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It is not a new thing for members of the Star Trek cast to step behind the camera and take on directing duties for some episodes. Who better than the only ones to feature in every episode to take over the reins sometimes? Actors like Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton have directed the most number of Star Trek episodes even after their shows ended.
However, one actress who transitioned into directing and has made it her bread and butter (much like Frakes) is Voyager’s Roxann Dawson. Dawson played B’Elanna Torres in the spinoff show and directed two episodes of the series later. She has since been the guiding force for some of the best network shows of the past few decades.
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Star Trek: Voyager’s Roxann Dawson followed Jonathan Frakes’ footsteps to become a TV director
At this point, it is almost traditional for Star Trek actors to take on a director role behind the scenes. Everyone from Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner to Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes has gone behind the scenes, although only a few have stuck to it. Frakes went on to direct several episodes across shows in the franchise and other TV shows as well.
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However, another actress matches Frakes’ passion for TV directing. Roxann Dawson began her association with Star Trek with Voyager, where she played chief engineer B’Elanna Torres. The Half-Klingon Half-Human crew member was initially part of the Maquis before merging into the Voyager ship led by Captain Janeway.
Dawson stepped behind the camera for the season 6 episode ‘Riddles’ and then returned to direct the second part of the episode ‘Workforce’. She continued directing for Star Trek with Enterprise, in which she helmed ten episodes. Dawson then went on to direct several episodes of shows such as Lost, Heroes, The O.C., The Mentalist, and Treme, among others.
Apart from helming episodes in shows like House of Cards and This is Us, Roxann Dawson also directed four episodes of the Marvel Television series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. One of her most celebrated episodes has been the season one episode ‘Ragtag’, which focused on Hydra around the same time as Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Roxann Dawson was offered the chance to direct more Star Trek shows, but she moved away from it
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One look at Roxann Dawson’s filmography as a director, and one can see that she has dabbled in many genres. While she began with sci-fi with Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise, she has worked on procedurals like Cold Case and The Mentalist, comedies like The Morning Show, and horror thrillers like Penny Dreadful.
Dawson came to the sci-fi genre years later with the shows Foundation and Dark Matter. However, she said that she was offered to direct other Star Trek shows multiple times but she tried to move away from the genre. She said to Slash Film,
I have thought about it, and they have kindly also come to me about a few of the shows, but I think at the time they were starting to come out, I hadn’t done science fiction in a while and I was trying to move away from that — I didn’t feel a need to go back. And then this science fiction show [‘Foundation’] came up, so this was the first science fiction that I’d done in a while.
She also mentioned that the way Foundation’s showrunners convinced her to return to the genre was by claiming that it would not be like Trek, which piqued her interest.
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