Who, in your not-so-humble-opinion, is to the Star Trek universe, what Jar Jar is to Star Wars?
I’m going to have to vote for Dr. Pulaski of STNG. Gahhhhh! I HATE her. Snotty, obnoxious, arrogant, cynical hag! She’s not even fit for Bantha fodder. Data has way more emotions and character than that old bat does. Dr. Pulaski, pull that crystalline entity out of your ass, mmkay?
I’m astonished you didn’t pick Wesley Crusher. It seemed like half the plotlines during his time on the Enterprise were driven by either mistakes he’d made or solutions that only he could think of/implement. He was whiny, arrogant, and just plain annoying.
Wesley Crusher is my second choice, but Dr. Pulaski is like nails across a chalkboard for me. Despite Wesley’s overwhelming annoying-ness, at least he is somewhat interesting. Pulaski is just, zzzzzzzzz.
You hit the nail right on the head, my friend. She was a pathetic excuse to revive the Dr. McCoy “crusty old country doctor” routine. They even made her NOT like transporters. In the episode “Unnatural Selection”, they should’ve let the old bat die of decrepitude.
I remember when TNG came out. My friends and I would get together, and we would complain about Wesley Crusher in a way that can only be compared to later day complaints about Jar Jar Binks. Pulaski was annoying, but not the kind of run from the room screaming that Wesley and Jar Jar were.
Yeah, Wesley Crusher was, as one publication put it, a “smarmy git”. To this day, I’m convinced that the Traveller took him not because he thought Wesley was worthy of anything, but out of pity for both the Enterprise crew and the audience.
Of course, the coolest character in the series was Mott the Barber…
Everyone may kill me for this, but in the early seasons, Troi’s moralising got right up my nose, damn it only a program started in the 80’s would put a shrink on a starship.
Oh and how come she (and for that matter 7 of 9) didn’t have to wear proper uniforms. Oh that’s right 'cause they are attractive women who would be better suited to skin tight catsuits than a real uniform.
Love the shows tho! (Even trained my SO into liking them, can come home now and find her voluntarily watching TNG on her own lol)
Not only have I always wondered why Troi doesn’t have to wear a proper uniform, but why does she have to be on the bridge so much? Is it really necessary to have the ship’s counselor on the bridge all the time?
Troi is probably on the bridge too much because she is just waiting for one of the perfectly well adjusted crew (Worf aside, but he is fun “Growl for me” -Q) to throw a wobbly and launch all photon torpedoes at a disagreeable alien that Picard is yet again trying to calm down. Don’t you just wish he would say “Make them burn Mr Worf, fry them till they scream for mercy, make it so!” (with a quick glance at Troi to check it’s alright to show this much emotion).
Julian Bashir was my favorite character from all of Trek, but he lost all depth when they came up with that “genetically enhanced” B.S. in later seasons. He’s just . . . he was so great at first, really human in his boyish crush on Dax and all. But then when they decided he was faking all his ineptitiude??
Just as bad is what they did with Rom.
season 1 - Odo solves a crime using this reasoning alone: “Rom is an idiot. He couldn’t fix a straw if it was bent.”
then in later years, Nog talks of his father: “My father is a genius. He could have been the chief engineer of a starship if he wanted! But no, he had to be a ‘good Ferengi’.”
ugh, not that Nog was that deep of a character to begin with, but there was a point where they decided to make half of the DS9 characters almost superhuman as a permanent plot device; that’s about when I stopped watching.