avery brooks voyager prophecy

Screen Rant

Star trek: ds9 actors explain avery brooks’ “unique, authentically real” acting.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine stars Terry Farrell and Armin Shimerman explain Avery Brooks' singular style of acting to Star Trek: Voyager's cast.

• Avery Brooks' acting style on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was unconventional and unique, characterized by a jazzy delivery of lines.
• Brooks had an unconventional approach to the English language, thinking in jazz patterns and having a unique stream of consciousness.
• His authentic vocal delivery, influenced by jazz, made every moment feel real and happening for him.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actors Terry Farrell and Armin Shimerman explain Avery Brooks' "unique" acting style to Star Trek: Voyager cast members Robert Duncan McNeill and Garrett Wang. Brooks portrayed Captain Benjamin Sisko, the first Black Star Trek series lead character. Among Brooks' other firsts as Sisko was that Benjamin was also the first Star Trek Captain to be a widower and a single father raising his young son, Jake Sisko (Cirroc Lofton). Avery's commanding presence and singular acting style were distinctive , even among his fellow Star Trek Captains.

On the premiere episode of The Delta Flyers: Journey Through The Wormhole podcast, which is reviewing every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , hosts Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill remarked upon the specific way Avery Brooks delivers his lines as Commander Sisko in DS9 's series premiere , "Emissary." This prompted Armin Shimerman, who played Quark on DS9 , and Terry Farrell, who was Lt. Jadzia Dax , to lend their insight into Avery Brooks' jazzy acting style, having worked with him on Deep Space Nine. Read their quotes and listen to The Delta Flyers podcast below:

Garrett Wong: His line delivery is so different… Unconventional.

Armin Shimerman: Welcome to your introduction to Avery Brooks.

Robert Duncan McNeill: It felt like jazz. Avery’s unconventional approach to…

Armin Shimerman: [The] English language.

Terry Farrell: Yes.

Armin Shimerman: He has an unconventional approach to the English language. You’re absolutely right. He’s a jazz musician and he thinks in jazz patterns. His stream of consciousness is the most unique one I’ve ever encountered.

Terry Farrell: There is just such an authenticity to how he is gutted, and that is how it comes out vocally. It’s not anything he would have planned. It’s just so – and we’re talking about the jazz – Every moment is so authentically real and happening for him.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Cast & Character Guide

What happened to captain sisko after ds9 & will he return to star trek, sisko promised he would be back..

Captain Sisko's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes are among the finest of the legendary series, and tales like "The Visitor," "Far Beyond the Stars," and "In The Pale Moonlight" are some of the most unforgettable Star Trek stories ever made. DS9 ended in season 7 with Captain Sisko accepting his destiny as Emissary of the Prophets by saving Bajor, but at the cost of giving up his human life as a Starfleet Officer and becoming one with Bajor's gods. Sisko left behind his son, Jake, his new wife, Kasidy Yates (Penny Johnson Jerald), and their unborn child... but Benjamin promised he would return someday.

Deep Space Nine 's legions of fans hope Avery Brooks will return to Star Trek one day, but Mr. Brooks has largely retired from acting and has seemingly left his Star Trek life behind. However, DS9 's popularity endures, and the series has been rediscovered in the streaming era. DS9 's serialized, character-driven stories now seem prophetic, and the show is as relevant today as it was in the 1990s. There is a groundswell of fan support for some sort of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine reunion project on Paramount+, but if that were to happen, its success may be tantamount to Avery Brooks bringing back his unique acting style as Captain Sisko.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is available to stream on Paramount+.

Source: The Delta Flyers

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Star trek: voyager : prophecy (2001), directed by terry windell.

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Published Oct 2, 2018

5 Things to Know About Avery Brooks

Join us as we celebrate his birthday today!

Avery Brooks, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Benjamin Sisko, celebrates his birthday today... October 2. To mark the occasion, StarTrek.com is pleased to share 5 Things to Know About Avery Brooks ...

Baby Brooks

Brooks was born in Evansville, Indiana, and grew up in Gary, Indiana, in a house that vibrated with music. His mother, Eva Lydia, served as a choral conductor and music instructor, and taught music in the Brooks family home. His dad worked as a union official, but loved to sing as well, performing with the Wings Over Jordan choir. Brooks went on to study at Livingston College and Rutgers University, and he holds the distinction of being the first African American to earn a master of fine arts degree in acting and directing from Rutgers.

My First Contact: Kendra James

Prior to landing his role as Sisko on DS9, Brooks was best known for his stint as the tough-talking character Hawk , first on the popular series Spenser: For Hire and later on his own spinoff, A Man Called Hawk . Brooks also played Hawk in four Spenser: For Hire telemovies from 1993-1995. DS9 fans were quick to take note of the fact that Hawk referred to A Man Called Hawk character as "Old Man," which is what Sisko called Dax. Brooks was also known for his one-man show, Robeson: A Play with Music , in which he portrayed performer and activist Paul Robeson. (Brooks has reprised the production several times, including during DS9 's run and as recently as 2011).

