[Morgan]

One of my all-time favorite TNG figures: Tom Riker, here on a Canadian card because that's so much cooler.

This figure was out of reach for me back when these were new, but I have seen these in collectibles shops, at least once, for $80. That seems like a crazy number now (especially adjusted for 20 years of inflation), and perhaps a little undeserved given the production number for this figure which was 10,000. This one, for example, is numbered 7051.

I think what happened early on in the pre-internets days, in those Trek-crazed years, was that some kind of artificial bubble developed for this figure and Esoqq that was quite separate with what happened to Data from Redemption, the other of the top three rares in this wave. Red Data was genuinely rare because it was a JC Penney catalog item that was limited to 5,000 pieces. Curiously enough, it is this figure that is blamed by some for the start of the decline of the whole Star Trek line.

Believe it or not, I still haven't seen the actual episode in which this character appears -- for every one time "Second Chances" is aired on TV "Code of Honor" is aired 30 times.

This character was brought back in one of the single best DS9 episodes, but at the same time that episode is infamous for an unresolved plotline (along with "Conspiracy" TNG). The crazy thing is that scripts where Thomas Riker would get rescued from Cardassia were actually pitched, but none of them made it to the filming stage. I think the producers may have been afraid that Thomas Riker would once again steal the thunder away from the DS9 cast and the whole concept could become a little silly. I believe the books revisited the character, if I'm not mistaken. But it is a shame that we never saw him after DS9.

Thomas Riker as a Maquis falls into one other category of TNG characters that never made it to DS9, Ro Laren as a Maquis never reappeared. I'm sure the writers talked about bringing her back, not in the role of Kira which was originally talked about, but in the various Maquis episodes. And that, once again, never materialized.