Whose line is it anyway?An analysis of how much each Star Trek character speaksGene Roddenberry's Star Trek TV show has spawned eleven spin-off series, thirteen films, and countless other media. Fans of the franchise constantly debate the merits (or lack thereof) of different series and movies. I decided to conduct a basic linguistic analysis to provide quantitative data on how the shows feature. Text transcripts of every episode and movie can be found at Chrissie's Transcripts Site, an outstanding reference. I wrote some Python scripts to parse these transcripts, identifying which character spoke each line, and then counting how many words each character speaks over the course of a series. I'm particularly interested in seeing the distribution of words among the main and supporting characters: does the show center around just one or two characters, or is there a larger ensemble cast? This page documents my findings. If you want to jump to the analysis for a particular series, please click below. I have not yet included any of the films in this analysis, this is only for TV episodes. I also have not analyzed any of the "newer" shows. I've seen two seasons of Discovery and one of Picard and, frankly, neither one captures my interest the way the earlier ones did. I may in time circle back to this, but it's not a priority. Feel free to use the script linked above if you want to conduct such an analysis yourself. For each show, I provide two kinds of linguistic analysis, along with a raw data file listing how many words each character spoke over the course of the show. I provide a table showing, for each episode, what percentage of the total number of words in that episode were spoken by each of the major characters. For this purpose, I count any character listed in the title credits as a "major character," along with any character who has spoken more words over the course of the series than any of these characters in the credits. These charts can identify trends in the focus of the show over time: who's getting the spotlight, and who's getting ignored? I also provide a bar chart showing the distribution of words for the main characters. The shape of this distribution can help understand how the show is shaped around different characters. Are there just a few characters that get most of the lines, or do we have a larger "ensemble cast"? Fans often talk about these kinds of differences among the shows qualitatively, and these analyses provide some data to back that up. For these bar charts, I use a slightly more expansive definition of major characters: any character who has spoken at least 2% as many words as the captain on the show (who is always the wordiest character). I think this gives more insight for these purposes, and even seeing how many characters meet this 2% threshold is interesting in and of itself. I never consider "Computer" to be a main character, no matter how many words it speaks. In every show except Enterprise, at least one new cast member joins or leaves the show. In the bar charts, I show the actual number of spoken words in blue bars. I also provide an orange bar on top which shows the theoretical number of words that character would have spoken if they were on the show for the entire run, based on the number of episodes they were in the main cast and the total number of episodes in the show. [Summary statistics] [The Original Series] [The Next Generation] [Deep Space 9] [Voyager] [Enterprise] Summary statisticsCross-show comparison
Wordiest and shyest main charactersIn this list I'm only counting people that show up in the title credits. Wordiest characters:
Wordiest and tersest episodesWordiest episodes:
The Original SeriesThis table lists each episode and shows what percentage of the words in the episode were spoken by each of the major characters. Raw data is here. This chart shows a histogram of words for the major characters; the orange bar estimates how many words Chekov would have spoken were he on the show for all three seasons:
It's often said that TOS is centered around the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and indeed that's true. They collectively utter more than half of all the words in the show. Kirk in particular says 29% of the words in the show, much more than any of the other captains (as we'll see below). Kirk says almost as much than the next three characters combined (Spock, McCoy, and Scott). There are also not a lot of recurring characters, especially if you think counting both The Cage and The Menagerie is cheating. Harry Mudd and Nurse Chapel show up a handful of times, but that's about it. Other trivia:
The Next GenerationThis table lists each episode and shows what percentage of the words in the episode were spoken by each of the major characters. Raw data is here. This chart shows a histogram of words for the major characters; the orange bars estimate how much characters would have said were they on the show for the entire run:
