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sshbpodcast · 10 months

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Bonk bonk on the head: Children in Star Trek

By Ames

There are myriad reasons why your hosts here at A Star to Steer Her By don’t usually care for children characters in our Star Trek, most of which are highly subjective and involve how much we dislike kids in general for being obnoxious, snotty, blithering miscreants. But that may just be me. What’s a more reasonable and less obstinate reason for disliking them so much of the time is that writers have no idea how to write for children characters, and all too frequently (especially in older shows) these youngsters just don’t have the acting chops even if the writers could give them something to do.

So let’s let the children run rampant as we go through what makes a good child character in a show like any of the classic Trek series. Which kids get a pat on the head and which get the infamous bonk bonk? Read on below for their report cards and listen to us pass notes in class over on this week’s episode of the podcast (discussion at 59:10). Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Unruly mobs of kids

What would one call a group of children in a Star Trek show? An anomaly of children? A supermassive black hole of children? Regardless, the worst kids come in bunches. When there’s a horde of them running around, you can tell we’re going to have a bad time on this podcast because obnoxiousness is exponential and also because it means the writers are probably using the children as some kind of general plot device. We see this in “When the Bough Breaks” and “And the Children Shall Lead” when the whole point of the episodes is to save a mass of mewling children from whatever nonsense we’ve gotten messed up in. Was it worth it to save these brats? You be the judge.

We get smaller groups of children in “Disaster” and “Innocence,” but their purpose is mostly the same: to test the patience of whichever officer they’re stuck with during some kind of crisis so that they can come out the other side slightly more developed. It’s not about the kids themselves; it’s about how our hero character grows. Picard, who notoriously hates kids, is stuck in a turbolift with three pissants in scenes that might as well be torture. And Tuvok pushes his Vulcan patience to the brink, putting up with three Drayan kids who harbor the dumbest secret the show could have attempted.

But the “Miri” kids really take the cake, despite introducing us to Phil and Iona Morris, whom we still love. But dang, kids in the 60s just couldn’t act. The two lead kids were played by freakin’ adults, having to play children who were prepubescent because there was no way they could carry an episode otherwise. Aside from being utterly distracted by those two, we found the rest of the episode felt like watching the crew get put in charge of a particularly rowdy daycare. This episode gets two bonks on the head.

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My parent is a big deal at the Starfleet factory

In your typical monster-of-the-week episodic television, these children of the week get a brief moment in the sun just because their parents are Starfleet (or uncles… or godparents… listen you try making a list like this). They don’t get to stick around long enough to really develop, and thus they get one episode to resolve whatever their conflict is, and thusly thus, they start falling into that same category in which they feel more like props than characters. Take Ian Troi from “The Child” and Clara Sutter from “Imaginary Friend” for example. Both are merely serving as the impetus to get the story to the ending. And strangely, it’s the same ending: we learn the little kid was just an alien trying to learn about our culture through the eyes of a child. Like they say: if I had a nickel for every time this happened, I’d have two nickels, but it’s still weird it happened twice in the same damn show.

Similarly, consider Belle and Jeffrey, the EMH’s holochildren from “Real Life.” They are quite literally props, first that the Doctor creates to allow him the experience of simulated parenting, and second that are used very blatantly to develop his character. I’d say they’re both acted quite well (Belle’s final scene is really quite lovely), but they are not here to be characters, but caricatures. René Picard fills a similar role in the Picard family in the episode “Family.” He doesn’t get a ton to do, but he mostly represents the conflict between brothers Jean-Luc and Robert: one part the explorer among the stars and one part loyal to the family. Which will René choose? Never mind, he burns in a fire. So much for exploring the duality of character that Jean-Luc himself struggles with. The poor thing.

Janeway’s godson Q Junior from “Q2” might be a slightly better executed example in this category, and it’s probably because Keegan de Lancie can act. And was a teen at the time. And because the episode was about him developing as a character instead of being used to propel someone else’s development or to get us to the end of a science fiction story. If it weren’t for the sorta twist ending, he’d fit well in our next mass of children…

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Orphan boys on the airlock-step

You’d think Star Trek were a Disney movie with just how many orphaned children are running around, looking for guidance from crew members whose expertise is questionable at best. Since we get stuck with most of these kids because of some kind of accident or crisis or bad sale made by Quark, it’s a little bit understandable that they come with a big helping of emotional baggage. Which, frankly, gives them something the previous group of children didn’t have: a starting personality trait. On Deep Space Nine, for instance, we meet Rubal in “Cardassians,” the child of a gul who is raised by Bajorans to hate his biological people, and also the Jem’Hadar child from “The Abandoned” whom Odo attempts to raise to not be so bloodthirsty but fails because it’s in his DNA. These are kids we feel for because they are forced to confront the racism inherent in our societies, especially when O’Brien is around!

Next Gen is just teeming with orphans and we get a couple whose parents in Starfleet get killed in the line of duty when we meet Jeremy Aster in “The Bonding” and Timothy in “Hero Worship.” Each latches on to an Enterprise crewmember (Worf and Data, respectively) as a way to cope with their grief, and their stories are actually pretty empathetic… though they’d be more so if they weren’t child actors from the 90s.

We talked a little on the podcast this week about our keening friend Jono from “Suddenly Human” and how his story is a very thought-provoking one. Sure, the boy himself is a freaking monster I wouldn’t wish on anyone, especially Picard, but when you cut through his tough exterior and upsetting misogyny, there is a child who harbors a great deal of trauma, reforged identity, and love for his adoptive father Endar, whom you’ll remember from our Parents blogpost!