Early Days on DS9

Back in season one of DS9 , while in production on the series' second episode, Brooks spoke to the Official Deep Space Nine Magazine about the show and his character. He addressed how Sisko had his hands full aboard the space station, dealing with the assorted characters, conflicts and politics, as well as raising his son, Jake. "When we first encounter Benjamin Sisko, you realize he is really struggling with the wars of his past, which left him a widower," the actor said. "The most wonderful of the challenges is to find all of these different colors in him and the different textures of humanity. So far, there have been no two days that are alike, and I like that."

Directing Deep Space

Brooks settled into the director's chair to call the shots on a total of nine DS9 episodes, starting with " Tribunal " in season two and ending with " The Dogs of War " in season seven. In between, he directed the landmark, still-powerful sixth-season entry, " Far Beyond the Stars ," which, in the eyes of many fans, remains DS9 's finest hour and ranks way up there on the list of the entire Trek franchise's best episodes.

Following his time on DS9 , Brooks pulled back somewhat from the limelight. He acted occasionally, including in the film 15 Minutes , but spent much of his time raising his children and teaching at Rutgers University, where he's a professor of theater at Mason Gross School of the Arts. He also recorded and released the 2009 album, Here , featuring spoken word poetry pieces, as well as blues and jazz covers. Brooks, for many years, continued to make appearances at Star Trek conventions and he participated in William Shatner's 2011 documentary, The Captains .

Please join StarTrek.com in wishing Brooks a happy birthday.

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Wren T. Brown

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Wren T. Brown ( born 11 June 1964 ; age 59) is an actor who played a shuttle pilot in the Star Trek: The Next Generation second season episode " Manhunt " and Kohlar in the Star Trek: Voyager seventh season episode " Prophecy ".

He filmed his scene for "Manhunt" on Wednesday 5 April 1989 at Paramount Stage 9 .

In 1987, Brown starred with Michael Nouri in The Hidden . A year later in 1988 he acted with Tommy "Tiny" Lister, Jr. in The Night Before , which also starred Jimmie F. Skaggs . The same year he acted with Barry Jenner in The Taking of Flight 847: The Uli Derickson Story . He also acted with Clarence Williams III ( Omet'iklan in DS9 : " To the Death ") in 1988 in I'm Gonna Git You, Sucka .

In 1990 he played a uniformed cop in Downtown with Ron Canada . The same year he acted in Family of Spies with Vaughn Armstrong and Gordon Clapp . In 1991 he acted in The Heroes of Desert Storm with Tim Russ . A year later, in 1992, he starred with Brock Peters in The Importance of Being Earnest . In 1993 he starred with Kurtwood Smith and Alfre Woodard in Heart and Souls ; also that year he starred in Warlock: The Armageddon with Zach Galligan , Craig Hurley , Joseph Bernard and Jeanne Mori . He acted with Kurtwood Smith again, two years later, in 1995 in Under Siege 2: Dark Territory . Also in 1995 he acted with Vaughn Armstrong in the cyber-thriller The Net . A year later, in 1996, he acted with Clarence Williams III again, this time in Eriq La Salle's Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manugualt .

In 2000, he acted with James Avery , Estelle Harris and LeVar Burton in Dancing in September . Three years later in 2003, he starred with Salli Richardson (credited as Salli Elise Richardson ) in Biker Boyz . The same year he acted in Whoopi with Whoopi Goldberg as her brother. Two years later, in 2005, he acted with John Larroquette in McBride: Tune in for Murder . Also in 2005, he starred with Jeffrey Combs in Edmond .

Brown has served on the Board of Directors of the Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles.

External link [ ]

• Wren T. Brown at the Internet Movie Database
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• 3 John Paul Lona

Why Star Trek's Avery Brooks Returning To The Franchise After Deep Space Nine Seems Unlikely

Here's why the star of Deep Space Nine has stayed away.

Avery Brooks is one of Star Trek 's greatest lead actors thanks to his impeccable performance as Benjamin Sisko in Deep Space Nine . Many fans have hoped to see Brooks return to the franchise in this new era to reprise his role, but so far, we haven't seen him appear. Unfortunately, there's a good chance we'll never see him with a Paramount+ subscription outside of DS9 repeats, and there's a reason for that. 

How could an actor who appeared in all 176 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine not factor into the future of any upcoming Trek show to date? There are a couple of reasons why his return seems unlikely, and while there is a future for Benjamin Sisko, there is a chance we won't see Avery Brooks play him ever again. 

