Board 8 > Eight Board-Eighters Rank Star Trek Characters

(+) Yeah! (+)

scarletspeed7 posted...

Pretty safe top 5

I actually almost put the Doctor in the top 5, but I ultimately knocked him down below Odo and #5.

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My impulse top 5 ended up 14, 13, 10, 6 and Data so I guess I cant complain since those other 4 weren't the big name, bigshot characters worthy of the top 5... but Garak still never gets enough credit.

Just realized that Odo going down kills DS9 unless you count Worf. Don't know if we do.

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5. Spock
Loginating.

Surprise! I bet you thought Worf was #5. Worf has a big advantage over Spock, though: for this list, Im counting all appearances. The character who suffers most from this is Spock, since he has the great misfortune to be on Discovery, where he informs us that, in fact, he likes science. Its not clear from his actions or his status as a scientist that he likes science, so Spock looks directly at the camera, winks to the audience, and says LOGICAL. No, he doesnt, but if he did, would that surprise you? In all seriousness, Spock is tainted by Discovery in the same way Darth Vader is tainted by the prequel trilogy. To be sure, OT Darth Vader is still great, but if you factor in the now-canon stuff from the prequels, hes way dumber. Although the prequels are at least fun because theyre so horrible.

Spock is basically the perfect science-fiction character. Hes got this weird but completely reasonable philosophy about logic, hes Torn Between Two Worlds, hes got the only actually good actor in TOS, and hes got a personality that makes him easy to insert into any scenario as either an asset or a detriment. I will go out and call him the single best-designed sci-fi character of all time. If Spock has a weakness as a character, its that Nimoy has a bit more dignity than Shatner and that Spock is easier than Kirk to shoehorn into places that he doesnt belong, so Kirk mercifully avoided Discovery and the Abramsverse. God, can you imagine if like 24 year-old Kirk showed up in Discovery as a lieutenant or whatever and served Michael Burnham coffee? By the way, Microsoft Word recognizes Abramsverse as a word, but not Worf.

Like really, Spock is such a good character, I almost cant put it into words. Being cold and analytical but also gripping by constant roiling emotions is the perfect setup. Spock and Kirk are the two ingredients that make TOS work (sorry, McCoy), and I would probably say that Spock is the more important ingredient. Whenever theres a wacky space scenario, it falls to Spock to either figure out the solution or figure out a solution and present it completely heartlessly. Sometimes he even does this off-screen, and its still believable! Remember the time they go to the Mirror Universe, Kirk goes back to the main universe at the end, and Spock is like lol yeah I figured out what was going on in five seconds with zero information and its completely believable? This whole writeup could just be Spock moments like that. Remember when he got mind controlled by space fungus and Kirk had to insult him into getting angry to defeat it? Remember when he invited McCoy to his super-secret Vulcan ceremony? Remember when his brain got stolen by space hookers okay well not that one.

So someone on Discoverys writing staff watched The Cage. I know this because when Spock shows up on Dis

Actually lets stop there for the moment. Well come back to that later. Can I just say that the idea of Spock having a secret adopted human sister he never mentioned before is the stupidest thing ever? Like really, shut up. Im not even going to explain why thats the dumbest thing. And dont bring up the fifth movie where he has a secret brother, all I have to say to that is Discovery should not be mining The Final Frontier for ideas, unless its going to steal the giant glowing Sean Connery head shooting lasers out of its eyes.

Anyway, someone on Discoverys writing staff watched The Cage and noticed how Spock smiles one time in the episode because the idea of Vulcans being logical hadnt been hammered out yet. Yes, he said. I can use this. So Discovery Spock is super emotional. He smiles, he gets angry, he basically acts like a human. You might think this will lead to actually wait a second, wouldnt this just make Sarek hate him more? Wouldnt this be a huge embarrassment to the entire family? Anyway, you might think this will lead to Spock learning to be logical and not emotional in the future, and thats why hes the Spock we know in TOS, right? But his arc in the show ends with Michael Burnham telling him to be friends with humans and find the people furthest from you, so why does he give up emotions? Like you made a point of that! God I hate Discovery.

