8. Trip- Star Trek: Enterprise
Ah Enterprise, the black sheep of the numerous Star Trek televisions shows. This show had the shortest run since the original series, with the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and its immediate predecessor Voyager each clocking in at seven seasons. Being a prequel, it always felt like the show was struggling to establish its own identity, especially with the addition of enemies like The Ferengi long before humanity should have encountered them. It is generally agreed, however, that Enterprise began to hit its stride in the fourth and final season- though there werent many watching by this point- the diehards were still hanging in there. One of the reasons for this was the crew, specifically the friendship of Captain Archer and Trip Tucker. Trip's death came in the much maligned series finale, These Are the Voyages and was nothing more than a needlessly forced plot device. The only thing it managed to achieve was to make the fans hate the finale more than they already did. Not only was it totally pointless to kill the character but the way it was done sucked as well- it was a fairly innocuous Trek moment which we have seen play out over and over again- we have seen plenty of characters, including Trip himself get out of far more dangerous situations. Killing him like this didnt seem like a clever shock that would get the audience; it felt more like a cheap shot intended to get some semblance of drama from an episode which was completely lacking in it. It comes so close to the end of the episode that we dont even get to see the characters really deal with the fact that they have lost a key part of their crew, and of course there is the small matter of Riker and Troy. If watching Trip suffer such a contrived and forced death wasnt bad enough- we also had to deal with the fact that we were not really seeing it anyway- instead we were watching two Next Generation characters watch a recording of the episodes events. This finale was an insult to Trip as a character, to Enterprise as a show and to us as an audience.