Most Shafted Star Trek Side Characters

[Alelou]

Are there people who actually like Kelby? Talk about a thankless role.

There's a whole web site devoted to Rostov somewhere.

[thecursor]

Well that's because Rostov is fucking bitchin'. Duh.

I like Kelby, I really do. They should give his own series: Second Best. Where this guy is frustrated by his Vulcan-Loving super boss who makes him look incompetant. Then he comes home to his evil, green girlfriend as she secretly plots to take over the universe by sleeping with random guys.

[justTripn]

Sometimes I wonder if they were simply afraid to give a black guy enough edge (too scary from a PC point of view). So he ended up terminally bland and no fun to write.

That is our theory over here. Although, my husband did like Sisko. My husband, who is black, took it personally that Jordi was so unlucky in love. He was always shouting at the writers as we watched TV.

By the way, TheCursor, and Elessar. Great lists of shafted characters! I have nothing to add to that!

[justTripn]

Oh the adopted Borg child was Echep. I know because shafted characters often turn up in Strange New Worlds fanfic. I think that's how I know. Yeah, I liked him.

[CoffeeCat]

spelled 'Icheb" actually. - That character always annoyed me - it was like Wesley Crusher all over again.

[CX]

What about Hess? She kept being mentioned as Trip's second, but she was never seen, not once. Then this Kelby character comes in and she's completely forgotten. Pfft! Talk about a thankless job!

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Actually Hess was only mentioned once (forget which episode now). It's only in fanfic that she's been used regularly.

[thecursor]

It would still be nice if she got a face to go with the name. Man it seems EVERYBODY was more qualified then Kelby.

I just realized the two guys who most deserve more coverage:

Robert T. April: The possibly non-canon but still cool predecessor to Pike and Kirk, April may or may not have been the guy to run the Enterprise after Archer. We won't know because Berman never covered it.

Captain Harriman: Poor guy, Kirk shows up on your ship the day it takes off and what happens? The coolest man in Starfleet dies on your watch! This is the guy who went down in history as the Enterprise Captain who left port without Weapons or a Medical team. Nice work dude, way to look like a chump in front of Kirk.

[CX]

Harriman was a classic example of someone being made to look incompetent in order to make another character look better by comparison.

[Lady Rainbow]

It would still be nice if she got a face to go with the name. Man it seems EVERYBODY was more qualified then Kelby.

I just realized the two guys who most deserve more coverage:

Robert T. April: The possibly non-canon but still cool predecessor to Pike and Kirk, April may or may not have been the guy to run the Enterprise after Archer. We won't know because Berman never covered it.

Yeah, he's mentioned in TAS, but that's about it. I actually used him in one of my fanfics as the guy who's the Enterprise captain between Archer and Pike.

Captain Harriman: Poor guy, Kirk shows up on your ship the day it takes off and what happens? The coolest man in Starfleet dies on your watch! This is the guy who went down in history as the Enterprise Captain who left port without Weapons or a Medical team. Nice work dude, way to look like a chump in front of Kirk.

He was portrayed so badly that someone---I forget where I've heard this---suggested Harriman got his captaincy because of politics, not competence.

[thecursor]

He was portrayed so badly that someone---I forget where I've heard this---suggested Harriman got his captaincy because of politics, not competence.

I could see that, I know there was a book or two where he and his crew sort of redeemed themselves in the eyes of Starfleet. Either way, man was the captain of a ship named Enterprise, could've of sucked that much.

[JadziaKathryn]

My husband, who is black, took it personally that Jordi was so unlucky in love. He was always shouting at the writers as we watched TV.

I thought that was because they were trying to decide his sexual orientation.

[Eian Flannagan]

Lon Suder.

Who? You might ask.

This badass Betazoid Maquis from Voyager who should've gotten HIS OWN SHOW.

How often does Star Trek portray a freakin serial killer whose motives don't fit some kind of cookie cutter Jungian archetype that a 4-yr old could identify? How often is he asked, only after beginning to control his murderous impulses, to HARNESS and EXERCISE those impulses to save the ship at the cost of himself, and our moral cleanliness? Guy had such a hoss violence in him, even Tuvok couldn't hang around him without becoming violent. Yet, it was like a Buddha violence. He'd recite a poem to you in that smooooth, freaky voice and then sever your arms from your body with a hacksaw made of saved up fingernails.

I agree completely. Lon Suder as a precursor to Heath Ledger's Joker? The character had fantastic potential.

Here are my picks:

1. Species 8472, so cool they live in fluidic space and just pop in to normal space willy-nilly, whenever they want, to pick off a Cube or two! They were defeating the freaking Borg! Instead of a battle for galactic dominance, they were driven back into fluidic space only to be brought up again one other time in a wooden, Chakotay-laden episode where they end up playing patty-cake.

2. One, the wonder-Borg with 29th century technology and Seven of Nine's nanoprobes! Do I really need to add anything else here?

3. Saavik. This one chaps me. The character appears in THREE motion pictures and all Hollywood really used her for is to boink Spock a couple times in his Genesis planet-accelerated Pon Farrs. Later novels fleshed her character out, but she was basically ignored on screen. Starfleet's first Vulcan/Romulan hybrid? What a waste of potential.

....and Robin Curtis was hot.


Eian

[thecursor]

3. Saavik. This one chaps me. The character appears in THREE motion pictures and all Hollywood really used her for is to boink Spock a couple times in his Genesis planet-accelerated Pon Farrs. Later novels fleshed her character out, but she was basically ignored on screen. Starfleet's first Vulcan/Romulan hybrid? What a waste of potential.

She also almost dated Kirk's son, which would've continued the Kirk family legacy of smooching hot aliens.

[evcake]

Instead of which, in the novels at least, she ends up marrying Spock.
Kind of a formidable age difference there, I would have thought, even accounting for species.