Scenes Star Trek Actors Regret Filming

Star Trek can tell us wonderful things about the human condition. It can also be deeply, deeply embarrassing for both fans and the cast. On sheer volume alone, it makes sense that many episodes would be mediocre to bad, but some transcend that. Some caused the actors to silently protest. Others made the cast worry that they'd never live it down. And many are ones that all parties involved — cast, crew, producers, and fans — wish they could forget.

Though cast members may be reluctant to badmouth the show that's paid their bills for years, a few have talked about the Star Trek moments that evoke shame or confusion. A few were only there for a movie or even just one episode. Many others are lifers almost synonymous with the franchise. And thanks to the relentlessness fanbase, the convention scene, and intrepid journalists, we have answers to these shameful questions. Here are scenes that the Star Trek actors regret filming.

Malcolm McDowell played one of the most important villains in Star Trek history. As Dr. Tolian Sora in Star Trek: Generations, he was the force that united Jean-Luc Picard and James T. Kirk. He was also the man who, via weird bridge collapse, killed William Shatner's beloved character. While McDowell relishes being known as "the man who killed Kirk," he regrets how the scene went down.

In an interview with StarTrek.com in 2011, McDowell was asked what he thought about Kirk's death. He did not hold back. "If you have – which they had – this icon of American television, why the hell didn't they give him a spectacular death? Why did they give him such a really paltry death? Me shooting the bridge out or some BS whatever it was? They should have sent him off in a glorious fashion, and they didn't."

The scene originally had Soran shoot Kirk in the back before reshoots. McDowell also found this disappointing, and he lamented that they couldn't "have seen Shatner off in a big way." More than anything, he considers it a wasted opportunity. As he explained to Metro (via io9), "It was feeble, I thought, because I thought he deserved better."

Though Deep Space Nine is considered the gritty Star Trek, it still had a fair number of foolish moments. These even included some from no-nonsense Benjamin Sisko. When asked what his least favorite scenes were, Avery Brooks said it was a tossup between two choices.

The first was in "Move Along Home," specifically the scene in which he and his crew had to sing a song and play space hopscotch to get past a door. "There's nothing wrong with the melody," he said. "It's the hopscotch part." He knew right away that he'd never live it down and jokingly said he's glad he didn't go home to Gary, Indiana, right after that.

The second was "Apocalypse Rising," in which he played a Klingon. This involved enough prosthetics that it necessitated a dentist appointment. But while he didn't want to do it, Brooks had no choice — it was "pay or play" — but he wants fans to know that he didn't like it. As he put it, "The resistance you observe with Sisko playing a Klingon was real."

Dr. Julian Bashir received some backlash during Deep Space Nine's early days. He was seen as boring, brash, and worst of all, kind of annoying. But while the producers had a plan to make him more interesting, this blindsided actor Siddig El Fadil, who now goes by Alexander Siddig. It started a storyline that he had no say in and wanted no part of, and in fact, he eventually forced the regretful storyline to stop.

"Dr. Bashir, I Presume?" reveals that Bashir was genetically modified as a child, which made him much smarter. But Siddig didn't learn about this plot development until the day before shooting. He was upset that the producers wouldn't go over a major character arc with the actor actually playing the character. This was, in his estimation, a response to the character's unpopularity and an attempt to turn him into another Data.

"I did it the only way that an actor can," he said to TrekMovie.com, when asked how he coped. "I completely destroyed the lines that they gave me regarding the situation." He tanked the storyline, putting no effort into it. One time he "pinned the lines to the back of someone's shoulders" to read them. He also "pinned them around the office as if they were lines needed for daily modification." The producers eventually got the literal and figurative memo, and the story was phased out.

Every crew member on The Next Generation had a skeptical streak, but few were more grounded than Dr. Beverly Crusher. Spending six seasons as the chief medical officer of the Enterprise demands it. But there's also actress Gates McFadden, who to this day is baffled by what the writers were thinking when they gave her "Sub Rosa."

"Sub Rosa" is often listed as one of the worst episodes of The Next Generation. An attempt at Gothic romance in space, the story — in somewhat reductive terms — involves Beverly falling in love with a ghost inhabiting a lamp. It's worth mentioning that this lamp ghost has also seduced several generations of her family.

As maligned as the episode is, criticism rarely falls to McFadden, who put on a particularly intimate performance without showing anything explicit. That's a credit to her as a performer, and content aside, the nature of the story gave the actress some enthusiasm. She called it "thrilling" to be "outside her uniform" and perform in a more creative way.

Nonetheless, she found the whole concept absurd. The script was written by Jeri Taylor, who some cast members credit with improving the writing for female characters. That seems to have made it more confusing for McFadden. As she explained at the 2012 Austin Comic-Con, "I was reading this, going, 'This woman became a doctor, and she's in love with a lamp?'"

One of the all-time comedic actresses, Teri Garr has played in classics like Tootsie, Young Frankenstein, and After Hours. She also played Roberta Lincoln in "Assignment: Earth," the season two finale of The Original Series. It was one of her first speaking parts, and she later credited it in her autobiography with getting her real roles. That doesn't mean she likes it or even wants to talk about it.

Gene Roddenberry intended "Assignment: Earth" as a backdoor pilot to a new series, hedging his bets in case Star Trek got canceled. Ultimately, Star Trek got a third season, and "Assignment: Earth" remained a standalone episode. But years later, when interviewed for Starlog magazine, Garr expressed resentment towards the role. "I did that years ago," she said, "and I mostly deny I ever did it."

Garr is cagey about why it was a negative experience. Part of it likely had to do with Roddenberry, who was especially hands-on in hoping this would get picked up as a pilot. Producer Bob Justman, in his book Inside Star Trek, theorized that a costuming incident may have played a part. Roddenberry allegedly wanted Garr's skirt shortened to be more revealing.

Whatever happened, it was enough to sour her on the whole franchise and fanbase. She was glad "Assignment: Earth" never launched, saying, "Otherwise, all I would get would be Star Trek questions for the rest of my natural life — and probably my unnatural life. You ever see those people who are Star Trek fans? The same people who go to swap meets."

Hold up, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was in Star Trek? Yup! He appeared as a Xindi-Reptilian in the Enterprise episode "Carpenter Street." You'd be forgiven for missing him behind all the makeup. He'd also prefer you forget about the role entirely.

Circa 2003, Morgan's career wasn't doing so well. He wasn't in a position to turn down work, so he took a role in Enterprise. Little did he know that later he'd consider this his career low point.

Morgan expected some to do some line readings. He didn't expect four hours in a makeup chair over ten days. "I remember them dripping goop on my face," he told Entertainment Weekly, "and I had straws sticking out of my nose. I couldn't eat lunch. I was claustrophobic. I'd go home in tears." The whole process was so miserable he almost quit acting.

He's not entirely cynical about it, though. He acknowledged that "work begets work," and it helped him pay some bills. A job's a job, and without it we'd probably never meet Negan. That doesn't mean he had to like it, though.