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Nana Visitor spent seven seasons playing Major Kira (eventually promoted to Colonel Kira) on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. A complicated character, she'd joined a terrorist organization in an attempt to take down the Cardassians. She wrestled with feelings of guilt and anger which worked to make her one of the best characters on the show. But it was a role Visitor initally turned down as her manager assured her it would kill her career because it was a part in a science fiction television series, which weren't popular in the 1990s. [via Variety] At that time, it was easy to get pigeonholed, and that could affect an actor's future career prospects.

Executive producer Rick Berman intervened and called Visitor to tell her more about the character and where he saw Major Kira going on the show. And during the conversation, he convinced Visitor to give the role a shot, largely because...

Most "Star Trek" captains have a signature look. Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) both have truly fabulous hair, while Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is known for being clean-shaven and bald. But "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" captain Benjamin Sisko, played by Avery Brooks, went through a bit more change than the average leader on the series. It makes sense in the show; Sisko is arguably the best and most complex "Star Trek" captain, and he goes through the stresses of commanding a space station during a terrible war. Anyone who grows and changes as much as he does is bound to alter their appearance a bit, but the real-life reasons for Sisko's changing looks between the seasons were a little more frustrating.

Throughout most of the first three seasons of "Deep Space Nine," Brooks is clean-shaven, growing a goatee toward the end of season 3. In the season 4 premiere,...

Although "Star Trek" takes place in an ostensibly utopian future free from war, want, money, and discrimination, the show's original creator, Gene Roddenberry, felt that humanity required a reckoning before that utopia could begin. According to "Star Trek" lore, Earth would have to nearly destroy itself in a series of devastating wars before the scant survivors would be able to pick themselves up, construct faster-than-light travel, and prepare themselves to meet their closest alien neighbors. The original "Star Trek" takes place about two centuries after the end of World War III, giving humankind a chance to rebuild itself into a utopia.

Back in the 21st century, however, not everything was rosy. Indeed, the two-part "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Past Tense" threw its main characters back in time — via a transporter accident — to the year 2024 when everything seemed to be at its worst. Earth in 2024 was overrun with poverty,...

Brent Spiner is best known for playing the android Data in the show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Starring alongside actors like Patrick Stewart and William Riker, Spinner’s character was one of the most beloved roles in the franchise and he even returned for Star Trek: Picard.

While the Tng cast got a fitting end with Picard, the previous finale, the original film Star Trek: Nemesis was a box-office bomb and was not received well by critics. However, Spiner’s idea for a sequel would have probably saved the Tom Hardy starrer from being a fizzled-out finale and would have brought in multiple Star Trek captains.

Brent Spiner Had An Idea For A Crossover Between Patrick Stewart And William Shatner Tom Hardy with Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: Nemesis | Credits: Paramount

Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced the intergalactic sci-fi franchise to a whole new generation. The fan-favorite show...

The character of Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell) on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" belongs to a species called the Trill. Many Trills are capable of conjoining with long-lived, surgically implanted, worm-like symbionts that live in their abdomens. The symbionts get passed from host to host during their lifetimes, sharing a consciousness with each one. Dax is partially a 22-year-old woman, but, thanks to her symbiont, also possesses the memories and personalities of seven previous hosts, including — most recently — a rowdy old man named Curzon. Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) was friends with Curzon and was thrilled to meet Jadzia, the next incarnation in his friend's life. He affectionately called her "old man."

When "Deep Space Nine" began, the writers focused heavily on Dax's relationship with the young, idealistic Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig), an insufferably flirt. Dr. Bashir would frequently proposition Dax, and she, with the patience of a centuries-old sage, would rebuff him.

In the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "The Way of the Warrior", Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) finds his station being overrun by Klingons. The Klingons claim to be there to defend DS9 from any potential Dominion threats, but it takes the form of harassing civilians and detaining passing ships against their will. Requiring some insight into the matter, Sisko sends for the only Klingon currently serving in Starfleet: Lieutenant Commander Worf (Michael Dorn) from "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Worf was at a major crossroads in his life. He was, until recently, serving as the chief security officer on the Enterprise-d, but that ship crashed (during the 1994 film "Star Trek: Generations"), and he wasn't sure what his career might look like moving forward. The Klingons wanted Worf to leave Starfleet and join the Klingon Empire, but Worf didn't like the Empire's new war tactics. Ultimately, Worf decided to stay in Starfleet,...

From 1969 to (almost) the present, here’s a look back at every Star Trek finale to date. It’s fair to say the quality has varied over the years…

After seven years – making it the longest-running Star Trek series on television – Star Trek: Discovery came to a (relatively inauspicious) conclusion with ‘Life, Itself’. The episode therefore now enters a small coterie of stories – that of the Star Trek series finale.

