave him a backstory ("I'm from space!") and a first-season spotlight episode ("My family's also from space!") and it's an open secret that actor Anthony Montgomery's subpar performance in that episode helped seal his fate. And that's an honest damn shame, because if you squint enough to remember he has lines in future episodes, you might notice that Montgomery's acting steadily improves.

Perhaps I overstate the problem. It is true that young Travis occasionally goes off-world. He even stands beside Charles "Trip" Tucker, a character who exists, when the Xindi attack leaves Florida a gaping wound of devastation known as bad CG. But do you even remember this? If you answered yes, congratulations. You win a token black guy Travis Mayweather trademark bewildered smile.

At the very end stretch, during the final two episodes prior to the largely-maligned timeskip series finale, new showrunner Manny Coto decided to give Travis Mayweather an honest-to-god subplot involving an ex-girlfriend with less than noble intentions. It's a peculiar sighting and not a very good one but a sign that had Enterprise continued perhaps things would have gotten a bit better for the guy. More impressively, the "In a Mirror, Darkly" two-parter just a few episodes beforehand played the ultimate in-joke trick card by giving Travis a place beside the successful new Empress of the Terran Empire. "Look," you could hear the newer staff members cry out in fitful unison. "We remembered this character."

I'm grateful for that, but not grateful enough to keep this perilously invisible character around any longer.

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#50 Neelix
"Tug my whiskers and call me daddy."

At least someone here is going to be shocked that Neelix almost survived the fifties tier. Well, he did. The secret to his "success" is this -- he actually didn't suck sometimes, especially as Star Trek: Voyager progressed. It's true! There were times in which his screentime was by no means painful, and a few scattered little tear-jerker moments strewn throughout.

But like poor Wesley before him, nothing on earth can save Neelix's fated reception after his disastrous role in the first two seasons.

When we meet Neelix, he's some kind of junk trader whose young girlfriend Kes -- and by young, I mean she's one year old, but I'm not even going to get into that -- has magical fairy powers. (She's a sweetheart, really, and we'll get into that a little later, but suffice it to say her ranking's going to be pulled down by the gravity well that is Neelix.) The troubling matter here isn't technically that Neelix comes across as an awkward creep who is so overprotective of Kes that it's difficult to forget her being a one-year-old isn't the same for Ocampa as any other species -- whoops, fuck, I got into it, oh well. Taken on its own, with writers who possessed a modicum of self-awareness on this matter, this could have been explored in some vaguely acceptable fashion. Instead, the writing insinuates that we as an audience are supposed to find this charming. Funny. Relatable.

Maybe it can be relatable. You know. If you're a horrible, sexist, possibly hebepheliac human being. But I doubt that's what they were shooting for here. Neelix's rivalry with Tom Paris for Kes' courtship only exacerbates the issue. These are possibly the most painful scenes to behold of Voyager's worst season, which is its second season, which... truly, it's not good. There's an episode where Tom and Neelix crash land someplace and have to suss out their aggression, because of course there is, and just... kill me. Just kill me.

Again, Neelix improves. The best thing to happen to actor Ethan Phillips is frankly actress Jennifer Lien's departure from Voyager. With Kes gone, Neelix is free to explore subjects that do not include creepiness. His friendship with Naomi Wildman, a girl whose mother... uh... ceases to exist a la Travis Mayweather, but whatever... is kind of cute until the episode in which he threatens suicide repeatedly in front of her. (WhoopsyDaisy.) But Neelix's frienemy relationship with Tuvok is actually kind of great and there are some real winners there like the sixth season's standout "Riddles" and their touching farewell in "Homestead". So that's something. It's definitely something.

Fun fact, by the way: Naomi Wildman's actress, Scarlet Pomers, used to live less than a block away from me when we were growing up. I hung out with her a couple of times because she was friends with someone else I knew. Naturally, this makes her role on Star Trek: Voyager simultaneously entertaining and bizarre for me.



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An important fact is that Naomi Wildmans mother stopped appearing because each writer assumed th others killed her off, and no one actually double-checked.

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#49 Nyota Uhura
"Now hear this. Now hear this. All senior officers report whether it's yanny or laurel by 0800 hours."

I'm gonna be an open book here: I don't remember a damned thing about Nyota Uhura on The Original Series. Close to nothing, anyway. She took over for various roles on the bridge here and there when some crewmember got sick or exploded or whatever but otherwise she handled comms. At one point she and Christine Chapel saved the day because all the male officers were screwed in the head or something? I think she sang a few times. Wait, oh god, that's right. She sang and danced in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. OK, it's coming back to me now. Oof.

In the films, however, I do remember a few things. She's snarky and kind of delightful in III, IV, and VI. She has a cool scene in VI when she's flipping through a real damn book stumbling to speak Klingon when everyone's lives are on the line. I like that scene, yeah. It's fun. Um... yep. Oh, um, she kissed Kirk. That kind of blew up on national politics for a while. Because, you know. America. Actress Nichelle Nichols has a far cooler story than the character she played on TV. Her famous meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. in which the the Reverend talked her into remaining on the show despite racist mail is the stuff of legends.

In the Kelvinverse movies, Zoe Saldana invigorates Nyota with aggressive energy and she's kind of a good character but not much like her Primeverse counterpart. Her relationship with Kelvinverse Spock is largely the only thing fans ever really parrot on about, but she has a handful of smart, sassy moments throughout the movies. If Star Trek "4" ever actually enters production, I'll kind of, sort of, look forward to seeing more of her. Le shrug.

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An important fact is that Naomi Wildmans mother stopped appearing because each writer assumed th others killed her off, and no one actually double-checked.

LMAO.

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39. Kathryn Janeway
Blacker than a moonless night, hotter and more bitter than Hell itself That is coffee.

Janeways science skills consist of two things: technobabble and analogies. What I mean by analogies is that whenever Janeway runs into a science thing, shell make an analogy, then solve it by using the analogy literally. That dimensional rift is expanding like a balloon! Now we just have to make a pin and stick it into the surface to pop it.

omfg. hilariously true.

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21. Christopher Pike
Beep. Beep. Thats wheelchair for No, jackass.

Isnt it amazing that one of the most recognizable Star Trek things, alongside the phaser and Vulcans and whatever, is Pikes stupid wheelchair? Its in one episode, but its more recognizable to a normal person than all of DS9, VOY, ENT, and DIS combined.

Gotta disagree here. The average American over the age of 23 or so probably at least remembers "the black captain," "the woman captain," "the robot girl," and the fact that Discovery exists (thanks, marketing) far better than Pike's wheelchair.

If you tell them Star Trek: Enterprise exists, however, they may call you a damn liar.


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