Every Doctor Who Actor Who Appeared in Star Trek

Doctor Who predates Star Trek by at least a year. While the concept for Trek probably existed before the concept for Who, Doctor Who first broadcast on November 23, 1963, on the BBC. The production for Star Trek‘s first pilot, “The Cage,” would begin a little over a year later. It seems unlikely either production knew much about the other; Doctor Who being sequestered within the BBC’s facilities in the UK, while Star Trek shot exclusively in and around Southern California. The writers of each probably did eventually get to see their parallel shows eventually, but The Original Series is unique in all of the Trek properties that no Who actor ever guest starred (conversely, no actor from The Original Series ever guest starred on Who).

The streams started crossing a lot more when Star Trek got its first big revival in the ’80s, as the original series movies released (mostly to acclaim), and The Next Generation premiered in 1987. Doctor Who had been running the whole time, from 1963 through to the eighties, when the original run ended in 1989. Doctor Who would get a brief revival with a TV movie in 1996 (and the franchise’s first foray into productions in America), but it wouldn’t get a proper revival until March 2005 — ironically, Trek‘s first great revival would end quietly two months later, with the finale of Enterprise.

Still, for two massive science fiction franchises, there have been surprisingly few actors who have appeared in both. Considering how many guest stars Who tends to go through, and how many guest stars the various Trek spinoff series have had, this feels unusual. The most likely cause is probably the most obvious, though: they’ve both typically been produced on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The Torchwood: Miracle Day Caveat

This list comes with the serious caveat that the American co-production of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood‘s fourth season (subtitled Miracle Day) threw a wrench into the rare occasion that was a Who actor appearing in the Trek franchise (and vice versa). Torchwood: Miracle Day, which was in part filmed in the United States (rare for the Who franchise overall), has at least thirteen actors with credits in both Star Trek and Torchwood: Miracle Day. The most notable of those thirteen actors are John de Lancie and Nana Visitor. De Lancie plays the oft-recurring space deity “Q” in Trek — at this point, the character has appeared in some capacity in The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Picard and Lower Decks. Visitor played Kira Nerys on Deep Space Nine as a series regular; she’s also lent her voice to the character’s appearance on Lower Decks.

The eleven other actors (that we know of) all had small parts in the films or one-time guest spots in the shows, including: Alan Dale, Van Epperson, Robin Sachs, Amy Benedict, Bari Hochwood, George Murdock, Richard Wharton, David Youse, Kelvin Yu, Eric Steinberg, Paul Hayes, and Jason Brooks were all credited in at least one episode of Torchwood: Miracle Day. Since Torchwood isn’t exactly Doctor Who, we thank them for their service to the over hanging umbrella of both franchises before moving on — a lot of actors have also surely appeared in various Trek properties (such as the many video games, including Star Trek Online) and the countless Doctor Who audio dramas. They’re both massive franchises, and it would hard to do justice to every single actor who has lent their talents to both franchises.

1) David Ajala (Star Trek: Discovery)

David Ajala is known to many Star Trek fans as the enigmatic Book in Discovery at this point — he first appears at the start of season three, and would recur until the end of the series. He was a fun addition to the first Trek series since Enterprise, injecting life into a show that didn’t always know how to use its colorful cast of characters. Well before Discovery, however, he starred as Peter, a cyborg in the Doctor Who episode “The Beast Below,” which was just Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith’s second episode. Peter was the chief of the Winders, who patrolled Starship UK, which the UK built in the far-flung future to save its population.

2) Daphne Ashbrook (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

Daphne Ashbrook is a rare example of an American actor who appeared in Doctor Who before the reboot (and that’s still rare); Ashbrook appeared in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as Ensign Melora Hardin in a 1993 episode of the series. Then, she was cast in the 1996 attempt at rebooting Who: the TV movie, where she played Dr. Grace Holloway. She’s the Eighth Doctor’s companion, and while we’d all love to see her return in some capacity, any return of Dr. Holloway is wrapped up in complicated rights issues, according to Ashbrook (via Radio Times). Ashbrook herself has appeared in various Big Finish audio dramas, however. Melora Hardin in DS9 was notable for being a disabled Starfleet officer; she used a wheelchair.

3) Steven Berkoff (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)

That a longtime English actor appeared in a Trek show long before he would eventually make an appearance on the Doctor Who reboot seems odd. Steven Berkoff was active when the original Who was on the air, but his one and only appearance in the franchise is 2012’s “The Power of Three,” where he played an unnamed Shakri, who were meant to be a pest control species. In Deep Space Nine, Berkoff played Hagath, an arms dealer, in “Business as Usual,” a fifth season episode. Berkoff has had a long and legendary career in theater outside of his many film and television appearances.

