I want to say Neelix, but I can't in all honesty... most of the time, yeah, but I feel like there was a solid character concept in there that occasionally came out when some writer or other got inspired, and Ethan Phillips did the best he could with what he was given. Like, this is the guy who's always forcing a smile and a laugh because that's how he copes with the memory of walking through the ashes of his home and family. So long as he's not actually on screen doing the awful comedy he did, I can feel like that's an interesting character.
I'm not a huge fan of Rom - actually I kind of love the guy, but I feel like he only works in proximity to Quark, and whenever he's left to his own devices the 'bumbling goof' routine just grates on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. That's kind of the Ferengi as a while (Nog excepted, once he went Starfleet) - Moogie, Zek, great actors, and they do work a lot of the time, but only when they're bouncing off Quark, and it's his performance that anchors this idiot species in some kind of believability. Even Brunt, although so many of his scenes were directly opposite Quark that he usually came off well. I feel like the DS9 writer's room was (rightly) very proud of salvaging the Ferengi with Quark, but then went and overplayed their hand.
Wesley was... I mean I give him a pass in a lot of episodes, just because so much of his spotlight stuff is season one and two when everyone's a disaster, and he did have his good moments later on, like in 'Final Mission' and 'The First Duty'. But at the same time I didn't much care for 'The Game', and 'Journey's End' really kind of sabotaged the improvements they'd made to him earlier... I don't care much for him really.
T'Pol was just, I dunno, I didn't feel like anyone in Enterprise got off unscathed through the first couple of seasons, but T'Pol for me just seemed to kind of keep stumbling off into further dumbness even when the rest of the show started to right itself. Not a Jolene Blalock fan either. I give T'Pol a teensy bit of a pass just because all the Vulcans pre-season four were kind of hamfisted, so I feel like some of what I dislike about her isn't specifically her.
Harry Frelling Kim, though - I have to give it to Kim, despite Garret Wang's best efforts (alright let's be brutally honest, Garret Wang's serviceable efforts, but also Garret Wang's handsome handsome face), and 'The Chute', which if I was going to forgive Harry, it'd be because of that. Most other episodes that focused on him, he was this guy who's just terminally dull, full of one-note bad ideas about how he should behave, and somehow incapable of showing any sense that seven years in the Delta Quadrant have given him any education at all. And it's not like his character was fatally flawed in any way from the start, they could've done him well at any time, but just over and over again Harry Kim showing up was a sure sign of an episode where everything would've been better if someone else had just slapped him and taken over whatever he was doing. Without a doubt my least favourite character.
Except Chakotay. Frak Chakotay.
Honestly, put me in a ship with Harry Kim, Chakotay, and a phaser with one charge, and I'm shooting the warp core.
I used to be a big time Janeway hater back when I was a kid and Voyager was in first run. I've went back and rewatched some Voyager for the first time in ages recently, and she isn't that bad to me now. You know who is really terrible, though? Harry Kim (deadwood), Chakotay (deadwoodx2), and especially, Tom Paris. Tom Paris is an obnoxious jerk who keeps getting breaks he doesn't deserve because of his important Admiral father. Janeway bailing him out of that prison to go work on Voyager? Because she used to serve under his father. And why, after Paris is demoted down to ensign, does he make lieutenant again before Harry Kim, who never had to be disciplined in such a way? Also Paris was VERY racist towards Chakotay in Caretaker.
Also, Jake is great. He isn't a precocious space cadet showing up all the grownups at every opportunity. He is just a regular kid, living his life the best he can while making cool friends like Nog and Kasidy Yates (remember he introduced Yates to his father?). Jake is the anti-Wesley Crusher. Jake also gives us one of our few recurring looks at civilian life in the Federation. Jake isn't interested in Starfleet, which is a unique perspective in a franchise in which 99% of the characters we follow are officers in a space military or para military organization.
I would like to make the case in defense of T'Pol. I agree with everything that was said about her, but I see those as positives, not negatives. She bugged me greatly my first time through Enterprise, but I recently re-watched Enterprise and I came away with a tremendous appreciation for T'Pol.
