Star Trek: 20 Supporting Characters That Deserved More
Their stay may have been brief, their lines may have been few, but they made a lasting impression.
The beauty of travelling through space with a Starfleet crew is having so many characters to meet, love and even hate along the way. But with a myriad of stories to juggle, not all of them get their fair share of the spotlight.
A franchise like Star Trek lives and dies on our attachment to the crew. Make them too abrasive, and we won't want to spend time with them...make them too nice, and the drama disappears. It takes skill to create the perfect balance, but when they get it right, goodness, do they get it right.
And that's where supporting characters earn their keep. Maybe they're only needed for a specific plot, or to tell a morally grey story without tarnishing a familiar face. Sometimes they even become recurring characters, but that makes it all the harder when they don't get the time or fate they deserve. And of course, there's the inevitable revolving door of redshirts that have one very important job...be brave and don't carry on.
While this gives us plenty of characters to enjoy, it also opens the door to frustration when our favourites aren't treated right. Whether it's vanishing officers, wasted potential or outrageous deaths, these are the supporting characters that truly deserved more.
20. Thomas Riker
Thomas Riker became everyone's favourite transporter clone after his discovery in Second Chances. No citations needed; it's just common knowledge. The result of a transporter accident that beamed one Riker safely back to his ship and left another stranded on an abandoned outpost, he later chose to go by his middle name, Thomas (and for our sanity, that's what we'll call him from here on out).
Thomas got off to a rough start, spending eight years marooned alone, struggling to survive. And his reward? Butting heads with his other self when he was finally rescued.
We can't blame Thomas for being a little bitter. While Thomas was trying to scrape a meal together without a replicator and presumably making small talk with a face drawn onto a ball, Will was given a promotion, became the first officer of the Federation flagship, and ended their relationship with Deanna Troi.
While we did get to enjoy a brief flirtation between Thomas and Deanna, he ultimately decided to forge a new path for himself elsewhere in the fleet. The next time we see him, he's hijacking the Defiant from Deep Space Nine as part of a cunning Maquis plot. Unfortunately, his new life as a freedom fighter was cut short when he was taken prisoner by the Cardassians.
And then Thomas sort of just disappears.
We know he's still out there, somewhere, and we would love to see another chapter for this troubled doppelgänger. The character deserves better than to have a Cardassian prison sentence be his last hurrah. Maybe Thomas escaped prison, perhaps Kira busted him out...either way, we love this roguish Riker, and we definitely want to see more.