Lieutenant Commander Argyle was one of the chief engineers aboard the USS Enterprise-D in 2364.

He oversaw Kosinski's warp drive experiment in main engineering. (TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before")

That same year, he supervised the reassembly of Lore, Data's android 'brother', in sickbay. He spoke with a slight Scottish accent. (TNG: "Datalore", "Lonely Among Us")

Argyle continued to work in Main Engineering in 2367. After upgrades to the subspace phase coils, Sarah MacDougal, a duty engineer and a third shift supervisor, noted in her final analysis a minor phase variation in tertiary harmonics. Argyle recommended the continued use of test instrumentation for monitoring phase shifts. (TNG-R: "Galaxy's Child")

Appendices

Background information

Argyle was played by actor Biff Yeager.

Argyle appeared to have replaced Sarah MacDougal as the go-to Chief Engineer character, as she was not seen, heard, or mentioned after "The Naked Now". However, Argyle was not long-lived either, as he himself disappeared to have his niche filled by Lieutenant Logan, who first appeared in "The Arsenal of Freedom". Commander William T. Riker explained Argyle's role on the ship by claiming that he (as First Officer) was the supervisor to maintenance of the ship's engines. He went on to say that he was guided by "one of our chief engineers: Lieutenant Commander Argyle, in this case."

In reviewing "Where No One Has Gone Before" as part of Memories of the Future, Volume 1 (p. 63), Wil Wheaton (noting that his memory of the event may not be entirely accurate) recalled hearing that Argyle would have been considered as a possible permanent chief engineer for the Enterprise-D if the viewers requested. However, when producers began receiving letters encouraging that choice before the episode had aired, and some fans complained that they had been solicited by direct mailings to write in on the subject, this reportedly led to them changing their mind.

Robert Justman once implied that Argyle helped differentiate the then-new Star Trek: The Next Generation from Star Trek: The Original Series, commenting, "He was very good. I liked him a lot. And he was a different character than Scotty." [1]

In the novelization of Encounter at Farpoint, Captain Picard ordered maximum acceleration of the Enterprise's warp engines to escape from Q. Argyle had reported to Data that maximum acceleration could only be maintained at extreme risk.

For the remastered edition of "Galaxy's Child", the original okudagram for the engineering logs was replaced by a new graphic. Argyle was mentioned in this new graphic; however, his position in the ranking of engineers was not mentioned.

Apocrypha

Argyle has appeared or been mentioned in several novels, such as the Pocket TNG novels Ghost Ship, The Peacekeepers, Power Hungry, Metamorphosis, and Vendetta.

In the novel The Buried Age and the short story "Meet with Triumph and Disaster" in The Sky's the Limit, he had alternated the assignment of Chief Engineer with Sarah MacDougal during construction of the Enterprise-D, under the command of Thomas Halloway.

According to the DC Comics comic book "Suspect", his first name was "Terence" and he was murdered around 2369 or 2370. However, according to the novel The Buried Age, his first name was "Michael" and the short story "Making a Difference" says he was killed aboard the USS Excalibur during the Borg incursion of 2373. He was killed a third time (a second time involving the Borg) during a raid on Earth in "The Worst of Both Worlds", and was killed a fourth time by decapitation by Klingons in an alternate reality from the novel Q&A.

External link