Villain Star Trek’s best moments never happened

By Chris Snellgrove
| Announce 18 seconds ago

What if the best moments of the largest Star Trek villain didn’t really happen? That may sound like a paradox, but let’s be honest, paradoxes are what this long-standing sci-fi franchise does best. And “Paradox” certainly describes Romulan Commander Tomalak, whose most memorable appearances are The next generation He was like a fake hologram in “Future Imperfect” and in an alternate timeline of the series “All Good Things.”

In case you need a primer on the character, Tomalak is the head of Romulan who first appeared in “The Enemy” trying to save the crew of an accidental scout ship. Essentially, he is the Romulan equivalent to Captain Picard … someone who is not afraid of naked his teeth when needed but he ultimately prefer diplomatic solutions. The character was played to perfection by Babylon 5 Andreas katsulas icon in four episodes of TngBut in a notable turn, only half of those chapters saw the “real” Tomalok.

What does “real” mean, in this case? We first saw Tomalak in “The Enemy,” and appeared again in “The Defector,” one of TNG’s best Romulan episodes. The next character appeared in the episode “Future Imperfect,” but we discovered that it was just a hologram through the wild turn of that chapter.

“Future Imperfect” was the episode where Riker woke up in Sickbay after the cold Open to find out she was 16 years later and is now the captain of the Menter. Conveniently suffering memory loss, he steers his duties as the captain of the leading, including the discussion of the Federation/Romulan Peace Treaty with Tomalak. Ultimately he realizes he is trapped in a simulation by lonely alien Boy and none of what he experienced (including multiple interaction with Tomalak) was real.

After that, Tomalak only made one more on screen appearance, but it was a doozy. He appeared in the Finishing of the TNG series “All Good Things,” where he and Picard agree to send one ship each to investigate a mysterious spatial phenomenon in the Devron system (he has specially ticked Picard never cleared this plan with Starfleet order). By the end of the episode, Picard has saved the galaxy and replacing reality, but that means that all his deal with Tomalak has taken place in alternate reality that was soon removed.

As for us, we love seeing Tomalak on screen and don’t lose too much sleep about whether these appearances were “real” or not. Thanks to the Serol Performance (Inter) by Andreas Katsulas, Tomalak easily became the most memorable Romulan in all The next generation. And the exact fact that his character was so willing to accept diplomacy by the end of the series helped to break down any eerie Romulans ideas as one note villains.

However there are barely things Trek Star Fans love to argue more than a cannon, some of which are likely to be obsessed with what Tomalak appearances on the show’s timeline (though, though, as Strange new worlds Confirmed, the timeline is always in flux). Those fans would be well served by remembering the words to another iconic sci-fi Iconic Show Opening Song: “If you wonder how it eats and breathes, and other science facts … just repeat to yourself, ‘it’s just a show, I should really relax!'”