Season 1 T'Pol is kind of impossible to defend, but I will try. I think she was cast for reasons other than her acting chops (as evidenced by all the scenes of her barely wearing clothes in the decon chamber getting oiled up by various crew) and the writers/producers simply gave her character nothing redeeming to work with. Even then though, now that we know from later seasons that she actually had a lot of respect for the humans and that she was taking orders from people under the influence of Romulans trying to get the Vulcans to hold us back, I think a lot of her trepidation makes sense, and you can give her a C in season 1 as a result.
Season 2 is very similar to season 1, but she did show some growth. I was proud of her season 2 as she stood up to Archer but when left in charge did not do what you'd expect a Vulcan to do.
Seasons 3 and 4 on first glance she seems to be a bad character, but I actually feel the opposite, she was the most compelling character in the entire series. They did a lot of close up on her in incredibly stressful situations and unlike any Vulcan we've ever seen, she looks scared, anxious, uncertain, nervous, etc. We the audience just assume Jolene Blalock is being out-acted by everyone else in the scene, but I contend she is actually acting like a boss; T'Pol is an emotional wreck, under constant assault from really powerful emotions that she has no experience dealing with, under pressure to remain "Vulcan-like" in public, and has no idea how to process any of it. She was a complete mess internally and still managed to hold it together and be a crucial member of the crew.
On my second time through, I thought T'Pol was terrific.
The other observation I had the second time through was that the writers had no idea what to do with Mayweather, and IMO really missed out on utilizing him.
Vash and Major Hayes were annoying. Wasn’t a big fan of Chakotay.
Chakotay was soo poorly written and so often misused. He went from the roguish Maquis captain to Janeway's lapdog overnight. There was also the matter of the the show using a phony Native American consultant. I can fully understand why Beltran wants nothing to do with the role these days, Chakotay was so much wasted potential (kind of like Voyager). I will say I enjoyed the Chakotay-centered episode "Nemesis".
As far as Voyager is concerned, I think I disliked Neelix and Tuvok a lot more than Chakotay. Neelix got better as the show went on but early on he was terribly annoying and pretty creepy (his controlling "relationship" with a prepubescent Kes, for example). Tuvok is just boring. I really wish they had had the guts to kill them both off permanently and kept Tuvix.
Generally-speaking, I liked Enterprise, but it had so many poorly-written or misused characters. Mayweather wasn't used enough to be important and Reed was fairly one-dimensional but if I had to single out a single character I did not like then it was Trip. Reed and Mayweather could have gotten some development if the show had continued, but Trip got a lot of screen time and a lot of episodes and I can't say I liked many of them. He's sort of the 21st century-mindset kind of character, the one who needs to wrap his head around all these new cultures and ideas, but so often he comes across as the redneck in space. He seems to repeat the same closed-minded behaviour from the pilot all the way to the end of the series, despite multiple episodes revolving around him needing to open his mind to new ideas.
I would like to make the case in defense of T'Pol. I agree with everything that was said about her, but I see those as positives, not negatives. She bugged me greatly my first time through Enterprise, but I recently re-watched Enterprise and I came away with a tremendous appreciation for T'Pol.
Season 1 T'Pol is kind of impossible to defend, but I will try. I think she was cast for reasons other than her acting chops (as evidenced by all the scenes of her barely wearing clothes in the decon chamber getting oiled up by various crew) and the writers/producers simply gave her character nothing redeeming to work with. Even then though, now that we know from later seasons that she actually had a lot of respect for the humans and that she was taking orders from people under the influence of Romulans trying to get the Vulcans to hold us back, I think a lot of her trepidation makes sense, and you can give her a C in season 1 as a result.
Season 2 is very similar to season 1, but she did show some growth. I was proud of her season 2 as she stood up to Archer but when left in charge did not do what you'd expect a Vulcan to do.
Seasons 3 and 4 on first glance she seems to be a bad character, but I actually feel the opposite, she was the most compelling character in the entire series. They did a lot of close up on her in incredibly stressful situations and unlike any Vulcan we've ever seen, she looks scared, anxious, uncertain, nervous, etc. We the audience just assume Jolene Blalock is being out-acted by everyone else in the scene, but I contend she is actually acting like a boss; T'Pol is an emotional wreck, under constant assault from really powerful emotions that she has no experience dealing with, under pressure to remain "Vulcan-like" in public, and has no idea how to process any of it. She was a complete mess internally and still managed to hold it together and be a crucial member of the crew.
On my second time through, I thought T'Pol was terrific.
