It would seem that I have far too much time on my hands. After the post about a Star Trek “test”, I started wondering if there could be any data to back it up and… well here we go:
The Next Generation
Name |
Percentage of Lines |
PICARD |
20.16 |
RIKER |
11.64 |
DATA |
10.1 |
LAFORGE |
6.93 |
WORF |
6.14 |
TROI |
5.4 |
CRUSHER |
5.11 |
WESLEY |
2.32 |
DS9
Name |
Percentage of Lines |
SISKO |
13.0 |
KIRA |
8.23 |
BASHIR |
7.79 |
O’BRIEN |
7.31 |
ODO |
7.26 |
QUARK |
6.98 |
DAX |
5.73 |
WORF |
3.18 |
JAKE |
2.31 |
GARAK |
2.29 |
NOG |
2.01 |
ROM |
1.89 |
DUKAT |
1.76 |
EZRI |
1.53 |
Voyager
Name |
Percentage of Lines |
JANEWAY |
17.7 |
CHAKOTAY |
8.76 |
EMH |
8.34 |
PARIS |
7.63 |
TUVOK |
6.9 |
KIM |
6.57 |
TORRES |
6.45 |
SEVEN |
6.1 |
NEELIX |
4.99 |
KES |
2.06 |
Enterprise
Name |
Percentage of Lines |
ARCHER |
24.52 |
T’POL |
13.09 |
TUCKER |
12.72 |
REED |
7.34 |
PHLOX |
5.71 |
HOSHI |
4.63 |
TRAVIS |
3.83 |
SHRAN |
1.26 |
Discovery
Note: This is a limited dataset, as the source site only has transcripts for seasons 1, 2, and 4
Name |
Percentage of Lines |
BURNHAM |
22.92 |
SARU |
8.2 |
BOOK |
6.21 |
STAMETS |
5.44 |
TILLY |
5.17 |
LORCA |
4.99 |
TARKA |
3.32 |
TYLER |
3.18 |
GEORGIOU |
2.96 |
CULBER |
2.83 |
RILLAK |
2.17 |
DETMER |
1.97 |
OWOSEKUN |
1.79 |
ADIRA |
1.63 |
COMPUTER |
1.61 |
ZORA |
1.6 |
VANCE |
1.07 |
CORNWELL |
1.07 |
SAREK |
1.06 |
T’RINA |
1.02 |
If anyone is interested, here’s the (rather hurried) Python used:
import re
from collections import defaultdict
from pathlib import Path
EPISODE_REGEX = re.compile(r"^\d+\.html?$")
LINE_REGEX = re.compile(r"^(?P<name>[A-Z']+): ")
EPISODES = Path("www.chakoteya.net")
DISCO = EPISODES / "STDisco17"
ENT = EPISODES / "Enterprise"
TNG = EPISODES / "NextGen"
DS9 = EPISODES / "DS9"
VOY = EPISODES / "Voyager"
class CharacterLines:
def __init__(self, path: Path) -> None:
self.path = path
self.line_count = defaultdict(int)
def collect(self) -> None:
for episode in self.path.glob("*.htm*"):
if EPISODE_REGEX.match(episode.name):
for line in episode.read_text().split("\n"):
if m := LINE_REGEX.match(line):
self.line_count[m.group("name")] += 1
@property
def as_percentages(self) -> dict[str, float]:
total = sum(self.line_count.values())
r = {}
for k, v in self.line_count.items():
percentage = round(v * 100 / total, 2)
if percentage > 1:
r[k] = percentage
return {k: v for k, v in reversed(sorted(r.items(), key=lambda _: _[1]))}
def render(self) -> None:
print(self.path.name)
print("| Name | Percentage of Lines |")
print("| ---------------- | ------------------- |")
for character, pct in self.as_percentages.items():
print(f"| {character:16} | {pct} |")
if __name__ == "__main__":
for series in (TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, DISCO):
counter = CharacterLines(series)
counter.collect()
counter.render()
Fascinating! It would be illuminating to see this broken up by season as well. Seven of Nine’s relatively low ratio, for instance, can definitely be attributed to her late arrival to the series. In the latter seasons, I suspect her percentage could be rivalling Janeway’s.
Conversely, it’s impressive Lorca ranks as highly as he does, given he was gone by the end of Disco season one. But since he was simultaneously captain and antagonist while he was around, I guess it isn’t that surprising.