Star Trek: 10 Most Underrated Characters

"Mr. LaForge?" How many times have we heard Captain Picard call on his trusty chief engineer to save the stardate? We've lost count.

Providing a steady hand in any crisis, the Enterprise-D's chief engineer was in many ways the ship's bedrock. No matter what anomaly threatened the Enterprise, and there sure were plenty of them, Geordi could be counted on to guide the crew through their worst nightmares.

He wasn't just a first rate engineer, Geordi's character broke ground in its portrayal of disability. Rather than present his blindness as an infirmity, it was instead, with the assistance of Geordi's VISOR, something that made his character and abilities unique.

Geordi's friendship with Data also showcased his kind, open-minded nature. We could all use a friend like him.

Yet compared to The Next Generation's other regulars, Geordi rarely got to enjoy the spotlight on his own. When an episode did focus on him, it was often to poke fun at Geordi's dating misadventures.

Rather than take a deeper dive into his character's hopes and motivations, the show's writers often used Geordi's clunky dialogue as a means of spouting various technobabble. While that was all well and good to advance an episode's plot, it seldom helped in getting to know the man behind the VISOR.