One of the biggest difficulties of most episodic dramas, including the various Star Trek series, is that putting main characters in danger is seldom believable. It’s such a common syndrome that it’s even a pop culture trope: plot armor. Watching the early second-season episode “Unnatural Selection,” in which Dr. Pulaski is infected with a rapid-aging syndrome, I wonder if the writers are counting on the viewers not believing Dr. Pulaski has plot armor.
After all, she is a recent addition and she is not even listed on the main credits, instead being designated as a “guest star.” More fatally still, the episode supplies fresh background about the character and especially her desire to serve with Picard – and every viewer of a reality TV show knows that once a contestant gets backstory and calls their family on camera, they’re probably going home that episode. Perhaps they even expect viewers to remember that they did really kill a main character, Tasha Yar. Maybe this will just be the season of rotating-door Chief Medical Officers, much like season one had a different Chief Engineer every time it came up.
I’m especially interested to hear from people who remember watching it when it first aired, but everyone who watches an episode is watching it for the first time. Did you think Dr. Pulaski could really die?
It’s a bit of a tossup on this one. Main characters don’t die, but Tasha JUST had. Picard and Riker probably had plot armor, but the annoyingly combative older Dr Crusher stand in? It seemed plausible enough.
I remember being freaked out by the realization that I was going to grow old. Like really old, someday. That episode stuck with me for that reason.
However, I don’t remember being concerned because Pulaski’s condition was wrapped up in the “solve” of the episode. If she died it would all have been for naught, and there were so many breadcrumbs in the episode pointing to the super-kids as the problem. Most of the episode is just waiting for them to get on with the solution and dragging out the nail biter as long as they can.
More fatally still, the episode supplies fresh background about the character and especially her desire to serve with Picard – and every viewer of a reality TV show knows that once a contestant gets backstory and calls their family on camera, they’re probably going home that episode.
Sometimes. Getting a backstory can also be a precursor to a character being killed off, like what happened with Gary Mitchell.
Maybe this will just be the season of rotating-door Chief Medical Officers, much like season one had a different Chief Engineer every time it came up.
I saw it as a pretext for Dr Crusher to come back from Starfleet Academy, with Dr Pulaski being her temporary replacement that was unceremoniously left behind on the space station, or sacrificed herself to save the ship. Crusher left just as suddenly (since McFadden was fired), and it wouldn’t be a stretch for her to come back.
The biggest recent example of someone getting backstory as prelude to killing them off is Airiam (Robot-Head Person).
I was pretty young on first watch but I do remember thinking she might’ve been a guest star and this was the end of her run, yes
I don’t remember being even remotely concerned. Of course they’re going to solve the problem.
I imagine all characters with enough lines having plot armor. So I can be surprised when they are not.
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