From its conception, Star Trek: Picard has been just as much an epilogue to The Next Generation as its own standalone narrative. While the first season featured just legendary Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in an unexpected environment surrounded by mostly fresh faces, by Season 2, the show began introducing characters from earlier Trek iterations with their original actors reprising the roles. The first to appear were Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and various Soong creations (Brent Spiner), and by Season 3, it was more of a question of which cast members wouldn’t return.

As in most science fiction, Star Trek has never been bound to the realities of a human lifespan. Dead characters are revived with flimsy explanations that go unquestioned, if only for their general popularity. NuTrek has engaged in some serious retconning with mixed results, so it came as little surprise when, during the Mission: Star Trek Las Vegas conference, actress Denise Crosby, who played the twice-deceased Tasha Yar (and daughter Sela) in The Next Generation, hinted at a return to Trek for the Picard reunion.

As Picard’s final season approached, photos from the world premiere appeared online, revealing a full-on reunion: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Jeri Ryan, Michael Dorn, and LeVar Burton arm in arm, but Ms. Crosby was nowhere to be found. She took to Twitter to express her sadness, tweeting: “Feeling a little left out of all the @StarTrek hype for @StarTrekOnPPlus Picard. Not invited to the premiere, BUT, still, Tasha Yar, I will not forget her!” It is unclear if this apparent lack of invitation means that Crosby's return to this season of Picard will not happen after all, but it seems like a worthy time to remember the fiery Tasha Yar.

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Tasha Yar's Original Journey on 'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

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Image via Paramount

Tasha Yar made her debut in the very first episode of Next Generation, when she flew Captain Jean-Luc Picard to the U.S.S. Enterprise for the first time. With the rank of lieutenant, she was the Enterprise’s Chief of Security. As a key bridge officer, Yar had a major role in day-to-day operations. She was a firebrand, small but strong and skilled in martial arts; she even competed alongside her deputy, Worf (Dorn) — a Klingon three times her size — in Parrises Squares, a vigorous, competitive athletic sport of the 23rd century.

Her tough-as-nails exterior was reportedly inspired by the character of Private Vasquez in Aliens, a film that premiered only a year before the first episode of TNG. Yar’s presentation of womanhood deviated from the female characters in earlier iterations of Star Trek, yeomen and nurses in miniskirts and heavy makeup, with jobs that mirrored the administrative work of the real-life 1960s. All the female characters in the early seasons of Next Gen are less misogynistic portrayals than those of the 1960s, but those in the core cast alongside Yar — Crusher (McFadden) and Troi (Sirtis) both work in nurturing careers, a stark contrast from Yar’s more “masculine” security role. The existence of Tasha Yar made it possible for different types of female characters to come into the franchise, notably Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor) of Deep Space Nine, as well as Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and Seven of Nine (Ryan) of Voyager.

Despite the historic nature of her character, Crosby did not think Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and the other showrunners were doing enough to develop Tasha as a multifaceted character. This was especially frustrating for Crosby because the show was developing the character of Deanna Troi. Crosby had originally read for the role of Troi while Sirtis had auditioned for Yar, and the two swapped, possibly after Roddenberry decided on a role for his wife and TOS alum Majel Barrett. After casting Barrett as Lwaxana Troi, Deanna’s Betazoid mother, it was determined that Barrett and Sirtis had far more of a resemblance to one another, and the roles were swapped.

Crosby has stated that she was miserable working on the show’s first season and had begged to be released from her contract. Roddenberry agreed on the condition that Tasha Yar would die to facilitate Crosby’s exit, with the character written off in “The Skin of Evil” (Season 1, Episode 23). In the episode, the Enterprise receives a distress signal from a shuttlecraft carrying Deanna Troi back from a conference. Her shuttle crashes on Vagra II, a planet thought to be desolate. An away team, led by Security Chief Yar, beams down to the planet to help the rescue and comes face-to-face with a shapeshifting creature named Armus. After a brief struggle, Yar is killed, and everyone else returns safely to the ship.

