Want to feel old? It's been nearly 50 years since Star Trek originally hit the airwaves back in 1966. By this point, Gene Roddenberry's original space saga and its various spin-off series and films have proven Trek to be the most enduring and popular franchise in entertainment history...even with some notable missteps along the way. Whether you chalk it up to sycophantic fanboys or the allure of a future free from most of the societal ills, Trek has weathered more storms than a Maquis ship hiding in the Badlands during the past five decades.The most unforgivable of these screw-ups are characters that were either misguided ideas from the start or never given the chance to make an impact on their respective shows. So for today's Daily List, Topless Robot will be taking a look at the seven most useless characters in Star Trek's storied history.From annoying curmudgeons to crappy comic relief aliens, these are all folks who could be (and in some cases were) jettisoned from their shows without making any kind of impact on the space/time continuum. As always, your space mileage may vary, so be sure to mention your picks for the most dispensable characters in the comments.
7) Jake Sisko
As much as it pains me to say anything negative about Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the one character who never quite fulfilled his full potential was Jake Sisko. It would have been easy for the producers to have Jake be nothing more than a Wesley Crusher clone, but instead they chose for him to pursue a writing career instead of being Starfleet's latest boy genius. Unfortunately, when the Dominion War came to dominate the series' storylines, old Jake-O was lost in the shuffle while supporting characters like Nog, Garak, Gul Dukat, Weyoun, Damar and even hologram lounge singer Vic Fontaine found their screen time increasing. Even with Jake covering the war for the Federation's news service, he wasn't given much else to do other than stand around and react to the events surrounding him. Fortunately, the rare Jake-centric episodes -- most notably "The Visitor" -- focused on his relationship with his father. This aspect of the program was a welcome look at how family endures throughout time and space. Although Jake did get the shaft throughout DS9's run, the series ended with him and Kira staring off to the stars in a final shot that is still powerful all these years later.
6) Neelix
It's pretty much a Paramount mandate that at least one main character per Star Trek series has to play the role of an outsider who voices their thoughts on the human condition. Thus, the original series gave us Spock, Star Trek: The Next Generation had Data, Deep Space Nine featured Odo and Voyager offered up Neelix. Originally joining up with the ship's crew to help guide them through the Delta Quadrant, he began working as a cook and offering up advice/tiresome comic relief. But all of the leola root jokes in the universe couldn't change the fact that the Talaxian was a thorn in the sides of viewers who kept wondering when the hell Seven of Nine would saunter on screen again. With the Doctor also handling the specifics of someone on the outskirts of humanity looking in, the Neelix character was largely superfluous. Would the series have been dramatically impacted if he left the show when Kes did? I'll leave you to ponder that in the comments. Meanwhile, it should be noted that like most of his fellow cast members on Voyager, Ethan Phillips is a gifted actor who made the best of the uneven material he had to work with.
5) Kes
The main issue with Kes is that she was initially defined by her relationship with Neelix, himself not the most necessary character. When audiences didn't buy that a beautiful Ocampa (portrayed by Jennifer Lien, who deserved better) would shack up with an alien who resembled a ginger Mr. T stricken with chicken pox, it paralleled the concerns the show's producers were having about the romance. The couple was quickly broken up, a move which served to further weaken Kes' identity aboard Voyager. After four seasons, a few vocations and several haircuts that were all aimed at making the rudderless character interesting, Rick Berman and company finally put Kes out of her mystery with a bit of mystical mumbo jumbo that had her telekinetic powers taking her to another plane of existence. Or something. Kes, we hardly knew ye. Also, by watching this clip after the one from the previous entry you'd be forgiven if you thought that every episode of Voyager featured Tuvok nearly getting killed/nearly killing someone. If only the show was that cool...
4) Worf in Star Trek Insurrection
Poor Worf. After being transferred to Deep Space Nine and thrust into the excitement of the Dominion War and unprecedented character development he is forced to assist his former shipmates on a lifeless adventure about a bullshit Fountain of Youth planet. There's plenty of indignity to go around in Star Trek Insurrection (a film so atrocious that it makes Star Trek V look like The Wrath of Khan), but it's everyone's favorite Klingon who gets the worst treatment. Following a painful action scene in which he, Data and Picard inexplicably sing Gilbert and Sullivan, he is reduced to being comic relief because, wait for it, HE GETS A ZIT! You'd think an otherwise great character like Worf would have realized that there's no honor in pimple jokes. I hope at least Michael Dorn got one hell of a payday here.
