There Must Be More To Erica Ortegas Than ‘I Fly The Ship’
After two seasons, Melissa Navia and her character remain sorely underused
Anyone who either has met Melissa Navia in person, or who follows her on social media, knows that the actor is at least as nice, bright and generally positive as the character she plays on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Lt. Erica Ortegas.
So there's no way that she would ever complain — certainly not publicly — about the treatment that she and her character have received.
That leaves it to us, as fans, to complain for her.
Yes, to be sure, the cast of Strange New Worlds very much is an ensemble and they all take turns in the spotlight.
But it's equally true that Navia’s co-star, Christina Chong, and the character Chong portrays — Lt La’an Noonian Singh — have been seeing that spotlight on them much more often.
Last season, the Enterprise security chief took center stage in the episode, “Memento Mori,” and that focus on La’an only accelerated this year not only with “Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow,” but focal turns in “Ad Astra per Aspera,” “Subspace Rhapsody,” and more.
Meanwhile, we were promised an “Erica Ortegas episode.”
Ortegas, of course, got a little more to do in “Among the Lotus Eaters.”
But please let me strongly associate myself with the view of TrekCulture reviewer Sean Ferrick and others that repeating over and over, “I’m Erica Ortegas, and I fly the ship” — while an interesting character beat — does not a “Ortegas episode” make.
And, again, it was great to see the character do some more fancy flying in the Season 2 finale.
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But for the love of the Great Bird of the Galaxy, we know that Ortegas is a really great pilot. It's well past time that we see her as more: As a fully three-dimensional character the same way as the creative team has developed La’an.
At this point, we — as well as the actor and character — are owed not a simple Ortegas episode; rather what we should see in Season 3 is a full story arc devoted to them.
And, Speaking Of Melissa Navia…
As the dual writers/actors strike continues in Hollywood, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds co-star Melissa Navia has been one of the most stalwart voices on behalf of labor.
When it came to light that the strategy of the major studios was to literally starve striking workers out, to get them to cave, Navia wasn't going to stand for it.
Posting on social media, she vowed: “However long they think we can go, we can go longer. A life of hustling and surviving on nothing in pursuit of wild dreams has primed us for adversity. We are mad. We are patient. We are relentless. We are unbreakable. #WGAstrong #SAGAFTRAstrong”
Just in the last day or so, the studios returned to the bargaining table with striking writers.
While there was some minor progress, the stalemate appears to be far from over.
Editor’s Note: We are unable to embed tweets in our newsletter because of an ongoing business dispute between Elon Musk, owner of the service formerly known as Twitter and Substack.
That forces us to substitute a screenshot of the tweet instead.
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