Michael is like I cant tell you guys what I did to Spock as a child, its unforgivable, dont make me talk about it, and then when we see it, she pushed him and said a bad word. Can you imagine being a thirty-five year-old man and hating your sister because she pushed you when she was twelve? It just makes Spock the stupidest person of all time. Like, if I was rating only Discovery Spock, hed be so low on this list. Hed be Ash Tyler-tier. Actually, thinking about it, Spock has the most actors, right? Nimoy, Quinto, Discovery guy, child Spock from 09, child Spock from TAS, child and teenage Spock from SfS Am I missing one? I cant even say the Discovery guy is a bad actor, its just the fault of bad writing.

God, I didnt want this writeup to be just anti-Discovery stuff, so lets talk about Spocks and Kirks relationship. Its pretty much epitomized with Wrath of Khan. Kirk is like lol I never lose at the beginning, Spock says nothing, and then at the end, when Kirk has failed and everyone is going to die, Spock sacrifices himself and is like lol if my goal was to save the ship, then I didnt lose either. Brilliant. Perfect writing. In a movie about an old man whose chest was so ripped that audiences thought he was wearing a fake chest until he said no, my chest actually does look like that, the most memorable thing is still Spock dying. Until Lorca, it was the only good Star Trek death, and Lorcas is only good because its so silly.

I also just want to say that Spock is how you write a scientist character. If you want to see how to most efficiently write every character, watch The Undiscovered Country. Every character has a moment that shows off his or her skill, and Spock has the best stuff, where hes just relentlessly puzzling through the mystery until he figures it out. Like you dont have a scientist just spout technobabble and build a whatever device, you have figure things out in a way the audience can follow, then take reasonable actions based on what he figured out.

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Anagram posted...

Top Five in casting order:
Kirk
Spock
Picard
Data
Worf

Had to do a slight double-take because that came immediately after saying Auberjonois was probably second best actor after Stewart, and then seeing Picard under Kirk and Spock.

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Mega Mana posted...

Had to do a slight double-take because that came immediately after saying Auberjonois was probably second best actor after Stewart, and then seeing Picard under Kirk and Spock.

Haha, didn't realize that.

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4. Worf
Honor.

I actually spent some time debating about Worf or #3 for this place, but I ultimately decided on Worf. Lets just get this right out of the way: Worf is so silly. I love him. The Borg have no honor; that is their greatest weakness. The heroes go on to defeat the Borg in a way that involves no honor at all. This happens to Worf every episode in TNG, because his job is not to be a really good security officer, its to always be wrong. Worf has a very specific job in TNG: suggest the most aggressive possible course of action so Picard can prove his own enlightenment by rejecting it, fire completely useless phasers, and lose every fistfight to show how strong his opponent is. I think every single character in TNG schools Worf at least once, and that includes Wesley and Counselor Troi. In Worfs defense, Troi was possessed by a mystical whatever spirit at the time, but I still count it. Point is, Worf is basically the Batman of TNG: he takes himself completely seriously no matter how stupid the situation is, and it makes him way funnier than anyone else.

Im going to go ahead and say that Worf makes no sense. His parents were killed by Romulans and he was rescued by humans, fine. Worf isnt a nobody Klingon child, hes the heir to a Great House. Dude is going to get sent back to the Klingon Empire and raised by his uncle or something so fast itll make your head spin. And even if he did get adopted by Russians (why does he have an American accent?), the vaguely racist Klingons are not going to just accept him back like that. But its okay, its in the service of the story. I feel like I had to say all of that because I have been very hard on Discovery.

