Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Stars Reveal Their Conditions for Returning to the Franchise

The Star Trek universe is one of the most active franchises in all of entertainment right now, with a number of acclaimed TV shows on Paramount+, the JJ Abrams cast looking to return for a fourth outing on the big screen. There’s also different approaches, with some of the TV shows recasting classic roles, while Picard brings back actors from the franchise’s past to reprise their old roles. That keeps the old question alive for Trek veterans: would you return to the franchise? And if so, what would it take to bring you back to the Star Trek universe?

Nana Visitor, Alexander Siddig, and Chase Masterson appeared at Star Trek: Mission Chicago for a Deep Space Nine panel over the weekend, and got the inevitable question. Each had their own distinct, but fairly similar, conditions for returning.

“I would love it, but I would want to know that there was some kind of continuity, that it would really matter,” Visitor said. “I mean, there are some jobs where, they’re jobs, and I go, ‘It’s all right.’ I do [acting] jobs for different reasons. Star Trek is something else, and the relationship with the audience is something else. I really do feel the responsibility. So, unless it was a certain thing, a certain way, certain writers, I would be concerned. Would I want to? Do I want Ira Steven Behr to write one and say, ‘Nana, come back,’? Yes.”

“I just can’t think of how Bashir, where he exists after Deep Space Nine,” Siddiq said. “I mean, I know he was extremely human, and he’s probably a retired doctor or working for an NGO or maybe just collecting butterflies with Garak.”

“I would want to make sure that Lita- I don’t think they need me anymore to be any kind of thing other than a strong character,” Masterson added. “And I think if it had to do with social justice, it could work. But anything else, I think we’ve already done that. I think moving along the social justice narrative in terms of Latinum not being the focus on Ferenginar. That, I’d like to do.”

The original Deep Space Nine ran for seven seasons between 1993 and 1999. Unlike most Star Trek series, it did not take place on a ship moving through the universe, but on a space station, where they frequently had to fend off invaders who wanted to control Deep Space Nine due to its strategic importance.

h/t CinemaBlend