5 Star Trek Characters Who Died Too Soon

The "Star Trek" franchise comprises a dozen TV shows and even more movies, providing a wealth of rich characters who have dazzled fans for generations. Viewers all over the world have fallen in love with the dedicated heroes serving on the greatest starships in the galaxy, from captains Kirk, Picard, Janeway, and Sisko, to alien favorites like Spock, Worf, Saru, and Borg drone Seven of Nine. With so much material spanning six decades, it's perhaps not surprising that there have been some devastating character deaths in the "Star Trek" franchise. However, while characters like Mr. Spock were killed off in shocking fashion and then immediately brought back to life, others haven't been so lucky.

Beloved captains Kirk and Sisko both met their ends to the dismay of "Star Trek" fans everywhere, but at least both characters got years of engrossing, multi-layered stories that explored every facet of their lives. The same can't be said for every character who has been killed off in "Star Trek" media, and there are quite a few who saw their demise far earlier than many fans may have liked. While the reasons that they died differ — some for narrative purposes, others simply because an actor left the series — it doesn't change the fact that they passed on well before their time. Here are five "Star Trek" characters that we wish had stuck around for a lot longer.

When "Star Trek: The Next Generation" launched in 1987, one of its most intriguing cast members was Denise Crosby. She was cast as Lt. Tasha Yar, a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails officer who serves as the security chief on the Enterprise. A woman in a traditionally male-dominated role, Yar had a compelling backstory as the survivor of a war-torn colony. Sadly, Yar was killed off before we got a chance to learn more, meeting her end in the widely derided Season 1 episode "Skin of Evil."

To be fair to the writers and producers, they didn't have much choice when it came to writing Yar out: Crosby asked to leave "Star Trek: The Next Generation." She was unhappy with her screentime and wanted to be free to explore other, more robust acting opportunities. Unfortunately, the decision was made to kill Yar off rather than simply write her off the ship, which would have allowed her to easily return as a guest star at some point down the line.

Admittedly, Yar's death did lead to some incredible drama later in the series when Crosby returned to play an alternate reality duplicate of Yar in the classic episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" and subsequently a half-human/half-Romulan offspring of Yar's in "Redemption" and "Unification." Still, seeing as most of "TNG" Season 1 is so awful (we ranked it as the worst first season of all "Star Trek" shows), it's a shame she didn't stick around to see the series find its footing. Yar could have been an incredible character given more time.

Despite Captain Kirk being portrayed as something of a womanizer in the original "Star Trek" series, audiences were given surprisingly little insight into his past romantic life. The 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" went some way toward remedying this by introducing his former flame, Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch), now a scientist working on a top-secret project called Genesis. We learn that Carol and Kirk had a child together: David Marcus (Merritt Butrick). It was as much a surprise to Kirk as it was to Trekkies. David makes no secret of his disdain for his biological father, who didn't even know he existed. It's a fascinating subplot in a film dominated by the vengeful Khan (Ricardo Montalbán).

In the sequel, 1984's "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock," David is murdered by the Klingon Kruge during his attempt to steal the Genesis device. It's a powerful moment that motivates Kirk, but it's not as impactful as it could have been because we barely even knew the character. And that's a shame, because many fans no doubt wanted to see more of Kirk and David together, exploring their contentious father-son relationship and how the Enterprise captain would deal with being a father to an adult son he never knew. If David had lived for longer, perhaps his death in a later film would have been more tragic and tear-jerking. As it stands, his off-screen death is something of a letdown.

Suzie Plakson has played multiple "Star Trek" characters over the years, appearing as four different aliens across three separate shows. However, she only appeared in multiple episodes as one of those characters: K'Ehleyr, who was killed off far too soon. The daughter of a human mother and a Klingon father, K'Ehleyr could have grown into a much bigger character in the franchise had she survived her encounter with Duras in the "TNG" episode "Reunion." She was introduced as a former lover of Worf in the episode "Emissary" and she returned in "Reunion" to reveal that she had given birth to Worf's son, Alexander. But in his plot to steal the throne of the Klingon High Council, the powerful Klingon Duras murders her in cold blood, kicking off a bitter feud between the House of Duras and Worf's House of Mogh.

It's stirring stuff, but we'd argue that K'Ehleyr's death wasn't necessary for that blood feud to happen, and it's truly regrettable that she didn't get more time on the series. As the first half-human/half-Klingon in the franchise, there were real dramatic possibilities for her character and Worf. The tension between them was fascinating, as K'Ehleyr rejected Klingon culture and Worf felt jilted by her refusal to take a marriage oath. Had we gotten even a handful of additional episodes with K'Ehleyr, it would have laid a stronger foundation for Worf's later relationship with Jadzia Dax on "Deep Space Nine." As it is, we still know almost nothing about her relationship with Worf — and even less about K'Ehleyr herself.

A prequel series that picks up where the first "Star Trek" pilot, "The Cage," left off, "Strange New Worlds" follows Captain Pike and the crew of the Enterprise in the years before Captain Kirk. It features many classic characters we've seen before, including Pike (Anson Mount), Mr. Spock (Ethan Peck), Number One (Rebecca Romijn), Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun), Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush), and Uhura (Celia Rose-Gooding). One of the few original characters is Lt. Hemmer, who is an Aenar (an offshoot of the iconic Andorians first glimpsed in a two-part episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise"). Hemmer is a fascinating character and one of the few aliens on the Enterprise. He's also blind, which helped bring more diversity to the cast (the Aenar was portrayed by blind actor Bruce Horak).

Despite being an instant favorite, he was killed off at the tail end of the inaugural year in the episode "All Those Who Wander." Hemmer's shocking death riled a lot of "Star Trek" fans, with most seeing it as a big mistake. Viewers had quickly grown to love the character, a passionate but measured engineer who served as a mentor to Uhura and who was immediately one of the most interesting new characters the series had on offer. Of course, fans already knew that Hemmer would eventually leave the Enterprise, as he is nowhere to be seen in the original "Star Trek" series, where Scotty ran the engine room. Still, the writers decided to kill him off well before he reached his full potential.

If you're a "Star Trek" fans and don't recognize the name Lon Suder, don't feel bad. After all, the character showed up in just three episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager." Even if you've forgotten him, you may well know the actor who played him: Brad Dourif, best-known today for his role as Grima Wormtongue in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. In "Voyager," he played a misanthropic Betazoid crewman who is revealed to be a sociopathic killer. First appearing in the Season 2 installment "Meld," Suder is pacified thanks to Tuvok, who uses a Vulcan mind meld to quiet his murderous impulses. He returns in the two-parter "Basics" and gives his life to help save the ship.

It's a memorable and shocking death. We're not complaining about the drama it created: Suder's sacrifice might be the best part of the story. However, Suder is legitimately one of the best, most layered characters "Voyager" ever introduced, played by a phenomenal actor who gives a haunting performance as someone trying to do good despite his deranged, bloodthirsty urges. Suder had the potential to be a top-tier recurring character in "Voyager," and the possibility of more appearances in the series had to have been tempting for the creators. Instead, he was limited to a small guest star role and fans were left to wonder what could have been.