Avery Brooks Hasn't Acted In A Long Time

Those who take a look at Avery Brooks' official acting credits will notice he hasn't done much since leaving Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . His latest performance was voice work for Benjamin Sisko in the video game Star Trek: Legacy , which came out in 2006. Beyond that, aside of some stage productions, the 75-year-old actor has stayed out of acting and seemingly out of Hollywood for the most part. 

While it wasn't an official acting role, Avery Brooks did participate in William Shatner 's documentary The Captains in 2011 but politely declined to be in the documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back At Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 2018. The documentary moved forward with old footage, and Brooks seemingly had no problem with that. To say he's a bit out of practice when it comes to on-camera acting roles would be an understatement, and it could take some time for him to get back into the swing of things if he returned. 

Sisko's Current Situation In Star Trek's Universe Is Complicated

Part of the reason it may be difficult to bring back Avery Brooks as Benjamin Sisko is the current circumstances of the character. At the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Sisko agreed to leave his life behind and ascend among The Prophets to aid them in their conflict with the Pah-Wraiths. In doing so, Sisko became a being that existed outside of time and space, and a god of sorts in the universe. 

For years, there's been hope that Sisko would return to see his former crew, his wife and his children. While there still has yet to be a live-action return for the character, the captain found his way back to the universe via IDW's current flagship Star Trek comic book series. Sisko returned from the Bajoran wormhole to help aid the universe against some deadly species, but whether that means he's back for good is a different story. 

Star Trek comics, unless specifically stated to be a tie-in to an ongoing series, are not considered to be canon (and even that kind of status can hange later on). Perhaps this is why Star Trek: Lower Decks avoided giving the character too much attention in the crossover, outside of Kira staring at the wormhole. In terms of the canon as it stands, he's still in there and with The Prophets. 

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This is interesting, because in the original scripted ending for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , Benjamin Sisko was never meant to return. ScreenRant wrote that Avery Brooks asked for the script to be changed, as he was uncomfortable with the imagery of a Black man leaving his pregnant wife and family for a mission from which he never intended to return. As such, we're left with Sisko's promise to Kasidy Yates-Sisko that he will return to her someday. And yet, decades later, we're still waiting to see him reemerge. 

Does Avery Brooks Want To Return To Star Trek? 

The popular theory around the internet is that Avery Brooks retired from acting, but former Star Trek: Deep Space Nine co-star and actor Cirroc Lofton said that's not the case. He mentioned to ScreenRant he felt there was a chance Brooks would return to play Sisko, especially given the impact DS9 continues to have to this day. 

Lofton and Brooks still have a close relationship to this day, thanks in part to playing father and son on the series. He seemingly knows the actor as well as anyone else and has an idea of whether he'd like to be involved. It would be cool to see the two reunite now that Lofton is much older so Sisko and Jake can have a tender moment as "father and son" once more for the fans. 

Despite that, Benjamin Sisko did not appear when Star Trek: Lower Decks did a crossover episode with Deep Space Nine . Picard Season 3 also had a pretty lengthy arc dedicated to the Dominion Wars, which was a conflict heavily tied to Deep Space Nine . Again, there was no reference to Sisko, and Avery Brooks did not have a cameo despite the season including many TNG -era characters. 

There's a rumor around the internet on Reddit and elsewhere that Avery Brooks is blacklisted in Hollywood. While that would be something that's definitively hard to prove for certain, it does not appear that there's anything stopping Star Trek from extending an invite to the actor in a future series. 

Alex Kurtzman hinted that there are discussions about a Deep Space Nine revival happening , though we still don't know if and when anything like that could happen. The upcoming Trek schedule is laid out for at least the next couple of years, but with shows ending, the path opens up for more shows and movies to be added down the line. Whether or not a Deep Space Nine movie or show is in the cards is a complete mystery at this point, but given Benjamin Sisko is presumably an immortal being, he could pop up on just about any series. 

While there's no clear path to Avery Brooks' return to Star Trek at the moment, those with a Paramount+ subscription can enjoy some of his best work on streaming. Those who may not have the cash right now can also tune into the Star Trek channel on Pluto TV, which is a great ad-supported way to keep the fandom alive and continue supporting the franchise. 

Mick Joest is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend with his hand in an eclectic mix of television goodness. Star Trek is his main jam, but he also regularly reports on happenings in the world of Star Trek, WWE, Doctor Who, 90 Day Fiancé, Quantum Leap, and Big Brother. He graduated from the University of Southern Indiana with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Radio and Television. He's great at hosting panels and appearing on podcasts if given the chance as well.

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10 'Star Trek' Captains: Where Are They Now?

Picard is coming back and kirk is on the road — here's what's become of the others.

by Ben Svetkey, AARP , March 11, 2019

PHOTO BY: CBS / Getty Images

Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in "The Next Phase". Season 5, episode 24 of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation.'

Chris Pine and William Shatner as Captain Kirk in 'Star Trek.'