The other observation I had the second time through was that the writers had no idea what to do with Mayweather, and IMO really missed out on utilizing him.
Amen. Jolene Blalock won’t be winning any acting awards but her style worked well with how her character was written, balancing on a knife edge between her Vulcan upbringing and constant exposure to humanity. For all of Spock’s issues with balancing the two halves of his being, he grew up with his human side and a human mother, learning at least a little about how to process/control emotional responses and deal with illogical humans - T’Pol was thrown in the deep end and had to figure things out on her own.
I don’t know who got robbed of successful writing more: Mayweather or Chakotay. At least they had potential to be great...something Harry Kim never seemed to have. I suppose the argument could be made that Chakotay made nice with Janeway because he knew deep down that everyone on the ship would be boned if they didn’t get along but it would have been nice to see that relationship develop a little more slowly.
Pulaski was by far the most irritating character.
Yar was meh, too one dimensional.
Reed, too stiff.
Mayweather, too...too...Mayweatherish.
And this is going to be very unpopular, but I could never connect with Geordi. I didn't dislike him, but didn't like him either. Just...came off whiny, sometimes.
I didn't like Bashir at first, but he grew on me.
I was fine with Neelix...don't see the reason for such vitriol.
Wesley was just a kid. Same for Jake.
I don't see how anyone could dislike the EMH Doctor - he was the best character on Voyager.
My 2 cents on the subject 😁
TNG: Wesley
DS9: season 1 Bashir, everyone else is awesome
VOY: Neelix while Kes was still around. Borg children. Holodoc in later seasons. Janeway when she was used as an impulsive plot device by the writers.
TOS: well they're all a bit campy ;-)
ENT: Reed, Trip, Hoshi, Archer and Mayweather in seasons 1, 2 and 4.
DISC: Tilly
Pulaski was by far the most irritating character.
Yar was meh, too one dimensional.
Reed, too stiff.
Mayweather, too...too...Mayweatherish.
And this is going to be very unpopular, but I could never connect with Geordi. I didn't dislike him, but didn't like him either. Just...came off whiny, sometimes.
I didn't like Bashir at first, but he grew on me.
I was fine with Neelix...don't see the reason for such vitriol.
Wesley was just a kid. Same for Jake.
I don't see how anyone could dislike the EMH Doctor - he was the best character on Voyager.
My 2 cents on the subject 😁
Oh yes I forgot Bashir. He didn’t seem like much of a doctor and was mostly just worried about scoring.
I used to watch DS9 with my Nintendo Duck Hunt gun in one hand so that I could shoot Winn whenever she appeared. I really hated that character with a passion.
I'd like the opportunity to write a defense for Dr. Pulaski. Like virtually everyone, I initially disliked Pulaski greatly, as she seemed to be a constant wet blanket for other characters and really seemed to go out of her way to torment fan favorite character Data.
But she has several strong points in her favor:
1. While true that she was out to get Data at first, by the end of season 2 she had completely come around, not only accepting Data as a sentient being but actually respecting him greatly. In other words, in a season that saw the show still trying to figure out what it wanted to be, Pulaski more than any other member of the cast that season demonstrated growth.
2. More than any other CMO other than Bones, she found a way to be interesting and involved in stories for reasons other than being CMO. She was a sounding board for lots of characters, and often even served as a pseudo-counselor for Diana!
3. She replaced Dr. Crusher. Sorry to bury the lead, but one of my favorite things about season 2 was the absence of Dr. Crusher, and Pulaski will always have my gratitude for sparing us a whole season of Dr. Crusher. Crusher is the worst CMO in all of Trek, both for being an unbearable medical paladin and for never, EVER deciding if she spoke with and American accent or that wispy, fake, ethereal-esque British accent, sometimes she'd go back and forth between the two mid-sentence!
Dr. Pulaski is right up there, along with Vic Fontaine. UGH.
But for me is has to be all of the DS9 Ferengi - especially Zek and Moogie. I hate watched every single Ferengi centric episode on that show. I will never watch them again. Just horrible.
Come to think of it, Vic Fontaine is a horrible character. Not a bad person or actor, just a bad character. It was fine when they used him the first time, but he was so overused that he became unbelievable and a bad fit for the show.
Dr. Pulaski is right up there, along with Vic Fontaine. UGH.
