You May Not Know It, But Worf Is Star Trek's Greatest Character

Like the rest of the TNG cast, we're waiting for what fate bestows upon our favorite Klingon in Season 3 of "Star Trek: Picard"

We're all looking forward to the third — and final — season of Star Trek: Picard.

In particular, we're eager to go along on one last adventure with the crew of the Enterprise-D that we knew and loved from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

However, although we don't really know what's become of most of our Enterprise family over the years, one member, in particular, really stands out.

And that is Worf.

As a Klingon among humans, Worf's always stood somewhat alone among the crew, and sometimes even seemed like the loneliest of them.

Which is heartbreaking, really, because Worf is perhaps the most dynamic character in the entire Star Trek franchise — and Michael Dorn really perhaps its most unsung actor ever.

I'm not exaggerating.

Worf, in the beginning….

He began, all the way back in Season 1 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as essentially walking, breathing set dressing.

The character was there to little more than stand there, push a few buttons, and remind viewers that this was an even further future, Klingons were now so much our friends that one stood — trusted — on the bridge of the Enterprise.

In other words, he was simply an incarnate reminder that this was “new Star Trek,” which back in 1987 believe it or not, was a bit of a difficult and foreign concept for many fans to comprehend.

Worf wasn't yet even security chief, as that job went to Tasha Yar, until actor Denise Crosby — foolishly, in my opinion — wanted off the series.

But Worf grew.

After the departures of Crosby and her Tasha, he began to have more and more opportunities to step out and become a much more three-dimensional and developed character.

So much so that under the skillful hands of writer Ronald D Moore, Worf would become the focal point as The Next Generation built the worlds and culture of the Klingon Empire in much the same way as the original series introduced us to Vulcan.

Worf, in the thick of the action in the best of Star Trek: The Next Generation

And Dorn not only carried the character superbly — making us truly care for a character that just 20 years earlier would have been despised — he would find himself literally working shoulder-to-shoulder with the great actor Patrick Stewart in many pivotal scenes to the development of the Klingon story arc.

Certainly, there were occasional misfires, as well, such as the rushed — and rather silly — pairing off with Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis) at the end of the series.

But the end of TNG also meant something extraordinary for both Worf as a character, and Michael Dorn as an actor.

He was “drafted” for duty over on TNG's sister series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The proximate business case for the move was simply to encourage more Next Gen fans to tune into DS9, which has always been considered — bewilderingly — as something of the “red-headed stepchild” of the franchise.

However, Worf's introduction to Deep Space Nine in its fourth season also had welcome effects for the character dynamics of that series.

Nowhere more so than with Terry Farrell's Jadzia Dax.

Worf, in his glory aboard Deep Space Nine with his beloved Jadzia (Terry Farrell)

Where the coupling of Worf and Troi back on The Next Generation seemed like nothing more than a ham-fisted sci-fi rendering of Beauty and the Beast, the romance between Worf and Dax was pitch-perfect.

Indeed, “Change of Heart" in DS9's sixth season — in which Worf sacrifices an important mission to save his new bride, Dax — remains one of the best episodes of the series as well as the franchise.

And, of course, Worf — and actor Dorn — still would be pulled from Deep Space Nine, from time to time, to rejoin the old castmates in the various installments of the TNG movies.

In all, by the time of the DS9 finale Worf as a character would go on to hold the record of most appearances of a single character within the franchise. That record would stand until Spock would become part of the recent Trek series, Discovery and Strange New Worlds.

And, given the Spock revival was handled by recasting new actors, Michael Dorn remains the single actor to appear in the most episodes of Star Trek.

Quite an achievement for a character and an actor who were originally little more than breathing furniture back in that first season.

Season 3 of Star Trek: Picard will air on the Paramount Plus subscription-based streaming service sometime in 2023.

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Reaching 'Peak' Trek And This Weeks-long Break

So, what have you been doing with your Thursdays since the absolutely brilliant first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds wrapped up back all the way back on July 7?

Recaulking that bathtub? Weeding out by the shrubbery? Catching up on your correspondence?

One thing that I know you haven't been doing: Watching any new Star Trek.

This interregnum — which will be nearly two months long by the time Season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks premieres on August 25 — has been interminable.

And more to the point, it's bad for business — and really inexplicable.

It's unwanted evidence that perhaps Star Trek's not the dreadnaught of a franchise that executives portray it to be.

Even with five original series in active production, the franchise has not yet hit “peak” Trek

The idea at Paramount Plus has been for Star Trek to be “always on”: to have so many original series in rotating production that there's never a week on which some new Star Trek episode is streaming for the first time.

This isn't just because all the executives sitting in the corner offices at Paramount Plus HQ are such boffo Trekkers or something.

No.

It's pure business. Dollars and cents.

Every week that goes by without new Star Trek leaves folks with the excuse to cancel their Paramount Plus subscription today and “maybe pick it up again” in a few months.

Or worse, start losing the more casual fans to a rival streamer which might show, say, another big, blockbuster franchise.

For a streaming service that lives — and dies — by collecting those fees every month, leaving customers to feel free to start making these kinds of consumer decisions is just corporate malpractice.

It's not as though folks at the Paramount Plus front office can't count. They know how many Star Trek series they have in development

Paramount's still in production with various new Star Trek projects, as of earlier this year, including Michelle Yeoh's “Section 31”-themed series.

Certainly nobody is suggesting that showrunners and development teams rush anything unwisely.

And, for all we know, development was hindered by Yeoh's recent picture, Everything Everywhere All at Once.

What we are suggesting is that these are the sorts of things which are anticipated, and ultimately planned around.

Even if Paramount hadn't had any new series to tee up, there are things that executives and creative teams could have done to compensate.

Star Trek is a massive franchise, with nearly unlimited storytelling potential at Paramount's fingertips.

So, no series should be no problem.

Paramount could have produced — at least — two or three miniseries focusing on specific aspects of Star Trek lore which have been various points of fascination for fans for years.

Further, by setting these productions at different points along the Star Trek timeline they could have been produced relatively cheaply by using good — but previously unknown — talent.

Or the studio could have even acquired rights to some of the best of the fan-produced episodes over the years and brought them to an even wider audience — and elevated some well-deserving stories to canon status.

The point is that such a large and well-capitalized studio and streamer as Paramount really had no good excuse to leave us paying customers with what amounts to the modern equivalent of dead air for much of the summer.

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STAR TREK MOMENT

Are The Gorn More Than One Species?

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“FASCINATING” TWEET

Star Trek @StarTrek

Our brains are gonna explode with science! 🤯 #StarTrek #StarTrekLowerDecks

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