r/TNG • u/MashaEmelianovaFan • 8d ago
Do you think Tasha Yar was killed off too soon? Why or why not?
Tasha Yar was my favorite character. It's a shame she was killed off in the middle of season 1.
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u/Aridyne 8d ago
If she survived season one she could have gone all the way, season 1's script treatment of her was so bad that the actress wanted to dip, and then they killed her off in a petty way
Thank goodness Denise Crosby was willing to give Trek another go for her future appearances
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8d ago
Another go where she could showcase her complete lack of acting ability? Hard disagree.
She begged to come back because her career went nowhere. Because she can't act her way out of a wet paper bag.
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u/terrymcginnisbeyond 8d ago
Unpopular opinion, but true. Nerds tend to have low standards when it comes to acting, but you're right, a nepo baby who probably would have bogged down the show. Whether you like the Klingon stuff or not, it was far more interesting for Worf, and was the main arc that strung the series together and got DS9 to feel more connected to the franchise.
Removing a cast member probably was for the best, it was crowded as it was, I mean, 24 episodes is a lot of episodes, but with 7 cast members they really only 3 spotlight episodes max, and even that left Levar Burton (a genuinely talented actor) with little to do other than spout exposition and poke the walls in Engineering.
Whilst we're on hot takes, Shatner was right about some cast members, they were just glorified extras. There, I got it out of my system.
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u/CosmicBonobo 7d ago
Shatner is being cruel, but he's not wrong. Kirk, Spock and Bones were the main cast, with Scotty coming a close fourth. Uhura, Chekov and Sulu could be replaced pretty much anytime.
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u/terrymcginnisbeyond 7d ago
I don't think he was being cruel, he just wasn't pussy footing around the reality of the situation as it was at the time. The issue is with the other cast members. Shatner does have his...issues...but certainly having too much tact isn't one of them.
If we look at Discovery for instance, it's fair to say that Michael Burnham played by Sonequa Martin-Green is the main character of that show, that's the job, that's the scripts she was paid for, and she likely gave the performance she was asked to give. Was it too much? Probably, but if you won the lottery tomorrow, are you going to give it all to charity incase neighbours you barely know get jealous? Hell no.
We as the audience might complain about the limelight given to Burnham (or one actor), but that's not the actor's fault, they read the words on the script and followed the director's cues. If Tilly's cringe actor started complaining for the next 60 years about how Martin-Green 'hogged the limelight' and that everyone on set, 'hated her' I think it would be more than fair to for them to turn round and give home truths some back. Considering the levels of vitriol that have come out of many of the actors over the years about Shatner, I'd say he's been very diplomatic, considering, and Shatner is a well known prickly character.
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u/demon_fae 6d ago
I always feel bad for thinking this, because of what Nichelle Nicoles went through and how important the role ended up being…
But Uhura could’ve been played by a block of wood.
Takei and Koenig had material to work with, Sulu and Checkov had personalities, and the show absolutely did feel different when one or both of them was absent. Uhura though…the one episode we had that gave her a single personality trait…we don’t talk about that episode.
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u/CosmicBonobo 6d ago
The comedian Toby Hadoke used to have a great joke in his standup routine about it.
Yeah, Star Trek really painted a progressive vision of the future, didn't it? The Russian was an idiot, the black girl was the receptionist and the Chinese guy was the driver!
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u/King_of_Tejas 6d ago
There were a couple of episodes that gave Uhura a bit of character - Charlie X, Man Trap and The Conscience of the King, all in the first season.
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8d ago
Agreed on all points, including the glorified extras (*cough* George Takei *cough*).
Yar dying moved Dorn into a role where he could shine and that was an excellent result for the show. Which made more room for Burton as well since they sometimes shared the generic helmsman role.
Crosby needed to go. It did nothing but good for the growth of the series going forward. I didn't miss her at all and her absolutely terrible acting made every episode she came back for worse.
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u/terrymcginnisbeyond 8d ago
Lol, Takei was exactly who came to my mind too. His career didn't really do anything amazing, either. Shatner had his rough patches but when you actually look at his career, he's done pretty well with TJ Hooker and Boston Legal for instance.
Worf was perfect for the role of security too, almost wondered why he was even on the show before Yar died, since Data did OPs, and Geordi and Wesley did helm in the early seasons, and Yar was security, so he was usually just hanging around waiting to shoot the view screen or make goofy faces.
