Last weekend part of the cast of ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ reunited at Dragon Con to celebrate the show’s 30th Anniversary. On stage was Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker), Brent Spiner (Data), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi), Michael Dorn (Worf), Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) and ‘Star Trek: Voyager’s Garrett Wang, who moderated the panel. Here are the highlights.
The best part of any good panel is the chance to see beloved actors as themselves. What makes it a good panel is, above all, actors who live up to fan expectations. Everyone on the Dragon Con stage either wanted to be there among the great friends they’ve made on set, or were even better actors than I give them credit for. They happily answered questions I’m sure they get all the time like “what was your favorite episode to work on?” (‘The Offspring’ for Frakes, ‘Data’s Day’ for McFadden, ‘The Offspring’ for Dorn, ‘A Fistful of Datas’ for Sirtis, and “anything featuring Data” for Spiner) and they even bit for a fan fishing for a political statement. Sirtis, who is actively political on Twitter, said she was proud to be blocked by Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The most notable insights probably came from Brent Spiner. First, it needs to be known that he does such a good Captain Picard impression that he admitted that he is more Patrick Stewart than himself at this point. Second, he shared a story that appeared unknown to even his co-stars. On set one day, the wardrobe guy, described as a cowboy, came unprepared with the only one uniform for Data, a wet uniform. Spiner shot in that dampened suit for the day. The cowboy returned to him afterward apologetic and thankful that he wasn’t in the kind of trouble he could have been had Data been acted by a diva. The cowboy presented Spiner with a gun. It was reportedly the Colt .45 that shot Pat Garrett, the lawman who shot Billy the Kid. Spiner said that he still has the gun today.
If you love Star Trek and get a chance to see this cast in person, it’s worth it. For the right price, Spiner will even sell you his gun.