Some of the examples below were born naturally from a lengthy series run. Others emerged as the climactic element of seasons’ worth of storytelling. Still others are sudden or bizarre aberrations that resulted from an unexpected cancellation. What bracket ‘Life, Itself’ fits under, you can be the judge. What’s apparent with all of these episodes is how varied they are, and how broad the tapestry of Star Trek really is.

Let’s take a look back:

‘Turnabout Intruder‘

Credit: Paramount/CBS.

The BBC and PBS are stomping back to Walking with Dinosaurs after 25 years.

The returning series, which is being co-produced with Zdf and France Télévisions, will land in 2025 and has already entered production.

The original series was a huge step for natural history. It was narrated by Kenneth Branagh in the UK and Avery Brooks in the U.S., where it aired on the Discovery Channel.

The reimagining will tell the dramatic story of an individual dinosaur each episode whose remains are currently being unearthed by the world’s leading dinosaur hunters. Thanks to cutting-edge science, experts will reveal how these prehistoric creatures lived, hunted, fought and died more accurately than ever before, utilizing state-of-the-art visual effects. Species will include a Spinosaurus – the largest carnivorous dinosaur to ever walk the earth – roaming the rivers of ancient Morocco; a youthful Triceratops battling a ravenous T. rex in North America; and a...

In the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "As Astra per Aspera", Commander Chin-Riley (Rebecca Romijn) faces a court-martial for lying on her Starfleet Academy application. She claimed to be a human, but was, in fact, a genetically enhanced Illyrian. Thanks to the disastrous, long-ago Eugenics Wars, genetic tinkering is strictly verboten in the world of "Star Trek." As such, lying about your genes is a particularly grievous offense. Captain Pike (Anson Mount), wanting to help his first officer, seeks out the legal aid of Neera Ketoul (Yetide Badaki), an Illyrian defense lawyer who will be brave enough to stand up to Starfleet's prosecution. Ketoul was also a childhood friend of Chin-Riley, and they have some bad blood about the latter's need to hide here identity to join Starfleet. 

Neera Ketoul is an interesting character for "Star Trek," as she has made it her job to make civil rights cases ... against the Federation.

"Star Trek" was initially meant to be a portrait of a technological utopia set in a future when humanity had outgrown war, shed religion, and put money behind it. In the best of cases, the franchise revealed a world without want or starvation, having become so well-organized that resources could be freely shunted about the galaxy on miraculous faster-than-light starships. Most notably, starting with "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Federation vessels were equipped with magical food replicators, which rearranged energy into edible matter. One could walk up to a food slot on the wall -- everyone's personal quarters had one -- and order anything from a glass of water to a six-course meal. Famously, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) would order "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot."

Replicators are such a miraculous technology, that the writers of "Star Trek" had to begin inventing limitations merely for dramatic reasons. It's now been established repeatedly...

I love Star Trek. It’s one of the most unique fandoms since it features multiple different properties in the same universe. Don’t get me wrong, I love Star Wars, but something about Star Trek that raises it to another level. There are so many shows that are unique in their own way. You have Star Trek T.O.S, Star Trek The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Star Trek: Picard.

The point is that there is something for everyone. Fans are a little bit less toxic than other fandoms. My theory is that because there are so many shows there is at least one show that everyone can agree is good. So if someone were to, let’s say, hate Prodigy,...

"Star Trek" is, first and foremost, a workplace drama. It just so happens that the workplace is a high-tech, faster-than-light space vessel exploring distant regions of the galaxy. Working on a starship is a fine job indeed. Many classic "Star Trek" episodes deal with rank, the chain of command, and how certain captains employ their unique managerial styles to inspire the officers beneath them. The main characters in "Star Trek" mostly all belong to Starfleet, a military-like organization that uses naval ranks and nautical vocabulary to describe a starship's operations. 

To give the shows a touch of realism, the makers of "Star Trek" have (mostly) been careful to point out that a starship is a massively complex machine that requires hundreds of people to operate correctly. Additionally, the day-to-day logistics of running a starship require departments within departments, each one run by its own miniature team of officers, and with...

In the "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" episode "Under the Cloak of War", a Klingon ambassador named Dak'Rah (Robert Wisdom) comes to visit the U.S.S. Enterprise on a diplomatic mission. "Strange New Worlds" takes place immediately after the Klingon War, and several of the ship's crew remember the conflict vividly, expressing prejudice and consternation to see a Klingon on board. Captain Pike (Anson Mount) reminds his officers to keep an open mind, but Dr. M'Benga (Babs Olusanmokun) cannot. 