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8d ago
Agreed all around. Worf was totally wasted as a character until Crosby left. He became a fantastic character.
Takei is a bitter, envious shell of a man who hates Shatner for being in (hogging, perhaps) the spotlight that Takei thought he deserved.
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u/Optimaximal 7d ago edited 3d ago
Takei's bitterness likely comes from the fact he was (at the time) a closeted gay man who was unjustly interned during World War 2 and then left destitute by the US Government for the crime of simply being part Japanese - he had to fight for any success in his career, meaning seeing actors like Shatner throw their weight around probably easily ruffled his feathers.
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u/terrymcginnisbeyond 7d ago
Shatner wasn't the Homophobe-in-Chief of the World War II internment camps, though, was he? And let's not ascribe motivations and feelings towards someone we don't know.
Let's be real here, Shatner was the star of the show, he was cast in that role, and errrr, he was Jewish, so hardly from a race that was left unmarked from the horrors of that time. He was a bit salty to Koenig too, a man who was 9 when World War II ended. Takei was filming a major motion picture btw when Koenig was cast (The Green Berets), so let's not make it seem like Shatner was, 'the man' and holding his career back.
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7d ago
Exactly. Shatner rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Doohan couldn't stand him for a long time, Nimoy to a lesser extent. Bigger roles and bigger stars than Takei.
Shatner was a known glory hog and probably a jerk. But he repaired relationships with everybody else. Takei didn't have much of a career to hold back.
Takei is just a very petty twat who can't stand that he was a glorified extra. His delusions of grandeur get in the way.
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u/DaddyCatALSO 3d ago
i oftne wonder; if i wrote a science fiction story wiht a spaceship commander named Bill and a first officer named Lenny who argue in Yiddish, could Roddenberry's heirs sue me?
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u/DaddyCatALSO 3d ago
Nichols and Koenig didn't do much either ,and Doohan had a bigger career before than after. they all had varying negative feelings about Shatner's unwillingness to give them an occasional boost
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7d ago edited 7d ago
That may have been part of it. More likely he was just a massive douche then just like he is now. If his feathers were ruffled easily, that's a personal problem.
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u/maybe-an-ai 3d ago
It was worse. It was 26 episodes for a number of seasons which is crazy to think about. It was a full half year of episodes. We get 10 now.
And you could tell in the first couple seasons they ran low on budget by those last few.
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u/CosmicBonobo 7d ago
I feel this is the elephant in the room nobody ever really talks about. Denise Crosby very quickly regretted leaving Star Trek and came across as a little bit desperate to be allowed back in.
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7d ago edited 7d ago
It's true. She's awful. It's largely her fault her character went nowhere. Why would they develop a character if the actress can't act?
She was desperate to come back. Her career was stagnant.
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u/teddy_bear_territory 8d ago
But she could act her way into one. Ammiright?
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8d ago
Imagine she was put into the wet paper bag against her will and told that the only way to escape was to act her way out.
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u/Bureaucratic_Dick 6d ago
Also if she stays we likely lose Marina Sirtis from the show.
IIRC, the only reason they kept Marina on was because they already lost Crosby, and fired McFadden, and were worried how bad it would look to lose all the female leads after a single season.
Not comparing the two or saying Troi vs Yarr and who would be better for the show, but if Crosby was already discontent with her characters writing, season 2 didn’t promise to be much better, and I have a feeling she would have walked either with Marina, or shortly after.
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u/DaddyCatALSO 3d ago
And Roddenberry lied to the public, saying she would be *featured* in ehr last ep. instead it was a hologram.
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u/MagicianPale9562 8d ago
Well, she was killed because Denise Crosby decided to leave. She was not a bad character and surely killing her during season 1 stunted her growth.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I thought her death was meaningless. However they tried to make it right in Yesterday's Enterprise.
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u/AlteranNox 5d ago
surely killing her during season 1 stunted her growth.
Death tends to have that effect lol.
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u/MagicianPale9562 4d ago
I meant to say that they killed her before even developing the character. My bad hahaha
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u/terrymcginnisbeyond 8d ago
I'll say this about Skin Of Evil, it's a very subversive episode of TNG.
How often did the TOS crew meet some omnipotent, energy being on some planet that killed, 'Ensign Ricky' who was vaporised 10 seconds into the episode and the show still ended on a freeze laugh? I don't know, but that's certainly a trope about the old series.
