So, my husband and I just finished watching Star Trek: Enterprise on Netflix. We missed it the first time around and watched it now because: new Star Trek!
And it actually was decent Star Trek. The best? Nope. But there were some good stories in there and some great characters.
The best of these was the doctor, Phlox.* Cheery, ethical, subtle - almost British in his balance of quiet joy and ingrained determination. Loved him.
And it got me thinking (and arguing with my husband) about the ideal Star Trek crew. You know, if you stole characters from all five Star Trek series, one for each major position on the ship or station, and put together a best of the best.
Now, there are two ways you could do this. One: the best people for the job. This gives you Odo over Worf, because you're just not going to beat a shape-shifter for Security Chief.
The second way to do this is: best character who happens to have that particular job. This gives you Worf over Odo because Worf.
Here are my lists, both ways:
Best of all worlds Star Trek Crew, by competence:
Captain: Picard (c'mon)
Second-in-command: Spock
Doctor: Julian Bashir (genetically engineered vs. holographic** is a tough call, though)
Engineer: Trip Tucker (LaForge a close second) (actually, all the engineers are pretty competent - not to say downright magical in their ability to come up with a mechanical cure at the last minute)
Security: Odo
Pilot: Chekov? Wesley? Paris? I don't know how to rank this one, because they're all portrayed as insanely good at their jobs.
Best of All Worlds, Star Trek Crew, by character:
Captain: Sisko
Second-in-command: Spock (c'mon, he wins both - though Kira's great)
Doctor: Phlox (Bashir a close second)
Engineer: Trip by a hair (because Miles O'Brien's pretty awesome)
Security: WORF.
Pilot: Wesley****
Okay, if you're nerd enough that this is your game, please play along in the comments. Fights definitely encouraged.
-Jessica Snell
*The second best was Trip, the engineer. Dang it, show, you didn't do right by him and T'Pol. That was one of the finest 'ships that ever sailed and I'm just going to pretend that very last episode didn't happen, m'kay? Because the Trip/T'pol storyline was only one of about ten things you screwed up six ways from Sunday on that last episode. Couldn't you learn anything from TNG about ending well?
**The really sad thing about this game is that it reveals Voyager's lack of good characters. The Doctor is the only one who comes close to being competitive in this game.***
***Okay, maybe 7 of 9, too. But that's it.
**** My 13-year-old self might be the one voting here.*****
*****My 15-year-old self, on the other hand, would vote for Paris, but then my 32-year-old self points out that everything interesting about Paris was leeched out of him by the time the second season of Voyager rolled around, due to the horrible writing that turned every single character on that show into a cookie-cutter perfect Starfleet officer. (What? I'm not bitter!)
6 comments:
Ooh, OOOOH!
Competence:
Captain: Archer (really, he had the hardest job of all of them. When you think about it, he defined the human race for the rest of the galaxy.)
Second-in-command: Spock (sort of a no-brainer, really)
Doctor: Bashir or Crusher
Engineer: Trip Tucker (again, he had the hardest job)
Security: Worf (best way to keep order is through intimidation)
Pilot: This one confuses me...Ops and Pilot aren't the same thing, but the operations officer often serves as helmsman. I say Data is of course the best Ops officer. As for Pilot, William T Riker gets that distinction.
Character:
Captain: Picard
Second-in-command: Spock
Doctor: Bones (Damn it Jim!)
Engineer: LaForge
Security: Odo
Pilot/Ops: Data
Unfortunately, TNG was the longest-running incarnation and as such the characters are so much more fleshed out than in many of the others. It's hard to pick even my favorite Enterprise characters over anyone from TNG.
Good point about Ops and Pilot! Put that way, I'm giving it to Data on both!
But, Archer? Eeegh. (Sorry - is it okay that I argue back?) Especially in episodes like the one where his dog was in sickbay, I just found him insufferable. He'd get so angry, so often, and seem to miss the bigger picture. (Totally not the actor's fault, either - it just felt like the writers were giving the character a really narrow perspective.)
What about the category of starry-eyed youth? Chekov vs Wesley vs Jake vs Kim vs somebody from Enterprise who I don't remember because I saw at most five episodes and that was back when they first aired and almost nothing of the show stuck with me.
Or bartender? Guinan vs Quark vs Neelix Was there someone in Enterprise that could fill this role? There really isn't one in TOS.
I'm not going to bother with two separate lists. They would be way too close to each other anyway.
Captain: Picard
Second-in-command: Kira (Spock may be more fun, but Kira is a far more interesting character - though that can be chalked up to 7 seasons versus 3 and '90s television versus '60s. Also, she is the one I have the most confidence in competently taking the reigns if the big man goes down.)
Doctor: Bashir (He could also be DS9's candidate for starry-eyed youngster.)
Engineer: LaForge
Security: Odo
OPS: Data
Helm: Wash (Oh, wait, he's not Star Trek. Then I'll go with Paris. He was a great idea for a character and made a B-movie holodeck program.)
And not only was Voyager lacking in good characters, it comes in dead last without much competition in captain, second-in-command, engineer, and security.
It's true, Archer had a lot of passion. Keep in mind he was completely sexually frustrated in that dog-in-sickbay episode. No holodecks or vacations on Risa or Orion women available for Archer's relief. All the stress of captainhood and none of the benefits! :P
Starry-eyed youngster's a good category. I'd totally give it to Jake. (And Mayweather is probably the best fit from Enterprise, but he was a terribly wooden character.)
Bartender? Quark, all the way. And no, Enterprise didn't have anyone like that, though - here's a really terrible thing - they *invented* one for the very last episode, retconned that he'd been there all the time, for the *sole purpose* of having RIKER play him in a holodeck recreation so he could chat with all the Enterprise crew. ARGH.
And you might have convinced me to change my vote to Kira. You're really right about her competence.
She also might be the best female character Trek's ever come up with.
Heh. Poor Archer!
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