Sonya Gomez and that weird 80s potted plant hair do.

#god it’s everywhere#you need a trim

I think her slightly out-of-control hair is part of why Sonya Gomez is cute. I wish she’d been around more, scuttling guiltily out of sight when Captain Picard hove into frame. I think she and Data would have been good friends.

So yeah, the ideal version of Star Trek: the Next Generation that exists only in my head has the following features:

• Tasha Yar doesn’t die.
  
• Tasha and Worf’s relationship is developed into a kind of mutually adoptive sibling thing - like he formally asks her if she would like to join the House of Mogh, and at first she’s really wigged out because she thinks he’s asking her to marry him and she loves him but NOT LIKE THAT, but once that misunderstanding is cleared up she’s very happy to accept.
  
• Doctor Pulaski sticks around and gets character development beyond “like a woman Bones.”
• We see more of Ensign Gomez and Doctor Selar. (Having a more gender-balanced cast is a priority with me. I love the male characters, I don’t want to eliminate any of them, but there’s a disproportionate number of them.)
• Queer representation. As originally planned, Geordi is gay. (This is also used to show that gay men can have male friends that they’re not in love with/sexually attracted to, and it doesn’t have to be weird or uncomfortable, because apparently a lot of straight dudes need to be reassured on this point.) Deanna and Riker are both bisexual. Everyone is cool with that.
• Data has no fixed sense of gender and tries out different possibilities due to curiosity. There is discussion making it clear that gender identity isn’t determined by biological sex, and is also independent of sexuality. Ultimately he decides that yes, he is most comfortable being referred to as “he” and perceived as male, although he’s not either of those things in the human sense. It was worth exploring the question, though.
• DATA ADOPTS TIMOTHY NO ARGUMENTS.