Through flashbacks, audiences learn the horrible wartime conditions that both Dr. M'Benga and Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) served under, and they were bleak. There weren't enough medical supplies to go around, and Dr. M'Benga had taken to storing injured soldiers inside a transporter pattern buffer, hoping to rematerialize them when more could be done. He also secretly develops a rare and dangerous steroid called Protocol 12 which temporarily increases strength and...

This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine earned its position as a favorite series among fans because of its more complex take on the franchise’s themes, thrusting the United Federation of Planets into a huge war that tested its moral compass time and again. But even at the height of the Dominion War, DS9 also found time to follow Jake and Nog’s search for a baseball card and to check in on a holographic Rat Pack lounge singer.

But even within that wide range of possibilities, the season three episode “Facets” stands out as an oddball. Written by René Echevarria and directed by Cliff Bole, “Facets” introduced the Zhian’tara ritual, through which Trill hosts find closure for their symbiotes by spreading host personalities to others.

Although “Facets” isn’t exactly a “Sub Rosa” level embarrassment, it is a weird episode that mostly...

Sonequa Martin-Green’s first memories of “Star Trek” are of her parents watching it on TV — but really, they’re of Nichelle Nichols.

“I don’t even know as a child if I knew her real name, but I knew, here’s this beautiful Black woman,” Martin-Green says. “This is Uhura.”

Those memories — and that instinctive sense of the character’s significance — have stayed with Martin-Green through her seven years making “Star Trek: Discovery” as the first Black woman to headline a series in the venerated science fiction franchise. “Star Trek” had been absent from television for 12 years when “Discovery” launched in 2017, but as the flagship Paramount+ series premieres its fifth and final season on April 4, the franchise has the most robust slate of TV titles in its history, with a new show, the “Discovery” spin-off “Starfleet Academy,” set to begin filming later this year in the same Pinewood Toronto soundstages as its predecessor.

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" isn't quite like any other "Star Trek" show, and when it debuted in 1993, it was quite the departure from both the original series and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Instead of following intrepid explorers on starships trekking across the galaxy, "Deep Space Nine" followed the stories of the people who lived on board the space station Deep Space Nine (DS9) — civilians, Bajoran militia, and Starfleet officers alike. Showrunner Rick Berman was in charge of taking the "Star Trek" universe in a new direction following the success of "The Next Generation," but he ended up looking to a rather old television series for inspiration.

In an interview with StarTrek.com, Berman explained the inspiration behind "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and revealed that he and writer/producer Michael Piller got their biggest idea from a classic 1950s Western. That's pretty great given the fact that "Star Trek...

"Star Trek" is an explicitly pacifist show. Creator Gene Roddenberry was very clear when he invented the premise that "Star Trek" wasn't going to be about inter-species wars, and that battle wasn't going to be the show's focus. True, there are several episodes of the original "Star Trek" series that focus on tactics and battleship-like maneuvers, but the general idea was that the USS Enterprise could solve problems without having to kill or "defeat" anyone. 

These notions only became stronger in the days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a series that was more explicitly about diplomacy and pacifism than the original series. Again, "Star Trek" characters were armed with weapons, but violence was never assumed to be the only natural course of action. If the Federation was ever on the brink of war, it was always spoken of as civilization's ultimate failing. War, Trekkies saw time and again, was...

Hayden Christensen in Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones (Lucasfilm), Vin Diesel in Chronicles Of Riddick (Universal Pictures), Katee Sackoff in Battlestar Galactica (Sci Fi Channel), Keanu Reeves in The Matrix (Warner Bros.)Graphic: The A.V. Club

When Dune: Part Two arrives in theaters on March 1, we’ll...

The premise for "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" is a little complex for the non-Trekkie, but ripe for drama when one delves in.

The titular station, Deep Space Nine, was in orbit around the non-Federation world of Bajor. For the past several decades, Bajor had been militarily occupied by the Nazi-like Cardassians, a species that regularly enslaved and mass-murdered Bajoran citizens. At the outset of the series, the Cardassian occupation had just ended, and Bajor inherited their disused station. In order to aid the Bajoran restoration, Starfleet was assigned to run Deep Space Nine and to oversee the rebuilding of Bajor's government (which was already tilting dangerously close to a corrupt theocracy).

Commander Sisko (Avery Brooks) was the Starfleet officer put in charge of the broken-down DS9 and his first officer was the haughty former Bajoran resistance fighter, Major Kira (Nana Visitor). "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was unique in...

