How did viewers respond to the death of Tasha Yar at the time?

[Sakonna]

As someone who didn't first discover Trek until closer to the end of TNG, I've often wondered how fans responded to the death of Tasha Yar when it originally aired. Was the fact that Denise Crosby was leaving the show spoiled for the fandom in advance, or was this a really shocking event? Was it generally known that Denise Crosby had asked to leave, or did the behind-the-scenes story take awhile to be revealed publicly? Was it all venom from the jump of the "how dare she quit Star Trek!" variety, or was there a Yar fanbase sad to see her go?

I just looked up the original promo for "Skin Of Evil." Those TNG/DS9 era promos were so spoiler-y! Though from the way this is edited it could be Riker who is going to "bid a tragic farewell."

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It's interesting that they don't have the final Armus voice in that promo.

Also, was recently watching "We'll Always Have Paris." Immediately follows "Skin Of Evil", Denise Crosby still credited, the first thing that happens is time starts rewinding... had I been watching it back then, I feel like my immediate conclusion would have been that they were going to use this time-rewinding gimmick to un-kill Tasha.

 

[Leviathan]

"Welp, no more drug speeches".

 

[Nebusj]

My recollection is that it was known, at least to people reading the TV news, that Denise Crosby had asked to leave the show and that her character was being written out. I don't remember if it was known Tasha Yar was going to be killed before the promos came out; I do remember watching the episode and being amazed that, yeah, there wasn't any incredible last-minute save. I remember talking it over with a friend who was similarly amazed that they had actually killed her, no takebacks. But also that they finally had some good scenes with Crosby thanks to that.

(I didn't like the episode, but that was because I didn't buy Armus as some superlatively Evil thing, and the set looked even cheaper than usual. Plus they used the same effects animations of the oil slick melting or moving unconvincingly around somewhere around forty times in the episode. That Yar was killed didn't count as a demerit for the show.)

 

[Parker]

I have watched all of the original. And just started on next generation. Just made it to this episode.... and i am so happy. I hated her. She was a terrible person.

 

[Noname Given]

Honestly, as I recall, the character wasn't well liked (in part because she was horribly written by the writing staff; and because for a while Denise Crosby had been claiming the Producers told her the character was one of the focus characters on the show, and she expected more to do; and was getting film offers she couldn't take as a result of her contract.)

In the end though I'm sure Demise is upset she didn't just stick with the show in the long run and get a nice paycheck for 4 feature films. She realized something because she was trying to get them to bring back/create another role she could play during the time TNG Season 3 was being produced. It worked to some degree as we got "Yesterday's Enterprise" in TNG Season 3 and then the character 'Sela' in a couple of shots of Season 4 episodes (although the character name and character history wasn't reveled until "Unification" in TNG Season 5.)


Personally, it was pretty clear the writers had her death be because she made a ridiculously stupid decision - IE I'll ignore the unknown entitiy's warning and show why I'm incompetent.

In the end, i think the biggest response to the character's death was: "Why wasn't Worf the Chief of Security from the start?"

 

[KennyB]

Yeah--I did not shed a tear. It was more of a "meh".

 

[JeffinOakland]

no great loss.

 

[gillmanjr]

I have watched all of the original. And just started on next generation. Just made it to this episode.... and i am so happy. I hated her. She was a terrible person.

O lucky you! I wish I could go back and watch them all again for the first time. Enjoy...

 

[Sakonna]

(I didn't like the episode, but that was because I didn't buy Armus as some superlatively Evil thing, and the set looked even cheaper than usual. Plus they used the same effects animations of the oil slick melting or moving unconvincingly around somewhere around forty times in the episode. That Yar was killed didn't count as a demerit for the show.)

It's funny, my brain recognizes all the ways Armus fails, but on some gut level, he totally creeps me out and works as a villain. I'm probably just drawing upon my residual impressions of seeing him for the first time as a kid, when I wasn't a sophisticated enough viewer. My dream new Trek series would be a Kelvin version of TNG, and I'd love to see an Armus realized with modern technology.

