A Brief Guide to Star Trek

name with Kirk actor Shatner). Among those to make the shortlist were Ben Murphy, star of
Alias Smith and Jones
and
The Gemini Man
. Perhaps considered too old for the role, he had been a regular on
The Love Boat
in the early 1980s. His rivals for the part were Gregg Marx, a soap star on
All The World Turns
, and Michael O’Gorman, an actor with few credits to that date – although the memo noted him as a favourite: ‘He’s sort of an atypical choice for the role, however a good one’. Also shortof credits was Jonathan Frakes, who finally won the part. Frakes was a frequent TV guest star actor who’d enjoyed regular roles on soap
Falcon Crest
and the Civil War TV mini-series
North and South
(1985). Again, Berman had to battle with Roddenberry over this role. The series’ creator’s preferred choice was Bill Campbell, who would go on to star in
The Rocketeer
(1991) – it was only when Campbell turned the part down that Roddenberry agreed to even see Frakes.
    Star Trek: The Next Generation
aimed to break new ground by featuring a character with a disability as part of the main ensemble. Geordi La Forge would not only be blind, but he’d also be the ship’s navigator. Considered for the role were Wesley Snipes, Tim Russ (later Vulcan Tuvok on
Voyager
), and
Predator
actor Kevin Peter Hall.
Roots
(1977) star LeVar Burton won the part.
    The new doctor on the
Enterprise
would not be Southern – like McCoy – but would instead be female. Considered for the role of Dr Beverly Crusher were
An American Werewolf in London
(1981) actress Jenny Agutter, and actress and choreographer Cheryl (later known as Gates) McFadden, who won the role.
    Security Chief Tasha Yar and ship’s counsellor Deanna Troi were originally cast the opposite way around, with Denise Crosby as Troi and Marina Sirtis playing Yar. According to Berman, it was Roddenberry’s idea to swap the actresses around. Others considered for Yar were Rosalind Chao (later a regular on
Deep Space Nine
) and Julia Nickson, later a featured character on
Deep Space Nine
rival series
Babylon 5
. The part of Worf, the
Enterprise
’s Klingon officer, was filled by Michael Dorn, while Crusher’s son Wesley was Wil Wheaton, who’d featured in the acclaimed movie
Stand by Me
(1986). Young Wesley Crusher would be the prime representative of the fact that the
Enterprise
now carried families aboard, but he quickly came to be seen as an irritant (to the audience as well as to Captain Picard) whose high intelligence led to him saving the ship on multiple occasions during the first four seasons. His name was drawn from Roddenberry’s middle name, Wesley, and the character was seen as something of a ‘Mary Sue’ figure – a wish-fulfilment role reflecting the show’s creator.
    The most challenging part to cast was that of android Data, the series’ Spock substitute. Among those considered was the six-foot-nine-inch actor Kevin Peter Hall (also being considered for La Forge); Mark Lindsay Chapman, a TV movie regular; and Eric Menyuk, later to play the otherworldly ‘Traveler’ figure on the show. Ironically, most of the actors who auditioned for the role were well over six foot in height, indicating that the original conception for the android was more of a Gort-type character from
The Day the Earth Stood Still
(1951), or the Norman android seen in
The Original Series
episode ‘I, Mudd’. A change came about when the character was perceived as more of a Pinocchio-like figure, an artificial man who wants to be ‘a real boy’. That allowed the casting of the far shorter, but much more exuberant Broadway musical star Brent Spiner. He would bring a different approach to the Spock-like role of the non-human character who spends the series discovering and exploring his own ‘humanity’.
    There was a change in feel for the new
Enterprise
. Instead of a functional, military-style vehicle, the new starship would be more like a flying city, carrying families of serving officers. This would mean all the support facilities (including leisure) that any city would have, such as schools, health facilities, entertainment centres and so on. Even the bridge had a more ‘domestic’ make-over, with wall-to-wall carpeting and a less functional look, giving it the feel of an upmarket hotel foyer.
    ‘Some people were afraid of the new
Star Trek
because the old people wouldn’t be in it’, recalled Justman. ‘I don’t think that lasted too long. People resist change [but] the