Unpopular opinion meme: How about a post about the character you think is the most overrated?
i must be moving out of my Mood because this very difficult to do! the most-most highly rated characters on- and off-screen in trek (spock, data) totally deserve it, and honestly WHO KNOWS how a character is rated in fandom, because tumblr trek is always collecting and loving the characters that larger trek fandom dislikes (see: janeway and bashir).
but on-screen at least, iām gonna go with the doctor on voyager.
this is part of a larger issue with the back half of voyager: the ensemble is sacrificed because all the character development points are held by seven, the doctor, and.... you know, i donāt know if janewayās slow burn untreated psychological distress is character development, exactly, but the show definitely did not spread the love around to the entire cast.
and in that, my early season love for the doctor wears thin. some bloggers i follow made the good point that a character shouldnāt have to be likeable when fighting for their rights any more than a real human person should be, or be openly grateful to their āoppressorsā when theyāre well-treated, so why should i be cool with data and annoyed by the doctor -- who is objectively treated worse by his crew -- just because heās abrasive about it?
and i donāt know! i have to do some more soul-searching on this. but i get exhausted having so many doctor-centric episodes because eventually, his personal development comes with a level of carelessness about the larger effects of his actions, and heās not held accountable by the narrative when he causes harm to his friends.
ātinker, tenor, doctor, spyā is the last doctor-centric episode where i really, unequivocally LOVE him. he wants to grow!! but he wants to do it with the consciousness of being part of a community and wanting to serve his ship and crew as well as expanding his program and exploring the new frontier of hologram life.
but then you get like... āvirtuoso.ā (š¶fame! i wanna live foreverrrrš¶) he demands to leave the ship and wants to delete his medical database so he can explore an opera passion project -- but he shows no concern that as the only doctor, leaving the ship will absolutely eventually result in members of the crew dying. he argues that every other crewmember made a choice to serve on the ship (the maquis?? everyone else who signed up for a three-week mission??) and that janeway would never deny a flesh and blood crewman the right to self-determination for the good of the ship -- when she already has (bāelanna, in ānothing human,ā and for the same reason: the entire community relies on them for survival).Ā
but mostly what bothers me is that so many of his episodes toward the end of the series put him in inappropriate and sexist situations with seven of nine (that fucking bet leading to the romantic grooming in āsomeone to watch over meā; using her body against her wishes in ābody and soulā -- i mean hilarious tour de force from jeri ryan or not, thatās fucked uppppp man). and itās always his POV, not hers. she has to forgive him, and weāre supposed to feel sorry for him.
it could have been cool to explore the kind of toddler id thing that might happen with newly developed sentience, but the writers would have to arc that out and hold our hands through it, you know? because i donāt think thatās what they meant, and they didnāt really bring it to a satisfying i-am-one-but-respect-the-needs-of-the-many resolution that sticks with him. and that makes me feel like itās too much screen time without the payoff.