If Tasha Yar stayed on the show, what do you think would have happened? How would she have been written?
If Tasha Yar stayed on the show, what do you think would have happened? How would she have been written?
The show really started to hit its stride S3 and everyone was written differently.
Maybe it's hindsight seeing Worf in her position for all those years, but between the two of them, one of them would go eventually. They essentially played the same character; rough, kick ass, etc... Except one came with a Klingon backstory and one came with a tragic rape-planet backstory.
I don't think (other than fucking data), there's a single plot that they could give to Yar that they couldn't also believably give to Worf from an emotional story perspective. They're essentially the same character.
I dunno, having Yar's baby momma show up and drop off a kid would have been a challenge to write in the late 80s / early 90s.
Easy, baby daddy show up and drops off kid, add rape trauma or scifi mind wipe If you are squeemish. Also, and this is important, the father had a sex change operation and was the raped herself. Now she advocates for all rapists being raped since it worked on her. The crew debates whether they should stop the raping because it's internal policing.
That's numberwang! (rape)
It certainly would have been interesting to see what they did with her over time. I have my doubts that she ever would have become a very deep character, but I'm sure she would have had some decent episodes.
At the very least, they could have done more to explore her background in a more fulfilling way than they did with the episode featuring her sister.
I have my doubts that she ever would have become a very deep character, but I’m sure she would have had some decent episodes.
so do i. between the other characters, the writers seemed to struggle to have enough bandwidth each week to develop the show's secondary characters in the show's one-off format. it wasn't until DS9's more serialized format that even side characters like Zeyal and Rom began taking on more depth and texture. since TNG writers had to spend time developing a whole new story each week, there was less time to spend on character development and interpersonal drama. DS9, often being serialized, could lean on bringing in story elements from previous episodes and then focus more of the writing on character development and drama.
Denise Crosby has great talent as a villain. Just look at how she jumped off the screen as Sela. After seeing where the writers went with Ro Laren, I feel confident that Yar would have filled that role. She would have been a friendly foil, either as a member of the Maquis to set up Deep Space Nine, or as an onboard intelligence officer like Malcolm Reed in Enterprise.
In the early seasons — while Roddenberry’s edict that the crew not have conflict was in effect — I think she would have befriended Data and Geordi, and would have been in many scenes with them.
She probably would've been written well. They were pretty good at writing space characters on Star Trek