I’ve been watching TNG for the first time and so far season 1 has been hit or miss. Ether a episode will be really good or really bad. So far I think episode 23 is a really good episode! I hope that Tasha isn’t actually dead. I liked her and thought she was a gorgeous woman! This is the one and only time I will ever want spoilers but is she fully dead or does she return?
The actress returns. I'm not gonna tell you any more than that haha. It's a story arc I really liked actually.
And Season 1 is notoriously bad. The show was really struggling to figure out what it wanted to be. Season 2, like around episode 8 is where you start to get into the "holy crap this has no right to be this good" stuff.
@Chetzemoka@DarthonTV I wasn't particularly attached to Crusher but MAN they screwed up Pulaski bad. You cannot recreate the Spock-McCoy dynamic with Pulaski and Data because Data is too distinct and Pulaski is too derivative. You COULD have had an interesting back and forth if you put more thought into Pulaski rather than just making her bluntly prejudiced, but instead you set her as a bully against the show's best character and made everyone instantly dislike her. There's some good stuff in S2, Moriarty, the Borg, but they mishandled a lot.
@Chetzemoka@DarthonTV McCoy and Spock worked because they were on even ground. For all we love Spock, he has a prejudice against his human half instilled by his vulcan upbringing. He could give it as well as he could take it as a result. McCoy and Spock were on equal footing, both working through their own prejudices and philosophical differences while maintaining a friendship. McCoy could snip at vulcan and Spock would come back with a dig at humans.
Data did have the same standing, the same critique of humanity. It was just Pulaski talking over him with no pushback pointing out the flaws in her nature.
To keep it vague, many actors who liked working on Trek and who the show staff liked working with would often come back as either other characters or their popular characters via various means (time travel eps, dreams, etc). Tasha's actress does make several reappearances and Tasha's story does get some continuation/wrap-up story wise (to effect the character is not forgotten by the other characters or the writers after she dies), but the actress never rejoins the cast as a full-time regular.
@DarthonTV "Skin of Evil" gets a lot of flak for its dodgy special effects, but it's one of my favourite episodes in season 1 (along with "Coming of Age" and "The Big Goodbye"). I love the suddenness and senselessness of Tasha's death, the concept of a race that has cleaved its evil nature into a separate being which it then abandoned, and the holodeck farewell scene, especially the final shot. It's also a really good Troi episode. Lord knows she didn't get a lot of them, especially in the first season.