TNG had Colm Meaney, an actual Irishman, playing Chief O’Brien, the engineer. Though, I think he got more work later on DS9.
Argyle (male) and MacDougal (female). The Indian dude from St Elsewhere was cast as Asst Chief Engineer Singh, but he died like a true TOS redshirt before the half-hour station break.
Apparently Roddenberry had a “thing” about repeating the same old patterns in TNG. Thus the hesitation in selecting a permanent Chief Engineer. When they finally realized they actually needed one in most stories, they decided Starfleet had its own version of Affirmative Action.
(No offense, but a junior lieutenant just would not go from helmsman to Chief Engineer of the Federation’s newest flagship in real life. Not in a million years, no matter how hip and irreverent his sense of humor is.)
Worf was included in the crew only because he was a Klingon serving in Starfleet (a “Klingon Marine,” as it were), and was kind of kept in the background until Denise Crosby got herself fired (she was the Trek analogue to the butch female trooper in Aliens).
The Ferengi were supposed to be the new baddies, on the scale of the Klingons and the Romulans in TOS. Didn’t work out that way. 
Transporter Chief, for the most part.
More to the point: Didn’t they say the bolts were several powers of ten too much for the shields to handle? Refresh my memory. How many times did the bolts connect? IRL the ship would have been destroyed before Nomad thought that his Daddy was aboard.
I think Spock said something like “Each bolt has the energy of approximately ninety of our photon torpedoes, Captain,” and they were hit three times before shields were down. They weren’t even sure they’d survive the third: “That’s problematic, Captain.”
Oddly enough, I don’t remember the lights going on and off or any sparks flying from consoles (though the camera did tilt a lot). But yeah, I’m amazed the ship wasn’t obliterated by the first bolt.
Why wasn’t it obliterated? Because then we would have had the first twelve-minute episode of a series in TV history! :eek:
DC Comics did this, and quite well, with Star Trek, the Early Voyages. The writing was very clever, and the art was quite good.
One of the cuter things they did was explain why Spock was so emotional in “The Cage” but so logical later: they depicted him taking a Vulcan vow of dispassion, which he had not yet committed himself to in the earliest days.
Her Wikipedia article gives the impression she left on her own.
After leaving, she reappeared a few times as her old character and as her character’s daughter.
The way I heard it, she was pushing too hard for her character to be allowed to develop and lacked the clout she needed to succeed. She was definitely dissatisfied with the role, but in no position to make demands. If she wasn’t fired outright, her leaving was by definitely mutual agreement.
She was brought back much later, after a lot of things had changed production-wise.
I have a book on TNG, but unfortunately it’s not available for cites at the moment.
She also may been sexually harassed by at least two people (including Roddenberry).
Her acting skills always seemed below par to me.
That skin of evil episode was especially lame.
I have wondered for a while, why would a highly sophisticaed starship have beds? Why not just use the artificial gravity to create null zones where a sleeping person would just float there? For that matter, chairs …
No thanks. I’d have all sorts of issues sleeping in zero g. Waking up and switching back to full gravity every morning would not be fun.
Well, in all candor, the USS Seaview had the same problems… and when IT was built, the construction of submarines was well understood.
But I’ve talked to real submariners who watched episodes of Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and swore they’d never board the Seaview, even at gunpoint… same hull breaches, same explodey control panels, leprechaun infestations…
I was hoping she’d be written out, one way or another, ever since “Troi! You’re my friend, and you tricked me!”
And a nuclear reactor that attracted silver-skinned aliens who wanted to use it to hatch their eggs.
Well, Frakes grew the beard and Crosby might have done too, but eh, she bailed and then saw the show last through six more highly successful seasons. You pays your money.
TNG was on at 11pm here and (naturally) many of the episodes were played out of order. IIRC we saw her get killed after about 12 shows and then reappear and disappear several times before the end of the season and Worf took over for good.
It was a little confusing.
Alas, yes. Tasha Yar was my favorite TNG character…but Denise Crosby was just about my least favorite actor on the show. She always came across as if she were in a high school play. You could actually watch her face as she counted down others’ lines until it was her cue.
Nothing experience wouldn’t have fixed: she had that much promise. But she was not ready for that significant a role.
SSRN, please.