Why The Doctor In WandaVision Episode 3 Looks So Familiar
Contains spoilers for WandaVision episode 3
Episode 3 of Marvel TV series WandaVision takes the form of a '70s sitcom in the vein of The Brady Bunch, with funky colors, shaggy haircuts, and a corny theme song. The new wacky character the episode introduces is Dr. Nielsen, the three-piece plaid suit-clad physician who helps Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) with her pregnancy. He has the episode's most delightfully sitcommy line when he patronizingly explains the fetal growth process through a fruit simile –- "At four months, the fetus is about as big as a pear; at five months, a papaya; six, grapefruit; seven, pineapple; eight ... HONEY DUE!" The fruit similes become a charmingly hokey running joke throughout the episode.
Later, he shows up again while Wanda and Vision's (Paul Bettany) twins Billy and Tommy are being born, with sunscreen on his nose, as he was getting ready to go on vacation to Bermuda when Vision grabbed him. He then hints at what the end of the episode confirms: Everyone is trapped in Westview, and he won't be going to Bermuda after all.
Dr. Nielsen is played by Randy Oglesby, a character actor who has had small roles in a huge number of movies and TV shows over the course of his 40-year career. He's put his affably out-of-touch affect to use playing priests, small-town cops, and even a few doctors who weren't trapped in an alternate sitcom reality fabricated by a mental break.
Randy Oglesby is a Star Trek veteran
Oglesby is best known for his participation in another major franchise. According to Memory Alpha, he has played eight different characters on four different Star Trek series. His most prominent Star Trek role was the Xindi primate Degra on Star Trek: Enterprise season 3, recurring throughout that season as an antagonist-turned-ally of the crew of the Enterprise.
Degra was an intelligent humanoid scientist and engineer from the planet Xindus who was the primary designer of the Xindi's planet-destroying weapon, which they were going to use to launch a preemptive strike on humanity based on information they got from another alien race known as the Sphere Builders. He was a J. Robert Oppenheimer type; when he watched his creation destroy a planet of seven million people, he felt a little bit like he had become death, destroyer of worlds, which — he kinda literally had.
Later on, he was captured by Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) and taken aboard the Enterprise. Archer tried to persuade him that the Xindi's plan to destroy humanity was based on a lie fed to them by the Sphere Builders, and when Degra confirmed that this was true, he turned on them and allied with Archer. He was killed by the Xindi reptilian (there were several species of Xindi) military commander for his betrayal.
Oglesby also appeared in several one-off Star Trek episodes. He made his debut as a member of Riva's chorus in a season 2 episode of The Next Generation, and followed that up by playing twin Miradorns Ah-Kel and Ro-Kel and Cardassian Silaran Prin on Deep Space 9, a Brenari named Kir on Voyager, and Xyrillian starship captain Trena'L on a season 1 episode of Enterprise.
Oglesby's longevity with the series proves, if nothing else, that he's very comfortable in the makeup chair.
Randy Oglesby has appeared in over 100 shows and movies, including Independence Day
Dr. Nielsen is just another day at the office for Randy Oglesby, who has 114 listed acting credits on IMDb, including several under his birth name Thomas Oglesby ("Randall" is his middle name).
Oglesby made his TV debut in a televised stage production of A Christmas Carol in 1981 as the Ghost of Christmas Past. That was followed by appearances on '80s hits like Amazing Stories and Dallas. In the '90s, he continued to appear on TV in shows like Murphy Brown and Ally McBeal, while also adding movies to his repertoire, including Liar Liar and Patch Adams.
His most memorable non-Star Trek credit would have to be Independence Day, the 1996 alien invasion blockbuster. He plays Mike Dodge, a mechanic who lives in the same town as alien abductee Russell Casse (Randy Quaid). In a memorable scene that probably wouldn't be played for laughs in the same way today, Dodge hectors Casse in a diner, pressing him about his close encounters. Later, after Casse sacrifices himself to help save humanity, Dodge goes on TV and says he was Casse's friend, but reiterates that Casse said he got probed.
In recent years, his career is the best it's ever been. He had a recurring role on the Netflix Western limited series Godless from The Queen's Gambit executive producer Scott Frank. Since then, he's played men of the cloth in recurring roles on two different shows: He was Father Shelby on the CBS All Access historical drama Strange Angel in 2019 and the local pastor on the acclaimed HBO limited drama series Sharp Objects in 2018. The man is nothing if not a worker, which is why he probably looks so familiar.