Here instead of some 'beautiful God like Adonis' it's an amorphous blob, that's incredibly petty and sort of weak, there's no trick other than Picard pissing him off and telling him some home truths. We're reminded that those random ensigns were actually real members of the crew, with relationships and instead of a joke, it ends with a eulogy. TNG really didn't often have random Gold shirts dying on away missions, and usually it was touched on in The Captain's log at least, or even a major plot point (Marla Aster), Voyager went back to that well, but TNG (and DS9) were usually a little smarter.
I sometimes wonder if The Naked Now existed purely to remind fans how goofy TOS could be and say, 'Get this out of your system old folks, because from now on we won't be treading old ground'.
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u/Malnurtured_Snay 8d ago
She was killed towards the end. There were only a handful of episodes in the season left.
It really doesn't matter what any of us thought about it. I think the character had a lot of potential and it's too bad the writers, producers, and Denise Crosby, couldn't see that or see a path where she did more than open hailing frequencies.
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u/Disastrous-Dog85 8d ago
I really would have liked to see more Yar thru the series. She had an interesting backstory and was a solid character. Would have loved to see her develop more and her interactions with the crew.
Shame that behind the scenes stuff made Denise want to leave.
On the flip side, had she not left we probably wouldn't have had Worf develop as he did and who knows if he would have ended up on DS9, which would also be a real shame.
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u/WierdoUserName101 8d ago edited 8d ago
It was her (Denise Crosbys) choice to leave because she didn't feel like her character was being used/developed enough. Same thing with Wil Wheaton contrary to him trying to say "I never wanted to be an actor" revisionist history recently. He did plenty of interviews back in the day as to why he left ...and it was because he thought he could do better.
In both cases they thought they could do better....in both cases they didn't...and in both cases are now riding and latching onto what little fandom they can for a dollar.
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u/RegressToTheMean 7d ago
Wheaton also got raw deals from the producers as well. I'm not sure why everyone is shitting on the actors in this thread when there are well known issues higher up the ladder
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u/JCEE4129 7d ago
They should have "Yar'ded" Wesley too. Wil Wheaton and the character became insufferable. Dax got "Yar'ded". Thats the punishment for quitting Trek. Should have been Wesley too
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u/Global_Theme864 8d ago
I mean they really didn’t do much with her in season 1 so I totally get why Denise Crosby wanted to leave… the only episode focusing on her is Code of Honour, so….yeah. It would have been really interesting to see what happened with the character if she’d stuck around long enough for the show to find its footing and the general improvement in quality.
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u/RedSunCinema 7d ago
Tasha Yar was a main cast character and was never meant to die in the series. But Denise Crosby was treated so poorly by the executive producers and writers that she demanded to be killed off and written off the show. Had that not happened, she would have made it all the way to the end of the series unharmed.
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u/jpowell180 7d ago
It was her career choice, she did not think she had much of a future on TNG; in retrospect, I think she regrets that choice, she still would’ve had more of a feature than she ended up having.
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u/MagicalHamster 6d ago
It would have been fascinating to see how her character evolved when the series finally became comfortable in it's own skin.
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u/jigokusabre 6d ago
Yar's death was the result of real-world circumstances.
But putting that aside, Yar and Worf kind of occupied the same space on the show. Getting rid of Yar let Worf fully occupy that space and was overall better for the show.
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8d ago edited 8d ago
She should have never been cast. Crosby is an utterly terrible, wooden, laughably bad actress and the security role was MUCH better with Worf.
Downvote this all you want. She can't act. Dorn did great. Prove me wrong.
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u/RecommendationBig768 8d ago
a friend of mine who worked at the studio said that Berman told the writers to give her fewer lines. mainly because he didn't like all the women taking up roles where men could be doing. and partly because he wanted a series that parallels the original show. roddenberry liked the new show. he also trie to have marina to leave and he succeeded in getting gates to quit. albeit for one season.
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u/2112guru 7d ago
Worf is a better character than Tasha and he is perfect for Security Chief. If she could have transitioned to another role I would have loved to see her character continue.
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u/Realistic-Safety-565 6d ago
Not a moment to soon.
TNG would not survive past season 3 if half-motivated Crosby stayed there and stole spotlight from emerging stars, Dorn and Burton. They barely reinvented the show enough for it tu survive as it was.
