Star Trek’s Jonathan Frakes Hints He’s Involved With New Series

It sounds like Jonathan Frakes may be expanding his Star Trek résumé even further. Frakes made his name playing Cmdr. William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation (after a stint as Marvel’s Captain America). While working in front of the camera on The Next Generation, he learned to direct. He went on to direct episodes of Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, as well as the films Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection. When Star Trek returned with Star Trek: Discovery, Frakes returned to direct as well. When his old captain returned in Star Trek: Picard, Frakes returned to direct and to reprise his role as Will Riker. But there are more Star Trek shows still in the works. In a conversation with GalaxyCon, Frakes makes it sounds like he’s involved with them as well.

“It has been a blessing to have my career to be rekindled by the new Star Treks,” Frakes said. “It didn’t hurt that I learned how to do another craft. The directing has been fantastic for me. When Discovery worked out and then Picard worked out and now there will be a new one, and another one.”

That’s not a guarantee, but it seems like Frakes at least assumes that he’ll be involved with the upcoming Star Trek shows, which include the Discovery spinoff about Section 31. Most recently, he directed episodes of the third season of Star Trek: Discovery.

“I can tell you this much about season three of Discovery: It is in fact much more optimistic,” Frakes said during a convention appearance. “They’ve gotten themselves out of the Mirror Universe… After Gene died, some of the writers decided that Deep Space Nine should maybe take a different tone, which, I think, it did to certain degrees of success. The optimism that Gene infused in all of his shows and in all of us may not be as obvious as it once was, but it’s certainly the driving force of his vision and the franchise and [Alex] Kurtzman and all the people who run our shows are very conscious that that canon is important to all of you and all of us. JJ [Abram]’s movies, I thought, were very uplifting and wonderfully told stories. There needs to be conflict to make drama. So I’m here to share that Discovery certainly is taking a more optimistic, traditional Star Trek approach in next season.”