10 Worst Ever First Officers In Star Trek
7. Pavel Chekov
As much as we love Walter Koenig's Monkees-inspired Pavel Chekov, he's got a rather large black mark against his name. Though his time on the Enterprise was marked with more Russian jokes than you could swing a bag of Quatrotriticale at, it is his time aboard the Reliant that probably scuppered any plans for a captaincy down the road.
Serving under Captain Clark Terrell, Chekov was the executive officer during the Genesis research project. Perhaps we could blame this on Starfleet operating during peacetime - and therefore being a little less cautious when beaming down to barren worlds. But Chekov not only beams down himself, for which we will give him a pass, or we'd have to write ten entries for 'The Times William T. Riker Acted Like He Was Indestructible', but he allows Terrell to beam down as well.
The rest, as they say, is a dark page in history. They are discovered by Khan and his remaining crew, they are brainwashed, and Terrell later shoots himself with a phaser to fight back against the tyrannical madman. Chekov, you do know that the number one on a starship is generally supposed to keep their captain alive, right?