Walter Koenig Wonders What It Would Be like to Be Part of a ‘Star Trek’ Cast That Really Likes Each Other

Walter Koenig is one of the iconic members of the Star Trek: The Original Series cast. You may think being part of Star Trek royalty would be the best position possible in the franchise, but it turns out Koenig envies some of the later casts for a particular reason.

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine cast has been doing interviews and making appearances together to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary this year. This seems to have caught Koenig’s attention and made him wistful about what it must be like to have castmates who are so close.

“Deep Space 9 People REAlLY [sic] like each other!” Koenig tweeted. “God, what must that be like?”

Koenig seems to be throwing a little shade at the frayed relationships between the cast members of the original Star Trek. Several of the stars have passed away, including Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and James Doohan. As for the remaining cast members, there’s some well-documented tension between them, particularly between William Shatner and co-stars Koenig and George Takei, though Takei has recently stated the reports of his “feud” with Shatner are a bit overblown.

“This is silliness,” Takei said. “There’s unanimity among the cast mates, we’ve all had difficulties with Bill, but we’re all teammates and we work together. When Brad and I got married, I asked Walter Koenig, who played Chekov, to be our best man and Nichelle Nichols to be our matron of honor. Nichelle said, ‘I am not a matron! If Walter is the best man, why can’t I be the best lady?’ We said, ‘Of course you are.’

“We thought the most natural thing to do would be to extend invitations to everybody. We sent Bill an invitation. There might have been some mistake in the mail. If he would have called us before the wedding, we would have happily had him. We do conventions and we do cross paths. I’ll say, ‘Morning, Bill.’ And he’ll say, ‘Morning, George.’ And that’s it.”

Of course, not all other Star Trek cast members got along so well. Star Trek: Voyager star Jeri Ryan and Kate Mulgrew also have a well-documented feud.

“I remember this one time, in particular, I had this one scene with this person, just the two of us,” Ryan recalled on a podcast interview, carefully avoiding mentioning Mulgrew by name. “We do their coverage first, and shoot their side of this really dramatic scene, and then it was time for my coverage. Before every close-up, the hair and makeup and wardrobe teams come in and do touch-ups and everything to make sure everything’s right…[The co-star] shut the door to the set, and said, ‘She’s fine. LET’S GO.’ Wouldn’t let them in. Just stupid, stupid stuff like that.”

Several members of the friendly Deep Space Nine cast will reprise their role in the upcoming Star Trek Online expansion Victory Is Life.