Everyone always says: Star Wars is for the movies, Star Trek is for TV. Both franchises are two of the biggest sci-fi IPs and have constantly been in competition with each other, but by design, could not be further apart. George Lucas’ story of rebellion and dictatorship is an action extravaganza, while Gene Roddenberry explored profound questions of humanity.
However, it really seems to be the era of Star Trek as Star Wars has been putting out some divisive content for the past few years. It is yet to reach its heyday of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but the Disney era is truly divisive. Apart from Andor and The Mandalorian, the other shows have been mediocre at best. Star Trek, on the other hand, has been killing it on streaming.
One of the biggest differences between the two franchises was how much Star Trek actors loved being part of the franchise. Of course, even Star Wars actors are fans, but the Trek stars were such big fans and understood the lore better than the directors, to the point where actors themselves graduated to sitting in the chair.
It has become tradition now that actors of the usually large ensemble cast of Star Trek shows take on directing jobs for a few episodes. While it was common even during TOS, the cast did the job well in The Next Generation. Actors like Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton have helmed some incredible episodes.
Here are 10 Star Trek episodes directed by TNG actors that are sure to turn a Star Wars fan into a Trekkie.
1. The Offspring – Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes has been one of the most prolific directors in the Star Trek franchise. While he began his association with the sci-fi series as an actor on TNG, playing First Officer William Riker, he moved to the director’s chair with the Season 3 episode ‘The Offspring’. The Data-centered episode saw the android create one himself, named Lal.
The episode is one of the most emotional ones in the franchise and asks many profound questions about what it means to be human. It sees Data, the usually stoic and emotionless android, feeling something with the loss of Lal, and it is truly one of Brent Spiner’s greatest performances in the show.
To think that Frakes made his directorial debut with this episode. The actor reportedly shadowed various directors on set and even hung out with the editors of TNG before he was offered the chance to direct the episode. He said in an interview (via Star Trek),
I had directed a couple of little things in college and enjoyed it, but only when I was on the set day after day on The Next Generation during season one did I realize that, as we all learn, a lot of making TV and making films is waiting. I could only take so many naps [laughs], so I used to hang around the set, and I liked ‘the factory’ where we built things.
As a director, Jonathan Frakes also gave his moment in the sun for one of the background extras, who used to reportedly stand in for William Riker. The uncredited actor, James Becker, reportedly got his first and only line and on-screen credit for this episode. It was Becker’s final episode on the series.
2. Cause and Effect – Jonathan Frakes
Star Trek has many time loop episodes across many shows, but none have come close to TNG’s Cause and Effect. The episode begins with what is probably every fan’s nightmare, i.e., the Enterprise explodes. It is centered around Data and Dr. Beverly Crusher, with the latter figuring out that they are stuck in a time loop (temporal causality loop) and then trying to escape it by sending a message to Data across the loop.
Parallely, the Enterprise has to deal with a Federation ship that suddenly appears in front of it, causing the explosion in the episode’s cold open. Brannon Braga, who would go on to be a head writer and executive producer on multiple other Star Trek spinoff shows, wrote the episode, and mentioned that it was a Hail Mary.
While there have been other time loop episodes since then in the franchise, in Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise, Cause and Effect has been regarded as the best one in the franchise. This is thanks to Braga’s writing and Jonathan Frakes’ incredible direction. Frakes really shines when he is behind the camera, taking on episodes that can be experimental.
Frakes was widely appreciated for differentiating the different time loops, giving them just enough subtle differences to make them stand apart. Frakes said to THR,
There are only so many shots you can do. So, stylistically, we tried different things for different scenes, and J.P. Farrell, who cut the episode, deserves a lot of the credit for making those sequences work…But I really enjoyed the challenge. Once I realized that [Brannon] wasn’t f*cking with me, it was fun.
Franchise creator Gene Roddenberry had reportedly discouraged using time travel as a narrative device in the show as he felt it was too fictional. However, Brannon Braga went around that mandate by making it a loop.
3. Those Old Scientists – Jonathan Frakes
As mentioned before, Jonathan Frakes takes a lot of the experimental ones in Star Trek, and this Strange New Worlds episode is all sorts of strange. The actor-filmmaker was tapped to work on the Paramount+ series after he could not direct an episode in the first season of the show. Those Old Scientists is a unique episode in a series that is already experimental.
A crossover between Strange New Worlds and the animated series Lower Decks, the episode is again a time-travel story, where Jack Quaid’s Brad Boimler gets sucked into the 23rd century where he meets Captain Christopher Pike and the Enterprise crew. The crew then tries to send him ‘back to the future,’ i.e., the 24th century.
Frakes’ direction again was praised upon release, with the seamless blend of live-action and animation being the highlight. The filmmaker had already reprised his role as William Riker once in Lower Decks, and he believed that was one of the reasons why he was tapped to direct the episode. He said to Variety,
I didn’t campaign for it. But I’m told that the philosophy on ‘Strange New Worlds’ is that they try to assign a director to an episode that would be a good fit. And I think because of all the ‘Star Trek’ canon involved and because I knew the tone of ‘Lower Decks’ because I played Riker on that show, it made sense.
Frakes had already directed cast members such as Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn on Star Trek: Discovery, where they first played the roles of Pike, Spock, and Number One, respectively. The episode also premiered at the San Diego Comic-Con.
4. A Fistful of Datas – Sir Patrick Stewart
While Star Trek tackles more profound questions of humanity and has many philosophical adventures than Star Wars, it does have some fun episodes here and there, where no plot is furthered. Since most of the franchise’s shows, except Deep Space Nine, are episodic, there are several filler episodes where characters get to shine.
