I understand the show is just getting started and I can’t believe they didn’t get Brophy to reprise the role. It’s not like a meaningless cameo. The show has been mentioning Maddox repeatedly since day 1. what a shame. My first BIG criticism.
Day 1 in TNG also happened to be the only day the actor made an appearance. So I'm personally not worked up about it. But I expect at least 100 pages of nonsense about this in this thread.
I mean, he doesn’t act anymore and is in a different profession. I don’t know if they approached him or not, but if they did and he doesn’t want to, they can’t make him. Plus, it was one episode decades ago. I honestly can’t get too worked up over that one.
I will say this, despite liking the continuity of keeping original actors for reprisals, Brophy played an entirely different kind of character than this guy did, & by different, I mean sympathetic. Brophy landed the role originally for almost being the exact opposite of that. So while I know too little about either to claim one is better than the other, I won't deny that the former might not have been as well suited for this reimagining of the role In that sense, it's kind of remarkable they DID cast Del Arco, because the same is true of his Hugh. Again, it might just have been availability. Del Arco is still a working actor & could make the thing play, & Brophy not so much
The guy has barely acted in 20 years; I would have been surprised if they had brought him back. Trek has numerous examples of recasting within a series, yet alone decades later.
His last acting credit is 2014, actually. Anyway, he's been the Director of (appropriately enough) the Caltech Theatre for 10 years now. Maybe he wasn't interested in returning? Here's his bio: http://tacit.caltech.edu/about/brian
Except they haven’t stopped talking about Maddox since episode 1, so yeah, it is something to get worked up about