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was the first serialized "Trek" series and remains the one most willing to break with the franchise's utopian vision. As Captain Ben Sisko (Avery Brooks) muses, "It's easy to be a saint in paradise," but "DS9" puts its characters in tough spots with no easy solutions.

The greatest example is season 6, episode 19 — "In The Pale Moonlight." If you haven't seen it, go watch it now (streaming on Paramount+), experience its brilliance unspoiled, and then report back here.

It's the height of the Dominion War and the Federation-Klingon Alliance is losing. If the Dominion is to be defeated, the good guys will need help from the other major power in the galaxy's Alpha Quadrant: the Romulans, who have thus far remained neutral.

So, Sisko enlists Garak (Andrew Robinson), a Cardassian former spy, for espionage help. The plan quickly changes from Garak digging up dirt to him...

In the 1995 "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Our Man Bashir," the title character, Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), is in the station's holosuites, enacting a sexy, Ian Fleming-like spy story with his Cardassian paramour Garak (Andrew Robinson). Meanwhile, the rest of the station's senior staff are involved in a runabout accident, and they are beamed out of the explosion in the nick of time. The transporter, however, was also damaged, and the unique transporter patterns of the senior staff have to be stored in a secondary computer until it can be repaired. Perhaps predictably, the patterns end up in the same computer memory core that controls the holosuite, and the senior staff begin appearing -- as holograms -- in Bashir's spy adventure. If Bashir kills the holographic versions of his friends, their patterns will be deleted from the computer memory and they'll die. 

The actual technical nitty-gritty...

If we're to accept "Star Trek" as a workplace drama -- which it may be first and foremost -- then one of the central themes of the entire franchise would be an examination of healthy managerial styles. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) was a manager who ran on instinct and preferred to have a hand in most decisions. He listened to the instincts of his crew as well, when it pertained to their fields of expertise, but listened to himself first and foremost. Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), in contrast, was more socially cold -- he rarely socialized with his crew during off-duty hours -- but was far more egalitarian when it came to communicating with his senior staff; Picard frequently asked for suggestions from his crew when they were embroiled in a crisis, and he often took their advice (unless they were Worf). 

Meanwhile, Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) was stern and strict when on duty,...

This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

The Ferengi have popped up a few times before on "Star Trek: Lower Decks." Back in last season's "Hear All, Trust Nothing," when the USS Cerritos visited Deep Space Nine, we got to check back in on everyone's favorite bartender Quark (Armin Shimerman). In this season's latest outing, "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place," we again meet his younger brother, Rom (Max Grodénchik). Continuing on from where "Deep Space Nine" left off, Rom is the Grand Nagus (Chief Executive) of Ferenginar.

Why is the Cerritos visiting the Ferengi homeworld? Because Rom has plans to bring his homeworld into the Federation. This is quite an about-face for the Ferengi. They were introduced as villains in season 1 of "The Next Generation," but poor reception turned them into comic nuisances. It was "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" that gave them depth, and...

Actor Alexander Siddig, who played the plucky, handsome young medical officer Dr. Julian Bashir on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," began the series credited as Siddig El Fadil, his professional name from the start of his career until he changed it in 1995. Dr. Bashir was something of a naïf in the show's first few seasons, and would, in subsequent seasons, come to outgrow his once-firmly-held immature notions that practicing medicine in desperate locations is a bright, plucky adventure. He quickly came to realize that he merely needed to work hard to help people in need, and that righteousness was a reward unto itself. Unlike a lot of the "young" characters on "Star Trek" (Wesley Crusher and Harry Kim come to mind), Dr. Bashir was allowed to grow up; he had personality traits other than his youth. 

In the indispensable oral history book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The...

To briefly look back: on March 3, 1991, a man named Rodney King was pulled from his car by several L.A.P.D. officers following a high-speed chase on the 210 freeway in the San Fernando Valley. He was pushed to the ground and beaten savagely by the cops. The beating was captured on video and proliferated on local news broadcasts as yet another example of police brutality, especially as it was directed toward L.A.'s Black community. It should be noted that Darryl Gates, the local police chief, had been a key player in Operation Hammer, a dramatic push to aggressively militarized the Los Angeles Police Department. Under Gates' rule, complaints about police brutality rose 33% for a five-year period beginning in the mid-'80s. Hate and violence ran rampant in the police department, and it was allowed to go unchecked for years. 

The cops who beat up King were arrested and put on trial for using excessive force.