But for me is has to be all of the DS9 Ferengi - especially Zek and Moogie. I hate watched every single Ferengi centric episode on that show. I will never watch them again. Just horrible.
Agreed. Zek and Moogie were annoying beyond belief. I realize that was the point of their characters but who wants to watch annoying on purpose?
Harry Frelling Kim
Except Chakotay. Frak Chakotay.
Someone is a fan of both Farscape and Battlestar Galactica. I approve. If only Netflix still had Farscape, I would watch it again...
A number of people brought up Jake. I agree that he had issues, but I didn't really dislike him. I also have a soft spot for him, as "The Visitor" is one of my favorite ST episodes and it convinced me to try watching DS9 after I had seen part of the series as a kid (probably the earlier seasons, which are not as exciting as the Dominion War).
But yeah, echoing others in their dislike (or hatred) for Neelix and Wesley. Another character that stands out is Ezri. Maybe it's that she has to fill Jadzia's shoes in some respects (which the show makes very clear in her interactions with other characters), and that she shows up in season 7 when the war is in full swing and you don't have a ton of time for character episodes (ones where they clearly focus on the development of one character, like "The Inner Light" as a "Picard episode" or "The Pegasus" as a "Riker episode"). Her character has to develop solely in relation to everyone else, and most of those interactions for the first half of the season are comparing her to Jadzia, whom fans loved and they had just killed off. So not exactly fair, but I just don't really like her.
TNG : Pulaski. Damn I can't stand her. Considing what I read about her partly being an attempt to repeat McCoy / Spock with her and Data, that probably explains it. Also, if we had never seen a serious side to Lwaxana, she'd be on here too. But those serious bits were redeeming enough for me.
DS9 : Honestly, I find Kira kind of dull and annoying. Ezri too (not so much dull, but annoying). It's a tossup between them. I really don't think this was Nicole's fault though; the Jadzia role was a really enormous pair of shoes to fill. If she had been around longer, and wasn't a Dax, I think she would have been fine.
VOY : I like all of the main cast. For guests though, Seska and Culluh were annoying, both individually and together.
ENT : Haven't seen that much of it beyond the first two seasons, but I found it really hard to get passed the whole southern boy or country boy or whatever it was with Tucker. I really don't like how they wrote Vulcans as a society, but that's no fault of the actors' daily job at playing them. I do have to say Connor did a really good job on Stargate Atlantis though with getting you to sympathize to some degree with his character, despite him having some really evil ambitions and behaviors.
Ezri had to play six seasons of catch up in one season to develop into a character that was on equal footing with the rest of the crew and replace Jadzia. She came off annoying at first and the viewers probably had an instant dislike for her due to bias of replacing Jadzia. I think the sniper episode was a great story personally. She had quite a few episodes in the last season to establish her character I feel.
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TOS Main cast: McCoy. The main cast is actually extremely likeable overall, and so McCoy kind of ends up with this by default. He can be shrill, used for both heavy-handed moralizing and impulsive emotionalism.
TNG Main cast: Wesley / Yar. TNG did finally manage to give Yar an epic sendoff, and I thought they figured young Crusher out more as the series went on. Both suffered from weak early scripting in my view and never quite recovered.
DS9 Main cast: early seasons Bashir/Dax. DS9 started out with a lot of TNG's lessons internalized, and had stronger characters early on with fascinating backstories. The exceptions to me were Bashir and Dax, both of whom had shallower stories, and the show took some time figuring them out. Bashir started off as almost stalker-ish and Dax was too often a blank slate.
VOY Main cast: Janeway. There are a lot of options here, with Chakotay and Kim and Neelix all getting justifiable comment in this thread. Janeway's the one who really got to me, though, because so much of the show's moral compass was calibrated to 'whatever she says is right.' I like Kate Mulgrew's portrayal, mostly, but I wish Voyager had had the guts to not just make Janeway fallible but call her out on that fallibility. Her and Sisko and Archer all take actions that are morally ambiguous, but Voyager is the only series of the three that pretends its captain isn't living in a grey zone.
ENT Main cast: Tucker, S1-3 / T'Pol, S4. The biggest shock for me in season four of Enterprise was the transformation of Tucker from brash, annoying hick to nuanced and sympathetic character. Mostly I love S4, which turned a forgettable show into legitimately great Trek, but the one casualty in the process in my view was T'Pol, who mostly stayed the same and who suffered by comparison. P.S.: It's a shame Mayweather and Sato weren't given more to do; I liked them both when they got a chance to stretch.