Jeffrey Hunter, Bruce Greenwood and Anson Mount all portrayed Captain Christopher Pike in 'Star Trek' films and TV series.

Kate Mulgrew (as Captain Kathryn Janeway) in a scene from an episode of the television series 'Star Trek: Voyager' entitled 'State of Flux.'

PHOTO BY: James Sorenson/Paramount Pictures

Scott Bakula as Captain Jonathan Archer starred in 'Star Trek: Enterprise' on UPN.

PHOTO BY: Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images

Avery Brooks portrayed Commander Benjamin Sisko in 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.'

En español | Trekkies are abuzz lately, and not from guzzling Ferengi synthehol. They're jazzed because Patrick Stewart, 78, is coming back as Picard in a new show. And by 2020, there may be seven Star Trek shows on TV. Ten major actors have played the ship's captain in the 53 years since Star Trek began what was supposed to be a five-year mission. A few of them disappeared from Hollywood; some of the rest boldly went right to the top, exploring the strange new world of galactic celebrity. Here are 10  Star Trek captains and where they wound up.

Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

When creator Gene Roddenberry was casting Star Trek: The Next Generation , he didn’t think Patrick Stewart was right for Picard — he figured the Shakespearean actor would make a better fit as Data. Stewart didn’t want to sign a six-year contract, but his agents convinced him the series was sure to flop, so he’d soon be back on the London stage. But from 1987 to 1994, Stewart’s Picard relaunched what had been a derelict franchise — and completely redefined the image of the sci-fi hero. A total grownup, Picard was dignified, diplomatic, erudite, totally bald — TV had never seen an action figure like him. After Stewart’s four STNG feature films, he became Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies. Star Trek , though, has recently pulled him back into its gravity: Stewart’s about to start shooting the 2020 spin-off series possibly entitled Picard , or Star Trek: Destiny , costarring Michelle Hurd, 52 ( Big Little Lies ) and being written by Pulitzer-winning author and Spider-Man 2 scribe Michael Chabon for CBS All Access. The show will look at the character in the later, more reflective years of his life. 

Capt. James T. Kirk

What is. The best part. Of. William Shatner ’s. Acting? His dramatic pauses as Kirk, the endearingly chest-puffing original captain of the USS Enterprise . After zipping around the galaxy in a tight yellow jersey and hitting on alien babes in tinfoil bikinis on TV from 1966 to 1969, Shatner played Kirk in seven Star Trek films. Now 87, he’s doing an 11-city tour through May, screening 1982’s  The Wrath of Khan and doing Q-and-As. In June, fans will pay up to $1,400 to tour the replica of the 1966 Trek set in Ticonderoga, N.Y., with him. On film, he’ll play T.E. Lawrence’s publicist Lowell Thomas in Lawrence: After Arabia , due in 2020. Kirk’s yellow shirt is now a hand-me-down to a new generation: Since 2009, Chris Pine has run the ship in Star Trek films, breaking orbit with acclaimed parts in Into the Woods and the $821 million hit Wonder Woman . Still, Pine’s turn as Kirk remains perhaps his most impressive acting, capturing the blustery soul of Shatner’s original without copying it — and with far fewer pauses. 

Capt. Christopher Pike

When Pike debuted in 1964, he was a motionless torso (Sean Kenney, now 74) who could only communicate with beeping lights. But in flashbacks, the ambulatory Pike was played by Jeffrey Hunter, who quit the show, giving Shatner his career break, and died seven days before Star Trek ’s 1969 cancellation. Pike returned as the kindly father figure who coaxes young Kirk to attend Starfleet Academy in 2009’s Star Trek , played by Bruce Greenwood, 62 — who’s in Steven King’s upcoming The Shining sequel Doctor Sleep , and whose character, Dr. Randolph Bell, just got promoted to hospital CEO on Fox’s The Resident . And now Anson Mount ( Crossroads ), who bonded last year with Kenney at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention and with Shatner at the Ticonderoga Trek set replica, plays Pike in  Star Trek: Discovery  on CBS All Access. In the March 7 episode, Mount gets to act alongside Hunter’s Pike, via intercut scenes from the original 1964 Star Trek pilot. Mount’s is the most fleshed-out and engaging Pike so far, and the first with a sense of humor. 

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Capt. Kathryn Janeway

The first female Starfleet captain to get her own series — 1995’s  Star Trek: Voyager  — was played by French-Canadian actress  Genevieve Bujold, now 76. For two whole days. Unprepared for the rigors of a weekly drama, Bujold bolted and headed back to Canada (where she continues to make mostly Canadian movies). Kate Mulgrew, now 63, took over the part and spent six years looking for a way to get her lost ship  Voyager  back home (and you thought male captains didn’t like asking for directions). Mulgrew returned, as Adm. Janeway, in 2002’s  Star Trek: Nemesis , but her acting career continued to live long and prosper: She appeared on Broadway in  Equus  in 2008 and has been playing Galina “Red” Reznikov on Netflix’s Critics Choice- and Screen Actors Guild award-winning jailhouse drama  Orange Is the New Black  since 2013.