Worf is one of the main Torn Between Two Worlds characters alongside Odo, but he takes in a different direction. Odo is all about wanting to belong and to rejoin his people, Worf is sort of straight edge personified. Dude is all about honor, to the detriment of actually being a Klingon. Like, the weirdest analogy I can make for this character is an ethnically Japanese person raised in the United States, whose entire knowledge of Japan comes from anime, inventing a hyper-weeaboo persona for himself. Like, what is that sash. Even other Klingons dont wear that sash. Dont tell me its some noble house thing, we meet a thousand Klingon noblemen and none of them wear that sash. It is guaranteed some ancient Klingon thing they were expected to wear that got phased out over centuries, and Worf thinks Klingons should all keep wearing it because he saw a picture of one in a human history book about Klingons.

What makes Worf work is that he can be used to explore wacky Klingon shenanigans. Everyone else is human, which makes their society boring, Betazoid, which makes their society irrelevant, or an android, who dont really have a society unless you count it as technically being a civil war when 50% of the population help freed Borg screw with the Federation. But Worf can be dropped into a Klingon civil war and play backroom Klingon politics, and all of that works because Worfs only skill, sword fighting, is how you get ahead in Klingon politics. Like can you imagine if the President of the United States was just screwing around at a party, a convicted felon broke in and challenged him to a sword fight, and the Secret Service said Yeah, yeah, lets see where this goes? But it all works because Worfs weeaboo beliefs make him butt heads with everyone else so much that just being in the room is going to cause problems. I cant think of a single Klingon set where Worf didnt cause a problem. Maybe the hovel with the old lady that only Picard visits, but even then, Picard gets attacked just outside of the hovel by assassins because hes helping Worf. Point is, after every time Worf is kicked out of the Empire (it happens more than once, and he never, ever thinks about how his actions will affect his family because he only cares about honor), he can brood and be like one day I shall reclaim my familys honor, which makes for great television.

Worfs Klingon episodes define him so much that its hard to think of Worf episodes that arent about them. Its basically just his stupid son Alexander (so glad we didnt include him in the rankings) or Jadzia Dax. I never bought that Dax could keep up with Worf physically. Suzie Plakson, the woman who played Alexanders mother, was 62, she looked like what a Klingon woman should look like. Worf would break Jadzia Dax in two so fast.

Worf also gets a lot to do in DS9, of course. DS9 is more Worfs style. Worf works great in TNG, where its an adventure of the week where the lesson is always dont use violence, but DS9 is ehhhh use violence sometimes, and the one using the violence is usually Sisko or Worf. I never really understood what Worf saw in Picard. He was sometimes like IF YOU WERE ANY OTHER MAN ID KILL YOU, but like, Worf and Picard have nothing even remotely in common and Picards beliefs are the exact opposite of Worfs. Sisko seems like the kind of human Worf wouldnt mind serving under.

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I fear how my placement of Worf will be received now.

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scarletspeed7 posted...

I fear how my placement of Worf will be received now.

Probably better than Anagram's! =P

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I've always liked how Worf will generally recommend direct or aggressive courses of action, but when he's told to stand down he immediately does and gives a "yes sir" or a nod. Klingon aggression influences his recommendations but his commitment to being a good officer to his commander is more important to him than any of that other stuff.

He obviously does have important character moments where it doesn't play out exactly like this but that's generally how he behaves

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scarletspeed7 posted...

I fear how my placement of Worf will be received now.

Post it!

CoolCly posted...

I've always liked how Worf will generally recommend direct or aggressive courses of action, but when he's told to stand down he immediately does and gives a "yes sir" or a nod. Klingon aggression influences his recommendations but his commitment to being a good officer to his commander is more important to him than any of that other stuff.

He obviously does have important character moments where it doesn't play out exactly like this but that's generally how he behaves

Well of course he stands down, it's the duty of an officer to obey his commander.

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Cant wait for the other 7 people to rank

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DS9 Worf > TNG Worf

Just had to throw that out there.

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Lolo_Guru posted...

