The ‘Star Trek Las Vegas’ convention holds many entertaining panels and events, including the panel featuring Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis. The pair used their time to tell stories about their time on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and their more recent work on ‘The Orville.’
Frakes started things off by telling the story of how he suggested Sirtis for a role on the recent episode of ‘The Orville.’ Frakes described casting her in the episode as a “great get” for the show. Sirtis gave her two cents, saying:
“I’m in a really good episode.”
Frakes did not stop there! He revealed that ‘Orville’ creator Seth MacFarlane gave him permission to announced more guest stars for his latest episode. Frakes told eager fans that, in addition to Sirtis, F. Murray Abraham (Ru’afo in ‘Star Trek: Insurrection’) and Ron Canada will play admirals for the Planetary Union. Tony Todd (who played three different characters in ‘Star Trek’ including Worf’s brother Kurn) will be playing a Moclan. But the biggest and most exciting announcement was that ‘Cheers’ and ‘The Good Place’ star Ted Danson will also appear in the episode.
Sirtis also had some things to say, including the fact that Frakes was her favorite director to work with, ever. She explained:
“He is a force of nature and he gets it. There are two types of directors. Directors who like to do whizzy things with the camera and shots and all that. And then there the directors who are really good with actors. They usually fall into two separate groups. This one [pointing to Frakes] is both…The studio loves him, the actors loves him, the crew would walk on glass for him. It’s a happy set. The work gets done. There is no tension. There is no angst. You know you are going to get the work done. You are producing a good product. You got a great guy at the helm. It’s perfect, perfect.”
‘The Orville’ returns to FOX with a midseason launch on December 30 and the remaining episodes going out in 2019.