Capt. Jonathan Archer

Between his star-making turn on  Quantum Leap  and his current gig on  NCIS: New Orleans , there was a four-year stretch — from 2001 to 2005 — when Scott Bakula, played Capt. Jonathan Archer on  Star Trek: Enterprise , a prequel set in the early days of warp technology, when starships didn’t even have phasers or force fields. Bakula, now 64, was the first Starfleet officer to share his chair on the bridge with his dog, a beagle named Porthos. The pooch, sadly, would later be vaporized during one of Scotty’s early experiments with trans-warp transporting, at least according to a Simon Pegg (Scotty) throwaway line in 2009’s  Star Trek .

Capt. Benjamin Sisko

Avery Brooks, who won fame as Hawk in  Spenser for Hire  (1985-1988), played the first black Starfleet captain, as well as the first single father. Unfortunately for Brooks — who today, at 70, is a tenured professor of theater arts at Rutgers University — he never really got to go anywhere on  Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The show, which ran from 1993 to 1999, was set on a stationary space station, where the brooding Capt. Sisko kept the peace among a transient population of Ferengi, Cardassians and Bajorans while raising his young son. His most memorable moment came in an episode titled “Trials and Tribble-ations,” in which Sisko traveled back in time — thanks to 20th-century editing-room technology — to the original bridge of the Enterprise and met the guy who started it all … Shatner’s James Kirk.

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‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Documentary Gives Production Update; Releases Sneak Peek Video

| August 29, 2021 | By: Brian Drew 72 comments so far

The Star Trek: Voyager documentary To the Journey was featured on a panel at this month’s 55-Year Mission Las Vegas Star Trek convention that included details on where they are in production and what they have planned. They also showed  a sneak peek, which is now available online.

To the Journey production continues

After wrapping up a record-breaking $1.2 million crowd-funding campaign earlier this year, the documentary team set up a new studio to shoot more interviews in June . At the Las Vegas panel, producer/director Dave Zappone said the team was still “deep in production,” but had already completed a number of interviews. He mentioned a couple of standouts, including one with Star Trek: Voyager co-creator Jeri Taylor (who was a surprise guest on the panel), thanking her and saying “She had us up to her home in northern California and our crew took over her house. It was a wonderful interview and you could not have been more gracious.” He also mentioned Robert Beltran’s interview, saying he sat down for them for two and half hours and it “really blew me away,” adding the actor “was just so open, he is just a wonderful, wonderful guy.”

A number of interviews with members of the cast were done in 2020 during a Voyager  reunion on Star Trek: The Cruise. This summer they have been bringing in more people who worked on the show, including guest stars and behind-the-scenes creatives. In Vegas, the team played the following video to the crowd that showcased some of the people who had dropped by the studio over the summer.

Behind the scenes, bloopers, HD, and more

Zappone assured the audience that the doc will not just be talking heads, mentioning that they are working their way through archives to find more footage shot contemporaneously with  Star Trek: Voyager in the ’90s. There is some particular material he was interested in, saying, “I am looking for the infamous blooper reel. We are looking everywhere for that.”

Voyager actor Garrett Wang has also been helping out with the doc and was part of the panel as well. He talked about how he and others are contributing their own footage:

I do have some footage from my own camera… So that’s the plan. It’s not just myself. There are other people that have documented their time on Voyager . That can definitely supplement this documentary.

The team is also planning on shooting footage on the Paramount lot with Garrett Wang giving a tour of where Voyager was shot and what it was like during that time. And with the team headed to the Destination Star Trek Germany convention to shoot more footage, including a Voyager reunion panel, Zappone revealed they are also going to take some time out to accept an invitation from the European Space Agency to visit their facilities and put Wang through some astronaut training.

One of the stretch goals for the crowd-funding was to help the team convert original Voyager footage into high-definition, and Zappone talked about how this was still a goal of the doc. “We are planning to upres—hopefully—the original 35 millimeter [film] like we did with What We Left Behind. ”

Garrett Wang, Jeri Taylor, Lolita Fatjo, and David Zappone at 55-Year Mission convention, Las Vegas, August 2021 (Photo: TrekMovie.com)

Why Voyager ?

To the Journey is the latest of a series of Star Trek documentaries produced by Zappone and his production company. He talked about how he has been surprised by the fan reaction so far:

Having done what we did with What We Left Behind and partnering with Ira [Steven Behr] who was an amazing collaborator, I knew the love for Deep Space Nine . I guess I didn’t realize it was just as great for Voyager . The fans are just as rabid, just as passionate. That is my pleasant surprise.

