Star Trek – The Next Generation: 1×23 – Skin of Evil
So this is it. The episode in which we say farewell to Lieutenant Natasha Yar. She got to phaser some aliens, so it’s not like her time on board was entirely wasted. But, yeah, Denise Crosby apparently wasn’t happy with her characters development. Not that the writing for anybody has really been stellar in the first season, but yeah… she really wasn’t given enough to do considering she was the chief of security, and despite how highly trained she was supposed her writing rarely showed her competence (which we know she must have been as Captain Picard requested her). So, she gets killed by an oil slick in a manner similar to any other redshirt, or goldshirt now I guess.
Doesn’t seem like much of a send off for a main cast member. I do remember finding it shocking when I first this episode as a boy. You’ve got to remember, it wasn’t like now. It’s like Game of Thrones where characters die so often that I just shrug whenever it happens. Main characters never died in Star Trek… apart from Spock, but he came back. Not so for Tasha… well, she does in a way. But, at the time it was shocking, so if that was the intent I guess it succeeded.
Slick monster though… the only sillier thing to be killed by would be a tribble.
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