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Girl scout troop leaders

It’s a little strange that we see so many times little kids – little girls in particular – who act as tour guides to their culture. Perhaps it’s that we can understand another complex society more easily when it’s through the innocent eyes and uncomplicated language of children, and all these young girl scouts are just so naturally sweet, caring, and empathetic that they want to help our crew members through their scrapes. Oji from “Who Watches the Watchers” and Gia from “Thine Own Self” fit this bill to a tee. Each comes from a less developed society, but their curiosity and open minds urge them to want to learn about the newcomers to their villages and also to help these newcomers learn about them in return.

We also have two young leaders in this group in Salia from “The Dauphin” and Varis Sul from “The Storyteller.” These two episodes are basically the same story: 1) young princess needs to learn how to lead her society; 2) a love interest on the ship / space station makes googoo eyes at her; 3) everyone learns a lesson in how to treat people. Are they way too young to be leading their people? Absolutely. But they’re actually the perfect age to introduce the audience to their culture and put a friendly face on a bunch of weird aliens.

One more little girl who introduces us to her culture is Hedril in “Dark Page,” who reminds Lwaxana of her late daughter Kestra so much she goes into a coma about it. Hedril herself does a good job of serving as the literal voice of her people, and her youth is actually appropriate for her role because her mind is flexible enough to adapt to new languages and new experiences that the Cairn adults struggle with. We’ll even see a couple more of these plucky gals in our next section since they’re so ubiquitous.

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Can we adopt these kids?

So what gets you on our list of favorite minor or one-off children from all of classic Trek? It seems to be as simple as the ability to surprise us. Good science fiction characters have layers, and the kids on our best list are all more than meets the eye. Two kids who turn out to be more than what they seem are Barash from “Future Imperfect” and Taya from “Shadowplay,” neither of whom are actually the little children they appear to be on the outside and that just makes them all the more lovable. Whether you’re a little alien boy with a holoprojector who could also fit in our orphans category and who just wants a play date, or a little hologram girl who herself is basically a walking, talking dolly, these kids can stick around.

We’re also fans of Sarjenka from “Pen Pals,” yet another from our troop of girl scouts here to put a cute face on the periled people she’s literally the voice of. Her innocence, childlike wonder, and ingenuity to basically work a HAM radio are enough to make us shatter the Prime Directive any day. We haven’t gotten to Enterprise on the podcast yet, but be prepared to really root for Sim when we hit “Similitude.” His story is so tragic and empathetic that it’ll definitely elicit some kind of emotional response, so make sure you’re following the podcast when we hit that episode for a really heart-wrenching spin on a child character.

Hands down though, our favorite kid character has got to be Mezoti, the droneling we first picked up in “Collective.” From the moment we meet her, she just screams personality. It certainly helps that she’s got the leg up on most other children because she’s also got the collected experiences of the Borg Collective to pull from, but that gives her some interesting layers of depth and adds conflict into her complex character in ways even adult characters don’t always get. Resistance to her character was indeed futile.

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Main character kids

These kids are kinda in a class all their own because we see them enough that they’re really part of the family. Literally! They grow up in front of our eyes on their respective shows, and our connections with them vary wildly depending on their writing. Molly O’Brien and Alexander Rozhenko, for instance, are [usually] both so very young that they’re more props than characters. You can’t really expect stellar acting out of children that small and predictably we don’t get it, often to infuriating effect. Working around children’s limited abilities and scheduling regulations makes some of these episodes just a pain to watch, no matter how cute they are.

The bigger kids like Wesley Crusher and Naomi Wildman (thank goodness for Ktarian aging!) have it easier because they can actually be relied upon to do things. Some would say Wesley sucks as much as his sweaters, but I contend that it’s that the writers let the plot dictate his character instead of the other way around. They need Wesley to save the day all the time to show how he’s a child prodigy, infuriating all the adults around him who should have the run of the room. When the seasons progress and Wil Wheaton leaves the main cast, the focus on his appearances is more character based than plot based, like in some great performances in “Final Mission,” “The Game,” and “Journey’s End.” Naomi, on the other hand, just gets to be a kid! And she’s great at it! We see her in lots of settings and scenarios that are appropriate for her age, and whenever she does something clever, it’s because she’s being taught how to be clever, not showing up everyone around her. And when she’s the focus of an episode like “Once Upon a Time,” she really proves that she’s a character first and a literary device much much further down the list.

Jake Sisko is basically the poster child of how to write a child character in Star Trek, or even just in general. He’s defined by his relationships with people, not by what an episode needs from him. The father-son bond that we talked about in our Parents post is on high display, as well as his friendship with Nog, a child character who already has a leg up because he’s portrayed by a more experienced adult actor in Aaron Eisenberg, giving young Cirroc Lofton something to work with instead of against. Jake and Nog are both allowed to just be kids! To grow naturally, to get in trouble, to develop into more faceted people as children do. The science fiction nature of the show is just the setting, not the entirety of their characters and it’s a delight to watch their earnest portrayals and the people they become.

— Ollie ollie oxen free! We’re going to give everyone a time out just to get a little peace and quiet around here, so keep your eyes here for more posts, follow along as we near the end of our watchthrough of Voyager over on SoundCloud or wherever you listen to podcasts, hang out with us on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t trust those pesky grups!

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