10 Star Trek Characters That Just VANISHED

For Commander Janice Rand, we’re looking at the absence that saw her leave the Enterprise, for several years. This is particularly egregious as she was included in the original marketing for Star Trek, once it went to series. Grace Lee Whitney was clearly being touted as one of the leads for the series, only to then appear in a handful of episodes in the show’s first season. The truth behind this disappearance is a sad tale that is too common in Hollywood.

Rand was written out of the show halfway through the debut year, with Lee Whitney describing an encounter with a producer, years later, in her autobiography. Though she refused to name the man, she alleged that he made an unwanted sexual pass at her. 

When she spurned this advance, she quickly found herself out of a job. While the incident may have been unrelated, it is unlikely that, in the '60s, they had nothing to do with each other. 

The result was that Rand, who was the captain’s yeoman and had featured in several high profile stories, was simply gone. Years later, Grace Lee Whitney was discovered by DeForest Kelley once again, who informed her that the then-recently begun Star Trek conventions featured many fans who wondered where she was. 

This eventually led to her casting in Star Trek The Motion Picture, which in turn led to appearances in The Search For Spock, The Voyage Home, and The Undiscovered Country, along with the Voyager episode Flashback. No explanation has ever been given for her on-screen vanishing, so one can simply assume it was a case of reassignment. 

To be fair, after the events of Charlie X, Miri and The Enemy Within, the Enterprise wasn’t exactly that much fun to be stationed on.