First introduced in 1993, Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) was a very different type of character than Trekkies had previously seen. Unlike the affable Captain Kirk (William Shatner) or the professorial Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart), Sisko was a bitter commanding officer. He had lost his wife in a Borg attack, and approached the world with an element of resentment, unwilling to suffer nonsense and appreciative of straight talk. Sisko could be warm, especially with his teenage son Jake (Cirroc Lofton), but more generally wanted to get down to brass tacks. More than Kirk and Picard, Sisko was emotional and passionate and possessed of a temper; when the trickster god Q (John De Lanice) first appeared on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," Sisko punched him in the face. 

Sisko's character matched his assignment. On "DS9," he was placed in charge of a Cardassian space station that had been abandoned after a prolonged...

In a parallel reality, we got a "Star Trek" musical earlier than the latest "Strange New Worlds" episode — much earlier. Ira Steven Behr, showrunner for "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," discussed some foiled plans for that show in a 2018 interview with GeekTown. Behr revealed that one of his writers wanted to make a musical episode of "Deep Space Nine." Which writer? Ronald D. Moore.

If you're a Trekkie, you've probably heard that name before; Moore was a prolific writer on both "The Next Generation" and "Deep Space Nine." Moore was also an advocate for breaking formulas; he left "Star Trek: Voyager" after writing two episodes because of what he saw as a sterile creative environment. He went on to create the 2003 remake of "Battlestar Galactica" and made it into a show that reflected his problems with what "Star Trek" became. A musical episode is the sort of brave new frontier that sounds up his alley.

War has always been a touchy subject for "Star Trek." Throughout the original series, the Federation had formed an uneasy alliance with the Klingons and was not on the rosiest terms with the Romulans, so war was constantly hanging over everyone's heads. There were occasional episodes involving combat or espionage, but there were no outright full-scale battles; that's not what "Star Trek" was about. A large part of Gene Roddenberry's utopian future was a devotion to pacifism. Being strong was now defined by one's ability to reason, to help others. It was no longer about might or domination. 

But, it seems, "Star Trek" had a long way to go. In the episode "Patterns of Force", William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, both Jewish actors, were required to put on Nazi uniforms and read lines about how, welp, the Third Reich may have been evil, but they got the trains running on time.

In 1991, the original crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise signed off – literally – with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country earning critical acclaim and the biggest box office for the franchise since The Wrath of Khan. With Star Trek – The Next Generation ending its successful seven-season run, the time was right to give the new crew the reigns to their big-screen franchise. But, all involved were wary of making what would be seen as just an extended episode. Thus the bold move was made to work in none other than James T. Kirk, who – gasp – would die in the movie’s climax, passing the torch to Patrick Stewart’s Jean-Luc Picard. That’s right; it’s time to tackle Star Trek Generations!

To shepherd the Next Generation’s move to the big screen, Paramount Pictures decided to give the reigns to the feature film over to Next Generation producer Rick Berman,...

Gene Roddenberry’s vision of space-age utopia has always been one of idealism and intelligence, of peace and prosperity. From the start, he wanted Star Trek to showcase the best of humanity, confronting modern-day issues and appearing as an aspirational model for society. So, naturally, when it came time to hurl us 300 years into the future, he did it by building on stories from 400 years in the past.

Having cut his teeth writing on early Westerns and police procedurals, Roddenberry wanted to elevate his sci-fi weekly into something more than typical genre television – he wanted to appeal to intellectuals. And how better to appeal to the thinking person than with a library’s worth of bookish influences.

Classic literature was right there in Roddenberry’s original pitch: Captain Kirk was described as a Horatio Hornblower-type, while the show itself was referred to as Gulliver’s Travels in space. His sequel series,...

In the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Trials and Tribble-ations", Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) and several other members of the "DS9" crew had to travel back in time to avert a crisis. It seems a time-traveling assassin had inserted himself into the events of the original series "Star Trek" episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" and Sisko had to go undercover next to Captain Kirk (William Shatner) to prevent a bomb from blowing up. Using revolutionary special effects technology, Sisko, Dax (Terry Farrell), Dr. Bashir (Alexander Siddig), and others were inserted rather seamlessly into an episode that was shot 30 years prior. It was a novelty for "Star Trek," and one of the few times the franchise revisited its past in such a manner.

Many years later, "Star Trek: Prodigy" would do something similar in the episode "Kobayashi". The teenage Dal (Brett Gray) wanted to take a holographic version of Trek's...

Though "Star Trek" tends to be less war-focused than that other "Star" franchise, there have been some pretty major conflicts that have impacted more than one series. In the third season of "Star Trek: Picard," one of these major events was brought back into focus through a new perspective, giving insight into another moment in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

One of the most important and harrowing events in Federation history was the Battle at Wolf 359, where the United Federation of Planets did battle with the Borg, leading to the largest cause of casualties for Starfleet prior to the Dominion War. In episode 4 of Picard's third season, "No Win Scenario," Captain Shaw (Todd Stashwick) reveals why he's a bit prejudiced against former Borg and has such a hate boner for Picard (Patrick Stewart).

