Star Trek: Discovery: 10 Most Tragic Deaths

If there's one thing about Star Trek: Discovery, it definitely committed to a more dramatic framing of its characters and stories. Where all Trek series lose a few people over the years, mostly beloved allies from one-off episodes, Discovery was the most intense about offing main characters that mean a lot to the cast and fans.

The series has backed off/erased several of these decisions, but that doesn't change the impact of them when they happened.

Everyone was just as shocked, devastated, and emotional about them (in good and bad ways). Here are the 10 most tragic deaths on Star Trek: Discovery.

10 Hugh Culber

When Ash Tyler snapped Hugh Culber's neck, it was a shock to everyone watching. Sure, they knew something was up with Ash, but for him to do that to the kind Doctor Hugh? It was totally out of left field.

Over time, the loss of Hugh only ached more and more. Even discluding the tiresome "bury your gays" trope, it was so sudden and hurt fans to see him disappear like that. It especially hurt that the writing seemed to gloss over it happening.

Luckily, Discovery re-wrote their wrong in season 2. But it doesn't change the fact his passing happened.

9 Phillipa Georgiou

In a startling and surprising beginning to the series, Burnham and the Shenzhou struggled to face off against the incoming Klingon tide. Unfortunately, to save what was left of her people from the Klingons, and to try to stop their advancement, Phillipa and Michael went to the Klingon vessel Sarcophagus on their own. While they got rid of T'Kuvma, the Klingon leader stabbed Phillipa.

Between Michael losing her beloved mentor and helping pull The Federation into the war, it was a traumatic and powerful way to start the series. The kind that haunted fans and Michael for the rest of the season.

8 Lorca

Lorca's passing itself wasn't so tragic, it was the storylines lost with him. Abandoning Lorca in the Terran universe could have been fascinating with a lot of complex repercussions. That, or bringing the bad guy back to their universe could have had its own interesting consequences.

Instead, he was tossed and left to burn.

Of all the tragic Discovery losses, he's not the worst. However, there was definitely more they could have done with him instead of having some great reveal and then abandoning him. Well, letting Phillipa end him. Granted, though, between Phillipa and Lorca, they chose the better character.

7 Ellen Landry

The favorite security chief of Captain Lorca, Ellen never met anything that she didn't think she could punch her way through. While the average day-to-day struggles of the ship worked well enough with that mindset, the complex turmoil that the Discovery started to face was not.

When the enlarged tardigrade came onto the ship, Landry refused to look at it like anything but a threat. Unfortunately, she needed to look at it like a scientist.

Her stubbornness and determination to use guns, not sentimentality, ended with the tardigrade tearing her to shreds. It was a dark foreshadowing to how dangerous Discovery's journey would be.

6 Airiam

One of the saddest losses, by far, was Airiam. This cyborg only got one episode to flesh out her character, but it was done so well that it made losing her heart-wrenching.

Control was a bit of a cheesy villain, but what it did to Airiam?

It turned a sweet woman who recovered from a horrible loss into a monstrous murder machine. She deserved to be happy, to live out her days as a wonderful computational officer and navigator. Instead, she had to beg Burnham to end her life. Who wouldn't be heartbroken, seeing a woman who already lost so much lose everything?

5 Connor Danby

Michael Burnham's fellow bridge crewman was a double whammy of tragedy. First, Michael had to watch him get sucked out into the vacuum of space. It was a horrible way to begin the Shenzhou's destruction but made a big impact on fans.

His second passing, though, was probably worse. In the mirror universe, Connor was mirror Michael's second in command and took over her ship when she went missing. When Starfleet's Michael crossed over and took the long-gone Burnham's place, Connor didn't feel like giving up power, so tried to end her. In turn, Michael was forced to stab him herself.

Poor Burnham.

4 Mike Burnham

Speaking of Burnham bad luck, when the Burnham family was studying time travel, they ran into trouble when the Klingons came after them. And considering Klingons were not the more likable, reasonable folk fans know them to be in later series, the Burnham family was doomed the second they started studying Klingon time crystals.

Gabrielle survived because she jumped in the Red Angel, and Michael was spared because she was hidden away, but her father, Mike, took the brunt of their aggression.

The man was a scientist. He deserved a long life, not to be mauled by Klingons. Especially after seeing his love for Michael in the Short Trek "The Girl Who Made The Stars".

3 Leland

Leland wasn't the most likable guy, but it wasn't of his own volition that her turned evil. After all, when push came to shove, Leland did help the Discovery the second it needed help with the spore dimension.

To give him credit, he's just a man with different morals, not a full-on monster.

While he made sketchy calls, he didn't deserve to be infected by Control and turned into its vessel of destruction. His attempts to fight it were absolutely tragic, especially since it absolutely had no regard for his desire to remain human. Leland could have been a fascinating ally, but then he was doomed.

2 Admiral Cornwell

When the photon torpedo got lodged in the Enterprise, the senior officers were desperate to do anything to save the ship. So much so that Number Two, Pike, and Admiral Cornwell were willing to sacrifice themselves to eject the compartment and spare everyone.

Pike thought he had plot armor, so he tried to do it himself, but Cornwell beat him to the punch. Despite knowing her as the sanest voice of reason in Starfleet. She sometimes did some underhanded things to try to save people, but she always knew when not to cross a line.

After months/years of being a mentor of sorts for the Discovery, she sacrificed herself for the good of everyone. Bittersweet and heroic.

1 Saru (Sort Of)

Okay, Saru didn't technically end up gone. But somehow, that episode still made so many fans cry out their eye sockets. Saru has easily become a fan favorite of the series, a thoughtful, sensitive character who helps bring the crew together in times of crisis.

When he thought his life was over, he dealt with the problem with such grace and, like Michael, fans were broken-hearted to think he might go. The show even seemed like it was following through, setting up a peaceful end for him and Michael's loving final moments with him.

In the end it was a fake-out, but boy, it was such a good one that it felt like a tragic loss every second that viewers experienced it.

Source: screenrant.com