Once you consider an important folks in Star Trek historical past, when it comes to actors at the very least you would possibly look to the legacies of individuals like William Shatner or Patrick Stewart. However the actual reply to that query is probably Jonathan Frakes, who has been part of just about all televised Trek because the ‘70s—and when Discovery ends in a number of months, it’ll break the pattern of his affect, at the very least in entrance of the digicam.
Since starring as William T. Riker in The Subsequent Era, Frakes has made a visitor look in virtually each Star Trek sequence since, either as Riker or a facsimile of him, or his villainous transporter clone brother Thomas (answerable for the greatest fake beard reveal in tv historical past, due to Deep House 9). Simply three sequence have gone with out an on-screen Frakes look thus far—Discovery, Prodigy, and Unusual New Worlds—and now we all know at the very least certainly one of them by no means will.
When requested by Den of Geek at a latest look throughout SXSW whether or not or not Frakes would make an on-screen look in Discovery’s remaining season, co-creator and producer Alex Kurtzman provided a really resoundingly flat “No.” It’s not shocking contemplating that, as Discovery is now thus far into Star Trek’s future, Riker is extraordinarily lifeless at this level. At the least it is going to at all times have a particular connection to Frakes by way of his function as a equally constant Trek director—Frakes has been regularly directing episodes of Discovery since its first season, and can direct the penultimate episode of the present in season 5. However it does certainly imply the tip to a decades-long pattern of constructing Frakes one of the vital constant Trek actors within the franchise historical past, and there’s one thing oddly unhappy about that.
Prodigy and Unusual New Worlds each nonetheless have time to have their very own Frakes appearances—Prodigy is about in 2385, whereas Riker was nonetheless in lively service even after the beginning of his son Thaddeus, for whom he would step again from lively responsibility to attempt to assist deal with when he was identified with mendaxic neurosclerosis within the run-up to the occasions of Star Trek: Picard. Unusual New Worlds (which like Discovery has a Frakes connection through directing; he shot the present’s implausible crossover with Decrease Decks, “Those Old Scientists”) being pre-original Trek would make a Riker look very troublesome, however Frakes may nonetheless play some function, whether or not it’s an ancestor or a wholly new character.
We’ll have to attend and see—and behold what Frakes cooks up as his parting present for Discovery—when season 5 begins streaming on April 4.
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