Day #29 of the 30 Day Television Challenge

[shadowkat]

Day #29 of the 30 Day Television Challenge. Getting near the end - which is a good thing, since I'm growing weary of it.

The prompt is ...Character whose introduction improved a television series.

I'm drawing a blank. I know there's something...can I use Buffy again? It's my meme, my rules. I can do whatever I want.

I am going to go with Farscape instead. Chiana - showed up towards the end of S1, and that's when the series suddenly got really good. I'd almost recommend folks starting Farscape, to skip ahead to the Chiana episode.

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[petzipellepingo]

I'm going with Marty Deeks from NCIS : Los Angeles. He's like Spike, came in on Season Two and brought everything up to a higher standard.

"It Is a Good Day to Die"

[cjlasky7]

When Star Trek: The Next Generation ended its acclaimed seven season run, Deep Space Nine was at a crossroads. Going into season 4, Paramount execs wanted to juice the ratings a little, so they made a suggestion: why not bring Worf over?

Showrunner Ira Steven Behr bristled at the suggestion. He had the whole Dominion War plotline ready to go, and squeezing in a new character--even a fan favorite--was going to be a lot of work. But he did see the possibilities, and Michael Dorn was welcomed on to the station.

Well, for once, the suits were right. Worf and Dorn immediately raised DS9's profile, and adding the Klingons to the already volatile political situation in the series opened up new storytelling avenues.

"The Way of the Warrior"--the 2-hour s4 season opener--is on many fans' short list of best DS9 episodes.

K'Plach!

https://youtu.be/8Lh-Ep7bbN4

Re: "It Is a Good Day to Die"

[cactuswatcher]

Good choice!

[jazzfish]

Hm. I tried watching Farscape some years ago, got about a third of the way through S1 and just gave up. But an awful lot of people I know are exceedingly fond of it. I might take you up on that option.

[shadowkat]

Yeah, I had a friend who kept telling me to watch Farscape. I had tried numerous times, but had issues with the first six or so episodes. But finally gave in, and when I hit the Chiana episode or one just before it - I thought, whoa. I got hooked. It's also one of the few series that kind of works even better upon re-watch. The early episodes clumsy production value kind of work with the themes of the series and the lead character's emotional arc.

Let's put it this way, when Crichton's custom changes, Chiana, and Scorpio join the cast - it takes off. And is amazing. But you have to get past the first six or seven episodes. You will however be rewarded for doing so. It's on Amazon Prime at the moment.

It's like a lot of television series. The Expanse required work. The Wire requires work. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - definitely required work - it doesn't get really good until the second episode of S2. The Good Wife - same. The Good Place - also requires getting through S1. If you can get to the end of S1 of the Good Place - you will be rewarded. Then there are television series that start off amazing and go downhill from there.

Sigh.

[cactuswatcher]

This will be controversial, but I think Star Trek NG was on the rocks when season 1 ended. Tasha Yar just didn't work as a character. (Fortunately, Denise Crosby wanted out) Dr. Crusher was too much Wesley's mommy, and too little the ship's most responsible medical officer. The attempt to have something romantic go on between her and Pickard just wasn't going to work.

So my pick is Dr. Pulasky who only stayed one season, and who many Trekkies don't like at all. But I think she added a layer of 'professional distance' between herself and the overly chummy crew. She wasn't afraid to look Pickard in the eye, and say what she thought, and had enough personal bearing to make him think about it. That meant that when Dr. Crusher did come back, she was coming back, not as another flunky in the crew, but as someone who deserved to fill the post as Pulasky defined it.

I don't think the show would have gotten a third season without the subtle change in tone her character introduced.

So many folks dislike her that this strange clip of her and Troy was about the best I could find.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHV19kBCyqI

[cjlasky7]

Love Diana Muldaur. Miranda Jones in TOS' "Is There No Truth in Beauty?", Rosalind Shays on L.A. Law--just a terrific actress.

Did not like Pulaski.

I think they were going for a Leonard McCoy type, but she had the "crusty doctor" part down without any of DeForest Kelly's charm.

I hated her attitude toward Data; she never seemed to respect his sentience, or what he was trying to achieve by studying humanity.

It didn't help that she was a centerpoint of some of the worst episodes of s2: "Unnatural Selection" and "Icarus Factor" are just all time stinkers--and I just hate that scene where Pulaski and Troi complain about them craaaazy Riker mens. (She didn't really make the better eps of s2 better, either.)

I'll grant you, Beverly didn't fare too well in solo episodes either ("Sub Rosa", anyone?), but she had some great moments one on one with JLP, and "Remember Me" is just a blast.

So....yeah, Team Crusher here.

[shadowkat]

Agree on Pulasky. I found the character more interesting than Crusher (who felt a bit cliche to me, set up as an obvious love interest for Picard - but had zero chemistry with Patrick Stewart.) I found the first season of Trek kind of boring, to be honest.

Pulasky also was in one of my favorite episodes of the series...and by far the best use of the Holodeck - where an AI literary villain, Moriarity, becomes aware and conscious. Mainly because in order to make the program challenging for Data, they had to upgrade the character. Otherwise Data was pretty much playing a lesser computer, as opposed to an AI. The episode also was among the first times that the show examined what made one human or real. There's a great love story between Moriarity and Pulasky. And it's followed up by Ship in a Bottle - where Moriarity tries to escape the holodeck, they let him believe he's escaped into the universe, when in reality he's just escaped to another computer stimulation.

[yourlibrarian]

That's an interesting thought. I don't know how much I agree that the character changes were the centerpoint of an improved show, but I haven't watched ST:TNG in some time.

My first answer to the question though was 7 of 9 in Voyager. She was not only the most interesting character in the series but opened up new storylines.

[atpo_onm]

A huge number of the world's people believe in an afterlife, and hope that if their god approves of their earthly life, they will be rewarded with an afterlife that is free from the struggles and pain they knew before.

One of the many things I admire about The 100, at least in its first few seasons, is that it decided to investigate how technically that could be possible-- an afterlife not born of mysticism but of science.

At the end of season 2, we're introduced to a character that was one brilliant engineer's answer to that issue. However, as is so often the case, intellectual brilliance is not a guarantee that what you create will behave the way you intended to.

Meet ALIE. ALIE is a sentient artificial intelligence, played superbly by actress Erica Cerra, who also plays ALIE's creator, Becca.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEquQaWO2Ek

The scene in the clip is from the end of season three, where ALIE, in an earlier version of her program many decades ago, had launched a massive number of nuclear missiles to "solve the human over-population problem"-- not because ALIE was evil, but because-- it was simple, logical, and... effective.

What was left of humanity moved into space, as the Earth had become unlivable due to radiation.

Now in a newer version, ALIE is trying to rectify its mistake by creating the ability for humans to transfer their consciousness into a machine that maintains a virtual reality so sophisticated that it cannot easily be distinguished from our normal physical reality.

The season ends with ALIE's (apparent) destruction, and the end of the virtual "City of Light", as Clarke and the others choose to face the coming apocalyptic-level disasters that ALIE has (correctly) stated will happen if humans do not choose to continue their existence in the virtual afterlife.

There were many other great new characters introduced during The 100's long run, but I confess I'm a sucker for AI stories, and this one really was an exceptional, very thought-provoking one.