Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Marina Sirtis has an idea about where Star Trek should go next, and it sounds just like something we’ve heard from her friend Michael Dorn. For his part, Dorn is out pitching a whole new (and non-Star Trek) idea.
Sirtis ready to return… for Dorn’s Klingon show
Marina Sirtis reprised her role as Deanna Troi in the first season of Star Trek: Picard, and last year she told us she hopes to return to the series. Now in a new interview, the actress endorsed an entirely different idea for the return of Troi. Speaking to the UK’s Big Issue, Sirtis offered her suggestion for what the next Star Trek show should be about:
“I think personally, it should be a Worf show. First of all, he’s a really popular character. And it’s never been done before – to have it about the Klingon Empire instead of the Federation with the Klingons as like, recurring. Have it be about the Klingon Empire and how they deal with stuff. I think it would be great. And although I would hardly be in it – I think I might be in it because Michael Dorn’s my best friend – I wouldn’t mind because I think it would be a really good idea.”
If the idea of a show focused on Worf set in the Klingon Empire sounds familiar, it should: It’s a concept Michael Dorn has been talking about for years. Earlier this year Dorn gave TrekMovie the full pitch on his idea for a Captain Worf show set on a Klingon ship, and while he didn’t mention his friend Marina Sirtis, her appearance on such a show seems like a given.
In another interview pn 5D Podcast:, Sirtis talked about how she wasn’t at all nervous to return to the role of Troi for Picard:
“I played [Troi] for 30 years, on and off. How could I be nervous? I was acting with people that I know in love, and trust. They were treating us like we were royalty. They call us the “legacy actors” because they can’t call us the “old farts.”… I think Jonathan [Frakes] was a bit nervous from what I read in his press, because he said to me, “Well, you’ve just come off stage and you’re at the top of your game, and Patrick [Stewart]’s been shooting for months, so he’s at the top of his game, and I haven’t acted in years and I am really scared that you guys are going to show me up.” But he was wonderful. Once we can see those characters in the mirror in the makeup trailer, they’re just there. “
Sir Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, Jonathan Frakes as William Riker, and Marina Sirtis as Deanna Troi in “Nepenthe”
Now Dorn is pitching a western
Yesterday, Michael Dorn appeared on Los Angeles’ KTLA to promote his recent film Agent Revelation on Amazon Prime, where he talked about what it was like playing Worf in two shows and multiple movies. The actor said it was an “amazing feeling” and “great achievement” to have appeared in more Star Trek episodes than any other actor.
He didn’t mention his dream of playing Worf again, but Dorn did talk about starring in and directing a new western project he has written. Dorn is a big fan of westerns and says he is really “pumped” about the idea. The actor feels he can get the project going due to “the huge amount of popularity the actors from Star Trek have and can bring to something that isn’t Star Trek.” No word on if the project will ever happen, so for now the closest thing he has is the TNG holodeck episode “A Fistful of Datas.”
Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn in “A Fistful of Datas”
You can watch the full segment below.
Find more news and analysis on the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com.
A show about the internal politics of the Klingon empire sounds like too much of a rehash of DIS, season one, and that was shaky at it’s best. Klingon makeup retcon aside, there’s just not enough interesting plotline or variety with the Klingon Empire to create a whole, modern show around it. I’d love to see Dorn as Worf in the timeframe of PIC, or shoot, Captain Worf in Lower Decks. Yes, Dorn does need to be a part of the modern ST content, but his own show seems like a pipe dream in the current landscape, so glad he’s moved on to his Amazon show.
I think they could explore this as a way to go into different miniseries, or as part of an anthology series
DIS did such a poor job on delivering the Klingon depth they promised. Instead we just got retcon space demons. Another carboard cutout villain race. I’d hope a Worf-centered show might do better justice to the Klingons.
Instead of a series, I think maybe a theatrical movie or a miniseries! I also don’t see any potential for a Klingon based series. The next series needs to be the fourth Generation (Enterprise & constitutes the prelude generation, the Kirk era Star Trek was the Second The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Generations, Voyager and Picard are the Third Generation and Discovery’s time warp places it in two different generations and messes up the timeline. But time has come to bring in Fourth Generation either between Kirk and Picard or after Picard’s generation is all in history books (Like after 2475 and before 3070)..
Marina who?
:(
Not cool.
