If I were her, I’m not sure how I would’ve felt about playing a character on a show created by her husband when the punchline of the character is that she was old and undesirable. At least as Nurse Chapel, it was all about the specific man’s hangups. And while the computer voice was invisible and impersonal, there’s something to be said for that over how her onscreen characters are treated. I’d also like to hope that, by the twenty-fourth century, we wouldn’t just see nurse as “a job you have until you’re good enough to be a doctor.” There are a lot of ways Nurse Chapel could’ve gotten promoted without becoming Doctor Chapel.

There is controversy about exactly why her “Number One” was rejected, too. The official story is that the executives weren’t ready for a woman who was cool and intelligent and analytical, man. The executives say that it’s because Barrett couldn’t act. I’m not going to step into that controversy; if I’ve seen “The Cage,” it’s long enough ago so that I don’t remember it. I’ll merely note that one of the executives who helped shape the fate of Star Trek was Lucille Ball. Also that Barrett didn’t have a lot of acting experience and was the producer’s girlfriend.

Still, did she make a career out of that particular producer. This is not to say that I think she exclusively just rode on his coattails. For one, she voiced a computer on one Star Trek or another about 270 times, if I’m counting right, and even if she got the job because of him, voicework is work even if she didn’t get more than a couple of lines per episode. Delivering that in a cool, precise voice that doesn’t vary much from series to series? No, that’s real, and we should acknowledge that. And, sure, we can’t say how much of her post-Star Trek stuff was because of him and how much wasn’t, but she’s the one who did the work.

Then again. A bunch of episodes as Lwaxana Troi. Nurse Chapel. Dr. Julianne Belman on Earth: Final Conflict, one of two shows that exist because of her determination about her husband’s legacy. And let’s be real—some of those aren’t really episodes of one Star Trek or another but parodies of her work on one Star Trek or another. While she was still alive, if you wanted the Star Trek computer voice, you went looking for Majel Barrett.

She said that, when the producers made Gene Roddenberry choose between the woman and the Vulcan, he chose to keep the Vulcan and marry the girl—because, she said, Leonard Nimoy wouldn’t go for the other way around. She herself knew as none other how much her legacy rested on the determination he had to get her on the show. But I do believe that, his determination notwithstanding, she wouldn’t have stayed such a prominent part of the show’s legacy if she couldn’t have done the work. Especially not after he died.

I may not have voice a computer 270 times, but I have written sixty-six entries in this column alone; consider supporting my Patreon!