So am I the only one who thinks that Ezri was a better character than Jadzia?
The problem with Jadzia is that she doesn't have any growth in all six seasons. The only ''growth'' is a wedding with Worf when she put her ego aside with Sirela.
We never larned who was Jadzia without Dax. What was she like? Who were her parents? What was her motivation?
Then comes Ezri Tigan. Confused and complicated. A young counselor and Starfleet ensign who comes from a rich family. And we see her doubts, her insecurities, her growth. Then she is torn apart with her Ezri side and her Dax side. Worf doesn't accept her. She screws badly with Garak. But slowly she makes progress she helps Garak, makes peace with Worf gets confident and becomes an integral part of a DS9 crew.
After a while, you don't even remember that she is a replacement for Jadzia it feels like she was always here.
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He was such a good character until that stupid twist. A captain damaged by the brutality of the war. His methods are questionable but they are necessary for the time of war. Or are they? Clear signs of PTSD and the only thing that holds him together is Discovery. Plus a potential Section 31 agent.
Then new producers come in after Bryan Fuller - ohhh screw that plotline who cares about PTSD. We saw that with Picard, Sisko and Archer. Let's retcon him.
Twist revealed - he is a 2d cartoon villain. Like literally space Hitler without any good quality. How is that event the same character we were rooting for 10 episode?
He was a good character to the end. He was just not a good person. These things are not mutually exclusive.
I don't know where you got this information about the "new" producers changing the Lorca character but that is factually incorrect.
Jason Issacs took the part knowing the plot twist. He helped write the part. He specifically said he was trying to make him unredeemable. He was the one who added the cringe line about he galaxy that I won't repeat. Issacs did not want to commit to multiple years. So he took the part knowing he would be killed off at the end of season 1.
As for "new producers". Kurtzman was hired by Fuller. He co-created the show with him. He was in place before anyone was cast or anything was written. Kurtzman made changes but changing Lorca was not one of them. One of the changes Kurtzman made was asking the writers to write two low budget episodes because Fuller had blown a significant portion of the budget on re-doing the Klingon ship (which had no use beyond episode 2 because it was destroyed)
Sorry but "a captain damaged by the brutality of war, PTSD, Section 31" that was all in your head. He didnt turn out to be the character you were imagining. Thats not the writers fault. Hindsight is 20/20 but the signs of who he was are there from the very first time he appears on screen.
The fact that you were rooting for "space Hitler" is not the writers fault. He was space Hitler wrapped in package that made you comfortable. A package you like. You looked at him and said this character cannot possibly be evil. (even though every indication was there) Every time he did something bad you excused it.
Some have suggested its a writers troll. If it was, it is not good look for you.
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He is really annoying and over-exaggerated every single word he ever spoke!
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I can totally see that. I feel that way about Al Pacino. Worst over actor I’ve ever seen
Agreed! Although there were other characters that annoyed me, he annoyed me the most.
Ha! Perhaps not.
I'm not a huge fan of Rom - actually I kind of love the guy, but I feel like he only works in proximity to Quark, and whenever he's left to his own devices the 'bumbling goof' routine just grates on my nerves like you wouldn't believe. That's kind of the Ferengi as a while (Nog excepted, once he went Starfleet) - Moogie, Zek, great actors, and they do work a lot of the time, but only when they're bouncing off Quark, and it's his performance that anchors this idiot species in some kind of believability. Even Brunt, although so many of his scenes were directly opposite Quark that he usually came off well. I feel like the DS9 writer's room was (rightly) very proud of salvaging the Ferengi with Quark, but then went and overplayed their hand.
Wesley was... I mean I give him a pass in a lot of episodes, just because so much of his spotlight stuff is season one and two when everyone's a disaster, and he did have his good moments later on, like in 'Final Mission' and 'The First Duty'. But at the same time I didn't much care for 'The Game', and 'Journey's End' really kind of sabotaged the improvements they'd made to him earlier... I don't care much for him really.