4) Orla Brady (Star Trek: Picard)

Orla Brady has two Trek characters under her belt: Laris, Jean-Luc Picard’s Romulan housekeeper, who has a bit of a crush on him, and Tallinn, her doppelganger, who revives the Supervisor archetype from Star Trek: The Original Series. Brady was a new face to the cast of Star Trek: Picard, which increasingly relied on fan favorites for its casting. She brought a genuine warmth to the characters she originated. On Doctor Who, she played the final Mother Superious of the Papal Mainframe, Tasha Lem, in the Eleventh Doctor’s final chronological appearance.

5) Dominic Burgess (Star Trek: Picard)

Dominic Burgess’s first ever TV credit was his Doctor Who role. He played Agorax, a doomed game show contestant on the show’s send-up of The Weakest Link. On Picard, he played Mister Vup, a bodyguard for a crime lord. Interestingly, Burgess recently joined the rare group of actors who have appeared in Who, Trek, and Star Wars. He had a recurring role in Skeleton Crew as Beef, a pirate.

6) Christina Chong (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds)

Christina Chong is the only actor on this list to be a series regular on a Star Trek show, in addition to her appearance in Doctor Who (Ajala would probably be considered a recurring character on Discovery). Chong plays La’an Noonien Singh, a descendant of Khan on the prequel series Strange New Worlds where she is the Enterprise‘s Chief of Security. On Doctor Who, she played Lorna Bucket in “A Good Man Goes to War,” the mid-season finale of the sixth season of the Who reboot.

7) Noel Clarke (Star Trek Into Darkness)

Despite personal controversy as of late, Noel Clarke was a series regular in the second series of the Who revival, playing lovable Mickey Smith. Mickey was often used for comic relief, and he was Rose’s boyfriend at the start of their appearances, but not by the end. Clarke made a short appearance in Star Trek Into Darkness as a Section 31 agent who is bribed by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan into committing a terrorist attack.

8) John Franklyn-Robbins (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

John Franklyn-Robbins was in so many early TV shows it’s almost hard to keep track. Those shows included the original run of Doctor Who, in the 1975 serial “Genesis of the Daleks,” where he played a Time Lord opposite Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, he played Macias in “Preemptive Strike,” the penultimate episode of the show. This episode was directed by Patrick Stewart, so perhaps Franklyn-Robbins, who was also a Shakespearean actor, was cast in a sort-of tribute. Franklyn-Robbins’s Star Trek credit is one of his few American film and TV credits.

9) Sonita Henry (Star Trek reboot)

Sonita Henry’s Star Trek role is essentially a cameo, but it’s included because the design of the alien she plays in the first twenty minutes of the 2009 film was so interesting, and threw a lot of fans, initially, for a loop. Because Star Trek (2009) is set before The Original Series, fans were curious how alien designs would be handled, given many of the original designs in the show itself were… minimalist at best. Henry’s doctor on the Kelvin still has a minimalist design, but she’s clearly an alien. Her Doctor Who appearance comes later; she played Colonel Meme in “The Time of the Doctor,” the same episode that Orla Brady appeared in.

10) Barrie Ingram (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Barrie Ingram is another English actor on this list who had a long and historic career, where appearances in both Doctor Who and Star Trek are mere footnotes. In Doctor Who, he was in both in the film Dr. Who and the Daleks and in the third series serial “The Myth Makers,” which were both released in 1965. Over twenty years later, he appeared in “Up the Long Ladder” as the very Irish Danilo Odell. Another notable Ingram role is Basil of Baker Street in The Great Mouse Detective: he takes on the voice of the mouse modeled after Sherlock Holmes with aplomb.

11) Christopher Neame (Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise)

Christopher Neame is one of the few entries on this list who starred in an unfinished Who serial, “Shada” in 1979. It never aired at the time, due to production being halted because of a strike at the BBC. Decades later, the BBC sought to reconstruct it, and Neame happily contributed his voice to that effort. It was released on home video in 2017 and aired in 2018. Neame later played Unferth, a take on a Beowulf character, in the first season of Voyager, and a German general in a fourth season episode of Enterprise set in an alternate United States during World War II.

12) Chris Obi (Star Trek: Discovery)

Chris Obi played George, a friendly enough security guard in the Doctor Who episode “Closing Time;” he ends up being converted into a Cyberman, in the Eleventh Doctor’s first full episode with one of the show’s frequent antagonists. Obi also played a Klingon captain, T’Kuvma, in the first two episodes of Star Trek: Discovery.

13) Simon Pegg (Star Trek reboot film trilogy)

Simon Pegg is nerd royalty at this point. When he appeared in the first series of the Who revival as the sinister Editor in “The Long Game,” he’d done Shaun of the Dead and Spaced, but the bulk of his career was still to come. That includes his turn as the Star Trek reboot trilogy’s Montgomery Scott. Pegg’s Scotty is pretty different than James Doohan’s was: Scotty in the films is a scatter-brained, neurotic genius, while Scotty in the original show was usually a reliable source for calm on the ship. Still, his Scotty fits the overall tone of the reboot trilogy, and he also helped write the Star Trek Beyond script.

