36 Years Ago, Star Trek Finally Brought Back a Fan-Favorite Character (And It Made the Series Better)

It’s no secret that Star Trek: The Next Generation got off to a rocky start, with a first season full of thin plotlines and weak, passive characters, one of whom didn’t even manage to make it past the threshold into Season 2. Thankfully, as the seasons went on, the writing got better, and the braintrust behind TNG seized the opportunity to retcon the sudden, senseless death in Season 3. 

On February 19, 1990, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” brought back Lieutenant Tasha Yar through an alternate timeline. Tasha, played by Denise Crosby, had been written out abruptly and unceremoniously in Season 1. In her return, Tasha was given the chance to choose her own death, while Crosby was set up to make subsequent guest appearances in some of the series’ best episodes, and even came back to play Tasha’s daughter. Ultimately, the return in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” would have major implications for the rest of the show and the Enterprise-D crew. 

Tasha Yar’s Original Run, Death, and Return in The Next Generation

Lieutenant Natasha Yar was introduced in “Encounter at Farpoint” as the Enterprise-D’s Chief of Security, as a tough survivor of a rough childhood on the failed colony world Turkana IV. Being one of the less cerebral and more action-oriented characters earned her some fans, even early on. Yet despite her position, Tasha’s development in the first season was lackluster. She received some focused storylines in episodes “The Naked Now” and “Symbiosis,” but her story was too broad and shallow to be particularly interesting. Reportedly, it was Denise Crosby who asked to be released from her contract, claiming she was “miserable” and “dying” to leave the show due to being relegated to a one-dimensional token blonde.

The premature exit came in “Skin of Evil,” where Tasha is killed instantly by the creature Armus during an away mission. For fans at the time, her death was a complete surprise, unforeshadowed, and unearned by the writers, completely resolved within a single episode. While the crew mourns her via holographic farewell, the series scoots along, leaving fans baffled and unsatisfied. 

Three years later, Crosby was handed the script for “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and it was supposedly so fantastic she couldn’t say no. Thus, TNG reintroduced Tasha through a temporal anomaly, after the Enterprise-C emerges from a rift and history changes, creating a darker timeline where the Federation is on the losing end of a war with the Klingons. In this alt reality, Tasha is alive and still serving aboard the Enterprise-D. She then encounters Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan, who reveals to her that she dies a “senseless” and “empty” death in the main timeline. This allows Tasha to choose a more meaningful, warrior’s death, and she chooses to join the doomed Enterprise-C crew as a sacrifice to fix the timeline. 

How Tasha’s Return in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” Made All of TNG Better

“Yesterday’s Enterprise” didn’t just retcon the meaningless, premature death of Tasha, but also used the opportunity to deepen her character. As a result, Crosby had a better experience playing the character, and fans connected with her more. Her return was also ground zero for many great things that followed. In fact, Crosby makes appearances in many of the series’ all-timers, including the “Redemption” and “Unification” storylines, where she played Tasha’s daughter, Sela, an idea pitched by Crosby herself. In the series finale, “All Good Things…” she returns for a final appearance as Tasha.

Her death and return also had a net positive effect on other characters. Worf, for example, took over many of Tasha’s security and combat-oriented story functions, and went from a weak side character to an iconic fan-favorite. Picard, meanwhile, was directly affected by both Tasha’s return and the reveal of her daughter, forced to reckon with the personal consequences of his command decisions. The Tasha retcon also cemented her as a key fixture of Data’s personal journey, turning their “Naked Now” hookup into a core memory for him. 

In the end, her return did so much more than simply redeem her short-sighted Season 1 exit; it turned her character into an essential thread within the Tapestry of The Next Generation, and helped bring us perhaps the greatest TNG episode of all time. 

Which Denise Crosby TNG appearance is your favorite? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum! 

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