Klingons had been around for a long time in the Star Trek franchise by the time Star Trek: The Next Generation came out in 1987, with the original smooth-headed versions of these aliens being recurring adversaries in Star Trek: The Original Series, and then the now-more commonplace ridged versions being introduced in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. However, The Next Generation (which can be streamed with a Paramount+ subscription) marked the first time a Klingon was depicted in a protagonists light, with Michael Dorn’s Worf being one of the key people serving on the bridge of the USS Enterprise-D. But as Dorn revealed in a recent interview, it took many years until he realized fans were responding to his character.
Along with explaining why it took more than just money for him to reprise Worf in Star Trek: Picard Season 3, Michael Dorn shared on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum that it didn’t occur to him that Worf was having a huge impact until he was brought into Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 4, a year after The Next Generation finished its run and Generations, the first Next Generation movie, was released in theaters. When Rosenbaum followed up and asked what specifically Dorn felt around that time, the actor responded:
That the producers and the fans were in sync, that this character is worth the trouble. I’m a pretty good negotiator and they don’t like that. He was worth the trouble to bring him back to help with Deep Space Nine, to add to that show so that they could go for their seven years. And at that point, I went, ‘Ok, there’s something there, whatever that is.’
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine certainly wasn’t lacking for Next Generation representation in its first three seasons, as Colm Meaney, who’d recurred as Miles O’Brien on the latter series, was brought aboard the former series to reprise Miles as a main character, and Patrick Stewart and John de Lancie also guest starred on separate occasions. Then Worf came along at the beginning of Season 4 and stuck around until Deep Space Nine concluded in 1999. As Michael Dorn saw it, once it was made clear to him just how much effort the powers-that-be wanted him to play Worf as a leading character on another TV show, that’s when he realized just how big a deal the Klingon Starfleet officer was to people.
In the midst of Deep Space Nine’s run, Michael Dorn also played Worf in First Contact and Insurrection, and after the show ended, he returned for Nemesis, the last of the Next Generation movies. Over the next two decades, Dorn vocally reprised Worf on a handful of projects, but Picard Season 3 finally saw him returning to the character onscreen, though he was much more mellow than how he’d previously been depicted. While it remains to be seen if Dorn will ever play Worf again, he can at least be honored knowing he’s appeared in more of the franchise’s episodes than anyone else.
As far as upcoming Star Trek TV shows go, Lower Decks’ fifth and final season premieres on October 24, and Starfleet Academy has been filming since late August. For your non-Trek queries, look through our 2024 TV schedule.