It turns out that he was actually on one of the ships that were destroyed at Wolf 359, and he witnessed absolute horrors,...

It was a key scene in the second episode of what has become a triumphant final season for Paramount+’s science fiction series “Star Trek: Picard.”

A corrupt crime boss named Sneed — from a hyper-capitalistic alien race called the Ferengi — has a cat-and-mouse-style conversation with a woman pretending to be an addict who is actually an undercover intelligence operative. Played by Aaron Stanford, Sneed is streetwise, confident and relishes the game he’s playing, dumping the decapitated head of a former associate on a table to prove the operative is lying.

And when Armin Shimerman, one of the first actors to play a Ferengi on TV, saw Stanford’s work as Sneed, he admits it brought one feeling above all.

Envy.

“I turned to my wife and said, ‘That’s the way I should have played the Ferengi from the first,’” said Shimerman, who played one of the aliens in their first TV appearance,...

One of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s defining episodes owes a key part of its success to one late night drink.

The controversial and acclaimed hour “In the Pale Moonlight,” which turned 25 this month, finds Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) struggling to justify the moral and ethical compromises he made to trick the Romulans into joining Starfleet in their war against the Changeling-led Dominion.

The stakes of the episode couldn’t be higher. And the only thing harder than the toll Sisko’s lies take on him was figuring out the structure for this outside-the-box episode, one that features Sisko seemingly breaking the fourth wall as he records a personal log directly into camera, recounting the chain of events that led this once self-respecting officer to find solace at the bottom of a bottle.

According to DS9 writer Ronald D. Moore, a night of drinking inspired his uncredited rewrite...

Fifty-four years. That’s how long it has been since an actor in a “Star Trek” franchise series has been nominated for an Emmy. Back in 1969, the late Leonard Nimoy received his third and final Emmy nomination for his iconic role as First Officer Spock in the original series, the only actor from the sci-fi classic to be nominated from the show, which ran for three seasons on NBC in the late 1960s. Since then, it’s been crickets from the TV academy when it comes to “Star Trek” actors.

Not even Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard? Nope. He did score a rare Screen Actors Guild Award nomination back in 1994 for the final season of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” but Emmy voters subsequently overlooked him, despite nominating the show for Best Drama Series for its seventh and final season that same year.

See ‘Star Trek: Picard’ series ends...

Spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard" follow.

"Star Trek: Picard" season 3 has promised to be a grand finale for the "Next Generation" cast. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has finally reunited his whole bridge crew from Enterprise-d -- also appearing are Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) from "Star Trek: Voyager" and the Changelings, the antagonists of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

Despite running headfirst down nostalgia lane, the final season has some new characters too. One is Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick), captain of the USS Titan-a. Shaw is no fan of Picard or Seven because he has a grudge against the Borg. Why? He was at the Battle of Wolf 359, depicted in the classic "Next Generation" episode, "The Best of Both Worlds." A Borg Cube, led by tactical info gleaned from the assimilated Picard (aka Locutus), decimated the Starfleet forces. Shaw was part of the engineering crew on the USS Constance and...

This article contains spoilers for season 3, episode 5 of "Star Trek: Picard."

The third season of "Star Trek: Picard" has brought back a whole bunch of characters from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," but it's also introduced one of my new favorite "Star Trek" characters: Captain Liam Shaw, the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Titan. It's easy (and fun!) to hate Shaw, played with the perfect amount of snark by actor Todd Stashwick, because he's a grumpy buzzkill who has replaced charm with "being an a**hole." He's also pretty bigoted against former Borg, though when we find out about his history with the horrifying aliens, it's kind of hard to blame him. It's also a little hard to blame him for being so cranky, too, when you realize that the captain has had one seriously no-good, very bad week. 

Not only does poor Captain Shaw have to protect...

This Star Trek article contains spoilers for Picard season 3.

Between 1966 and 2005, Star Trek fans were introduced to the franchise’s first five leads: James T. Kirk in The Original Series, Jean-Luc Picard in The Next Generation, Benjamin Sisko of Deep Space Nine, Voyager‘s Kathryn Janeway, and Jonathan Archer from Enterprise.

Archer has not been seen since the end of Enterprise because that show’s storyline ended just over 100 years before Kirk’s mission began (though his Kelvinverse counterpart was apparently long-lived enough for Scotty to beam his beagle into space). But Kirk has appeared in two later series — the original spin-off, The Animated Series, in the 1970s, and more recently in Strange New Worlds, plus of course the Kelvinverse films. Janeway is a recurring character in Prodigy, which functions almost as a sequel series to Voyager, and Picard got his own spinoff named after him, with a third and...

