Frakes: Attached to Riker
1 min readAt last week’s Calgary Comic Con, the fan-friendly Jonathan Frakes spoke about his work on Star Trek: The Next Generation and about his attachment to Commander William T. Riker.
Frakes acknowledged the importance of the fans who supported Star Trek: The Next Generation and its actors. “My position is if someone’s not going to enjoy being [at the convention], they shouldn’t show up,” he said. “I’ve seen people come to these and not realize that they were lucky to have these fans and we have a responsibility to thank them.”
Working on Trek was a blessing for Frakes, although it had its downside as well. “It changed my life,” he said. “How could I not be [a fan of Star Trek]? It’s a double-edged sword working in Star Trek, though. There’s not many acting jobs unless you’re Patrick Stewart, but I was lucky enough to find another craft in directing.”
Frakes would take on the role of Riker again if asked, and would prefer not to be replaced if a rebooted Star Trek: The Next Generation was done. “Gosh. I supposed I could be made younger,” he said, “but I plan to play Riker as long as I’m alive.”
I find it unlikely we’ll see him as Riker again, though I’d love it if we did.
yeah, it would be nice. it must be come a new script
I remember the rumor that both him and Troi were going to be on Voyager…I so wish that would of happened…
I was one of the few that rather enjoyed their appearance on Enterprise, it may not have been the best ending for enterprise, but it was a great episode, and it was a great hommage to TNG
Me too. I can’t understand the hostility over that ep. Yes it was an Enterprise finale, but it was also a Star Trek finale.
Exactly, and it, like “In a mirror darkly” before was very useful in firmly linking Enterprise with previous canon, something Enterprise was not very good about.
What this did was establish, by retconning a portion of TNG, that people in TNG knew about ENT and saw it as part of history, that was a big deal.
In a mirror darkly allowed us to compare Archer’s Enterprise with Kirk including showing us scale of size and power, that was fantastic.
And the 3 captain version of the classic intro was just phenomenal.
TNG was the best Star Trek EVER. nothing even touches these actors as far as the genre goes as far as i’m concernced, the original and TNG are the best ever, top notch.
Pitch a Star Trek: Titan to Sy Fy, they’ll love it.
Facebook fan campaign:
http://www.facebook.com/StarTrekTitan
Thank you, Mr. Frakes. TNG remains extremely popular, airing on both Syfy and BBC America. It’s great to see a former Trek star embrace their show and not try to run away from it. Trek belongs back on TV.
Personally I believe that it is a waste of time and energy to work for a new Titan TV Series. On the other hand if the money was shown to potentially be there a Titan animated series might be saleable.
It’s good that Frakes has found a role as a Director
I’d love to see more ST:TNG movies but it’s unlikely now given the reboot of 2 years ago