T'Pol was just, I dunno, I didn't feel like anyone in Enterprise got off unscathed through the first couple of seasons, but T'Pol for me just seemed to kind of keep stumbling off into further dumbness even when the rest of the show started to right itself. Not a Jolene Blalock fan either. I give T'Pol a teensy bit of a pass just because all the Vulcans pre-season four were kind of hamfisted, so I feel like some of what I dislike about her isn't specifically her.
Harry Frelling Kim, though - I have to give it to Kim, despite Garret Wang's best efforts (alright let's be brutally honest, Garret Wang's serviceable efforts, but also Garret Wang's handsome handsome face), and 'The Chute', which if I was going to forgive Harry, it'd be because of that. Most other episodes that focused on him, he was this guy who's just terminally dull, full of one-note bad ideas about how he should behave, and somehow incapable of showing any sense that seven years in the Delta Quadrant have given him any education at all. And it's not like his character was fatally flawed in any way from the start, they could've done him well at any time, but just over and over again Harry Kim showing up was a sure sign of an episode where everything would've been better if someone else had just slapped him and taken over whatever he was doing. Without a doubt my least favourite character.
Except Chakotay. Frak Chakotay.
Honestly, put me in a ship with Harry Kim, Chakotay, and a phaser with one charge, and I'm shooting the warp core.
And yes, Neelix is always awful.
Season 1 T'Pol is kind of impossible to defend, but I will try. I think she was cast for reasons other than her acting chops (as evidenced by all the scenes of her barely wearing clothes in the decon chamber getting oiled up by various crew) and the writers/producers simply gave her character nothing redeeming to work with. Even then though, now that we know from later seasons that she actually had a lot of respect for the humans and that she was taking orders from people under the influence of Romulans trying to get the Vulcans to hold us back, I think a lot of her trepidation makes sense, and you can give her a C in season 1 as a result.
Season 2 is very similar to season 1, but she did show some growth. I was proud of her season 2 as she stood up to Archer but when left in charge did not do what you'd expect a Vulcan to do.
Seasons 3 and 4 on first glance she seems to be a bad character, but I actually feel the opposite, she was the most compelling character in the entire series. They did a lot of close up on her in incredibly stressful situations and unlike any Vulcan we've ever seen, she looks scared, anxious, uncertain, nervous, etc. We the audience just assume Jolene Blalock is being out-acted by everyone else in the scene, but I contend she is actually acting like a boss; T'Pol is an emotional wreck, under constant assault from really powerful emotions that she has no experience dealing with, under pressure to remain "Vulcan-like" in public, and has no idea how to process any of it. She was a complete mess internally and still managed to hold it together and be a crucial member of the crew.
On my second time through, I thought T'Pol was terrific.
The other observation I had the second time through was that the writers had no idea what to do with Mayweather, and IMO really missed out on utilizing him.
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Chakotay was soo poorly written and so often misused. He went from the roguish Maquis captain to Janeway's lapdog overnight. There was also the matter of the the show using a phony Native American consultant. I can fully understand why Beltran wants nothing to do with the role these days, Chakotay was so much wasted potential (kind of like Voyager). I will say I enjoyed the Chakotay-centered episode "Nemesis".
As far as Voyager is concerned, I think I disliked Neelix and Tuvok a lot more than Chakotay. Neelix got better as the show went on but early on he was terribly annoying and pretty creepy (his controlling "relationship" with a prepubescent Kes, for example). Tuvok is just boring. I really wish they had had the guts to kill them both off permanently and kept Tuvix.
Generally-speaking, I liked Enterprise, but it had so many poorly-written or misused characters. Mayweather wasn't used enough to be important and Reed was fairly one-dimensional but if I had to single out a single character I did not like then it was Trip. Reed and Mayweather could have gotten some development if the show had continued, but Trip got a lot of screen time and a lot of episodes and I can't say I liked many of them. He's sort of the 21st century-mindset kind of character, the one who needs to wrap his head around all these new cultures and ideas, but so often he comes across as the redneck in space. He seems to repeat the same closed-minded behaviour from the pilot all the way to the end of the series, despite multiple episodes revolving around him needing to open his mind to new ideas.
Amen. Jolene Blalock won’t be winning any acting awards but her style worked well with how her character was written, balancing on a knife edge between her Vulcan upbringing and constant exposure to humanity. For all of Spock’s issues with balancing the two halves of his being, he grew up with his human side and a human mother, learning at least a little about how to process/control emotional responses and deal with illogical humans - T’Pol was thrown in the deep end and had to figure things out on her own.