14) Olaf Pooley (Star Trek: Voyager)

Olaf Pooley starred in the Doctor Who serial “Inferno” in 1970; he played the dual roles of Professor and Doctor Stahlman in the Third Doctor outing. Pooley is interesting because he moved to the States in the 1980s; he would make one of his final appearances in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Blink of an Eye.” “Blink of an Eye” is currently the highest user-rated Voyager episode on IMDb; it’s a unique, unusual time travel story for the show.

15) Maurice Roëves (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Maurice Roëves played Stotz in the Fifth Doctor serial “The Caves of Androzani” in 1984, and less than a decade later, played a Romulan in “The Chase,” a Next Generation episode directed by series star Jonathan Frakes. Roëves was active from 1966 until 2020, the year of his death. One of his last credits is the Michael Fassbender Macbeth in 2015; appropriate, because Roëves was a proud Scotsman.

16) Deep Roy (Star Trek reboot film trilogy)

He’s been in probably every beloved franchise at least once, even if you didn’t recognize him: Deep Roy has played a host of aliens and other creatures over the course of his career. In Doctor Who, he’s made two appearances, with one uncredited. First, in “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” as Mr. Sin, and then as a Posicarian delegate in “Mindwarp”. Roy has also appeared in multiple Star Wars productions (including as an Ewok), Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Blake 7, and The X-Files. The role that has probably given him the most to do has been Keenser in the Star Trek reboot film trilogy; the cheeky alien sidekick of Simon Pegg’s Scotty added some great comic relief to the films.

17) William Morgan Sheppard (TNG, Voyager, and More)

William Morgan Sheppard is one of two entries on this list who appeared in multiple Trek franchise entries, but who only ever appeared in Doctor Who one time. Sheppard appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Dr. Ira Graves, in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country as the warden of the Klingon prison camp, in Star Trek: Voyager as Qatai, and also had a final, uncredited appearance as the Vulcan Science Minister in the 2009 Star Trek. He didn’t appear in Doctor Who until the season premiere of the sixth season, where he played the older version of the character his son, Mark Sheppard played, for most of the episode. Most of William Morgan Sheppard’s credits, despite being English, are for American films and shows; he spent most of his career in the United States. This probably explains the multiple Trek credits, as well as shows like Babylon 5 and seaQuestDSV.

18) Mark Sheppard (Star Trek: Voyager)

Mark Sheppard’s career has been as legendary as his father’s, he’s best remembered as his recurring role as Crowley on Supernatural, but he’s also had guest parts in the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series, Leverage, Warehouse 13, and he’s recently appeared in Doom Patrol. One of his early credits is as the Borg foundling Icheb’s father on Star Trek: Voyager. Doctor Who fans were delighted when he appeared in the first two episodes of the sixth season’s revival as Canton Everett Delaware III, as an FBI agent who helps the Doctor battle the Silence. He suggested his father, William Morgan Sheppard, play the older version of his character.

19) Guy Siner (Star Trek: Enterprise)

“Genesis of the Daleks” is responsible for two entries on this list: John Franklyn-Robbins and Guy Siner. Siner played Ravon, a Kaled General, who both worked against and with the Fourth Doctor over the course of the serial. On the Trek front, Siner played the father of armory episode Malcolm Reed in Star Trek: Enterprise. Stuart Reed only appeared in one episode, “Silent Enemy,” but Malcolm’s difficult relationship with his father would come up a few more times in the series.

20) David Warner (Star Trek: The Final Frontier, Undiscovered Country, TNG)

The last entry on this list is probably the most prominent one: David Warner. Warner appeared in so many genre properties it’s hard to keep track of them all, but they include films like The Omen, Time After Time, and the original Tron. He was the voice of Ra’s al Ghul in Batman: the Animated Series. He played many roles on stage, and his filmography seems to go on forever. In Trek fandom, he’s remembered for playing back to back roles in the films: he plays a nervous Federation diplomat in The Final Frontier before playing the heroic and doomed Chancellor Gorgon in The Undiscovered Country. He played the villainous Gul Madred in The Next Generation‘s “Chain of Command;” his portrayal of the cruel but intelligent Cardassian reestablished the species’ characterization just in time for Deep Space Nine. He popped up in various Who animations and audio dramas, but his one and only on-screen Who appearance came in 2013’s “Cold War”. He played kindly Soviet scientist Professor Grisenko, who was an ally to the Doctor and Clara in the submarine set episode.

Who is your favorite actor to play roles in Star Trek and Doctor Who? Did we miss anyone? Let us know in the comments below!

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