3) Deanna Troi
For some reason the Internet is completely devoid of a supercut in which Deanna Troi says "I sense.." repeatedly. But even without the aid of such a video I'm guessing most of you are aware that a counselor isn't necessary aboard the largely conflict-free Enterprise. Sure, some of the ship's crew may need to talk about their fucked up childhoods or how creepy it was that Barclay made holographic doppelgangers of them. The real deal though? They make appointments with the counselor solely to see her in that jumpsuit. As evolved as folks are in the 24th century, no one is above some good old-fashioned eye candy.
2) Dr. Pulaski
When Gates McFadden left Star Trek: The Next Generation between the series' first and second season, the Enterprise suddenly found itself without a chief medical official. Her replacement was Dr. Katherine Pulaski, a pragmatic doc who was clearly molded after Dr. McCoy. But Diana Muldaur was no DeForest Kelley -- with whom she had worked with on an episode of the original Star Trek -- and Pulaski's personality was a mix of gruffness and sarcasm that never quite gelled. Throw in her weird space racism towards fan favorite Data, and it was clear pretty quickly that the character wasn't working out. Following the second season finale "Shades of Gray" (which had nothing to do with Riker's obvious S&M fetish), Pulaski quietly departed from the show. When the third season premiered, Dr. Crusher had returned and the character was hardly ever mentioned again. Which is exactly how it should be.
1) Everyone on Enterprise
If you count yourself amongst the ranks of the dozen or so fans of Enterprise in existence and consider this entry a cheap shot, remember that even the show's producers thought so little of it that they made the series' finale into aStar Trek: The Next Generationepisode. If that's not a vote of no confidence in the series and its utterly forgettable crew, I don't know what is. Those with faith of the heart are obviously entitled to disagree.
I enjoyed all of Star Trek except Deep Space 9 which became "old" and boring. I did not like Enterprise at all but muddled through it until it just about became interesting. I don't like Scott Bacullar from Quantum Leap and when Enterprise went off on their Zindi trip they lost me and I stopped watching it. I didn't care much for Kate Mullgrew at first but like Picard she grew on me and I was sorry to see the show end as I was in not seeing a full length movie of it. The series ended it with their return to earth. I am doubly sorry there is no more star trek. From the original series, the show hit upon things that make it an icon to TV
shows. The Non-Interferance directive, something that the US should take more than a passing glance at. We are too involved with controlling the world and someday that control may end. History has said so.
I wouldn't say the characters on Enterprise were useless... it was the writers. Towards the ends of the series and got a different writer, the show was much better. (Sadly, too little too late.)
I definitely agree with Dr. Pulaski, although I may have some bias considering how much I disliked her. I sort of agree about Troi; I think counselors are a good idea to have onboard (especially considering how many children they had running around who must have been traumatized at some point) but Troi's character was given next to nothing to do for the most part. Even in the episodes concentrating on her she mostly walked around in metaphors for her feelings or someone else's feelings. I think Wesley was given more to do, which is downright scary.
Actually, Worf was completely useless in all of the TNG movies except for First Contact.
ST: First Contact had Worf being....slightly useless. The only reason he wasn't completely wasted in that film was because he at least got a chance to go hand-to-hand slicing Borg drones to pieces.
well we both agree that it could fit with picard and worfs explanation its just that for the first episode of a new star trek series and a prequel at that to have klingons looking like they did in tng and not address it till halfway through season four just felt sloppy to me
to me it felt like they were trying to tie in more with tng than tos and that ending is just the worst example of that and to think it was described as a love letter to fans
True, but in her mind, Data was on a par with a really good lawnmower that had pips attached to its collar. The fact that it is a superior officer is a quirk of Starfleet's, not of her perception. Furthermore, from a medical standpoint, it has no chromosomes to define it as male or female, despite being "fully functional", so it is absolutely correct to refer to Data as "it".