 

[Paradise City]

I don't fully assess Tasha Yar on the basis of the crude first season were almost everyone is terrible. Tasha Yar in Yesterday's Enterprise is a more reliable indicator as to how that character would've developed. And she would've been a very strong member of the ensemble by that measure. Crosby gave a very good account of Yar in that episode.

That said, it's difficult to see Yar bear the kind of dramatic fruit we got with Worf. Worf is a very unique character. Would we have got Commander Kurn for example? Unlikely one would think. So, in retrospect she kinda had to get sidelined so that Worf could come into his own.

I liked the concept of Sela myself and that they brought her back for the big two partners. Unification in particular is a great 'intersection' point in Trek history.. For me, it's just unfortunate that they really didn't do too much more with the character than just dump a wig on Crosby's head and Sela's character development gets lost in all the other stuff that's crammed into those two episodes.

As for Crosby leaving it? Well, TV was at the back end of nuthin' way back in the day and TNG was supposed to be a project with a short life span. So, if you're in the acting game and wanna get ahead, you try for greener pastures. It's perfectly normal she might do that.

 

[Nebusj]

It's funny, my brain recognizes all the ways Armus fails, but on some gut level, he totally creeps me out and works as a villain. I'm probably just drawing upon my residual impressions of seeing him for the first time as a kid, when I wasn't a sophisticated enough viewer. My dream new Trek series would be a Kelvin version of TNG, and I'd love to see an Armus realized with modern technology.

I won't fault you for liking him, and I can't say I was a sophisticated viewer when I first saw the show. I was just a snotty teenage fan.

(And I don't fault Crosby for bailing on the show. She wasn't getting any good scenes, or even any mediocre ones, and it's not like the show was looking more than intermittently competent at that point. I imagine that had she stuck out she'd have ended up as a member of the Troi-LaForge-Dr Crusher set of characters who get their own episodes when nobody's got any good Picard-Data-Worf ideas and Frakes is directing again.)

 

[DonIago]

I remember being very surprised that they actually killed her.

I don't recall being particularly attached to the character, though.

 

[Christopher]

and because for a while Denise Crosby had been claiming the Producers told her the character was one of the focus characters on the show, and she expected more to do

"Claiming?" It was an ensemble cast. Everyone was meant to be a focus character -- maybe Picard and Riker most of all, but everyone else to an equal degree (which is why they were billed in alphabetical order, a standard way of crediting cast members of equal status). But she got less development than the others.

I don't remember whether I knew about Crosby's departure in advance, though I did follow the entertainment news, so I probably did. I do remember that I cried at her death scene, not only the first time but every single time I rewatched the episode. It was really powerful to see Crusher fighting so hard to save her -- in contrast to McCoy's tendency to take a quick look and just say "He's dead, Jim," a lazy bit of TV shorthand that later Trek series would unfortunately return to -- and Ron Jones's music in that scene was poignant and relentless. And whatever the silliness pertaining to Armus, the way the episode took the time to focus on a character's death and to show the other characters dealing with the impact of that loss was a real step forward in the maturity of the franchise. (That's also one of the things I admire most about Enterprise, by the way. On that show, they were determined not to be casual about death, and they didn't do a story with a crew member dying until they were able to give it the attention and weight it deserved. It took until season 3 before NX-01 lost anyone in the crew, which was implausible given what novices they were at exploration, but better that than casually killing off redshirts and having the main character laughing and joking by the end of the episode.)

Also, I just regretted losing a character I liked, and I was disappointed that they didn't do more with her. The irony is, if they'd always written her as well as they wrote her in the opening scenes of "Skin of Evil," Crosby probably wouldn't have wanted to leave.

 

[Armus]

As someone who didn't first discover Trek until closer to the end of TNG, I've often wondered how fans responded to the death of Tasha Yar when it originally aired. Was the fact that Denise Crosby was leaving the show spoiled for the fandom in advance, or was this a really shocking event? Was it generally known that Denise Crosby had asked to leave, or did the behind-the-scenes story take awhile to be revealed publicly? Was it all venom from the jump of the "how dare she quit Star Trek!" variety, or was there a Yar fanbase sad to see her go?

