The Hilarious Reason Star Trek Guest Star Was Invited Back
Star Trek is the kind of show that most actors love to guest star in. In most cases, they get to put on cool costumes and makeup, have a memorable arc, and maybe even get invited to sci-fi conventions for the rest of their lives. However, Star Trek guest star John Putch once told a hilarious story about getting invited back to The Next Generation to play an identical character simply because producers didn’t want to build a costume for another actor.
A Familiar Looking Benztie
This happened with the TNG episode “A Matter of Honor.” While most fans remember this episode for the A plot about Riker serving aboard a Klingon ship, it also has a memorable B plot about a Benzite temporarily serving aboard the Enterprise as part of an officer exchange program. At first, Wesley Crusher mistakes the visiting Mendock for a Benzite named Mordock, but he’s not being a space racist…in this case, both Star Trek aliens look exactly alike because it is the same guest star (John Putch) wearing the exact same costume.
A Big Giant Head
The first time he appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation (in the episode “Coming of Age”), this guest star was truly flattered to be a part of such a pop culture phenomenon. He was a fan of The Original Series and enjoyed playing “an alien-of-the-week” character, one who wore “big make-up” and had “a giant head” designed by Michael Westmore. Later, he proudly declared that “I became a trading card and an action figure.”
A Practical Return
After appearing memorable in the first season of this buzzworthy Star Trek spinoff, Putch was delighted to be invited back to guest star in a Season 2 episode. When he got cast for this story, he remembers thinking, “They love me, they love me.” While the producers may very well have loved Putch (he would later appear in Generations, the first TNG movie), the actor belatedly realized there was a very practical reason that he got cast to play an alien that looked exactly like his previous character./
As he wryly noted, “What they really loved was that it was me, because they’d spent all that money on making that blue head and it was form fitted to me…I don’t fault them for that.” A pragmatist himself, Putch admitted that if he had been in the producers’ place, “I would have done the same thing.” Still, he chalks this up to a learning experience: “It’s funny how you are naive about these things when you’re just an actor.”
A Place In History
One reason for his perspective was likely that Putch was not “just an actor”…he had begun working as a director two years before TNG started, and he eventually quit acting to direct full-time. Regardless of the pragmatic reason for his getting cast again for this Star Trek spinoff, this returning guest star will always have a place in franchise history. You see, he was the first of TNG’s guests to ever play two characters from the same species.
Star Trek Recycled Guest Stars
Playing multiple aliens of the same species would eventually become a regular hobby for many Star Trek guest stars: Armin Shimerman went from playing one of TNG’s earliest Ferengi to playing Quark on Deep Space Nine. Similarly, Marc Alaimo played a Cardassian on TNG (among other things) before getting cast as Gul Dukat, the ultimate big bad of DS9.
John Putch walked so those actors could run, and Star Trek owes a great debt to the man who made donning a rubber head and creating a memorable performance look downright easy.
