Ensign Sito wasn’t actually going to die in Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Lower Decks just brought back a character from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Shannon Fill just returned to the character she portrayed in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. On the Star Trek: Lower Decks, “Old Friends, New Planets,” episode she voiced her character as part of Lt. Mariner’s story arc, but the series chose not to resurrect Sito, which was actually what was going to happen in another Star Trek series.

The producers of The Next Generation chose to leave the ensign’s death ambiguous as they had intended to include her in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In that episode, for which the script was already written, Sito wasn’t killed but was kept as a prisoner in a Cardassian prison.

Star Trek: The Next Generation did an excellent set up for what could have been a really good storyline.

Though Ensign Sito didn’t return to either The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine, the script originally written for her return was used as a basis for the Deep Space Nine episode “Hard Time.” In that episode, Chief O’Brien returns to the space station after spending twenty years in a virtual prison.

While “Hard Time” was certainly an excellent episode and a powerful one as well, bringing Ensign Sito back would have been incredibly emotional and probably even more powerful. She’d made a bad judgment call in Starfleet Academy and attempted to redeem herself while aboard the Enterprise. Had she been held in a Cardassian prison for twenty years, one can only imagine the level of bitterness and anger she would have had toward not just her captors but possibly even Starfleet.

Lower Decks did right by the character, though, and this episode could have still been used even if Sito had been discovered alive years after her disappearance. Can you imagine the reaction if Captain Picard had learned that Sito didn’t die after all? The level of relief would have been palpable, and it would have just made for good storytelling.