I don’t know who got robbed of successful writing more: Mayweather or Chakotay. At least they had potential to be great...something Harry Kim never seemed to have. I suppose the argument could be made that Chakotay made nice with Janeway because he knew deep down that everyone on the ship would be boned if they didn’t get along but it would have been nice to see that relationship develop a little more slowly.
Yar was meh, too one dimensional.
Reed, too stiff.
Mayweather, too...too...Mayweatherish.
And this is going to be very unpopular, but I could never connect with Geordi. I didn't dislike him, but didn't like him either. Just...came off whiny, sometimes.
I didn't like Bashir at first, but he grew on me.
I was fine with Neelix...don't see the reason for such vitriol.
Wesley was just a kid. Same for Jake.
I don't see how anyone could dislike the EMH Doctor - he was the best character on Voyager.
My 2 cents on the subject 😁
DS9: season 1 Bashir, everyone else is awesome
VOY: Neelix while Kes was still around. Borg children. Holodoc in later seasons. Janeway when she was used as an impulsive plot device by the writers.
TOS: well they're all a bit campy ;-)
ENT: Reed, Trip, Hoshi, Archer and Mayweather in seasons 1, 2 and 4.
DISC: Tilly
Oh yes I forgot Bashir. He didn’t seem like much of a doctor and was mostly just worried about scoring.
Such a great actress though.
But she has several strong points in her favor:
1. While true that she was out to get Data at first, by the end of season 2 she had completely come around, not only accepting Data as a sentient being but actually respecting him greatly. In other words, in a season that saw the show still trying to figure out what it wanted to be, Pulaski more than any other member of the cast that season demonstrated growth.
2. More than any other CMO other than Bones, she found a way to be interesting and involved in stories for reasons other than being CMO. She was a sounding board for lots of characters, and often even served as a pseudo-counselor for Diana!
3. She replaced Dr. Crusher. Sorry to bury the lead, but one of my favorite things about season 2 was the absence of Dr. Crusher, and Pulaski will always have my gratitude for sparing us a whole season of Dr. Crusher. Crusher is the worst CMO in all of Trek, both for being an unbearable medical paladin and for never, EVER deciding if she spoke with and American accent or that wispy, fake, ethereal-esque British accent, sometimes she'd go back and forth between the two mid-sentence!
But for me is has to be all of the DS9 Ferengi - especially Zek and Moogie. I hate watched every single Ferengi centric episode on that show. I will never watch them again. Just horrible.
Agreed. Zek and Moogie were annoying beyond belief. I realize that was the point of their characters but who wants to watch annoying on purpose?
Someone is a fan of both Farscape and Battlestar Galactica. I approve. If only Netflix still had Farscape, I would watch it again...
A number of people brought up Jake. I agree that he had issues, but I didn't really dislike him. I also have a soft spot for him, as "The Visitor" is one of my favorite ST episodes and it convinced me to try watching DS9 after I had seen part of the series as a kid (probably the earlier seasons, which are not as exciting as the Dominion War).
But yeah, echoing others in their dislike (or hatred) for Neelix and Wesley. Another character that stands out is Ezri. Maybe it's that she has to fill Jadzia's shoes in some respects (which the show makes very clear in her interactions with other characters), and that she shows up in season 7 when the war is in full swing and you don't have a ton of time for character episodes (ones where they clearly focus on the development of one character, like "The Inner Light" as a "Picard episode" or "The Pegasus" as a "Riker episode"). Her character has to develop solely in relation to everyone else, and most of those interactions for the first half of the season are comparing her to Jadzia, whom fans loved and they had just killed off. So not exactly fair, but I just don't really like her.
TNG : Pulaski. Damn I can't stand her. Considing what I read about her partly being an attempt to repeat McCoy / Spock with her and Data, that probably explains it. Also, if we had never seen a serious side to Lwaxana, she'd be on here too. But those serious bits were redeeming enough for me.
DS9 : Honestly, I find Kira kind of dull and annoying. Ezri too (not so much dull, but annoying). It's a tossup between them. I really don't think this was Nicole's fault though; the Jadzia role was a really enormous pair of shoes to fill. If she had been around longer, and wasn't a Dax, I think she would have been fine.
