Star Trek has brought fans a great amount of joy over its 50+ years, but it has also delivered a fair amount of grief as well.
It’s not easy getting used to a character only to have them be killed off for whatever reason. We’re not always privy to what’s going on behind-the-scenes, and usually we find out after the character has been killed or died the reason why the actor didn’t stay. That doesn’t make it easier, though.
Sometimes, we’re given just enough time to really grow with a character, enough time so that we want to see more. At other times, we’ve been given the opportunity to grow with that character over several seasons. We’ve gotten used to them, and they share a part of our hearts as a member of the team on whatever Star Trek series they’re on.
But fans’ desires aren’t always taken into consideration when a character is offed for whatever reason. In fact, even with fans’ protests, rarely is a character returned to the screen, although fans did get quite personal when news was leaked that Spock was going to die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and we did get the honor of seeing Data again even though he’d sacrified himself in Star Trek: Nemesis. Those deaths would have been hard to take if they’d been permanent, but the following deaths aren’t about the difficulty in processing. It’s about the complete lack of necessity.