I haven't read anything about it being a mistake, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm not sure how forehead ridges would fit into Broken Bow. The episode matched up with Picard's explanation of first contact with the Klingons. The Klingons saw what happened as a dishonor, and put the Federation on their shit list. Granted, most races were on it too. Also, the explanation was NOT a "quick way". It was a two episode story arc. It also fit with Worf's "We don't like to talk about it" since genetic manipulation embarrassed the empire.
the enterprise finale, was a tng episode because they were trying to tie up loose ends and thematically unite voyager, tng, ds9, and enterprise and end the universe as their was nothing slated to be a star treik continuation they were covering their bets. I wish it had been more abut the enterprise characters. I think the show was only improving each season and i would have loved to see it go to seven seasons. enterprise rules bakula is a great captain
also jake is a sisko support character he was never supposed to be the breakout star or go off into his own heroic storyline he's there to help frame sisko the star of the show.
well ill hold my hands up in that i was dead wrong about the dates on spock and his dad on that one i don't know how i thought that
my point still stands that the vulcans on enterprise were always condescending angry secretive and far too emotional it was just poorly done
i didn't say the writers were responsible for how the klingons looked but that they were the only ones to openly say yeah we as in the show enterprise messed up but we will fix it and if the explanation they gave along with the klingons hatred of archer it could have led to the klingon dislike of the federation and kind of matched somewhat up with picards explanation of first contact with the klingons going terribly wrong which i would have been fine with but it just felt like a quick way to wrap up their mistake and not deal with the aftermath of it
5pts
If you can only point to one episode that uses Neelix then you're practically making the list's point.
None of the characters are completely useless as they all did something. Even Harry Kim sat in the captain's chair and piloted the ship when the viewers were asleep. Oops, I meant crew, not viewers. Sorry. As a whole, though, their impact ranged from "meh" to yawn. Was there anything fantastically amazing about Neelix as a storyteller? Only in the sense that Ethan Phillips is a good actor (saddled with a bad part). Tuvok could have just as easily told the story. Or the Doctor. Tuvok is an example of a decent character that was criminally underused.
Neelix was just a bad idea from the beginning. A not-very alien who dressed like a Ferengi used car salesman, the character seemed to struggle finding a place, veering from source of information to chef, "morale officer" and babysitter. It's like nothing worked or stuck. Even his main purpose for being according to the list -- alien commenting on the human condition -- failed miserably, as he's probably the least "alien" alien ever, discounting the crimes against fashion. Can you name anything interesting about Talaxians? They're as boring as Harry Kim.
When did Neelix really matter? There were a handful of Neelix episodes, most of which were ruined by terribly written endings. His sendoff was probably his best episode, though it was ridiculous for a number of reasons and -- again -- it didn't really matter to the series. You could remove him completely, and apart from being a foil for Tuvok and being amusing as a Ferengi or a Klingon, you wouldn't miss anything.
They had to justify Whoopi's inclusion in the cast somehow. "Being able to scare Q despite never showing an ounce of any real power" wasn't enough.
I half-suspect it may have also been a subtle message to Marina about a perceived attitude problem.
To be fair, he did have some character development in TNG whenever they bothered to do episodes about his family history (adopted human, Klingon parents, half-human wife and child).
Nothing screams "what the hell reset" so loudly as uncovering an alien conspiracy in Starfleet, blowing the heads off high-ranking officers (graphically, on prime-time TV) in order to blast the little worms apart, too, and then utterly dropping that plotline when the new season starts.
That being said, I shall provide a corollary to the single biggest problem: the single shared reason why TNG and DS9 are the best loved of the modern series is that they did the best factoring in continuing consequences.
I never wanted to be on the bridge as ensign anyone, and I still loathed the character of Wesley Crusher. Not because the character was a morally bad person (he obviously wasn't--nor because I have some kind of hate for morally good characters), not because I had anything against Wil Wheaton at all, but because on one hand he epitomizes the "exploratory four-star hotel to the stars" concept that lent an underlying edge of teeth-gnashing on every episode; and yet on the other hand he's so specially competent and privileged that he undermines the concept he's supposed to represent of the crew being able to have normal family life while serving on the Enterprise.
