Was the Sela reveal and Denise Crosby appearing again known publicly before it happened?

It's so frustrating. I'm not even on Facebook or any other social media sites, just Reddit, and I have to dodge or block so many posts (and subreddits entirely!) because they'll just be casually spoiling new TV show episodes that aired the previous night.

I binge watch TV shows now, I don't do the "watch and wait a week" thing anymore. I wait until the entire season's released and then watch the entire thing at my leisure over the course of a week or two. Trying to do this with new popular shows like Severance feels like trying to navigate the Romulan minefield from Enterprise. Every website is just a wall of spoilers.

Relatedly: Don't ever click on a Youtube video for a series you haven't fully completed yet. The algorithm will IMMEDIATELY try to spoil everything for you. Horrible!

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Wrong-Ad-4600@reddit

i feel that.. sometimes the early reveals are sucking the fun out of a whole movie.. marvels anouncment for all movies days after ininity war spoilers everything (spiderman will come back etc etc)

and trailers nowadays just show the whole damn movie including plot twists.. its not a trailer its a synopsis of the movie.. some years ago a trailer was what is now called "teaser".. you saw some actors and some explosions and a titel.. now you know the whole movie

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zoonose99@reddit

Oh, you sweet child.

The TOS community overlapped heavily with the early-adopter netizen community the announcement/advent of TNG sparked the first true internet fandom freakout in history.

It was also one of the earliest examples of the internet spilling over into popular culture; a lot of the talk about early TNG reflected the rabid controversy on the message boards.

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Mistervimes65@reddit

I believe my exact quote was: “Holy Shit!”

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LSXI@reddit

They kind of eased it in. They had her “in shadows” in the previous episode talking on screen. We realized who it was so the reveal wasn’t a shocker.

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eagle_flower@reddit

I feel like it’s not her voice though

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li_grenadier@reddit

It is.

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eagle_flower@reddit

Oh oh it’s her voice but obviously not her body?

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li_grenadier@reddit

Yes. The various Trek Wiki pages and episode guides have a name for the body double, but also mention the Crosby did the voiceover.

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li_grenadier@reddit

Pretty sure it leaked ahead of time. While we did not have the World Wide Web, there was Usenet, and info leaks would be posted to the Usenet boards. There may also have been hints in the likes of Starlog magazine, but I can't swear to that. At the time, Usenet was where I went for news of this nature.

Any leaks like this would have limited spread though thanks to the general lack of Internet users in the public. Sure, word might also have filtered into the likes of Compuserve, AOL, or GEnie, but that was still a limited number of people compared to how many were watching TNG.

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Necessary_Ad2114@reddit

Nope it was a surprise. She appeared in shadow first, and if you recognized the voice, you could make the kind of guess that could only exist in sci-fi/fantasy.

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_Belted_Kingfisher@reddit

She kinda gave it away with her quote of (Humans or the Federation) have a habit of showing up in unexpected places.

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Messyproduct@reddit

She says this 2 seconds before she emerges from the shadows.

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ChrisNYC70@reddit

no idea it was coming. I was always sad that Denise left the show and glad when she got chances to return.

I think she should do so one more time.

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BeerandGuns@reddit

I wish I felt the same but her Sela story felt so shoehorned in and then it was just dropped. She chose to leave the show while the rest of the cast stuck with it even thought some had doubts. The few time travel guest appearances like Yesterdays Enterprise worked well but her coming back as her half Romulan daughter was cringe to me.

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Complex_Professor412@reddit

I would much preferred Tasha Yar clone than a Picard clone in Nemesis.

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BeerandGuns@reddit

I’m good with neither having happened. I forget Nemesis exists.

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Complex_Professor412@reddit

Don’t forget Spock was involved in those stories. Would have made more sense than whatever the fuck he was doing in Star Trek.

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BeerandGuns@reddit

If I were picking any of them as my least favorite, it’s how they put Scotty into TNG. They made him into an out of place know it all clown. As much as I loved TNG, I had issues with how lazy the writing could be. They had an entire galaxy to explore but kept having to fallback on the same protagonists or figure out how to insert some past character into the show.