DS9 Worf > TNG Worf

Just had to throw that out there.

Well, DS9 just plays to his strengths more. Troi would kill on a show about psychologists who go around illegally helping people who have PTSD from finding giant space amobeas and omnipotent gods.

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3. James Tiberius Kirk
The only question I ever thought was hard, was do I like Kirk or do I like Picard? Picard.

Ive made four Star Trek character lists before, and Kirk was at the top of three of them. But the truth is, Ive grown to like Data and Picard more over the years, whereas my love for Kirk has remained relatively static. Sorry!

Its interesting what pop culture knows, isnt it? Everyone knows Spock as the weird logic guy with pointy ears, and thats basically correct. But everyone also knows Kirk as the guy who flies around space having sex with alien women, and that happens three times in eighty episodes and 10 movies (counting the Abramsverse), and one of those times was a reference to the other times. Point is, my sister (who once described Han Solo as a space guy) told me that Kirk is a symbol of sexism because all he does it have sex with alien women, and when I told her that he has sex with all of two (because this was pre-09), she was like I dont believe you because pop culture told her that was what Kirk is, as if she could possibly know more about Star Trek than I do. I honestly have no idea where Im going with this.

So Kirk is wonderful. Hes the ultimate mans man of the 1960s: smart, moral, handsome, adventurous, and larger-than-life. If Star Trek was set in 1960, hed be wearing a trench coat and a fedora and solve crimes or something, but thankfully its not. Im not even sure if there is an image of the mans man in 2020. Its easiest to describe Kirk by comparing him to Picard, so instead Im just going to talk about great Kirk moments.

Remember all the times he has an enemy at his mercy and is like Nah, bro, lets do this another way? because there are four. He should be known for that more than boning alien women. Remember how he constantly solves problems by lying his ass off and acting nonchalant? Remember when he put the moves on a Romulan chick, who completely blows him off and goes after Spock? Remember when he got turned into a girl well not that one.

God, can you believe the series finale of TOS was Kirk being turned into a girl? That was the last Star Trek media until the late 70s.

Now I love show Kirk, but Ill admit hes not really the deepest of characters. Hes an ass-kicking adventurer, and thats fine, but its the movies where he gets most of his actual, shall we say, development and characterization.

In TMP, Kirks like **** I hate being an admiral, oh look an excuse to kick the new guy out of the captains seat and go on an adventure, yes, and gets schooled because he almost gets the ship blown up. He doesnt learn much, though, because we need time for the ship to fly into a space vagina and talk to a being that wants to be reborn. And dont even argue with me, theres a shot where Vger just looks like a ****ing vagina.

In WoK, Kirks like man Im getting old, but Shatner is like I look great compared to the rest of the cast, especially Nichelle Nichols. Kirk has to deal with themes like being out of date, finally losing, the death of his friends, decisions made in his youth coming back to destroy him, and why Scotty would bring an injured crewman to the bridge instead of the medical bay. Everything in WoK is so good, its everyones favorite Trek movie except Jeffs.

In SfS, Christopher Lloyd says Im going to kill your son, and the movie completely ruins the moment Except for Kirk, who does this thing and falls backward in disbelief. People call Shatner a bad actor, but he actually can do stuff when he needs to, its just his character is written to be absurd. I wish wed had more on this, but the movie needed more time for Saavik to have sex with a teenager. Thats canon, by the way.

Hell, even in TFF, the movie everyone hates, Kirk is the only person in the movie who gets anything. He gets to say people need pain, you cant just delete it with psychic powers, and really, isnt that something weve all battled with at some point?

In TUC, of course, Kirks so good. I hate Klingons for a variety of valid reasons, but they need help and theres an opportunity to make amends with them, so I guess Ill go along with this and he learns the error of his way as he goes along. Let them die! So good.

So if youre seriously asking what Star Trek character has the most development over time, its Kirk. He goes from ass-kicking adventurer to an old man who still does the same things he did in his youth, but has a completely different perspective about it. The Undiscovered Country wraps up his character in the perfect way, and thats why they never brought Kirk back ever.