Sir Patrick Stewart excels at playing Captain Picard, but he, too, like other cast members, went to sit in the director’s chair for five episodes. One of them was the Season 6 episode A Fistful of Datas. A play on Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars, the episode sees Worf, his son Alexander, and Deanna Troi go on a holodeck adventure in the American West.
Brent Spiner shines as Data in the episode, getting to don various costumes and play various archetypes as he pops up as characters of a Western in the holodeck. Patrick Stewart himself has less to do while acting as he took on the task to direct this episode, which has been ranked among the best holodeck-themed episodes in Star Trek.
Stewart reportedly hated directing while acting and campaigned to cut scenes of him in the episodes he directed. He claimed that he looked really stiff in the ones he directed. He said in a documentary, Star Trek: The Captain’s Summit,
I hated the days when I had to act, and furthermore, I couldn’t act in the episodes I directed… I was so stiff in my own episodes, and I tried to get them to cut my scenes down – they would do that anyway, they would give you an episode in which you were light.
The homage to Westerns has often been rated among the best filler episodes and holodeck themes ones in the franchise. Brent Spiner also received appreciation for his comedic performance, especially for the character of an old American West woman, where he dressed in drag.
5. The Pegasus – LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton was a huge fan of the original Star Trek series before he joined TNG as Chief Engineer Geordie La Forge. Nichelle Nichols’ Uhura reportedly inspired the actor to pursue a career in show business and met up with producer Rick Berman years later on a show the latter was producing, where he was reportedly asking questions about Star Trek.
Burton’s first directorial on TNG was the episode Second Chances, but he truly shone behind the scenes on the Season 7 episode The Pegasus. Guest starring Terry O’Quinn of Lost fame as Admiral Erik Pressman, the episode sees the Enterprise on a mission to retrieve Pressman from his ship, the Pegasus, which was William Riker’s first ship.
Tasked with finding important parts of the Pegasus, which has been destroyed and is also being pursued by a Romulan Warbird, while Pressman is suspicious. The episode is often ranked among some of the best episodes of the series, though not as high as some of the others. It is often regarded as a great companion piece for Star Trek: Picard.
6. Preemptive Strike – Sir Patrick Stewart
This is one of the other good episodes from Sir Patrick Stewart’s tenure as a director on TNG. While Stewart’s time as director may not be as high as others like Jonathan Frakes or LeVar Burton, he was given the honor of directing the penultimate episode of TNG. Preemptive Strike sees the Enterprise crew come across the character Ro Laren again.
Patrick Stewart has not done many episodes in the franchise, and did not return to the chair, unlike many of the other cast members of the series. However, despite his apprehensions about directing, he delivered a pretty good penultimate episode to a series that became a global phenomenon.
Preemptive Strike may not be as high on other lists as other episodes by Jonathan Frakes or LeVar Burton, but it often takes a spot in a list of underrated episodes in the franchise.
7. No Win Scenario – Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes not only returned as William Riker in Star Trek: Picard but also headed to the director’s chair for the revival show. Frakes had already been a regular for the franchise with Discovery, but he got to direct his old buddies from TNG yet again in No Win Scenario, the Season 3 episode.
The previous episode in the season, Seventeen Seconds, was also directed by Frakes, and it is a continuation of the events of the aforementioned episode. It sees the Titan heading for destruction, and the old gang of William Riker, Picard, and the rest of the crew have to do their best to confront their demons.
Frakes mentioned that the episode was emotionally charged and credited it to writer and showrunner Terry Matalas. He said (via ComicsBeat),
Each scene has to have its own point of view and intention and clarity with the overall arc of returning from hopelessness to hope. And again, if it’s not on the page, it is very hard to find. And because this season has been so well plotted and so well thought out and so well detailed, it was a blueprint that was very clear to me.
The filmmaker mentioned that the episodes were set to be directed by someone else at the time, but COVID protocols prevented him from doing so, thus, the episodes were assigned to Frakes early on.
8. Genesis – Gates McFadden
Genesis is the only directorial credit of Gates McFadden, the actress who plays Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: TNG. McFadden’s directorial saw the Enterprise plagued by an unknown disease as Captain Picard and Data head out of the ship to find a photon torpedo. The horror-esque episode sees many members of the show get affected by the disease.
Genesis is often regarded as one of the more bizarre episodes in TNG and the franchise as a whole. The horror-esque treatment of the episode by McFadden was lauded, and the episode also earned an Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Sound Mixing for a Drama Series. It was also nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Makeup.
9. Project Daedalus – Jonathan Frakes
Jonathan Frakes has directed many bangers in the Star Trek franchise. From TNG to Strange New Worlds, he has had a hand in many of the best episodes of the franchise. He also helmed one of the best Discovery episodes, Project Daedalus. In the episode, Spock is accused of murder, which is ultimately revealed to be a plot by Section 31. The episode was well-received by fans, with many considering Frakes to be a veteran of the genre at this point.
10. Similitude – LeVar Burton
LeVar Burton directed multiple episodes across TNG and Enterprise, but his most profound work has to be in the latter’s Similitude. Written by Manny Coto, the episode sees Trip Tucker go into comatose after the engines of the Enterprise explode and his consciousness is transferred to a symbiote. As the symbiote grows, it aspires to live beyond its two-week lifespan.
The episode was just one among Enterprise’s four seasons, but in retrospect has been lauded for its profound questions and explorations of deep philosophical themes. The symbiote Sim gains sentience and in its short lifespan thinks about a lot of things which make the episode interesting and speculative.
Star Trek: TNG, Picard, Discovery, and Strange New Worlds are available to stream on Paramount+.
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