Unpopular opinion meme: How about a post about the character you think is the most overrated?
i must be moving out of my Mood because this very difficult to do! the most-most highly rated characters on- and off-screen in trek (spock, data) totally deserve it, and honestly WHO KNOWS how a character is rated in fandom, because tumblr trek is always collecting and loving the characters that larger trek fandom dislikes (see: janeway and bashir).
but on-screen at least, i’m gonna go with the doctor on voyager.
this is part of a larger issue with the back half of voyager: the ensemble is sacrificed because all the character development points are held by seven, the doctor, and.... you know, i don’t know if janeway’s slow burn untreated psychological distress is character development, exactly, but the show definitely did not spread the love around to the entire cast.
and in that, my early season love for the doctor wears thin. some bloggers i follow made the good point that a character shouldn’t have to be likeable when fighting for their rights any more than a real human person should be, or be openly grateful to their “oppressors” when they’re well-treated, so why should i be cool with data and annoyed by the doctor -- who is objectively treated worse by his crew -- just because he’s abrasive about it?
and i don’t know! i have to do some more soul-searching on this. but i get exhausted having so many doctor-centric episodes because eventually, his personal development comes with a level of carelessness about the larger effects of his actions, and he’s not held accountable by the narrative when he causes harm to his friends.
“tinker, tenor, doctor, spy” is the last doctor-centric episode where i really, unequivocally LOVE him. he wants to grow!! but he wants to do it with the consciousness of being part of a community and wanting to serve his ship and crew as well as expanding his program and exploring the new frontier of hologram life.
but then you get like... “virtuoso.” (🎶fame! i wanna live foreverrrr🎶) he demands to leave the ship and wants to delete his medical database so he can explore an opera passion project -- but he shows no concern that as the only doctor, leaving the ship will absolutely eventually result in members of the crew dying. he argues that every other crewmember made a choice to serve on the ship (the maquis?? everyone else who signed up for a three-week mission??) and that janeway would never deny a flesh and blood crewman the right to self-determination for the good of the ship -- when she already has (b’elanna, in “nothing human,” and for the same reason: the entire community relies on them for survival).
but mostly what bothers me is that so many of his episodes toward the end of the series put him in inappropriate and sexist situations with seven of nine (that fucking bet leading to the romantic grooming in “someone to watch over me”; using her body against her wishes in “body and soul” -- i mean hilarious tour de force from jeri ryan or not, that’s fucked uppppp man). and it’s always his POV, not hers. she has to forgive him, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him.
it could have been cool to explore the kind of toddler id thing that might happen with newly developed sentience, but the writers would have to arc that out and hold our hands through it, you know? because i don’t think that’s what they meant, and they didn’t really bring it to a satisfying i-am-one-but-respect-the-needs-of-the-many resolution that sticks with him. and that makes me feel like it’s too much screen time without the payoff.