“Star Trek: Discovery” will end with the upcoming fifth season, which will premiere sometime in early 2024, Paramount said Thursday. Principal filming has been mostly completed, with additional shooting set to take place later, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap.

Leading up to the final season, Paramount+ will honor “Discovery’s” legacy with yearlong celebrations and appearances at key events in markets around the world.

“‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is a perennial favorite on the service, near and dear to the hearts of legions of ‘Star Trek’ fans as well as all of us here at Paramount+,” Tanya Giles, chief programming officer at Paramount Streaming, said in a statement.

Giles continued, “The series and its incredible cast and creatives ushered in a new era for ‘Star Trek’ when it debuted over six years ago, embracing the future of streaming with serialized storytelling, bringing to life deep and complex characters that honor Gene Roddenberry...

If a viewer's only experience with Starfleet captains is Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), one could easily get the impression that everyone in that position is stalwart, professional, clear-headed, and just the right blend of aloof and approachable. Picard was always a stern professional, leading by example and professionalism. He was hardly warm but indicated that he was always open to listening to his crew's suggestions during a crisis. Picard is like the college professor you don't want to disappoint — it feels good to earn his approval because you know his standards are high.

Of course, several of Picard's professional peers take a very different approach. Capt. Sisko (Avery Brooks) had a short temper and led through heated debate. Sisko was a more passionate captain than Picard, lacking in patience and less worried about propriety. Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) was seemingly warm, but over the course of "Star Trek: Voyager,...

Maybe all good things don’t need to come to an end? We knew that was already the case when the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew continued to appear in four feature films and now will reunite for season three of Star Trek: Picard. But despite reports that the third season of Jean-Luc’s adventures would be his last, producer Alex Kurtzman may have changed his tune.

When a member of the Televisision Critics Association asked if there would be more Picard after the third season, Kurtzman responded with a non-commital, “Who knows?” According to Variety, star Patrick Stewart took it even further, insisting that this show “leaves the door open” for more of the Next Generation crew and that he would be interested, provided that the show can “maintain the work quality” of its first three seasons.

While the news may come as a surprise to some, it...

"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" -- which celebrated its 30th anniversary on January 3 -- has come to be one of the more celebrated of the "Star Trek" series. During the show's run, it was never as well-received or as popular as "Star Trek: The Next Generation," which overlapped with DS9 during its sixth and seventh seasons. This author is old enough to recall the scuttlebutt at Trek conventions, and finding that many fans objected to the show's darker tone, as well as its setting. Deep Space Nine was a space station, leading many to point out that the word "Trek" in the title was instantly inappropriate. The station had a few small, long-range shuttlecrafts called runabouts, but none of the show's stories were about exploring the galaxy or missions of discovery. Indeed, "Deep Space Nine" was about conflict, war, religion, economics, and all the other themes that Trek traditionally eschewed.

Spinning out of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" expanded the iconic science fiction franchise into considerably darker and more morally ambiguous territory than its predecessors. Starring Avery Brooks as Captain Benjamin Sisko, the show took place on its eponymous Starfleet space station positioned by the planet Bajor and a wormhole leading to the Gamma Quadrant. As the series progressed, "DS9" would shift to longer-form storytelling as the installation became a focal point amidst the Starfleet and the Dominion's warfare.

With over 170 episodes across seven seasons, "DS9" had a memorable ensemble cast that pushed the final frontier into new directions that its successors thematically furthered, including "Star Trek: Voyager." From standalone character studies to emotionally searing tales of battle and sacrifice, "DS9" ran a wide gamut of themes and tones that redefined what "Star Trek" could and can be while earning a considerable amount of widespread acclaim.

When "Star Trek: Voyager" debuted in 1995, Trekkies found themselves in new, exciting territory. Mixing the premises of "Star Trek" and "Lost in Space," "Voyager" saw a Federation starship, the very small but technologically advanced U.S.S. Voyager suddenly whisked clear across the galaxy to a remote quadrant -- the Delta Quadrant -- that Starfleet hadn't yet explored. Stranded 70 years from Earth, the determined Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) would have to wrangle an antagonistic crew in their mission to return home, and dramatically, there were going to be no other Starfleet vessels to back them up in a scrape. In the Delta Quadrant, there are no Starbases to replenish their supplies, nor repair damage. They were truly on their own. "Voyager" was to be a test of Starfleet resourcefulness.

