selenak

lirazel asked for some of my favourite minor (or one-off) ST characters.

First of all, thinking about this, I found it fiendishly difficult to define "minor" character here. For example, if you took only TOS - tv series only - you could name Sarek and Amanda, Spock's parents, here, since they only show up in a single episode on screen and are hardly ever mentioned elsewhere. But of course not just their reappearances first in the movies, then in the novels, then in the other movies, then on Discovery etc. made them anything but minor. Or take Saavik, about whom I just wrote a story. She's only in three of the movies, and only in two does she have a substantial part. So is she a minor ST character? I'd say no, because within those two movies - Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock - her part is an important one. How about Katrina Cornwell from Disccovery? (Here I'd say she's in enough episodes within the first two seasons that you couldn't have called her minor then, but now we're in the fourth season, and once that's complete there will be an additional two seasons without her, so is she a minor DISCO character now?

Of course, on ST, you could graduate from minor to major. Colm Meany started out as unnamed helmsman in the TNG pilot, then became transporter chief O'Brien, minor recurring character, and then made the transition to one of the main regulars on DS9. (O'Brien: the Braca of Star Trek?)

Or: is Lwaxana Troi on TNG a minor character? Is Q? Both don't show up every season (though in some seasons twice). How about Barclay? (Starts out as what could have been a one shot character, branched out, is even in the second TNG movie and on Voyager. Stilll, not a major character in any ST - but is he minor? How about K'eyhlar? (Two TNG episodes only, but the actress made her instantly unforgettable.) Garak on DS9 definitely isn't minor. Of the very latest Trek, I loved Picard's Romulan housemates who are in the first two episodes before getting left behind as the action moves into space, so maybe they count?

Since the definition is so tricky, I decided to make life easier for me and limit myself to characters who really do show up in only one episode. Also, note I'm not saying these are the "best" one shot characters - far from it. For example: Marritza on DS9's Duet was certainly one of the most memorable one shot characters, and the actor was fantastic in the part - parts, I should say, due to the nature of the story - but I can't say I loved/liked him.

Which helped me narrow it down to:

- Pel (first female Ferengi we see on DS9; my Star Trek Holidays gift was about her)
- Gul Macet (aka the first Cardassian played by Marc Alaimo, in TNG's Cardassian-introduction episode The Wounded)
- Commander Toreth (from TNG's "Face of the Enemy" - everyone has their favourite Romulan Commander, and this one's mine, played by Carolyn Seymour)
- Captain Dathon (played by Paul Winfield, the other guy trying to communicate with Picard in the TNG episode "Darmok")

All of these, I loved watching and they made me curious about them and made me care within the single ST episode they were in. Dathon was the one who perhaps touched me most deeply, Macet gets the credit for making me interested in these new aliens from the get go, Pel was the one I wanted to read more about, but if I really have to choose one, I think I'll pick Toreth, clever, smart, and honorable within a rotten system, which in a fitting irony makes Troi's job all the more difficult in this episode.

The other days