VOY : I like all of the main cast. For guests though, Seska and Culluh were annoying, both individually and together.
ENT : Haven't seen that much of it beyond the first two seasons, but I found it really hard to get passed the whole southern boy or country boy or whatever it was with Tucker. I really don't like how they wrote Vulcans as a society, but that's no fault of the actors' daily job at playing them. I do have to say Connor did a really good job on Stargate Atlantis though with getting you to sympathize to some degree with his character, despite him having some really evil ambitions and behaviors.
TNG Main cast: Wesley / Yar. TNG did finally manage to give Yar an epic sendoff, and I thought they figured young Crusher out more as the series went on. Both suffered from weak early scripting in my view and never quite recovered.
DS9 Main cast: early seasons Bashir/Dax. DS9 started out with a lot of TNG's lessons internalized, and had stronger characters early on with fascinating backstories. The exceptions to me were Bashir and Dax, both of whom had shallower stories, and the show took some time figuring them out. Bashir started off as almost stalker-ish and Dax was too often a blank slate.
VOY Main cast: Janeway. There are a lot of options here, with Chakotay and Kim and Neelix all getting justifiable comment in this thread. Janeway's the one who really got to me, though, because so much of the show's moral compass was calibrated to 'whatever she says is right.' I like Kate Mulgrew's portrayal, mostly, but I wish Voyager had had the guts to not just make Janeway fallible but call her out on that fallibility. Her and Sisko and Archer all take actions that are morally ambiguous, but Voyager is the only series of the three that pretends its captain isn't living in a grey zone.
ENT Main cast: Tucker, S1-3 / T'Pol, S4. The biggest shock for me in season four of Enterprise was the transformation of Tucker from brash, annoying hick to nuanced and sympathetic character. Mostly I love S4, which turned a forgettable show into legitimately great Trek, but the one casualty in the process in my view was T'Pol, who mostly stayed the same and who suffered by comparison. P.S.: It's a shame Mayweather and Sato weren't given more to do; I liked them both when they got a chance to stretch.
The problem with Jadzia is that she doesn't have any growth in all six seasons. The only ''growth'' is a wedding with Worf when she put her ego aside with Sirela.
We never larned who was Jadzia without Dax. What was she like? Who were her parents? What was her motivation?
Then comes Ezri Tigan. Confused and complicated. A young counselor and Starfleet ensign who comes from a rich family. And we see her doubts, her insecurities, her growth. Then she is torn apart with her Ezri side and her Dax side. Worf doesn't accept her. She screws badly with Garak. But slowly she makes progress she helps Garak, makes peace with Worf gets confident and becomes an integral part of a DS9 crew.
After a while, you don't even remember that she is a replacement for Jadzia it feels like she was always here.
Privileged to be Admiral of the Great Fleet
Dilithium Causes Cancer, maxed Starbase level 134
Featuring photonic flee free holodecks and
All you can drink Neelix's Even Better Than Coffee Substitute!
He was a good character to the end. He was just not a good person. These things are not mutually exclusive.
I don't know where you got this information about the "new" producers changing the Lorca character but that is factually incorrect.
Jason Issacs took the part knowing the plot twist. He helped write the part. He specifically said he was trying to make him unredeemable. He was the one who added the cringe line about he galaxy that I won't repeat. Issacs did not want to commit to multiple years. So he took the part knowing he would be killed off at the end of season 1.
As for "new producers". Kurtzman was hired by Fuller. He co-created the show with him. He was in place before anyone was cast or anything was written. Kurtzman made changes but changing Lorca was not one of them. One of the changes Kurtzman made was asking the writers to write two low budget episodes because Fuller had blown a significant portion of the budget on re-doing the Klingon ship (which had no use beyond episode 2 because it was destroyed)
Sorry but "a captain damaged by the brutality of war, PTSD, Section 31" that was all in your head. He didnt turn out to be the character you were imagining. Thats not the writers fault. Hindsight is 20/20 but the signs of who he was are there from the very first time he appears on screen.
The fact that you were rooting for "space Hitler" is not the writers fault. He was space Hitler wrapped in package that made you comfortable. A package you like. You looked at him and said this character cannot possibly be evil. (even though every indication was there) Every time he did something bad you excused it.
Some have suggested its a writers troll. If it was, it is not good look for you.