Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

[Christopher]

The UNCLE episode I saw today, "The Round Table Affair," featured a romance between Valora Noland, who was Daras in "Patterns of Force," and Don Francks, who was the first actor to play Boba Fett, doing his voice in The Star Wars Holiday Special and later reprising it in the Droids animated series. (He was also Sabretooth in the '90s X-Men animated series and several video games. And apparently he's known from La Femme Nikita, but I never got into that show.)

 

[Push The Button]

I have not had the chance to go over the last 20++ pages, so I do not remember if this has been mentioned, but Here Come the Brides should have the record for the number of Trek guests as regular cast members - Mark Lenard, Robert Brown and David Soul.

Guests, maybe. But T.J. Hooker's second season had William Shatner, Richard Herd (Admiral Paris), and James Darren (Vic Fontaine) as regulars -- although, admittedly, at the time only one of the three had done Trek.

Then there's Gargoyles, whose main cast included Jonathan Frakes, Marina Sirtis, and Salli Richardson (from DS9: "Second Sight") and whose recurring cast included Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Kate Mulgrew, Nichelle Nichols, etc.

Both Spiner and Frakes appeared in episodes of Hill Street Blues.

Though the thread is about Trek guest actors, I'll mention that The Big Bang Theory currently seems to be the place for former Trek regulars. George Takei, Leonard Nimoy (voice only), LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton (multiple episodes) and Brent Spiner have all made guest appearances. (Wil Wheaton's house number in one episode is shown to be 1701)

 

[Greg Cox]

Though the thread is about Trek guest actors, I'll mention that The Big Bang Theory currently seems to be the place for former Trek regulars. George Takei, Leonard Nimoy (voice only), LeVar Burton, Wil Wheaton (multiple episodes) and Brent Spiner have all made guest appearances. (Wil Wheaton's house number in one episode is shown to be 1701)

I think Warehouse 13 is giving BBT a run for its money in the Trek alumni sweepstakes: Brent Spiner, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, and Rene Aubojonois all have recurring roles, while Armin Shimmerman has guested as well.

It amuses me to no end that Pete's mom is Janeway and his ex-wife is Seven of Nine . . . .

 

[Christopher]

And of course Warehouse 13 regular Saul Rubinek played Data's abductor in TNG's "The Most Toys," so having him interact with Spiner in one of the season arcs was sort of a reunion there.

Oh, and don't forget that Faran Tahir, aka Captain Robau, is one of the Regents.

 

[Greg Cox]

And of course Warehouse 13 regular Saul Rubinek played Data's abductor in TNG's "The Most Toys," so having him interact with Spiner in one of the season arcs was sort of a reunion there.

Oh, and don't forget that Faran Tahir, aka Captain Robau, is one of the Regents.

I knew I'd forgotten somebody!

 

[Forbin]

And in a non Trek yet still genre aside, Lindsay Wagner has a recurring role. I think it's cool that Jamie Murray, who is also a semi-regular as H.G. Wells, was named after the Bionic Woman because her father was a fan, and then she got to work with her namesake.

 

[Christopher]

^Actually that's Jaime Murray, which is what really gives away that she was named for Jaime Sommers, since it's an unusual spelling of the name. (I gather it was actually the result of a spelling error Lindsay Wagner made when writing the character's name, which was supposed to be Jamie, on a chalkboard.)

Warehouse 13 is a treasure trove of genre actors. It's had Aaron Ashmore (Smallville's Jimmy Olsen), C.C.H. Pounder (Justice League's Amanda Waller and still the only actress to do the role justice onscreen), Mark Sheppard, Amy Acker, Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone), Sasha Roiz, Tia Carrere, and Kelly Hu. Plus Roger Rees, but I hesitate to list him as a genre actor, because his main prior SF credit was M.A.N.T.I.S. and he deserves better than that be defined by that.

 

[Greg Cox]

^Actually that's Jaime Murray, which is what really gives away that she was named for Jaime Sommers, since it's an unusual spelling of the name. (I gather it was actually the result of a spelling error Lindsay Wagner made when writing the character's name, which was supposed to be Jamie, on a chalkboard.)

