Luwuxana Troi: Not lame. Unnecessary use of the producer’s wife, yes. Inexplicably used as romantic foil for Picard, yes. Lame? No. She was deliberately designed as a pest.
Wesley Crusher: Not lame. Lame things were done with his character, mostly because he was so rarely used in episodes where he wasn’t at center stage. But the same thing could be said of many of O’Brien’s limited TNG appearances; the only time they bring any actor in is because he has a purpose. However, a special Lameness Achievement award goes to Wesley’s buddy The Traveler.
Worf: Not lame. If anything is lame about Worf it is the way he was used by the writers as a make-it-up-as-you-go exploration of Klingon culture, most of which ended up being contradictory or just plain buh-whaa?
Deanna Troi: Started out lame, and was redeemed. Deanna suffered from guest-star syndrome in that most of the shows featuring her in a large role were pretty well built (okay, wrong word) … uh, okay, those shows were stacked in her… well, they were designed to show off her… those shows were meant to highlight her as a character. This isn’t a sign that the character is lame, just that the character didn’t have as much integral purpose to the crew as originally planned. Later episodes with Troi were actually pretty decent once she was more of a well-rounded… uh, once her character was firmer and… yeah, just… uh, later.
Pavel Chekov: Not lame. Useless to the plot of most of the movies unless it was as a glorified red-shirt. Uh-oh, Chekov is injured again. What is it this time? This is an extension of Deanna Troi’s problem; he wasn’t as useful as everybody originally planned so he was the one who got hurt.
… and the 2005 Lamest Star Trek Character award goes to…
LORE, the character who was so amazingly lame that he eclipses all others. The character concept is a bad joke.
Writer 1: “Okay, he’s just like Data, see… just like Data. They like… look the same, and everything. It’s like they’re identical! Except, and here’s the tricky bit… except that… Lore… is EVIL! Get it? It’s like… Data… but evil! See? An evil twin!”
Writer 2: “Genius!”
Every show I saw with Lore revolved around him being identical to Data in some stupid way. Oh dear, he arrived at Dr Soong’s planet because he’s identical to Data. Oh no, we can’t tell them apart, because he’s identical to Data. Oh my goodness, Lore has stolen Data’s new software because they’re identical. And did I mention Lore is evil?
Lore never went anywhere as a character. He was created as, and remained (from what I saw) a bad joke. He was given nothing meaningful to do that didn’t directly involve Data somehow. It would’ve been interesting to see Lore involved in an episode where he had to cooperate with the Enterprise, or where his presence was incidental to the fact that he and Data are… did I mention he’s evil? … identical.