Additionally, many members of the Voyager's crew once belonged to the Maquis, a group of anti-Federation terrorists, meaning that Capt. Janeway...

Praise the prophets! "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" is coming back in comic format for a 30th anniversary celebration mini-series that features all of your favorite characters, from Captain Sisko (Avery Brooks) to Morn (Mark Allan Shepherd). Comic publisher Idw announced that they will be releasing a five part comic series called "The Dog of War," launching in April 2023. "The Dog of War" will serve as a "lost episode" set during the events of the beloved 1990s series, following the crew of the space station Deep Space Nine as they contend with their newest resident: a purebred Welsh Corgi named Latinum that Quark (Armin Shimerman) has procured for one of his many smuggling clients. The corgi isn't all that it seems, however, and its presence aboard Deep Space Nine could signal disaster for the entire quadrant.

"The Dog of War" was written by "Star Wars: Dark Brotherhood" scribe Mike Chen,...

As a California native, it will never cease to tickle me that many of the featured starships on "Star Trek: Lower Decks" are named after inauspicious and rinky-dink towns in my home state. The ships are all California class, and the central ship is called the U.S.S. Cerritos, named for a city about 45 minutes outside of Los Angeles defined by its drab landscapes and abundance of car dealerships. Also on the show has been the U.S.S. Solvang -- a tiny Danish village and notorious tourist destination -- and the U.S.S. Merced -- a city that, uh, produces a lot of milk. 

Being the captain of a California-class vessel is a thankless job, a tragedy audiences see reflected in the Cerritos' Captain Carol Freeman, played by Dawnn Lewis. Captain Freeman is often tasked with Second Contact missions, the less interesting and logistics-heavy follow-ups to First Contact missions.

This post contains spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" and the series finale of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

The latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks," called "Hear All, Trust Nothing," sees the U.S.S. Cerritos being called -- at the last minute -- to oversee a diplomatic mission with a species from the Gamma Quadrant. The negotiations involve a generous gift from the Federation -- many, many kegs of liquor -- and takes place on Deep Space Nine, a space station that, Trekkies know, had its very own seven-year-long TV series from 1993 to 1999. 

As briefly as possible: "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" was set aboard a station that was built by the fascistic, militant Cardassians while they aggressively occupied Bajor, the planet below. When the Cardassian regime fell, the Bajorans took control of the station along with a retinue of Starfleet officers assigned to oversee Bajor's reconstruction.

This post contains minor spoilers for the latest episode of "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

It was only a matter of time. "Star Trek: Lower Decks" has gotten tons of mileage out of its seemingly never-ending cascade of loving callbacks, references, and even actual crossovers with several beloved "Trek" series of years gone by. Recently, season 3 brought us right back to the distinct pleasures of "Voyager," but the series hasn't been shy about tying together the crew of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," either (although there remains a few more items on that bucket list). And if that weren't enough, there's also the upcoming crossover between "Lower Decks" and "Strange New Worlds," the franchise's other new and highly acclaimed series. So with all that in mind, it feels only natural that this animated series would set its sights on the grandest prize of them all: "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."

The...

The central joke of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" is that a career in Starfleet, however dazzling on the page, is still full of petty, garbage jobs that no one necessarily wants. In the fifth episode of season 3 of "Lower Decks" -- called "Reflections" -- Ensigns Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Mariner (Tawny Newsome) are tasked with working a Starfleet recruitment booth at a futuristic jobs bazaar. Standing under a 10'-by-10' sunshade emblazoned with Starfleet logos, Boimler and Mariner have to make desperate, impassioned pitches to casual passersby that Starfleet is the bee's knees. They have the bad luck of being stationed right next to a vaguely criminal -- and ultra-cool -- adventuring archeologist booth. 

The idea that Starfleet would need a military recruitment booth at a jobs fair is simultaneously logical and a little sad. Surely Starfleet would want to get the word out about what kind of lifestyle they offer,...

The premiere of "Star Trek: Lower Decks" season 3 arrived on Paramount+ today, which is exciting twofold for Trekkies. Not only is one of the better "Trek" shows back, but "Lower Decks" in particular gives detail-obsessed nerds a chance to take out their notepads and go reference hunting. The "Lower Decks" writers clearly know "Star Trek" quite well, and their references from previous episodes run from the obvious to the downright oblique. One needs to look closely to see some of the clever in-jokes snuck into the background.

These kinds of references are cute, yes, but it's worth noting that callbacks and canonical mapping have long been a "Star Trek" birthright. In terms of sci-fi TV, the notion of a larger, expanded universe that is operating somewhere far beyond the events of the central show -- a universe that can be periodically visited -- is something that "Star Trek" helped pioneer.