In Episode 7 of Season 4 “Reunion”

We discuss the unfortunate and untimely demise of the fan favorite character K’Ehleyr in our episode 4.7 — Reunion — (Listen here). Andrew tells us what “Fridging” is and how it was done to the late great Klingon played by the great, great Suzi Plackson (check her out). “Fridging” is a term used to refer to the never-ending trope of female characters being killed, grievously harmed, depowered, or otherwise traumatized in service of advancing a male characters narrative. It was coined by writer Gail Simone who made a website compiling a list of female characters in comics who had been “fridged” in one way or another. 

The image refers to issue 54 (vol. 3) of Green Lantern where the hero comes home to find his girlfriend Alexandra murdered and stuffed in a refrigerator. Gratuitous to the Nth degree, the incident prompted Simone to begin investigating and documenting the phenomena. As mentioned in our re-watch of “Reunion,” Michael Piller, the show’s producer, admits K’Ehleyr was “fridged”:

• Michael Piller commented, “I killed K’Ehleyr. The original idea was about Worf’s kid and bringing K’Ehleyr back, who was having a relationship with Duras. But when we started talking about how to make the story work, I’m the one who said she should die… You wanted to get to a place where Worf was going to take Duras apart, and there’s no real good reason for him to do it unless she dies… he had it coming.” (Captains’ Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 211) (Quoted from Memory Alpha’s entry on Reunion)

To reduce a character with as much potential and presence as K’Ehleyr to a prop to motivate our typically ready-to-rumble Worf to kill is wrongheaded, and as Suzie Plakson herself tell us in our interview with her, the studio heard about it from a large number of angry fans. 

“Fridging” in and of itself is distasteful, lazy, and far too common. To see a show as powerful and popular as TNG stoop to it is unsettling and will remain a black mark on the show.