I may not have thought much of Jake Sisko, but despite being the son of the commanding officer he fit the in-story point to having such a character better. At most he's a one-hit wonder novelist (whose brain had to be sucked dry by an inspirational succubus just to get that one hit), not an omnicompetent "WE WIN" button for pulling the plot through a crisis. And DS9's rough-and-tumble Old West frontier outpost concept added grit to the presence of children in the story: this was inherently an unsafe place for them, yet there are obvious parallels in human history we can relate to, because real frontier towns also had children despite being unsafe for them. Everyone just had to gut up and make do the best they could. On TNG, they routinely take children into horrifying danger as an actual damned CHOICE AND MISSION PROFILE!!--when really a floating hotel with families should have been a techy ambassadorial showpiece for the Federation (which the Enterprise did serve as, too, of course) and nothing more.
Peter David, as usual, did some amazing things with her in a non-canon novel: turns out, her people are the ones who created the Doomsday Machine from TOS, specifically in order to fight the Borg.
"No Star Trek series has what I would call a good first or second season"
Wait, wahhht?? TOS only had three seasons, and many people regard the third as being the weakest (though with some great eps of its own). Granted, there were weak eps in seasons 1 and 2, but how could those seasons not be called "good" on balance??
Thank you. Way too many people blame bad performances on the actors...but guess what? When you have a show FULL of what seems like bad actors, it's usually just a bad director.
Deep Space Nine was more the show that bucked the formula. Enterprise was full of boring characters that were hard to care about; the most egregious flaw in the show was that the crew members would repeatedly make decisions or act in ways that conflicted with their established character. I think Captain Archer was the worst about that. One moment it's, "We need to respect other cultures and learn from them" and the next it was, "Why are they doing that?! They should be more like us!" And it wasn't character development either, because he would flip-flop back and forth....a serious waste of Scott Bakula.
5pts
Hey! I kinda liked Greg the Bunny.
And you can definitely see how Seth Green developed the humor for what would later become Robot Chicken. GTB was a staple of fox comedy in the early aughts, along with Titus and Andy Richter controls the universe.
5pts
I think they did a pretty decent job of making enterprise look like a submarine, on the whole. Granted the bridge was a bit spacious for that aesthetic, but that may have just been a concession to the fact that no audience wants to watch claustrophobia for an hour.
I have to agree with 'Me' above (not myself, but the gentleman/lady with the username me). Enterprise was a decent trek series, but by the time it aired ST had been on TV for nearly 2 decades continuously. There was no way they could keep even a low level of Star Trek 'feel' and have it not be utterly derivative of all the other series.
It suffered from fan burnout, most definitely.
'Under or Miss' Utilized would have been a better term than useless. I am currently watching ST:VOY after watching TNG, TOS, TAS, and DS9 over the last few weeks. ENT is next on the list.
In "Haunting of Deck 12" Neelix is useful in telling a ghost story. In between the first episode and this episode, there have not been very many good episodes so at times, useless seemed to apply. But at other times, there were just bad stories.
In conclusion, bad stories do not make useless characters.
You know what, Chakotay should be number one with a bullet on this list. Never before has there been a more bland, flavorless and utterly useless character on any Trek series. Seriously, his absence would have affected the show not one bit.
At least the annoying Neelix kind of had a personality. You at least knew he was there.
5pts
Good god, that Barclay transporter episode was the pits. It was a terrible, poorly thought out addition to his character to make him suddenly afraid of transporters.
Especially since he was a friggin' engineer. At least McCoy and Pulaski were doctors. One could make the case for their valuing of the sanctity of the body.
5pts
Doctors are not line officers. Therefore, Data, as second officer, is Pulaski's superior, despite Pulaski holding a commander's rank. Pulaski could only order around members of the medical staff who worked directly for her. (and, in rare cases, could the captain orders when it involved his personal medical safety and whatnot.)
TNG in particular tried to give the characters a little more to do, so they created the "Bridge officer" hookum (thereby slotting them somewhere vaguely in the chain of command) to allow Beverly to take command of the ship (as in Descent) and have Troi apply for the same privileges in "Thine Own Self."
Not based on military reality, but it made for decent enough drama.