I just looked up the original promo for "Skin Of Evil." Those TNG/DS9 era promos were so spoiler-y! Though from the way this is edited it could be Riker who is going to "bid a tragic farewell."

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It's interesting that they don't have the final Armus voice in that promo.

Also, was recently watching "We'll Always Have Paris." Immediately follows "Skin Of Evil", Denise Crosby still credited, the first thing that happens is time starts rewinding... had I been watching it back then, I feel like my immediate conclusion would have been that they were going to use this time-rewinding gimmick to un-kill Tasha.

I was 8 when Tasha died. It was very dramatic but I don't think her character was important enough to really make a difference..if they had killed off Data or Riker or even Wesley who I related to at the time, I would have reacted more.

 

[Marc]

no internet at the time and there wasn't much in the way of advanced promo in Australia (componded by ch9 showing eps out of order) so little knowledge before hand but was a case of meh for me - don't think I've the episode since it first aired/

 

[TheAdmiralty]

"Welp, no more drug speeches".

The fact that "drugs.......make you feel good" is the main thing I got from the Tasha Yar character, TNG, and the Star Trek franchise in general.

It's funny, my brain recognizes all the ways Armus fails, but on some gut level, he totally creeps me out and works as a villain. I'm probably just drawing upon my residual impressions of seeing him for the first time as a kid, when I wasn't a sophisticated enough viewer. My dream new Trek series would be a Kelvin version of TNG, and I'd love to see an Armus realized with modern technology.

Armus is kind of a silly concept that doesn't make sense but he's still a good villain just because he's so nasty.,I wouldn't have minded them figuring out a way for him to make a return appearance.

 

[Voth commando1]

You know its kind of funny she thought the show was gonna fail and bailed out then a few seasons later was begging to get back on even as a guest.

 

[Tenacity]

You know its kind of funny she thought the show was gonna fail and bailed out then a few seasons later was begging to get back on even as a guest.

It isn't that she thought the show was going to fail, she asked to be released from her contract because the character wasn't being utilized. And later she did through her representation let TPTB know she was available for guest spots, which resulted in her appearing on several occasions.

I don't know where this myth that she "begged" comes from.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Probably the same place that the rumor I remember hearing at the time did - that she was being let go because of appearances she had made that amounted to softcore porn, and The Powers That Be over Trek did not approve. AND, that this was reflected in the name of the episode in which she was killed, "Skin of Evil". (In hindsight, it's all pretty absurd, especially if you consider Roddenberry's proclivities. ) This was before the World Wide Web - Sir Tim Berners-Lee didn't even formally devise HTML until almost two years after she was killed off - and these things were all word of mouth from some know-it-all cousin or fellow convention-goer, many of whom were inclined to just make crap up to impress people or because it sounded good to them.

(It probably didn't help that Vanessa Williams' first album, "The Right Stuff", also came out in 1988, and so there was a renewed discussion of how she had lost the Miss America crown due to appearing - against her will with unauthorized nudes - in Penthouse. Probably fodder in the public consciousness of the time that helped generate the above rumor...)

 

[Christopher]

I've never agreed with the mockery of Tasha's drug speech in "Symbiosis." Okay, granted, re-reading it now, it is somewhat simplistically written. But it always seemed clear to me that she was implicitly admitting that she had been an addict herself, so she was speaking from the heart rather than just being preachy, and we were learning something important about her character.

Probably the same place that the rumor I remember hearing at the time did - that she was being let go because of appearances she had made that amounted to softcore porn, and The Powers That Be over Trek did not approve.

Wow, what a silly rumor that was. She'd done a Playboy spread a few years before -- big deal. It always amused me when people referred to Playboy as porn; compared to any other adult magazine out there, it didn't even come close. It was more like clothing-optional glamour photography.

And of course, the selfsame Vanessa Williams who fell victim to the Penthouse thing would later go on to play Arandis in DS9.