3. Counselor Troi
Although after a rocky start she was fleshed out to become a more essential character, let's face facts: No viewer (male, anyway) would care if Counselor Troi was on that ship if she wasn't played by the vivacious Marina Sirtis. It's an interesting dichotomy; the psychological well-being of people on a deep space mission would be essential not only to its success but their survival... yet, I'm not sure seeing the actual "counselor" counseling them was something we really needed to see. I mean, they have to go the bathroom to survive too, but they thankfully spared us from seeing that. Counselor Troi's main function in First Contact? To get drunk with Zefram Cochrane (beautifully played by the always brilliant James Cromwell) and let him think he has a shot at bedding her so she can "gauge" whether he's ready to learn about the future he helped usher in with the invention of the warp engine. Because showing him a tricorder or a phaser wouldn't have accomplished that in lesser time and without a hangover. It's a little bit of comic relief - as a lot of the story set on Earth was compared to that aboard the Enterprise - but completely unnecessary, and just reiterates the point that if they couldn't find much for Counselor Troi to do that anyone cared about in 7 seasons on television besides look pretty, there's even less for her to do in a motion picture with six other main cast members.