A bit unfair on Enterprise- although the characters were generally weak I thought that Archer at least was an engaging hero and Phlox provided great entertainment as a wonderfully weird alien aspect. I'm still heartbroken that Trip was 'killed' in the finale and his revenge arc concerning his sister at least provided an unusually emotional angle for a trek storyline. But the rest, yeah, they were weak.
Back when it happened I asked no one in particular "What imbecile replaced Crusher with Pulaski?!" According to a book on TNG I read a few years later it was Roddenberry, who whatever his flaws I wouldn't call an imbecile. According to that book he wanted to recreate the Spock/Bones dynamic but realized it didn't work that way with Data.
Of course that was the official version. Googling I'm getting different stories about why McFadden was fired, none regarding sexual harassment though I wouldn't be surprised. TrekMovie & Ask say she was fired because Maurice Hurley didn't like her (TrekMovie says he had a real bone to pick" with her, maybe she wouldn't pick his bone was the problem), then Berman brought her back after Hurley left. The Straight Dope boards note she did All My Children during her absence, but was pissed they said she wanted to pursue other interests as she didn't really want to leave and just wanted some accomadation for her pregnancy and other projects. Memory Alpha says unofficially she had disagreements over character development, with a letter writing campaign helping her return. Whatever the case several sources show yet another reason why Patrick Stewart is awesome, as it was apparently a call from him that convinced McFadden to accept the offer to return.
Finally, I'll note re: Pulaski I can only stand her in Elementary, Dear Data because of her chemistry with Moriarty and Geordi standing up for Data, which actually produces that desired Spock/Bones dynamic.
You have a valid point and there is precedent (i.e Geordi being in command in The Arsenal of Freedom, ordering the Chief Engineering Officer). However, my point still stands regarding Picard's reprimand as there is precedence there as well. In Balance of Terror Kirk did pretty much the same thing to Stiles when he implied Spock was a Romulan spy. Verbal reprimands are sometimes enough, but both captains had their own way of doing things.
Okay, granted, me elaborating that point is likely wash down the bad taste out of my mouth of admitting I was wrong. :)
I just watched that episode. Either Cox, Sisko's Maquis Captain Friend, or O'Brien's Captain that did not like the Cardassians would have all been good choices in that role on Voyager
Keep in mind part of why he has a big fan base and much visited blog is because he pretty much agrees with the fans about the character. That said Wesley was only really annoying the first season, after that he's tolerable.
Your loss, since except for the Pulaski-love he's the best writer the Trek TV series never had - if every novel had been written by him or Diane Duane I wouldn't have given them up back in the 90's after I discovered the Doctor Who New Adventures. His comic book work is even better, especially Young Justice and X-Factor (on the latter he's like the anti-Claremont - returned after a decade and hadn't lost it.)
Edit To Add: Unless you were being sarcastic in which case ignore and we'll agree to disagree.
I thought they gave her quite a bit of development (no that's not a pun) when they tracked down who she really was. There were a few episodes when they actually gave her some spotlight that didn't revolve around her looks.
Meh. Seven of Nine was a one note character who never developed past that stilted delivery they made her give her every line of dialog. You can argue "You can take the girl out of the Borg, but you can't take the Borg out of the girl" all you want, but that's never going to be dramatically interesting. Or you could just admit that you're memories of the character are tinted by your admiration for Jeri Ryan's body in a shiny catsuit.
Spock's dad was born in 2165, which is about 10 years AFTER the Enterprise episode. Spock wasn't even born until the 2200s, since his mom was still alive in TOS. So, I seriously question your trek lore. How can writers admit to making a mistake about how Klingons look when they have NOTHING to do with the producers and make up design? They just write "the Klingon landed", they don't go "Oh btw, he has forehead ridges". You don't think with the amount of nerds they have on set that somebody would say something? The episode explained it well, and backs up Worf's line.
I really hated all the Xindi = 9/11 nonsense. I don't watch Science Fiction to hear more propaganda from the Bush Cabal. That whole arc ruined an already questionable show. Scott Bakula could have done so much better (we saw him do magic on Quantum Leap) It got to the point where the only interesting characters were Phlox and Malcolm. I've been a Trekker for 40 years and I finally just gave up on Enterprise.
