I really enjoyed the character Dr. Pulaski, played by Diane Muldar, on the t.v. series Star Trek: the Next Generation. She played in the season 1988-1989 when Gates McFadden, who usually plays the doctor, was on sick leave to have her baby.
Pulaski was a unique character. Very dedicated, stubborn and intelligent, Dr. Pulaski also had a few flaws in her character–which I could never understand. Otherwise, believe it or not, I thought she was good example of a Polish character who didn’t just fit some stereotype. Actually come to think of it, I think she was one of the few Polish characters on t.v. or in the movies period (I’m Polish on my mother’s side btw).
I can’t understand why she was only on t.v. for that short span of time. Couldn’t she have had a cameo in one of the movies? Or a brief appearance in one of the other Star Trek series, like some of the other characters did, like Worf, O’Brien, Deanna Troi, Barclay, etc.
Oh, well, I guess it is too late for that now. But does anyone know what allegedly became of her character, why she was never seen again, etc? And also, does anyone know why Muldar never played her again? And while were at it, where is Diane Muldar now? I haven’t seen her on t.v. in years.
IMHO, she was a pathetic attempt to ressurrect Dr. McCoy - old & crotchety, hates the transporter (even though it saved her bacon that time she got the aging disease).
On preview, I see that Robot Arm beat me to the name correction. C’est la vie.
I never cared for the character either, though. I agree she was a pale imitation of McCoy. Even down to the relationship they gave her with Data … it was shades of McCoy and Spock.
I did enjoy the way she mispronounced Data’s name, though. That was a funny little touch.
Jim B.
The IMDB entry, dated 2000, says she’s been taking time away from Hollywood and is looking for a role to restart her career (she’s 64). In fact, she has been in Star Trek before; I didn’t recall until seeing the list that she played Dr Miranda Jones (the blind telepath who went off with the Medusan in the episode “Is there in truth no beauty”). BTW I agree with you; I thought she was vastly superior to Gates McFadden.
I singularly hated the character, even though the actress was pretty good, because of how she treated Data one time. But, I guess she wasn’t that bad of a character. I think she’d make a good cameo, but I’m glad they lost her.
Saying Pulaski was vastly superior to Crusher is like saying the Vatican City is alot smaller than Andorra when both are so tiny that neither shows up on a map of the world.
She was also in the ep. where she took Thalassa’s (sp?) consciousness into herself for a while and wound up kissing Kirk, who had her husband’s consciousness. “Return to Tomorrow,” was it?
Didn’t like her in TNG, though. She was too mean to Data.
The best thing TNG had going for it was the interaction between Data and Picard.
Dr. Pulaski seemed to exist to simply disparage Data. Her motivation was crap - these are supposed to be advanced humans. Hell, humans of today give personalities to inanimate objects that don’t look humanoid at all. Am I supposed to believe that she’s such a throwback that she can’t accept Data as a person? How can a person born into a world with Star Trek technology be so…unused to such technology?
Intriguing, says I. She was a badly created character.
Another tidbit–her character in Is there in truth no beauty? was wearing a dress that had sensors in it that allowed her to see; basically, one generation prior to Geordi’s visor…
I liked her character because all the rest of the characters were way too snuggly-close group-hug kind of people. They needed somebody to be an irritant to keep the sugar shock down. Unfortunately, the Star Trek universe cannot tolerate a female main character who isn’t a total babe, so she had to go.
I disagree. Obviously, many people had trouble with Data as “alive” (see-The Measure of a Man), having a major crew member who wasn’t buying it without question was refreshing. IIRC, she came to see Data as more “alive” as the season went on.