Tasha Yar Was Brought Back Several Times Even After Her Death

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Even though her initial departure was swift and brutal, TNG never knew how to quit Tasha Yar, and the character made several returns through the show's seven seasons. The first occurred in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (Season 3, Episode 15), in which the defunct Enterprise-C enters a spacetime rift and ends up face-to-face with their present-day counterparts, causing major changes to the timeline–namely regarding non-humans aboard Federation starships. As the Enterprise-C crosses into the timeline of the Enterprise-D, Worf and Troi disappear, and without having to save Troi from Vagra II, Lieutenant Yar is restored as Security Chief. The presence of Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), a being of an unfathomable lifespan, prevents the crew from becoming too attached to the returned Yar, but they manage to “save” her by sending her back through the rift with the Enterprise-C.

The choice to save Tasha directly led to the events of “Unification” (Season 5, Episode 6 & 7), which begins with the Enterprise learning that Spock (Leonard Nimoy) is missing and his last known location is Romulus. The crew sets out toward Romulan space to effect a rescue. Data (Brent Spiner) and Picard travel to the surface. Spock is unhappy they’ve come, as he did not require rescuing. The three are summarily captured and held by Commander Sela, the daughter of time-traveling Tasha Yar and a Romulan. Sela, ostracized for her half-human blood, seizes the opportunity to launch a Romulan invasion of Vulcan to earn the respect of her peers. She is, of course, unsuccessful, but how she preys on Picard and Data’s affection for Tasha makes for incredible television.

Sela isn’t the first of Yar’s family members to appear in the show, bringing memories of Tasha. In “Legacy” (Season 4, Episode 6), the crew of the Enterprise rushes to the aid of a freighter in distress in an orbit around failed Federation outpost Turkana IV. The government of Turkana IV had collapsed fifteen years earlier. As the Enterprise arrives, the freighter explodes and sends escape pods toward the planet’s surface. The factions on the surface are notoriously violent and known to kill all interlopers, so Picard okays a rescue. On their first visit to the planet’s surface, they encounter a local named Ishara Yar, Tasha’s younger sister. Although she had been dead for three seasons, Ishara’s presence reawakened the crew’s curiosity about their late friend. It is in this episode that Tasha’s backstory is told. Their parents were killed not long after Ishara’s birth and Tasha raised her younger sister as best she could, protecting them from roving “rape gangs” and keeping them alive. She abandoned Ishara when she escaped Turkana IV to join Starfleet at age 15. Yar’s last appearance in Next Gen happens in a flashback in the very last episode of the series — meaning that despite the character dying in Season 1, she had a presence throughout.

Beyond the fact that fans just didn’t get enough Tasha Yar throughout the series, the biggest controversy around Yar’s character is the overarching question of queerness. At the time and in the decades since, many have read Tasha Yar as queer-coded, a butch-of-center lesbian. The show did what it could to run from those rumors, in ways as obvious as giving her a daughter. The first, and most controversial, took place in “The Naked Now” (Season 1, Episode 3). This episode was lifted from The Original Series and features a mysterious amorous ailment affecting much of the ship’s crew. It is under the influence of this ailment that the two most queer-coded characters are forced together uncharacteristically. Tasha Yar throws herself at a “fully functional” Lt. Cmdr. Data, an android lacking the emotional capacity for gender or sexual identity. This choice has been criticized as a homophobic attempt to eliminate the possibility of either’s queerness.

Ultimately, Crosby is right. Tasha Yar’s character was never developed to its full potential. It’s impossible to say whether that would have happened eventually if Crosby had not departed the show so early, but the character still holds power and respect within Trek lore. It’s possible she’ll get the care and development she deserves someday, from a Short Trek or dedicated spinoff or storyline in a future Trek series. All would be welcome — because, like Crosby, Trek fans will never forget Tasha Yar, either.