In 2020, right before the pandemic hit, the team was able to shoot footage of a  Voyager cast reunion on Star Trek: The Cruise, which Zappone said was crucial to the doc, adding, “If we didn’t have that, I honestly don’t think we would have a film.” He also talked about how they got a lot of great footage from fans on the cruise and promised that they will use as much as they can, saying, “the emotional reactions and the impact Voyager had [on the fans], it just blew me away.”

From To the Journey footage filmed on the 2020 Star Trek: The Cruise

When a fan asked what made  Voyager different, the answers revealed some variety in what the team was looking at in terms of some of the themes of the doc. Co-producers Lilita Fatjo (who also worked on Voyager) offered her personal take:

As the only female on stage, I honestly have to say it was because there was a female captain. I had the privilege of working with Michael [Piller], Jeri [Taylor], and Rick [Berman] for years. And being part of two shows that were created– Deep Space Nine and Voyager –and just watching them create these shows and characters was amazing, but I would have to say it was because of Captain Janeway.

Zappone added on to that:

It’s not just Captain Janeway, it’s the strong women in general. Roxann Dawson and of course Jeri Ryan, and Jennifer Lien was also strong. So not just the captain.

Garrett Wang said he felt the show stood out for having “amazing chemistry” amount the cast from the start, but he also talked about the diversity of the show being a key differentiator. He he took some pride in his own contribution, pointing out how after George Takei, there were no Asian-Americans on TNG or DS9 in the main cast:

One out of every five people in this world is Chinese—not Asian, Chinese—that’s a lot. There should be an Asian in every Star Trek. Voyager [had a] Native American first officer, Asian-American ops officer, African-American Vulcan.

Zappone noted something that came up in Garrett’s documentary interview which was how at the time of the show in the 1990s, he was the only Asian-American series regular on television. Wang also told a story of later meeting Lost star Daniel Dae Kim who thanked him, saying he’d “paved the way.”

Kate Mulgrew from To the Journey

Hoping for a theatrical event and streaming

It’s too early to talk about how the doc will be released, but Zappone did say that in addition to being distributed on Blu-ray he was hoping to follow the same route as What We Left Behind and do a short theatrical release with Fathom Events, which he noted had sold out 1,000 theaters. After that, he said he expected the doc to become available for streaming, but wasn’t sure which service might pick it up.

To keep updated on the project, visit voyagerdocumentary.com .

More from Vegas

We still have some more from the con, so stay tuned to TrekMovie for updates. And don’t forget to check out the coverage we’ve already posted .

Find more  news on Star Trek documentaries .

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That trailer was edited horribly. Why is it that these fan efforts always have such clunky production values?

I thought it was fine. It certainly wasn’t horrible.

It was definitely an awful trailer. Just a bunch of people sitting down.

Nothing about it made me want to watch the final doc. Where are the clips of the cast speaking? Where are the behind-the-scenes clips from the 90s they talk about? Where is the moment where someone teases something slightly intriguing, or dare I say– provocative? A funny moment from an interview, a dramatic moment where someone reveals tension on the set, an uplifting or emotionally inspirational moment; something, anything, to fascinate me and make me wonder what cool new things i’ll learn about the making of the show.

The trailer to “What We Left Behind” was way more intriguing, including ALL of the things I just mentioned; I suspect that’s because Ira Behr was involved. Go watch it. Teri Farrell is moved to tears, Marc Alaimo gets angry, Alex Siddig is inspirational, Avery Brooks speaks of what the role meant to him; Rene Auberjonois and Colm Meaney describe how hard they worked, DeBoer notes her awe at joining the show, and Michael Dorn mysteriously notes that “only those involved know the facts.” A bit melodramatic? Sure. But that’s what makes you want to see it. Great trailer to a great documentary.

After this trailer, I suspect the Voyager documentary will be a lot like the show: a watered down version of better docs that came before.

I don’t get the sense this was intended as an official trailer, just a casual sneak peek. Hence the title of the video.

Well then this is the worst sneak peek i’ve ever seen! Should at least had some cast members actually saying something– ANYTHING. This makes me LESS interested, not more.

Yeah, it was pretty bad.

So excited for this doc! I was literally watching an episode of VOY when I saw this article. I’m really really hoping it gets a theatrical release like ‘WWLB’ did. And I really love the fact they brought in so many other actors from the other shows. WWLB was strictly a DS9 affair, which was understandable, but it is cool to hear from other Trek stars on their thoughts on the show.

This is probably the most attention VOY has had since it went off the air, especially with all the characters appearing (or starring) in the multiple new shows and now this doc. It’s great to see for both old and new fans of the show! And imagine how many plates they can sell when it arrives! ;)

But no Kes 🥺

There’s a non-zero chance she’s in a mental institution or under conservatorship.