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I wish I had something to say but honestly I've never gotten into the original series. @_@
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I got through all of DISCO season 1 and didn't like it, then I started DISCO season 2 when I heard it was better but I'd argue that nu-Spock somehow made it even worse, although both are pretty bad. It's weird when I hear people defending the series, the crew is tolerable at best. Maybe if you watch it with the idea that it isn't star trek?

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Even hearing everyone slam discovery I'd probably watch it (if it ever ends up on a service I have access to.)
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it's really not awful, just not star trek. Saru makes some of it worth watching.

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As I said, Saru is the only properly Star Trek idea on the show.

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scarletspeed7 posted...

I fear how my placement of Worf will be received now.

I'm not a huge Worf fan, but I never watched DS9 really. Just next generation and voyager. and a few original series episodes when we were on vacation and nothing else was on.

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Lmao the Spock writeup mentions Discovery 13 times...that bad, huh? I assume these topics will be better in a few years once y'all get the fuck over it

Should have been 14

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waits for rankings

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2. Data
Beep boop.

Until I met Ed, Id never met anyone who disliked Data. Hes like the most lovable character on Star Trek. What if Pinocchio, but a Vulcan, but not, but Three Laws of Robotics, but not? People give Gene Roddenberry a lot of **** for having terrible ideas whenever it comes to details or human characterization, but the man was very good at broad ideas and basic ideas. He was clearly more of a George Lucas, in that he needed other people to iron out the flaws. Unlike George Lucas, he was lucky enough to die before he could ruin his own creation. Have you ever seen the stuff made after his death from his unused ideas? Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict? Yeesh. Thank God no one ever set a Star Trek show a thousand years in the future after the Federation fell and the main character has to fix things, right? Right? Right?

Its worth talking about how Data was even conceived of. Back during the 70s, Roddenberry was like Well make Star Trek: Phase 2, and I have a million terrible ideas for it, like the Klingon planet has no defenses because theyre so sure no one would ever attack them. Then he was told make a movie, and it turned into The Motion Picture, and he had to integrate his ideas for the show into the movie. This is why characters who only show up in that movie each have more lines than Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, and Scotty combined. When he made TNG, he changed the characters names and left them identical. Thats why Commander Decker has a relationship with an alien psychic and why Commander Riker has a relationship with an alien psychic. But the most important character for our purposes is Xon. Xon was going to be a Vulcan whod never experienced emotions and wanted to experiment with them. In the final product of the movie, Xon has two lines, then dies in a random accident unrelated to the actual plot. And its not a nice death, either, hes killed in a beaming accident and its the most gruesome Star Trek death ever. Point is, I have no idea why they even included the character in the movie.

A decade later, Roddenberry goes a Vulcan who wants to feel emotions, huh? Well, we already did a lot with Vulcans in TOS and the five previous movies, so I want to explore new ground, and he made an android. Consider that, too. It wasnt until 1995 that Star Trek went back to mine the Vulcan main character well. I respect TNG and DS9 a lot for not just treading old logical ground.

Holy **** did I get off-topic. This is supposed to be about why Data is such a fun, engaging character. Well, the reason is basically twofold. First, the writers immediately realized Data and Worf were the most fun characters on the show, in that they could comically misunderstand stuff (theres a scene where Picard holds an unopened umbrella, then he opens it, and Worf flips out and goes into a karate stance, then realizes whats happened and goes back to normal, all done without a word or even drawing attention to it, so good), so Data and Worf got waaaaay more to do than almost anyone else. Data can explore what it is to be a human with Geordi, he can prove himself to a racist, he can ask awkward questions of Picard without realizing why theyre awkward, he can interpret idioms literally, and when you want drama, he can just react to horrible stuff with straight-faced huhness while everyone else screams or whatever. Second, characters trying to explore who they are and where they fit into the world is inherently way more interesting than we need to stop the thing because of the thing. Sure, every Star Trek episode includes a we need to stop the thing, but thats engaging because we care about how it affects the characters we know and love. And its really easy to love Data because of a sense of innocence that no other character in the franchise could ever plausibly possess Except Kes, I guess, but we dont talk about her.