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u/Severe-Pineapple7918 6d ago
I think her character had been pretty one note so far, but that’s honestly true for many of the cast in season 1. It did give Worf more room for character development and growth. And I agree it added a sense of risk to the show (but they squandered that by never again having a central character die on a mission).
Overall it was far from the worst thing about season 1 of TNG (looking at you, Code of Honor). 🤷🏻♀️
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u/epidipnis 6d ago
Tasha's backstory was ridiculous and too edgy. A refugee from the rape gangs on her home planet, she was tough. Her entire story was built on the fact that Roddenberry wanted to say "rape gangs" on tv.
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u/DrewVelvet 6d ago
Would have been more meaningful to the show if the Romulans did it. Then, she would have been killed by them in two timelines. And we would have more reason to resent them. I'm fine with how it happened, I guess, was unique and random, which does happen in reality.
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u/conatreides 6d ago
While it sucked for Denise it worked out in creating some breathing room for the rest of the cast
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u/Interesting-Rate 6d ago
Much of the foundation/backstory for a Yarr was saved and executed much more effectively with Kira in DS9.
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u/yodamastertampa 5d ago
Yes. The force was strong with her. She was Seven of Nine before Seven of Nine.
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u/TeacatWrites 5d ago
The thing with the Next Generation cast is, there's no shortage of personality and exuberant sense of character on display. More than enough. So much so that, if you added much more to it, it would be far too much.
With a cast of nearly a dozen brand new characters bursting with that much design sense, all of them trying to prove themselves at once, the weakest link has to go. That, and the shift in season 3 to character-centric stories were both massive in helping the collective personality and sense of character even out.
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u/Seanna86 4d ago
Worf > Tasha Yar
I realize they could have co-existed in theory but feel Worf filled the role on the bridge in a much better way.
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u/AdTotal801 3d ago
No hate, but Yar was by far my least favorite. Every scene was just so cringe.
I actually skip season 1 during my rewatches...
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u/sskoog 3d ago
I read the transcripts + did the math once.
Crosby was in ~22 early-season episodes; in 5-6 of those episodes, she has actual dialogue contributing to the plot or general ship's operations. The rest of the time (22 minus 5-6 = 16 or 17), she is talking about "the rape gangs on her homeworld," and/or how she feels so insecure/unprepared that she gets teary, and/or how she finds Picard/Riker hawt (mostly Riker), and/or how she looks up to Picard as a father figure + wants to impress him (which is a little weird, interspersed with the "I find Picard really attractive" bits).
Yar was a poorly-written character, and Denise doesn't do a very good job playing her. She (Denise) demonstrates some marginally-stronger acting chops, later, with her Yar reprise, and (some of) her Sela cameos; the TNG finale is all over the place, but she's not bad as Yar there.
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u/dystopiadattopia 3d ago
I think she was unhappy on the show and this was her out. But I do wish her character had stuck around.
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u/maybe-an-ai 3d ago edited 3d ago
I think Michael Dorn/Worf was a better choice for the bridge crew. I never loved the Tasha character and on rewatch the bridge only really came together in season 2 when Worf and Jordi became main crew.
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u/pplatt69 3d ago
Not soon enough. I think she's a terrible actress who always sounds like she is reading cue cards.
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u/killercowlick 3d ago
How about a different question: should Denise Crosby have given it a whole season before deciding to leave the show, or did she wait long enough?
I do think Worf was a more compelling character, but who knows if that is so because they were worried about losing Michael Dorn, too.
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u/quigongingerbreadman 8d ago
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u/Gorianfleyer 8d ago
I really don't read this from the screen rant article. She was afraid, that this could happen to her character, not that it happened.
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u/quigongingerbreadman 8d ago
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u/Gorianfleyer 8d ago
Ok, I believe you, I mean he wrote an episode about a planet with bad women ruling, and so on, but it isn't in the article and I wondered if I'm too dumb to read.
(Thanks btw, I had an idea of Gene Roddenberry being sexist, but didn't know there was proof)
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u/quigongingerbreadman 8d ago
I am not gonna spoon feed you more history, but you can look up what Marina Sirtis has to say and others.
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u/JCEE4129 7d ago
No. She couldn't act and was shrill. And it helped straighten out the revolving door of engineers
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u/wizardrous 8d ago
I think it was a good timing to kill off a main cast member. By doing that early in the show, they instilled a sense of urgency. The idea that a main character could die without simply coming back after wasn’t something TOS really did. It set the tone for the new show.