Marina Sirtis, of Star Trek fame. She appeared as Deanna Troi as a series regular throughout the entire run of Star Trek: The Next Generation (notably, the only female main cast member appearing each season, and credited on every episode), as well as reprising the role in the films Star Trek: Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis, as well as at least one episode apiece of Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Voyager (with three episodes), Star Trek: Lower Decks, and Star Trek: Picard, giving her the distinctions of having more appearances as the same Star Trek character than any almost other actor (only five others have more), and one of only two performers along with Jonathan Frakes to appear as the same character in five different Star Trek series (soon to be joined by John de Lancie as #3).
And you are…?
In SF TV, Marina, with no last name like a certain Doctor, is a mute merperson character voiced by Sylvia Anderson (Try and wrap your head around what a sweet easy paycheck that was for her.) in the Brit Supermarionation SF series, STINGRAY.
Sirtis was 9ish at the time. Unknown if the character name was inspired by her in some way or just a popular girl’s name in the UK for the era.
Weird because only yesterday I heard the original 60s dream pop song “Marina’s Theme” was based on
The Captain Worf show just never appealed to me. The other post already spelled it out, the political Klingon stuff might be interesting for some but I just don’t really want to see a full show out of it and I don’t know how much variety there is. And yeah after seeing the really dull and bland ‘Klingon war’ on Discovery for a whole season, I had my fill of Klingon stories for awhile.
Still love to see Worf back of course. Hopefully he will show up on Picard or even LDS.
But if done right, a klingon series could also be something like Game of Thrones, with epic battle scenes and wars between houses and stuff like that. I think the problem with the first season of Discovery wasn’t necessarily the klingons, just the poor execution of them and poor ideas. The idea has potential to be epic, but only if it is done right and with proper budget.
Sure, I’m not saying they can’t do something amazing with it, BUT based on what we seen in the past, I’m just not convinced and especially with the people running Star Trek now. And I just never been big on Klingons in general. Never liked them much on TOS (too one dimensional for me) and they while grew on me in the TOS movies and TNG era they were still not a major species I needed to see that much outside of Worf and B’Elanna.
However, irony of saying that is I’m actually just starting my rewatch of DS9 season 4 and watching Way of the Warrior soon. I mention it because season 4 of DS9 and the Klingon conflict is actually my favorite story line of the Klingons out of the entire franchise. That and TUC, my second favorite, are the two times I truly loved watching them. It was great to see Klingons become Federation enemies in the 24th century again, even if temporary. And it was great to see Worf there too. So yeah in the right hands they can be great. I’m still not sure if we need an entire show around them though.
I will agree with you about Discovery and the Klingons in first season. The other issue was they overhyped them like we WERE going to get some type of GOT kind of conflict with them and with the exception of two episodes, they mostly just sat around speaking very coherently for most of the season about honor and repeating the same things.
Agreed, to do the klingons justice, they need to get someone like Nicholas Meyer involved but apparently he is too un-PC for the new people in charge of Trek who basically dropped him after the clusterfrack that was the production of the first season of Discovery.
“But if done right, a klingon series could also be something like Game of Thrones, with epic battle scenes and wars between houses and stuff like that”
Here is the problem: “if done right” + “Game of Thrones” should never be used in one and the same sentence while talking about Star Trek :-) GoT is the complete opposite of what Star Trek should be and I’m simply not interested in such a bleak and cynical and brutal chapter…
The only cue Trek SHOULD take from GoT is a midget main character, a minority that hasn’t been featured prominently as one of the main crew though we had some minor characters on TOS….I’d really like to see a Starfleet captain played by a charismatic midget, someone to look up to despite his or her size…
The problem is, the Klingons were retconned up the wazoo between TOS and TNG. The fearsome reputation from “Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running Klingon (edit mine)” to noble and honorable warrior class needs to be squared, and I doubt that going GOT with them gets the job done.
I mean, ANYTHING “if done right” is worth watching, that’s the goal with every show ever, to do it right.
I think they’d have to do something totally different that it doesn’t end up a TNG soap opera – have the Klingon ship say rescue a Federation crew only to be sucked elsewhere that they end up having to survive, explore and playg Game of Thrones in a totally new part of the universe with the majority where “Starfleet regulations” are seen as “outragous”
I am 100% on board with this. The spin off series I want to see are: Worf, the doctor, Nog(RIP) and Quark.
I second it
Why Nog, if the actor is gone? If Aron Eisenberg were still with us, then absolutely, but without him…
Because actors rarely have anything to do with the creation of the characters they are hired to portray.. They have no copyrights to the characters portrayed and collect no royalties when the character appears in other forms of literature.