Warehouse 13 is a treasure trove of genre actors. It's had Aaron Ashmore (Smallville's Jimmy Olsen), C.C.H. Pounder (Justice League's Amanda Waller and still the only actress to do the role justice onscreen), Mark Sheppard, Amy Acker, Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone), Sasha Roiz, Tia Carrere, and Kelly Hu. Plus Roger Rees, but I hesitate to list him as a genre actor, because his main prior SF credit was M.A.N.T.I.S. and he deserves better than that be defined by that.

And let's not forget James Marsters and Anthony Stewart Head from BUFFY (and elsewhere).

 

[Christopher]

I meant to list Head, but he got lost in the shuffle somehow. And I'd forgotten about Marsters. Should we count Polly Walker too? She and Roiz both came from Caprica.

 

[Greg Cox]

I meant to list Head, but he got lost in the shuffle somehow. And I'd forgotten about Marsters. Should we count Polly Walker too? She and Roiz both came from Caprica.

I do sometimes wonder if WH13 does their casting at Comic-Con . . .

How they've missed John DeLancie or Wil Wheaton I'll never know, although I suppose they still have one more half-season to rectify those omissions!

 

[Christopher]

^Well, Wil Wheaton had a recurring role in the last couple of seasons of Eureka, which crossed over with W13 and thus was supposedly in the same universe. So unless Dr. Isaac Parrish gets a job at the Warehouse, I doubt we'd see Wheaton.

(Then again, Saul Rubinek played a scientist in a first-season Eureka before getting the W13 gig.)

 

[Greg Cox]

^Well, Wil Wheaton had a recurring role in the last couple of seasons of Eureka, which crossed over with W13 and thus was supposedly in the same universe. So unless Dr. Isaac Parrish gets a job at the Warehouse, I doubt we'd see Wheaton.

(Then again, Saul Rubinek played a scientist in a first-season Eureka before getting the W13 gig.)

And Joe Morton appeared on WH13 as a character other than his Eureka character.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

A threefer on the ep of It Takes a Thief I watched for lunch today! LORD Garth and Stonn interrogate Commodore Mendez!

Steve Inhat also appeared as a state legislator in a few episodes of the almost lost TV show Slattery's People, as seen here:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWQS__AWeXE&noredirect=1[/yt]

 

[Maurice]

I just happened to see The Untouchables 1962 episode "The Night They Shot Santa Claus" and it features both Barry Russo (1:38 into this clip) and Grace Lee Whitney (at the very beginning of this clip).

 

[Forbin]

It Takes a Thief, Season 2, episode 1, "One Night in Soledade".

The episode begins with a twofer - Madlyn Rhue (Space Seed) attempts to poison Logan Ramsey (Bread and Circuses):

Later, Al is assigned by his boss, series regular Malachi Throne (The Menagerie) to work with guest agent/babe Nancy Kovack (A Private Little War):

 

[The Old Mixer]

Just caught a brief appearance by Ian (Mr. Atoz) Wolfe in the Wonder Woman pilot (1975).

 

[Christopher]

I just saw Man from UNCLE's "The Minus-X Affair," which has Theo Marcuse and a young Paul Winfield. Also King Moody, who was Shtarker in Get Smart and Ronald McDonald in commercials from 1975-84.

 

[EnsignHarper]

and Ronald McDonald in commercials from 1975-84.

That's some serious residual money there, when you consider how many Ronald McDonald commercials Mickey D's made in those 9 years.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

Then there's always Kay E. Kuter. He played the Cytherian "head" from the Barclay center-of-the-galaxy episode, the name of which escapes me right now. Next Generation, granted...but here he's playing his recurring role of Newt Kiley on Green Acres. At least that's of original-series vintage!

^ I first noticed Kuter's name in a 60's episode of The Outer Limits. In "The Premonition", he's some guy trapped in some limbo world outside of time. The heroes are in a frozen moment of time (actually slow moving moment ala "Wink of an Eye"), and he's trying to kill them or something so he can take their place in the real world. He was rather unrecognizable though, as he was mostly seen superimposed as a negative image into scenes.

Kuter was also Enduran in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC2m39OJK40[/yt]

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ And Xur, in the same film, was also a Klingon on TNG.