It helps that Brent Spiner is the least embarrassing actor in TNG after Patrick Stewart and LeVar Burton. Note that I didnt say hes good, but he is the least awful after those two, and he does know how to ham it up. Every so often, Data gets to feel emotions or his wacky evil brother shows up, and we get to see the range of Spiners acting, which is slightly wider than the range of, say, Jonathon Frakes acting.

Theres also the simple fact that in a sci-fi show, I am a robot beep boop inherently leads to interesting scenarios. Again, this is also true of Worf and his alien code of honor. Data can be used to examine whether or not sapient computers are really sapient, he can be stolen by an insane art collector, he can hook his brain into a computer to do whatever (by the way, I love how often they use the opening Datas head special effect, they were clearly very proud of that incredibly lame fake computer chip they glued to his head), and so on.

Not to mention, and I said this before several times, Data is the only correctly-written scientist character besides Spock. Its just those two. Dax and TPol are never properly used as investigator characters, Harry Kim and Michael Burnham are written by people who think science is a form of magic or can be understood, and Janeway is written by people who can only comprehend heady subjects by way of analogy. Its fun to see Data slowly unravel a puzzle. Its fun to see Data be smarter than everyone else.

Man, lets just list fun Data moments. Remember when the Klingon challenges him to an arm wrestling contest and Data instantly wins, then he tries to bribe him, and when Data calls him on attempting to bribe him, the Klingon plays it off like Data is misunderstanding a human thing and pretends to be offended, and Data falls for it? Remember when Troi and her mother get into a petty argument where the mom keeps slipping implied insults into everything she says so that Troi will get upset, and when Troi demands she stop with the petty bickering, Data begs her to continue with the petty bickering because its teaching him things about humans he cant learn by watching professionals on a ship? Remember when Data ruins a hologram detective story by instantly solving the mystery? Remember when Data has a girlfriend, and he tells her that hes devoting 0.001% of his current processing power to her right now, so she breaks up with him and he just says Ill delete the program I wrote to interact with you, then? Remember when he betrays the Borg Queen, then admits to Picard that he was tempted by her offer for a nanosecond, and Picard is like thats not a big deal, and Data is like dude for an android thats an eternity? Remember when Data gets mind controlled by his father and imitates Picards voice to fool the computer? Remember when Q makes Data laugh so he can know what its like to be a human?

I think it says something that of all the people Q interacts with, the only one hes not completely dismissive and contemptuo

I feel like "Until I met Ed, I'd never met anyone" is applicable to so many opinions

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Wait, Ed doesn't like Data?

Huh.
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data laughing is so good

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NFUN posted...

data laughing is so good

Yep.

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Also, one last Data thing: I love how in Star Trek Picard they try to cover up Brent Spiner's age, but he's clearly like forty pounds heavier than he was in the 90s and it makes no sense.

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Can we get someone else to start before anagram finishes? I'm not ready for this to end.
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1. The Computer
Working

Ah, Computer. People often mistake Worf for being the character with the most appearances in Star Trek, but little-known fact: its actually Computers voice, which is in all five Star Treks. Actually, heres the weird truth: before Majel Barrett died, she recorded every possible thing Computer could ever say so they could still use her voice, but then Discovery just chucked it in favor of a new voice.

As the inspiration for Siri and Alexa, can we just blame Computer for all of the house robot things? Like, did Gene Roddenberry just innately understand in the 1960s that servant robots would have female voices in the future, or would have boy robot voices if not for Star Trek? I guess well never know.

