Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Character Death Meant For Beloved DS9 Actor
Perhaps the most surprising character in Star Trek: Picard was Michael Dorn’s Klingon Worf. In the third season, he was a constant source of Zen-like calm (very different from what we had seen before in The Next Generation), but we could tell he still knew how to kick butt from a shocking scene where he decapitated a conniving Ferengi. If Dorn had it his way, the actor playing that Ferengi would have been none other than Armin Shimerman, who made his Deep Space Nine bartender Quark the most famous Ferengi in all of Star Trek.
Sneed’s Death Could Have Went To Quark
As you may or may not remember, the Ferengi that Worf decapitates is a brutal crime lord named Sneed who helps arrange the catastrophic destruction of a Starfleet recruiting center. Familiar Picard character Raffi Musiker went under deep cover to try to get information from Sneed, but he saw through her ruse and tried to find out who she was working for. When that didn’t work, he tried to have her killed only to belatedly get his answer: she was working for Worf, who showed up to save her life by cutting the Ferengi’s head off.
Michael Dorn Wanted It To Be Armin Shimerman
Michael Dorn has always been heavily invested in his character’s stories, and he had a crazy idea for this episode. According to Quark actor Armin Shimerman, Dorn came up to him with all the bluntness of Worf and said “I’m doing an episode of Picard where I kill off a Ferengi…wouldn’t it be great if it were you?” Shimerman reacted with his own character’s typical bluntness, telling Dorn “No, it would not be great” and “to just forget about that idea, altogether.”
Obviously, Dorn did just that, and it wasn’t Armin Shimerman under that heavy Ferengi makeup. Instead, it was actor Aaron Stanford, and his performance seriously impressed the former Quark actor. Shimerman later said he was “in awe” over Stanford’s portrayal of Sneed, calling it “just outstanding.”
But He Didn’t Want To Kill Quark
At this point, it’s worth emphasizing that Michael Dorn didn’t want Worf to kill the beloved Quark character…instead, he just thought it would be a cool idea if Armin Shimerman played Sneed, an entirely different Ferengi. That’s important to note because some of the Star Trek shows since the end of Deep Space Nine have confirmed that Quark finally succeeded as a businessman.
Both Lower Decks and Picard verify that the Ferengi has created a successful chain of “Quark’s Bar” establishments throughout the galaxy, and it would have been a shame to kill the character at the height of the entrepreneurial success he always wanted.
Shimerman Recently Reprised His Role
Speaking of Lower Decks, it’s worth noting that Armin Shimerman reprised his Quark character for the episode “Hear All, Trust Nothing,” showing how the Ferengi continued his conniving adventures on Deep Space Nine long after we last saw him onscreen in “What You Leave Behind.”
Why would Shimerman come back for one Trek show and not the other? While he didn’t say it outright, it seems likely Shimerman was happy to lend his voice to the animated show but didn’t want to go through the process of putting on the extensive Ferengi makeup for the live-action show.
Leaving Shimerman Out Of Picard Was The Right Call
In retrospect, I’m happy that Sneed was played by someone else…Armin Shimerman is just too recognizable, and whenever I rewatch his Ferengi debut in The Next Generation episode “The Last Outpost,” all I can see is Quark. Simply hearing about his familiar Ferengi a couple of times in Picard was fine, but a direct cameo by Shimerman would have been overkill. If fans really want to see him in Ferengi makeup that bad, they always buy some more merchandise with his likeness on it.
It’s what Quark would want you to do. Heck, you don’t think the Great Material Continuum moves itself, do you?
Source: TrekMovie