Well, WWLB did not have Avery Brooks participating on camera, and they made do with archival footage and anecdotes from other people. It worked, though in there case he was offering notes behind the scenes.

I hope Lien is getting the help she needs, I’m sure the doc will be an honest and respectful take on her time with the show.

There’s plenty of archival footage of Lien if they can clear it – Studio/Network EPK material from her time on the series, Entertainment Tonight, There was an E! BTS special early in the shows run, might be some convention footage out there – so there’s material available – they sure have enough of a budget to get SOMETHING.

Given the state of her health, why is that a surprise? Other cast members wishing her well is more then sufficient participation for her in this endeavor.

They should produce a plate of Boimler holding the Tom Paris plate to mark the occasion!

LOL! What’s funny is I could see someone at least considering it.

Anyone think Chakotay would sign my bowl?

I only recognized 3 of the people in that video…I guess most were behind the scenes or buried in makeup/prosthetics on-screen? They could have flashed their names at least. I love voyager and am looking forward to the doc, but this wasn’t very inspiring.

I totally agree … to assume that after all these years, and with many wearing prosthetics that totally changed their ‘real’ identities was silly. Their character image and/or name would have been very helpful. I only recognized the main characters and not the rest. Too bad, they deserved to be called out – maybe the final cut will do that.

This is a “sneak peak,” and I’m hoping that means that even the part we saw isn’t finished yet. Putting the names and functions of the people on the bottom of the screen (e.g. “Jeri Taylor, Executive Producer, 1995 – 1998”) would help a lot.

It’s very clearly not finished. But as a marketing person myself, if you have nothing intriguing to show, don’t show anything. Clearly some of these interviews have happened already, so they couldn’t find one or two good lines from them to get people interested? Awful job here.

Umm…where are the VOY cast??

When all the DS9 people turned up, I starting hoping Marc Alaimo would randomly appear for no reason.

I loved Armin Shimmerman’s reaction. “Why am I here?”

I suspect a lot of the audience will be asking the same thing as they watch the documentary!

He probably said the same thing on Insurrection.

It’s not just Captain Janeway, it’s the strong women in general. Roxanne Dawson and of course Jeri Ryan, and Jennifer Lein was also strong. So not just the captain.

Mulgrew and Ryan were strong. Dawson was average. Lien was weak, as was Wang. (Plus: an “African-American Vulcan”? Really? The actor, sure. The *character* had no human ancestry.)

It’s this kind of commentary that makes me think less of VOY; I’m glad we had a female captain, but cast diversity is not enough to compensate for poor characterization and writing. It certainly doesn’t compensate for the “Hollywood Indian” trope.

I believe that you are being unnecessarily harsh and hyper critical. Sounds like you didn’t watch the series but are here to comment for no apparent reason at all. Its confusing, did you watch the series or not? Sounds like you couldn’t stand it, yet you are here.

It’s called “literary criticism” for a reason. Criticism is the point.

I loved Dawson and thought she was very strong. But yeah I loved them all. ;)

I loved her too. Very under rated as an actress. Her character kinda disappeared into the background when Jeri Ryan came on the scene – that happened to most of the cast though – not her fault at all, that was the writers.

Maybe I’m just biased but I always loved Dawson and how she portrayed B’Elanna. Even though Worf was the most popular Klingon character, I liked B’Elanna because she was anti-Work or even Anti-Spock and really tried to be closer to her human side even though her Klingon side was always just underneath the surface. She played between the line very well. But I always love when her temper comes out lol.

But it’s all just opinions. People will like or hate different characters so completely understandable not every character or actors on these shows are loved by everyone.

Yep, Dawson nailed it as B’Elanna. She almost gets zero credit. She is the forgotten Voyager character.

TNG had already featured a Black Romulan.

The lack of diversity we sometimes see in alien races in science fiction is the problem. If the human race is anything to go by, and since the humanoids in Star Trek are supposed to be all related (again going back to TNG) then we should see more variations of skin color, not fewer.

Sigh. I guess I didn’t make my point clearly enough. I don’t have a problem with darker-skinned Vulcans; it’s just that they’re not “African-American Vulcans.” Africa and the Americas are continents on *Earth*.

What did you expect? It was a TV series produced in Hollywood. More chances than not the Black actor cast was going to be African-American. You know, that Hollywood that is located in America on Earth.

Oh, I see what you mean now. You wanted at least one cast member to be non-American. Well, we almost had that with the original actor cast as Janeway (her name escapes me at the moment), so you can’t fault them for at least keeping that in mind. But Tim Russ had already been cast at that point, so why single him out?

I don’t think it makes much sense to think “less of VOY” because the cast, crew, and fans of the show highlight it’s diversity as a positive, memorable, defining element of the show. And no one is saying that it compensates for failures in other areas of the production. The question wasn’t, “what element of Voyager balances out all the other mistakes of the show?”