To me, the definitive Computer moment is when someone said Computer, do X, and Computer couldnt do X. Lesser moments include when Computer was deactivated and didnt respond to being told to do X, when Computer actually did X, and when Computer thought it did X, didnt actually do X, and was told to run a self-diagnostic.

Real one tomorrow

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Damn you anagram

Somebody hit my music

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51. Gabriel Lorca
Daaaaaaaark because I have an eye condition

Good Lord. I may have Burnham and Tilly ranked lower but is there anyone who embodies the squandered potential of Discovery more than Gabriel Lorca?

Evidently its just the rule that Star Trek in the 2010s MUST be Grim and must see a darker version of humanity front and center with no room for hope unless that hope is in the form of actual Jean Luc Picard. Instead...big wet fart.

Jason Isaacs is an incredible actor with a history of classical training and seemingly primed to join the ranks Avery Brooks, Leonard Nimoy , Ren Auberjonois, Patrick Stewart and Kate Mulgrew as the actor with true chops that anchors a memorable cast. Instead almost from the beginning he was pure caricature of the exact sort of person you wouldn't want captioning a starship even as the delivery was good. Context is for Kings etc. Practically emblazoned with the warning "I AM BAD GUY"

Most notable is he had an eye condition that demanded that he have low lighting in his chambers. The problem? The rest of the Discovery is ALSO low lit. So it was just a pointless thing meant to let us know hes BROODFUL. His character is the reason I am certain Rios in Picard is gonna suck.

What a waste of a good bit of casting.

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1. Jean-luc Picard
Heres to the finest crew in Starfleet! Engage. Captain Jean Picard of the USS En-ter-prise, Captain Jean Picard of the USS En-ter-prise, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-make it so, make it so, ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-mak it so, make it so! The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based, and if you cant find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth, you dont deserve to wear that uniform!

Yeah, I know its predictable, but sue me, Picard is the best character in Star Trek, and its not particularly close. Id probably even say that hes the best sci-fi character of all time. Like, what do you even say about Picard? That hes the best-acted character in Star Trek? That hes the best-written character in Star Trek? Because he is. Its almost difficult to talk about what makes him so good because the answer involves pretty much everything about him.

So, as I said before, Picard and Riker are a duo to represent the perfection of humanity but theyre not an evenly-split duo. Picard completely dominates this duo, to the point where Rikers job is mainly to be physically impressive and be more passionate so we (the audience) cares when he wants to save a genderless alien or whatever.

Picards a very private guy. Kirk, Sisko, and Archer get emotional and passionate about things all the time. Picard doesnt. He gets super emotional when hes carrying Sareks soul, when his nephew and brother die, and when the Borg are involved. Thats a total of like four times. Picards girlfriend is possibly dead? Hes sort of antsy. Picard is told hes dead and hell have to spend all of eternity with Q? Hes mildly annoyed. Picard is bidding farewell to Riker after serving with him for twenty years? He gets a pat on the back. Part of what makes Picard so engaging (dohoho) is that hes so guarded and yet he remains almost ethically flawless.

Thats sort of an interesting point about Picard. Every other captain has some moment when he or she has to do something ethically questionable, whether its letting a goodhearted woman get hit by a car, framing the Dominion for a fake invasion, allying with the Borg, stealing an engine and stranding innocent people in space, or being on Star Trek Discovery, but Picard kind of avoids that by just being so relentlessly good. What Hamlet says with irony, I say with conviction: what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god!

Imagine trying to write this weird morally perfect philosopher-diplomat who can only be wrong about weird space shenanigans or the nobility of aliens he meets, and then successfully making him interesting. Picard should have been a terrible character, but instead hes pretty much the best thing ever. Like, it bears repeating: Data, Spock, Worf, Odo, Seven of Nine, and the Doctor are well-designed characters because their inner flaws and limitations make them compelling, while Kirk, McCoy, Sisko, Garak, and even Quark are well-designed characters because you can easily design a scenario to test them. Picard is a horribly-designed character who should by all rights be incredibly boring, he should be like Riker was in that s1 episode where they meet the Ferengi, and yet they make him work anyway.

