The Best & Strangest Guest Actors of Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation guest stars helped make TNG unforgettable. This video explores the best, strangest, and most memorable Star Trek guest appearances, and the stories behind them. Across seven seasons, the USS Enterprise welcomed original Star Trek legends, award-winning actors, prolific character performers, celebrity fans, a NASA astronaut, and one of the world’s most famous scientists. This video essay takes a look at what these guest appearances meant to TNG, and how one great episode could turn a small role into a lifelong connection with Star Trek fans. From DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, and James Doohan passing the torch to Mark Lenard’s Sarek, to character actors such as Stephen Root, Diedrich Bader, Ray Wise, James Cromwell, and Christopher McDonald, these stories reveal the working actors behind TNG’s aliens, Klingons, Romulans, and Starfleet officers. We also revisit wonderfully strange Star Trek cameos from Mick Fleetwood, John Tesh, James Worthy, Stephen Hawking, and astronaut Mae Jemison. Then we celebrate some of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s finest guest performances: Kelsey Grammer in “Cause and Effect,” Ben Vereen in “Interface,” Jerry Hardin in “Time’s Arrow,” Jean Simmons in “The Drumhead,” Paul Winfield in “Darmok,” and David Warner opposite Patrick Stewart in “Chain of Command.” From “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” to “there are four lights,” these performances helped define what Star Trek could do at its very best. This is a celebration of TNG guest stars, Star Trek actors, acting craft, classic science fiction, and a bygone era of television that still feels impossible to replicate. 0:00 - No Replication 3:16 - TOS GUEST STARS 3:44 - DeForest Kelley 4:54 - Mark Lenard 6:37 - Leonard Nimoy 7:07 - James Doohan 7:50 - WORKING ACTORS 8:29 - Deidrich Bader 9:05 - Stephen Root 9:36 - Christopher McDonald 10:35 - Ray Wise & Pamela Adlon 12:27 - James Cromwell 13:23 - Unique Looks 14:02 - Carel Struycken 15:04 - CELEB CAMEOS 15:21 - Mick Fleetwood 15:52 - John Tesh 16:42 - James Worthy 17:13 - Stephen Hawking 18:11 - Mae Jemison 20:32 - BEST PERFORMANCES 22:20 - Jerry Hardin 24:53 - Jean Simmons 26:26 - Paul Winfield 27:38 - David Warner 30:37 - In Closing