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SECURITY CHIEF TASHA YAR

Tasha grew up on a failed Earth colony where law and order had broken down and the survival of the fittest became the order of the day. An orphan, she spent her nights and days foraging for food and fleeing the roving rape gangs. The colony broke down due to being comprised largely of renegades and other violent undesirables who were being given a second chance. Instead, violence ruled. A sample of what life there was like was briefly seen in “The Naked Now,” while later developments were seen in the episode entitled “Legacy.”

In her teens, Tasha escaped to Earth, leaving behind a sister who remained by choice, and discovered Starfleet. She worshiped the order and discipline of Starfleet because it was the exact opposite of the chaos she grew up fighting.

At the age of twenty-eight, she achieved the rank of security chief and was handpicked by Captain Picard. She was one of the few crew members who performed the same duties on and off the ship. When an Away Team was selected to investigate a landing site, whether for a possible shore leave or for a conference that Captain Picard was being called to attend, Yar, as Security Chief, was always a part of the initial contact team.

The young security chief satisfied her need for peace and order in her chosen occupation, and held the Starfleet officers embodying this quality of devotion to duty and decency in the highest possible regard. She came close to worshiping them. This is particularly true in her attitude toward the commanding officers of the Enterprise. In her youth, figures of authority had been brutal and deadly.

Captain Picard, having visited Tasha’s homeworld—her “hell planet”—understood what she went through and became her mentor. He taught her to apply the cushioning of history and philosophy to her almost obsessive need to protect the vessel and crew.

TOUGH AND BEAUTIFUL

Natasha was of Ukrainian descent. This, combined with her own strict exercise regimen, gave her a quality of conditioned, subtle beauty that would have flabbergasted males from earlier centuries. With fire in her eyes and a muscularly well-toned and very female body, she was capable of pinning most crewmen. She was also an exciting sensual and intellectual challenge to men who enjoyed full equality between the genders. Neither Number One nor Picard was blind to these qualities in Tasha, but she could never bring herself to view these “saints” as mere mortals.

In “The Naked Now,” Tasha revealed a previously concealed interest in Data. She even went so far as to take him into her quarters and seduce him! When the judgment-inhibiting effects wore off, Tasha realized that she had completely violated her personal sense of decorum, and told the literal-minded android, “It never happened.” Since she didn’t specify what “it” was, Data was a bit confused as to what, exactly, had never occurred.

Tasha’s death at the hands of the creature Armus was a senseless tragedy that left her comrades stunned and bereaved. Oddly enough, it seems to be the emotionless Data who cherishes her memory the most; he keeps a holographic snapshot of her among his most cherished possessions.

The Enterprise crew later encountered Ishara Yar, Tasha’s sister, when they went to rescue a Federation freighter’s crew from captivity on Tasha’s hellish homeworld. She reminded them of Tasha, but she was using them to get help for her political faction. Perhaps she was as capable of loyalty and friendship as Tasha, but Ishara’s loyalties were bound up in the ongoing struggle of her world, and she lacked the courage to turn her back on the chaos and follow her sister’s path.

In “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” a temporal anomaly gave Tasha a chance to die a meaningful death, sacrificing herself to go back to a certain doom in order to restore reality to its proper balance. As it turned out, the doom, while certain, was somewhat delayed.

In the fourth-season cliffhanger “Redemption I,” we see a Romulan commander who looks exactly like Tasha Yar. In “Redemption II,” we learn that the woman’s name is Sela and Tasha Yar was her mother. In this alternate timeline, Tasha Yar had been captured by the Romulans due to the events set in motion in “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and taken as a Romulan’s wife. Sela was her daughter from that union. When Tasha attempted to flee Romulus with her young daughter, they were stopped and Tasha was executed. Sela does not miss her mother and believes that Tasha deserved her fate.

DENISE CROSBY

Denise Crosby described the character she played with this thumbnail sketch: “She comes from an incredibly violent and aggressive Earth colony where life was a constant battle for survival. She can fight and she knows her job, but she has no family, is emotionally insecure, and somehow feels that she doesn’t quite belong on this ship of seemingly perfect people.”

As the granddaughter of the late legendary crooner Bing Crosby, Denise enjoyed the part and even related to it to some extent. “My grandfather was a Hollywood legend. Growing up with that wasn’t exactly normal or typical either, and I think that helps me understand Tasha’s imbalance and insecurities,” explained the actress in a first-season interview.

Prior to getting involved in developing an acting career, Denise went through what she describes as her “European runway model thing. I hated modeling, but I was taken to Europe by three California designers who were trying to launch their fashions there. I loved London, so I just stayed on.”

When she returned home for the Christmas holidays, she was almost tapped for an acting role. “Toni Howard was casting a movie called Diary of a Teenage Hitchhiker and had seen my picture in a magazine. I looked wild. My hair was about a quarter of an inch all the way around. I wore army fatigues and no makeup.” While she didn’t land that role, Toni Howard encouraged her to enroll in acting classes. The roles soon followed.

Her feature film credits include 48 Hours, Arizona Heat, The Eliminators, The Man Who Loved Women, Trail of the Pink Panther, and Miracle Mile.

The TV credits for Denise also include L.A. Law, Days of Our Lives, The Flash, and the made-for-TV movies O’Hara, Stark, Malice in Wonderland, and Cocaine: One Man’s Poison.

Denise has also appeared in some local Los Angeles theater productions, including the critically well-received Tamara, in which she had the lead, as well as the controversial one-act play Stops Along the Way, directed by Richard Dreyfuss.

Needless to say, Denise Crosby reprised her role as Tasha Yar in “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” and returned to the show in its fifth season. The form this character took was revealed in the final episode of the fourth season, “Redemption I.” A clue about this occurs in the episode “The Mind’s Eye” in which Denise Crosby plays one of the Romulans on the ship that kidnaps Geordi, although her identity in “The Mind’s Eye” is obscured unless you look closely. In the fifth season Denise Crosby turned up periodically, such as in “Redemption II,” and “Unification I & II,” in the latter appearing with Leonard Nimoy in his guest-starring role of Spock. She is one of the few Next Generation regulars to ever play opposite Leonard Nimoy or appear with Mr. Spock.