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Complex_Professor412@reddit

That was the worst part of Voyager and Enterprise: constant throwbacks to things in the wrong place or time. However the Ferengi were done well in both cases. Damn, probably the worse television introduction ever into one of the best written species.

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BeerandGuns@reddit

DS9 took a terrible foundation for the Ferengi and made them into one of the most interesting species. I still drop the occasional Rule of Acquisition on people like “the bigger the smile, the sharper the knife”

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soothsayer2377@reddit

Gates McFadden left too but she was able to come back because they didn't kill her character.

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EEMIV@reddit

Here is the episode trailer - it's all we knew ahead of time.

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Ryan1869@reddit

Now the pictures would have been all over socials of her on set. Back then, you didn't have any of that, you found out by watching the show at the exact time it aired (or maybe you were lucky to have a VCR)

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Malnurtured_Snay@reddit

It may have been on some of the bulletin boards. Also, there would be a weekly pamphlet TV guide included with the Sunday papers (but if you had home delivery, you got it on Saturday), so the blurb for the next week's episode would have quick description, and might spoil some stuff (and since new episodes usually premiered Saturday evenings -- at least in the markets I was in -- you wouldn't even have to wait for the "next week on Star Trek The Next Generation.")

I say this because it isn't out of the question for The Mind's Eye description to be: "Geordi is kidnapped by the Romulans in an assassination spot. Special guest star: Denise Crosby."

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DifficultMinute@reddit

Everyone saying no… she’s literally in the trailer lol

https://youtu.be/dNNBLEjc-eE?si=2zfu77wROKi40laq

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Commercial-Day-3294@reddit

Nope. That was back before they ruined everything in the commercials.
I believe the tv commercial for the episode was something along the lines of "The crew of the Enterprise goes up against a familiar foe" or something like that without showing anything about Denise Crosby.
However, the episode where she comes back in "Yesterdays Enterprise" she was advertised as coming back for a guest appearance.

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ODSTGeneral@reddit

I mean some of the TNG commercials spoiled some pretty big plot elements. Just not with the consistency of a modern movie trailer.

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Donjeur@reddit

Next time on staaaaaaaar trek

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One-Technology-9050@reddit

I can hear your comment haha

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Throwaway_inSC_79@reddit

Oh that witty because once you saw the Romulans you probably thought somehow Tomalok was back

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Donjeur@reddit

Hear me out - Sela should have been the main baddy in Picard S3. Just for the fun of it all!

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Donjeur@reddit

I was a bit young but remember my dad freaking out

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OnlyOnHBO@reddit

Man, back in the day we didn't know if PICARD was coming back after he was notified. Longest summer of my young life!

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JCEE4129@reddit

NOPE ! Total Surprise ! Life before the internet really kicked in was great.

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Andybalki@reddit

As a 13 year old, it was pretty shocking!! Thank god that wasn't a season ender with the WHOLE summer to fret over how tf Tasha Yar is a Romulon 😂

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Gaussgoat@reddit

No, definitely not. There was no social media at that time, and the internet was in its infancy.

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pacman404@reddit

No, this was way before people just knew shit and spoiled it online instantly for views or whatever. Like WAY before

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JohnMarstonSucks@reddit

Huge WTF moment

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NearbyImpression7940@reddit

I seem to recall knowing Denise Crosby was back, but that may have been either seeing it in credits or just recognizing her voice when she was “in the shadows”. Spoilers did get leaked in advance in those days, either intentionally/in trailers, or just word getting out through rumors.

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PlayfulCod8605@reddit

Nope. Total shock.

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colmatrix33@reddit

I didn't watch at the time, but didn't her name appear at the beginning of the episode in the credits? I remember being spoiled by something like that once.

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BILLCLINTONMASK@reddit

That happened in Voyager. After Seven joins the ship, they teased that “one crew member isn’t going to be sticking around.” Of course, if you watched the opening credits you’d see that Kes was no longer listed despite appearing in the first few episodes of the season. Gee, I wonder who’s leaving the crew this season?

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