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The 22nd episode of season one in Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Skin of Evil,” finds the Enterprise’s crew scrambling to rescue Counselor Troi, who has crash-landed a shuttle on Vagra II. What’s more, she’s been taken prisoner by a malevolent, drippy black being called Armus. When the first away team arrives, Lt. Yar, thus far one of the ensemble cast’s key characters, is killed by a psychokinetic blast from the animate blob of tar.
Shocking as the Lt. Yar's death was, we know in hindsight that the untimely demise was the result of actress Denise Crosby succeeding in her wish to be released from contract.
However, Crosby continued to pop up here and there throughout the series’ seven-season run, either as Lt. Yar or Yar’s half-Romulan daughter, Sela. Here are all of Crosby’s Next Generation appearances… after Lt. Yar’s death.
1
"The Measure of a Man"
Season two, episode nine
In an episode dealing with rights afforded to artificial intelligence, Data is placed in jeopardy when a scientist wishes to dismantle and replicate the android. Captain Picard fights in a Starfleet court on behalf of the lieutenant commander, but not before it is revealed that Data keeps a holographic remembrance of the late security chief. "Why?," he is asked in court. "We were…intimate," he replies. And indeed they were.
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2
"Yesterday’s Enterprise"
Season three, episode 15
When a rift in space-time sends a heavily damaged USS Enterprise-C, a ship destroyed two decades earlier, to the timeline of the USS Enterprise-D, a radical change occurs in the space-time continuum. Lt. Worf and Counselor Troi are gone, but Security Chief Yar is back, having never been killed two seasons earlier.
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3
"The Mind’s Eye"
Season four, episode 24
Romulans brainwash Geordi La Forge, turning him into the perfect assassin, a tool to engender distrust and animosity between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Crosby's Commander Sela character stands off in the shadows as the brainwashing procedure takes place, foreshadowing her grand entrance two episodes later in “Redemption.”
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4
"Redemption" Parts 1 & 2
Season four, episode 26 / Season five, episode one
In “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” Lt. Yar, knowing she would no longer exist if the timeline were restored, decides to go back in time aboard the USS Enterprise-C to face almost certain doom. In “Redemption” we learn that she did not face certain doom, but instead was captured by Romulans, became the consort of a powerful Romulan military figure and bore Sela. Now a Romulan commander, Sela is helping to incite a Klingon civil war, working with the Duras family to that end.
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5
"Unification" Part 2
Season five, episode eight
This two-part episode features Leonard Nimoy as Spock. The legendary Starfleet officer has been suspected of defecting to the Romulan Empire, prompting Picard and Data to engage in a very dangerous investigation on Romulus. When they catch up with Spock, they learn he is on an unauthorized mission to reunify Vulcans and Romulans. It turns out, however, that Spock has walked into a trap, and the idealistic Romulan politician spearheading the movement is actually in league with Sela.
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6
"All Good Things…"
Season seven, episode 25
In the series finale, Captain Picard finds himself unstuck in time, jumping from present to future to past, yet encountering the same spatial anomaly in each situation. This, of course, is Q’s final test, and humanity’s fate rests on Picard’s shoulders. Things come full circle for Crosby’s Lt. Yar, who appears in scenes set six years in the past, right before the launch of the USS Enterprise.
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