Director was opposed to final Tasha Yar scene

Tasha Yar exited Star Trek: The Next Generation in season one

Denise Crosby couldn’t wait to get off of Star Trek: The Next Generation as she was miserable so filming her final episode wasn’t a bad thing for her. She left the series in the first season episode, Skin of Evil, which was written by Outer Limits producer and Psycho screenwriter, Joseph Stefano. And her character’s death was quite weird. One would think she (or anyone else) would have had an issue with how Tasha Yar was killed, but the director of the episode, Joseph Scanlan, had a problem with another scene.

After she is killed, the crew gathers to hear her holographic image say goodbye. Surprisingly, Scanlan was uncomfortable with Tasha’s final funeral scene. According to a quote by Scanlan which was shared in The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years, everybody thought the holographic scene was nice…except for Scanlan.

Tasha Yar’s final scene didn’t sit well with the director

Though he thought Crosby pulled the scene off very well and knew she’d worked very hard on it, he thought it was “interminable.” He also said he and Crosby had numerous discussions about where she should be looking when she was recording the message.

"“Is she looking into a lens? Is she looking at somebody? There’s no real connection.”"

Scanlan’s thoughts could have something to do with his overall opinion of Crosby’s character as he didn’t think she was well-written for. He even went so far as to say that the death of Tasha Yar didn’t make any difference to the show which seems kind of harsh.

Though Crosby wasn’t on the show for very long, her character did have an impact on the others. In season two, her prior presence was an important part of Captain Picard’s defense of Data in “The Measure of a Man.” And in the season four episode, Legacy,” Tasha’s sister was brought aboard the Enterprise and turned out to be nothing at all like Lt. Yar. And if Data had had emotions, that would have been another moment when he would have felt what it was like to have his heart broken, although even he understood the emptiness Tasha’s death left behind.

There are numerous fans who liked Crosby’s character and wish she hadn’t left the series, and as for the holographic goodbye, I think it was important for her character to have that chance and for the crew to hear her final words.