Top 10 Favorite Star Trek Supporting Characters

Ok let’s round out my list of favorite characters with supporting characters. Course this is a tougher category. Technically, anyone in the original series who isn’t Kirk, Spock, and MccOY could be considered supporting characters. And DS9 kind of cornered the market on supporting characters, and some may be surprised how few made the list. And villains can often be considered supporting characters, but I covered that are so no villain characters (with one or two sort of exceptions).

#10.Soval

I need one from Enterprise and of all the supporting characters, this was the one one that made an impression on me. I must have a fondness for Vulcans, every major one has made one of my lists. Anyway, this guy was just cool. When we first saw Sarek in he original series we didn’t really understand why he hated Starfleet. Soval makes us understand, his prejudice for Starfleet is obvious but being a Vulcan he’s cool about it.






#9.Naomi Wildman

Voyager was a tough one too but I found at least one (sort of two but we’ll cover that). I did really like this character, for the most part. She was overused for a bit but that’s ok. She was basically what Wesley on TNG should have been, a precocious child who wanted to learn more but for the most part stayed out of the way. She never saved the ship or showed up the other characters. She felt like a real kid, which is why people liked her. I especially loved her scenes with Seven of Nine, somehow Naomi really brought the humanity out in Seven.





#8.Nog

This is a character that surprised me, because he was just an annoying kid at first. But as the character grew I found myself liking him more and more. He enlisted in Starfleet which for a Ferengi was unheard of. But he stayed with it and managed to rise through the ranks (quickly thanks to the war). Then he lost his legs, and was quite surprised when one of my favorite episodes involved his dealing with that trauma (yeah Vic Fontaine was also in hat episode but you won’t find him on my list). I also liked his friendship with Jake, it felt real. And if you’re wondering why his father isn’t on here, Rom was funny but never a favorite of mine. Same goes for Leeta, hardly saw most of her episodes though Chase Masterson was damn hot.





#7.Guinan

What can I say about Guinan? Actually to be fair, the one and only reason this character was charming is because Whoopi Goldberg played her. She has a way of acting condescending and yet it doesn’t feel that way somehow. You could tell Guinan was kind of laughing at the crew inside her head most of the times (not with Picard there was genuine respect there) but she kept it to herself and gave good advice. It’s easy to see why so many would seek her counsel, she really listened and would always point the character to the right direction without acting like a no it all.






#6.Barclay

I really can;t help but relate to this character. As I was the shy kid who was afraid to interact, and lived in my own fantasy world as a result. And we saw his character grow not just on Next Gen but on Voyager as well. In some ways he got more character growth than many of the regulars! On Voyager he was obsessed with getting the ship home, mostly because he identified with sense of loneliness that he figured the crew must have felt.






#5.Ensign Ro

While Ro sort of turned into a villain, let’s forget “Preemptive Strike” (I know I try to). Ro was something different on TNG, she was moody and didn’t get along with anyone. Obviously she came along after Gene Roddenberry had basically left. But in the few episodes she appeared in season five and six we saw her character grow. She learned patience and mellowed out and stopped being so thick headed. And she genuinely respected Picard, making her betrayal that much more shocking (damn it I hated that episode!!!)





#4.Garak

Was Garak a villain character? Hard to say, he did some not so nice things. In fact the reason he was stuck working on dresses was because of the not so nice things he did. But he had been a spy and a pretty good one. In fact he was such a good spy that several times the other characters would call on his skills, even Sisko. And I liked the friendship that he developed with Bashir. Unlike other friendships on Trek this wasn’t one based on teasing or bickering, they were genuinely friends.






#3.Nurse Chapel/Laxwana Troi

I mentioned this before but I was a big fan of Nurse Chapel. No not so much when she was swooning for Spock, that was stupid. God forbid you just have a female professional on the ship, oh no of course she has to be romantically attracted to someone. Anyway, aside from that she was a really cool (if severely underused) character. But she was a great nurse and had no trouble standing up for herself and talking right back to others, even McCoy. You gotta admire that. Of course Majel Bareett also played Laxwana, and honestly she never bothered me as much as others. Yes she could be annoying…real annoying at times…but there was more to her. She loved her daughter, she cared for people, she could be a true friend when she stopped being so over the top. I once almost did a whole tribute to that character, but scrapped the idea.




#2.Chief O’Brien

You may have noticed that O’Brien wasn’t on my list of favorite characters. Well that’s because I liked him more on TNG when he was a supporting character. He was so cool on that show that it’s no surprise he got more to do as the series went on. Or that he was eventually spun off onto DS9. He was a very laid back guy, the kind of guy you’d go drinking with, but he also a damn good transporter operator and was very well respected by everyone on that ship. Yeah he ok on DS9 but why did it feel like the mission on that show was to make the poor guy suffer?





#1.Janice Rand
\
 You could argue this is a cheat since she was supposed to be a regular member of the cast, and the fact she makes the supporting list is because she only appeared in a half dozen or so episodes. But that’s ok, she still rocked. Grace Lee Whitney could have easily faded away and been forgotten, but her presence left an impact with fans. They enjoyed seeing her and loved seeing the time’s she returned in the movies (even briefly). She had great chemistry with everyone in the cast. Why she was cut from the show is way to long for to get into here, and I can’t lie the show was probably better off without her since there was no way Kirk would ever be tied down to one girl, but with her bubbly charm the episodes she appears in are all the better because she is in them.


I’m sure I left of a lot of others people expected to see on here, so feel free to comment and let me know who you think should be  on here.