Star Trek: 20 Supporting Characters That Deserved More
2. Hemmer
Hemmer should never have been killed off. There, we said it. Plain and simple. But for the sake of creating a proper entry, we'll pull out some receipts.
Hemmer is the irresistible Aenar with a stark worldview, pragmatic nature and dry wit. In another show, he might have been a shade too jaded, but in Strange New Worlds, he was oddly refreshing. Let's be honest, the rest of the crew can feel overly rumbunctious at times, and Hemmer felt like the grounded adult in the room. He was the perfect counterpoint to the bounce and quips.
But then he was killed off and replaced by Pelia. Don't get us wrong, the way he sacrificed himself to protect his crewmates from the Gorn made for an epic horror story, but he left us far too soon. And more importantly, he left us with the zaniest engineer in Starfleet. Pelia's quirkiness has its charms, but in a crew that can sound gratingly unprofessional and blithe, it was a somewhat baffling choice to give the oldest crewmember the gravitas of a muppet...
We would happily have continued on with taciturn Hemmer, who could play the part of both mentor and taskmaster. We miss the wry humour that managed not to cross the line into comic relief, the effortless confidence that stopped short of being icy, the matter-of-fact representation of disability, and the pacifism that created a genuinely intriguing contrast.
For a character who appears in so few episodes, Hemmer somehow feels like he was around for much longer, and yet still left us wanting more. So much more.