Winn always made my skin crawl!
Come on, Pulaski wasn’t that bad. She even had a decent character arc to become likeable. Winn though… yeah we hate her.
Are you saying Winn didn’t have character arc?
She had the biggest arc in startrek and it was masterfully acted…
Yeah, but there was that little moment in between where you almost felt sorry for her, before the ultimate “nah, she is still piece of shit…”
I have nothing against her actress. She played wonderfully. I really loved to hate her character. This overzealous and overtly jealous priest.
When Louise Fletcher, who played Kai Winn, won the Oscar for the equally-horrific and hateable Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, she started her acceptance speech like this:
Well, it looks like you all hated me so much that you’ve given me this award for it, and I’m loving every minute of it. And all I can say is I’ve loved being hated by you.
Clearly she enjoyed playing evil people and is very good at it. And, like most actors who get regularly cast as evil, she’s apparently a sweetheart in real life.
The Elders tell me Pulaski was supposed to be “unlikable” but in a gruff, McCoy dammit-i’m-a-doctor kind of way.
But the fact that that wasn’t possible to do (and wouldn’t have worked if it was) apparently didn’t stop them from trying.
The sophomore slump hits everybody.
I think they were trying to build a Pulaski-Data relationship that mirrored the McCoy-Spock relationship, where McCoy would say something shockingly racist like calling Spock a green-blooded hobgoblin, but then Spock would insult him right back and it was all in good fun so it was “okay.” The problem was that Data wasn’t able to give as good as he got, so it came across as Pulaski bullying the sweet autistic kid, which did not work as well as McCoy-Spock.
She even had a decent character arc to become likeable.
Her whole arc was supposed to explore the idea of a kind-of rational and legitimate hatred, then see where it led.
spoiler
Time and again, her bigotry caused new injury to herself and to others. But then this was held in contrast to Ed Mercer’s persistent failed efforts to extend an olive branch to rival alien races who were unable to divest of their own bigotries.
That’s what made the latest season of Orville so fucking good.
spoiler
The whole season is about trying to build a coalition between the liberal Planetary Union and the fascist Chak’tal and ultra-conservative Moclan. But, in the end, their commitment to their own moral compass paves a way for an unexpected alliance with the Kaylon that yields far more fruit than any kind of strategic military compromise with the corrupt governments of the Chak’tal or Moclan.
It wasn’t just that she became likeable. Its that the guiding principles of the Planetary Union usher the crew towards a better galaxy, even when that path isn’t immediately clear from the outset.
While I like your analysis, the comment you’re responding to was referring to Pulaski’s arc, not Charlie’s.
Come on now, I don’t want to get in an argument with a dumbass, but the Beverley character had some fine moments.
I’ll give you ghost sex, and collapsing universes, but she was pleasant. Really she was there for to give Picard more emotional dynamism.
Pulaski was kinda baller though, I liked her. She had opinions and wasn’t afraid to express them. Even better she would reevaluate them upon have more data. I have a 3D printer named after her. I print my with my favorite plastic on it, TPU.
To this day I am still sad Kira wasn’t the one to do her in at the end.
Arising from the ashes, Rey Skywalker joins the fray.
Seriously tho I have seen way more mainstream hate for Rey.
Not that Star Wars is scifi as much as space opera. Nor does it technically count as a TV series as much as a film series.
I think she’s the banner target for frustration with the Disney sequels. Almost like Jar Jar for people who didn’t like the prequels, although now that it’s been 20 years people don’t seem to hate Jar Jar as much.
It doesn’t help that they basically refused to flesh out her character like there was some sort of overarching secret that was going to make it totally worth it. They kind of screwed up the algorithm, like in lost you can have mystery building mystery but you need to give away decent hints on the way through and through no fault of her own her character was just kind of bland.
flipping through my big list of Star Wars characters to dislike
There are so many people ahead of her on the list.
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Prequels C3PO, all the cringe and none of the comedy
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Rose Tico, the plot hook that can’t act
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Watto, the flying anti-semitism
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Snoke, what are you even doing here? The practice sphere Luke spared with in A New Hope advanced the plot more than you did.
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Porkins, the pilot who couldn’t hold it together
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Maz Kanata, a bargain basement Yoda and absolutely abhorrent waste of Lupita Nyong’o’s talents
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Jar Jar Binks
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Everyone who made the Star Wars Christmas Special possible
I get being a bit annoyed that they gender-swapped Luke Skywalker got to just kinda mime her way through the first three movies. But if the worst thing Disney did was file the serial numbers of the George Lucas originals and ad a splash of color to the cast, I can almost forgive them for it.
Even just within the third trilogy… Daisy Ridley was fucking trying to give that ham of a script some spice. And she managed to leave more on the table than Hayden Christensen did with the Anakin role. Hell, she ran circles around the desiccated corpse of Harrison Ford, an honorable mention for some of the worst performance in the series.
She’s not even in the top five worst characters in the sixth best Star Wars series. Cut her some slack.
Wait, people would seriously put her as ‘most annoying’ on TNG or DS9? Next to Wesley and Winn?!
She’s Kai Box 'o Wine for sure.
