The Superman Icon Who Went Uncredited On Star Trek
Most fans think the only major connection between Superman and Star Trek is that Jack Quaid does major voicework for both franchises. However, there is an often-overlooked connection that came out even before Quaid was born (yes, that’s the sound of us turning to dust that you hear). In The Next Generation episode “The Outrageous Okona,” future Lois & Clark star Teri Hatcher had an uncredited role as a transporter chief.
Hatcher On TNG
While she has starred in many things, Teri Hatcher is still most famous for Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which came out five years after her appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
It’s easy for even the fiercest Trek fans to overlook her role as a transporter chief because she barely appears in the episode “The Outrageous Okona.” On top of that, her name doesn’t appear in the credits.
Okona
What is this episode about, exactly? The Enterprise encounters Okona, a captain who needs help repairing his ship. Picard agrees to provide assistance, but he soon finds himself caught between two different space empires that are accusing Okona of, respectively, stealing an invaluable artifact and impregnating a planetary leader’s daughter.
The Transporter Chief
The latter accusation seems particularly credible because Okona begins flirting with every woman he sees as soon as he comes to the Enterprise.
The first such woman is future New Adventures of Superman star Teri Hatcher, who plays one of Star Trek’s lowly transporter chiefs. Okona begins flirting with her character and they hit it off, but she doesn’t pop up in any other scenes other than when Data sees the two about to get hot and heavy and when she later beams the visiting planetary leaders to the ship.
She Took Her Own Name Out
Interestingly, she was originally going to have much more to do in the episode. Superman’s future onscreen girlfriend had more scenes that were left on “the cutting room floor” according to a now-defunct page on the official Star Trek website. Annoyed at having so much cut from what would have been a meaty role for the young actor, Hatcher requested that her name be removed from the credits.
Hatcher After TNG
Honestly, we’d love to see what other scenes were filmed for Hatcher’s character because this was one of the rare instances where we got to see what one of the lower-ranked background characters gets up to when she’s off-duty. This future Superman star was the ship’s transporter chief, a job that would eventually go to Miles O’Brien before he became a main character on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
O’Brien famously didn’t leave the transporter room much on TNG, so it’s interesting to know that his predecessor found the time to immediately begin a relationship with the first charming bad boy she beamed onboard.
Teri Hatcher made her uncredited appearance in The Next Generation in 1988 and wouldn’t achieve mainstream success until Lois & Clark came out in 1993 (the same year as her memorable “they’re real, and they’re spectacular” cameo in Seinfeld).
That led to her becoming a Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies and headlining 180 episodes of Desperate Housewives. However, credit or no credit, we’ll always remember her brief time keeping the galaxy safe aboard the Federation flagship.