The defining Picard moment to me is when the Crystalline Entity is going around killing people, Professor Insano builds a torpedo to destroy it, and Picard is like cool, hopefully we can just talk to it, though. Another defining Picard moment is like Hey Romulans, one of us has to drop his shields and hope the other wont kill him because its the right thing to do, so Ill do it. That Romulan had better have just killed himself after that episode, can you imagine getting owned that absolutely?

Anyway, heres a quote by a reporter asking Gene Roddenberry about Picard:
Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness.
No, by the 24th century, no one will care.

I guess I need to talk about Star Trek Picard. This is harder than talking about Discovery because it just came out and I dont know where a lot of things are going, and Im only on episode 3 right now, but okay. Mega spoilers, dudes.

I feel like they dont quite understand the Star Trek universe or dont care having robot slaves as a main plot element basically proves that and that they want it to be a generic Expanse-esque dark future, but it's not nearly to the same degree as Discovery. That said, Picard himself and his new cast of friends remain pretty good. Theres no moment when he turns to the camera and says I LIKE POETRY. Its even better than the TNG movies, which is not a high bar, in that Picard isnt laughing while driving a dune buggy and acting completely out of character because Patrick Stewart successfully asked the writers to insert a scene where he gets to drive a car (that happened, by the way). Like, I dont completely buy that Picard would retire to his family vineyard, I feel like hed go back to his dreams of archeology, but Im willing to roll with it.

So yeah, Picard. Pretty good character.

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Eddv posted...

51. Gabriel Lorca

Did you skip 52? Your last write-up was 53. Pulaski

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Just a case of misnumbering

THE REAL 51

51. Paul Stamets
YEAH uhh Im a biologist and this ship runs on shroompower so I'm Important

Ahh Stamets. You momentarily seemed to have potential much like everything else on Discovery. Unfortunately being somewhat prickly and not being super fond of Poochy only gets you so far.

He's a dud. Worse he's a dud on a show that desperately needs someone to break out so he's like a mega dud.

There is a season 1 episode where he is the one person exempt from a Groundhog Day situation and his one and only notable action resulting from this spotlight is that he goes and gets Michael. That's it.

Even the space mushrooms he ought to be the expert on somehow end up under Tillys purview. He sucks.


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Bump I guess!

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Did Quinton disappear again?

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He hasn't logged in for a week and hasn't posted for two weeks. He hasn't been responding to my messages elsewhere either, so I hope he's doing all right.

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Oh man. I hope so too!

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Hes doing fine but he's burnt out on this place again

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oh I figured that much

he lasted longer than he normally does at least

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:(

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Anagram posted...

This guy is more important than basically every character other than Sisko, Odo, and Kira, and hes in way more episodes than like Jake, and yet, always just a guest star.

Just as he'd want it to be.

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ChichiriMuyo posted...

Just as he'd want it to be.

I never thought about it as a meta thing. Good work.

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I swear once I get past these Discovery doldrums this will be an easier list to power through

50. Saru

You get the point by now. Potentially interesting character executed like dog shit. The idea of someone being from a prey species and the various biological markers indicating that are interesting enough. But the show really didn't do much of anything with it. The showrunners clearly didn't have anything they wanted to explore with it - unlike say the decision to have Data be an android or Daxs symbiote. No he's just a prey species because someone thought "now here's a cool idea"

And unfortunately this is really all there is to say about Saru. His role is to say "Michael that's reckless" so she can go "Yeah but I'm Michael fucking Burnham"


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49. Philippa Georgiou

She at least seemed like a non terrible character who died before she could get worse. Had a good mirrorverse episode.

Phew I am free.

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Bump I guess

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At some point life will slow down enough for me to rank again.

That or Quinton will return :(

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