The captain (Picard) is still the wordiest character, but dominates the talking much less than Kirk. Picard speaks 19% of all the words in the show, while Riker and Data get 11% and 10%, respectively. The rest of the main cast gets more to say as well; Geordi, Crusher, Troi, and Worf each get about 4-7% of the lines, whereas for TOS the "lesser" main crew Sulu and Uhura got less than 2% each. In TOS, Kirk had the most to say in 78% of the episodes; by contrast, Picard was the wordiest character in only 42% of TNG episodes Comparing the TNG table to the TOS table, it's clear that each cast member is occasionally given a spotlight episode in TNG, which almost never happened in TOS. There is also a more expansive set of recurring guest characters: most notably Q (who actually gets more to say than Tasha Yar or Pulaski), but Lwaxana Troi, Guinan, Miles O'Brien, Reg Barclay, Ro Laren, Lore, Moriarty, and Jellico each get more than 2000 words over the episodes where they appear. Other trivia:
Deep Space 9This table lists each episode and shows what percentage of the words in the episode were spoken by each of the major characters. Raw data is here. This chart shows a histogram of words for the major characters; the orange bars estimate how much characters would have said were they on the show for the entire run:
DS9 episodes have on average more words than the other shows. The captain (Sisko) says the most, but by a much smaller degree than in the previous two shows. The rest of the main cast gets a remarkably equal distribution of lines; Kira, Bashir, O'Brien, Odo, and Quark all speak about as much, as does Jadzia Dax if you account for the fact that she only appeared in six seasons. I was surprised by how little Worf said; he made a much bigger impression in my mind. There is a huge cast of recurring guest characters. In descending order, the ones who say the most are Garak, Dukat, Nog, Rom, Weyoun, Winn, Martok, Zek, Eddington, Keiko, Damar, Vic Fontaine, Sloan, Kasidy, Bareil, the Founder Leader, Joseph Sisko, Admiral Ross, Kor, Brunt, Mora Pol, Ishka, Lwaxana Troi, and Enabran Tain, each with over 1000 words. In fact, the bar plot I have above is incomplete for readability; the full list of characters who said at least 2% as much as Sisko is here. This isn't at all surprising, and one of the reasons why Deep Space 9 is my favorite of the series. Other trivia:
VoyagerThis table lists each episode and shows what percentage of the words in the episode were spoken by each of the major characters. Raw data is here. This chart shows a histogram of words for the major characters; the orange bars estimate how much characters would have said were they on the show for the entire run:
Late Voyager has a reputation for turning into the Janeway/Doctor/Seven of Nine show, and that's pretty much borne out by the analysis. Janeway gets 17% of all the words in the show. I was surprised at how many lines Chuckles got, given the character's reputation. The show's premise ruled out the same kind of ensemble cast that DS9 had, but there was still an effort to give each character a dedicated episode on occasion. Barclay, Q, and Seska turned up a few times, the former most prominently in Pathfinder where our crew makes only a token appearance at the end. Unlike the other shows, Voyager didn't fully introduce all of the main characters in the pilot episode. Chakotay and Torres don't get to say much in Caretaker, they get a fuller introduction to the crew in Parallax. The Doctor also keeps quiet for a while; Phage is his first real stand-out episode. Once Paris and Torres get together, episodes featuring one also tend to feature the other (Drive, Lineage). Other trivia:
EnterpriseThis table lists each episode and shows what percentage of the words in the episode were spoken by each of the major characters. Raw data is here. This chart shows a histogram of words for the major characters; the orange bars estimate how much characters would have said were they on the show for the entire run:
Enterprise has significantly fewer words per episode than the other series; 9 of the 10 episodes with the fewest words are Enterprise shows! Archer gets 24% of the words on the show. Travis is really left out in the cold. He doesn't get a single feature show after the first two seasons; the closest he gets is a tie with Tucker in Demons at a paltry 8% of the words in the episode. Somewhat hilariously, alien-possessed Travis in Observer Effect gets more of a starring role than the real Travis in any 3rd or 4th season episode. Hoshi is also neglected, but at least she gets Exile in Season 3 and a major supporting role in In a Mirror, Darkly. Enterprise was the only one of the shows to not have a change in title cast members over its run. Other trivia:
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