Refresh my memory: Star Trek TNG question

TNN is currently showing season 2 of Star Trek Next Gen, and I forgot why Gates McFadden left for a year, ostensibly to head up Star Fleet Medical.

Was there some question about the chemistry between McFadden and Patrick Stewart, and then when Diana Muldaur’s crusty Bones clone didn’t work, they brought her back?

My recollection is that it was a contractual dispute. I don’t believe there was any bad blood between the actors.

Doesn’t sound like anything so interesting:

I guess they were trying to recreate the Crusty Southern Doctor, and it didn’t too well.

Diana Muldaur’s acting was rather wooden. I certainly don’t miss her.

I liked Pulaski much better than Crusher–just as I like Muldaur better than McFadden (my opinion is based solely on watching the two actresses on Star Trek). I especially enjoyed watching Pulaski explain to Data why he wasn’t human. I guess I’m probably a minority in my opinion, though. Did y’all know that Muldaur appeared in a couple ST:TOS episodes (a little factoid I just picked up today)?

She was the blind chick from “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” She was damn hot too if I may say so.

Great episode - one of the true “non-human-looking” aliens in the history of the series: Kollos, a Medussan ambassador so hideous that if humans looked upon him they went crazy. He was basically a light show inside a box.

Miranda Jones

Oh yeah - that episode also had that great 60’s “POV insane-cam” thing, where you see the distorted camera straight-ahead view and a pair of arms reaching out at people.

I’d always heard Roddenberry disliked McFadden, so he fired her.

Then fan reaction was so negative, both to McFadden’s ouster and to the character of Pulaski, that he brought her back.

Wasn’t she also the women in the ST:TOS episode where Kirk, Spock, and she loan their bodies to the “orb folks”? I can’t remember the name of the episode, but the Spock person turns out the be evil and wants to keep the body.

I remember thinking that the first time I saw her on ST:TNG

Return To Tomorrow

Yes, that’s it, and it was her.

One damn good episode, if I remember correctly.

Here’s a page with a photo of young Muldaur, if anyone is interested.