As I recall, Eisenberg never had an opportunity to portray a mature Nog whose head had grown to the size of Rom or Quark’s. So that would be a phase of Nog’s life that could easily be explored by another actor.
I think the Klingons have already been done to death, especailly the TNG/DS9 era klingons. They don’t need their own show, and if they get it, I’m not watching.
I would love a show based on Worf & the Klingon Empire. My favorite episodes in Star Trek all involve the Klingon’s. I would really love to see Chancelor Martok & how that character has evolved. Bring it!!!
OK I would love to see Chancellor Martok doing his thing lol.
I second this as well!
I’d love to see Worf as a STARFLEET captain, but I’m sick of the Klingon Empire; Discovery gave us more than enough of that. And really, I watch Trek for those humane Federation values and that Starfleet optimism; I don’t really want to see them stray too far from that…
I believe that ship has sailed.
Yeah, the new series seem to have lost sight of that for awhile, but the fans complained, and I think we’re getting closer…
“I believe that ship has sailed.”
No it hasn’t… It’s gonna return in a MAJOR way. Orville has proven there is an audience for that kind of show even if it’s basically a fake. SNW will rekindle that light and when this show goes through the roof, they will churn out more and more nostalgia shows…even revamping DSC and PIC into more traditional Trek shows…
I’ll pass on this.
Frankly I bored with hearing about this Captain Worf series BS.
It always comes up when Star Trek has a slow new news week.
Please stop.
Truth.
This would be the character who was a series regular for *11* seasons of Star Trek? That’s who needs another series?
The premise would fit pretty nicely in the “Wild west Beta Quadrant ” set up in Picard.
Which should be jettisoned into the sun.
I can’t believe the amount of negativity for this idea. Have we really become so close minded, especially when it comes to Trek stuff? I think if done right this idea has the potential to be as epic as Game of Thrones, with awesome battle scenes and wars between different houses. The problem with Discovery season 1 wasn’t really the klingons but the poor use of them by the producers. I think the idea has potential but only with a proper interest and budget, and not done in a cheap or half-assed way.
I’d love to see a GoT-type series set on ancient Vulcan.
A modern-day Klingon show (or Ancient Vulcan show) would be borderline unwatchable for me. Yes, there was some violence on TNG and DS9 involving Klingons on the content side. Worf killed tow major political players in cold blood. But thanks to network / syndication regulations, they couldn’t present this the way they most certainly would these days.
I just felt bad about DSC S2’s Klingon epiode with all that appalling throat-cutting and head-chopping. A Klingon show running on a streaming service would most likely look and feel like GoT, Vikings or, even worse, Into the Badlands… gratuitous graphic violence and CGI blood in slow motion. Without traditional self cencorship as a safe haven, this would most certainly be the first show for me to never watch… and to feel ashamed about…
Klingons are overtaken by a sinister force intent on questioning gender, social norms, and the toxic masculinity of the Empire. I wonder who will vape in this one?
:(
What is the matter with you??
Marina endorses friends script so he can squeeze more money out the star trek franchise.
Give it a rest guys!
George T. says “I’ve been waiting longer for the Captain Sulu show, and now I’m old and bitter”
Hey, they can still do the Captain Sulu show with John Cho in the role and Takei as his father or like a commanding admiral in Starfleet.
No. More. Klingons.
Nothing against the idea, but I’m pretty sure Worf got blocked from further promotions due to his actions in a particular DS9 episode 🤷♂️
I love to that
A Worf centric show would be awesome! Hope they make it happen.
A different Jack. I’ve got no interest in a Worf-centric show, but to each their own.
I just want a show that allows any former cast member from TNG to Voyager to show up if they so want to. An anthology series might be best and each season could be linked with an ongoing plot point like an imminent attack or something.
A Day with Robin Leffler’s Rule Book?
Honestly nothing stops them from showing up in Picard or Lower Decks. Nothing. If they are alive or still in Starfleet (and that doesn’t even have to be a criteria, certainly not in Picard) then any of them can show up as far as I can tell.
Indeed, we’ve already seen multiple people from the TNG / DS9 / Voyager shows turn up in both Picard and Lower Decks in just their first seasons, and we know more such appearances are coming in their second.
I’m kind of hoping Admiral Nechayev turns up in Lower Decks, actually.
too many klingon stuff already.