Star Trek Director Reveals One Cast Was Like A Family

In case you were wondering, Sheerer had plenty of time working with the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast, time that helped him form his opinion that they were every bit the family that we saw onscreen even when the cameras weren’t rolling.

He directed some of that show’s most memorable episodes, including “Measure of a Man,” “Tin Man,” and “Chain of Command, Part I.” He also directed one episode of Deep Space Nine (“Shadowplay”) and two episodes of Voyager (“State of Flux” and “Rise”), so he was pretty well qualified to judge which of the Trek casts was the tightest. 

None of this kept him from doing great work on these other shows, of course, but Scheerer insisted that there was something truly special about working with the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast.

Regarding his first episode of Voyager, he noted that its own cast was “friendly” but they “had not really come together the way they did” on TNG. He admitted that he couldn’t “really explain it and never really analyzed it,” but “there was just a much more complete feeling about The Next Generation than Voyager.”

With that being said, the director seemed to think that the new cast might eventually come together the way the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast did.

He noted that “Voyager was still evolving,” and that phrasing implies they might evolve into the same kind of tight-knit cast that TNG had. By all accounts, though, that sadly never happened. 

While much of the Star Trek: Voyager cast seemed friendly enough with one another, there was a legendary tiff between Captain Janeway actor Kate Mulgrew and Seven of Nine actor Jeri Ryan. Allegedly, Mulgrew wanted to force Ryan to stay in her uncomfortable high heels all day while filming and constantly made snarky remarks, all due to her anger that the show had cast a sexy Borg babe to juice the ratings.

Mulgrew later owned up to what she did and apologized for it, but it wasn’t uncommon to see sights like Ryan pretending to fire a phaser at the other woman’s back in response to her comments.

Voyager also had drama between cast members and producers: for example, Harry Kim actor Garrett Wang claims that Rick Berman told all of the actors playing humans to give flat performances, and when Wang alluded to this in a comment to TV Guide, he was forbidden from directing an episode.

And both Wang and Tom Paris actor Robert Duncan McNeill were allegedly fat-shamed by the crew to the point that they were given girdles and had their own characters talk about being out-of-shape onscreen.

Comparatively, the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast wholeheartedly agrees that they were a true family. After getting back together for season 3 of Picard, Will Riker actor Jonathan Frakes said, “Unlike some shows, we were a family, we all got this job that sort of changed our lives at the same time.

Geordi La Forge actor LeVar Burton agreed, saying that the core cast has stayed in constant communication with each other ever since TNG wrapped.

This doesn’t mean that none of the Voyager crew ever got as tight as the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast. For example, Wang and McNeill are every bit the buddies offscreen they were onscreen, and they currently have an excellent VOY rewatch podcast (The Delta Flyers).

And for those who want to know more, that upcoming Voyager documentary might finally reveal the definitive story of how much bonding–and battling–this crew did behind the scenes.