10 Star Trek Characters With Wasted Potential

This doctor got off to a bit of an inauspicious start aboard the Enterprise-D. She arrived as the rushed replacement for a character who had been there since day one. The behind-the-scenes reasons for the switch were also, let's say… not ideal.

It is safe to say that Katherine Pulaski proved divisive with fans. You'd probably have an easier time convincing Tuvok to perform the Argentine tango at the next Voyager Talent Night than you would persuading most to spare a favourable word for this particular CMO. Not all of this ire is misplaced, however. Pulaski's likeability factor took a serious blow because of her often egregious jibes at Data, whatever her motivations may ultimately have been.

In the end, Doctor Crusher (or rather Gates McFadden) was asked to return, and we pretty much never heard the slightest mention of Pulaski ever again. She'd blipped into and out of existence faster than someone conjured up in a Wesley warp bubble.

Confining Pulaski to a one-and-done was a bit of a missed opportunity in retrospect; the character clearly had potential. An extremely skilled physician – she saved Picard's life in extremis, much to his dismay – Pulaski was intended to be a "female McCoy but not exactly," as Gene Roddenberry put it in an interview shown in The Next Generation season two DVD extras. She certainly had a few bones to pick (yes, boo!) with Captain Picard and never hesitated to give him the orders when the (medical) need arose, always refreshingly forthright in her opinions. Pulaski's initially chilly treatment of Data also mutated during her time abord the Enterprise into a friendlier, almost mentor-like relationship with the android, and she always had time for a potentially deadly spot of tea with Worf.

Certainly, her no-holds-barred approach to life could have made for an interesting dynamic with Picard in later years, and her ever-evolving, and candid, interactions with Data might have helped push the latter further out of his tripolymer, molybdenum-cobalt, cortenide-duranium, bioplast shell.