There are many beloved actors from the Star Trek franchise, but Jonathan Frakes holds a unique place in the fandom. Not only did Frakes star as Commander Will Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, but he also guest starred in episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise and directed episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Star Trek: Discovery.
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That makes him uniquely qualified to choose a favorite Star Trek series from among all of those that exist. During a panel at the Lexington Comics and Toy Convention, a fan asked Frakes which series – excluding The Next Generation for bias – was Frakes’ favorite.
“I’m one of the people who really liked Deep Space Nine,” Frakes answered. “I think they took more chances. I loved the people on Voyager. Voyager always felt like Next Gen lite to me. And Enterprise felt like they had gone to the well…you know, that was the fourth series in however many years it was. And again, nothing negative about any of the people on the show, it’s just that the appetite for Star Trek, frankly, I thought that Paramount was so freaking greedy that they created all these shows and watered down how great the essence of what Roddenberry had created was.”
Frakes then got back on point and explained what it was he loved about Deep Space Nine.
“In spite of the fact they didn’t get to boldly go where no one had gone before – people came to them – they told wonderful stories and they tried things and there was a lot more use of the magic of time travel and flashbacks,” Frakes said. “The characters weren’t all – because Roddenberry had died by this point – they had sort of pulled out of that idea that there would be no conflict, which is a hard way to make drama, there was conflict on that show, people did have issues on that show. There was some wonderful comedy on that show. I’m working with Ira Behr, who is one of the creators of that show, on this documentary which I think will be out soon.We did a little skit the other day, last weekend. I know it’s not everybody’s favorite, but I always enjoyed it, and I loved working on the show too.”
The documentary Frakes mentioned is What We Left Behind and it is aiming for a release sometime in 2018.
What was your favorite Star Trek series? Did you love or hate Deep Space Nine? Let us know in the comments!
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and all of the other Star Trek series are available to stream on Netflix and on CBS All Access.