As for the “Hollywood Indian” trope, I don’t think that you can lay all the blame on the Voyager staff (maybe 10-25%). The did hire a “respected Native American consultant” for the show – it just happened that that consultant was a fake and was conning Hollywood at large.

The “respected consultant” may have contributed to the problem, but he didn’t create the character, and he didn’t cast a non-Native actor in the role.

So sorry you were triggered by the mention of diversity and that someone different then yourself enjoyed seeing themselves reflected on the screen. Find something from the 1950’s on youtube that only features straight white men and take long, deep breaths.

In point of fact, I support diversity on Star Trek. I submit to you that VOY was the *least* diverse cast, and that the focus on the captain (and her ethnically ambiguous first officer, portrayed in blackface by a non-Native actor) were a way to deflect attention from this shortcoming.

Every other iteration of Star Trek has had at least one non-American human character in the main cast:

TOS: Chekhov (Russia), Scott (UK), Sulu (Japanese/Filipino, until TVH unfortunately retconned his ancestry a bit). TNG/PIC: Picard (France), LaForge (likely West Africa, possibly Caribbean); Worf’s roots on Earth were in Belarus; Yar (Ukraine/Lithuania). It was also lightly implied that Troi’s human ancestry was Greek; Rios (Chile). DS9: Bashir (Sudan), Miles O’Brien (Ireland) and Keiko O’Brien (Japan) (both also on TNG), Worf ENT: Sato (Japanese, possibly Brazilian-Japanese), Reed (UK) DIS: Owosekun (Nigeria), Detmer (Germany), Georgiou (Malaysia), Landry (likely India), Rhys (likely Hong Kong, but who knows?), probably others that I’ve missed, since the line between lead and supporting characters has grown blurred.

VOY had…*maybe* Annika Hansen from one of the Scandinavian countries. And that’s it. (And even she didn’t come until the fourth season.)

Chakotay, who was so “diverse” that they couldn’t name his tribal affiliation, doesn’t count; he was a Hollywood composite from nowhere (and alternatively implied he was born in Central America and Arizona, so who knows). The “diverse” captain was from…Indiana. “Farm country,” as she told us. Right next door to Kirk’s old stomping grounds, and not that different from wine country; only agrarian types make good captains, I guess. B’Elanna Torres was implied to be Mexican-American, not Mexican. Kim, whose actor now lectures us “every Star Trek series must have a Chinese character,” was clearly Korean-American, not Korean.

(Oh: and why? In Wang’s book, it’s OK not to have had a single Turkish, Indonesian, Argentine, or Congolese character in all of Star Trek, but we *must* have a Chinese main character in *every* series? By his standards, even Georgiou doesn’t qualify; she’s Straits Chinese. This is selective outrage at its finest.)

Then there were the little details. I can’t think of any VOY recurring or minor human characters who were non-American. In the other series, we had Khan Singh; engineer Singh (both in TOS and TNG); Xu (implied to be Chinese); Anaya (implied to be Bolivian); Admiral Komack (implied Iranian); Admiral Nechayeva (possibly Serbian or Croat); Fleet Admiral Shanti (West Africa); Rostov (Russian); Benayoun (possibly French, possibly Israeli).

I’ll also note that in-universe, VOY didn’t feature a single crew member from an unfamiliar Federation species. TOS gave us Vulcans, TNG Klingons and Bajorans (Ro was the first), DS9 Trill, ENT Denobulans and Andorians. VOY served slopppy seconds, warmed-over Klingons and Vulcans we’d seen before: an utterly disappointing lack of vision and creativity. The buffoonish Neelix (“Jetrel” excepted) and bland Kes (the implications of her short lifespan never examined) hardly counteracted this.

In short, VOY was easily the least multinational crew, and cast, in the history of Star Trek. (And VOY and ENT were filmed at the apex of post-Cold War globalization in the real world; TOS might have had an excuse for this, but VOY has none.) Say what you will about Gene Roddenberry, but he had a global perspective, no doubt from his military and Pan Am days, that Jeri Taylor absolutely did not. The VOY writers’ room hastily cobbled together a milquetoast set of characters (there was too much Trek on at once, and the lack of focus showed) and delivered lackluster storytelling for its first three seasons. To this day, its writers hide behind the one solid casting choice, Mulgrew, to deflect attention away from this weakness.

*I’m* the one triggered by diversity because I’m not a VOY fan? I must have the name of your occulist.

Oh, and all the above is before we get to the fact there wasn’t a single gay character on VOY. On a series that wrapped in 2001, not in the 1960s.

I read all of that above and as a Turkish person I agree with you about the need of Star Trek to have a Turkish crew member. If my memory doesn’t play tricks on me I think there was at least one Starfleet starship named after a Turkish historical figure but I’ll have to check Memory Alpha for that.

The obvious choice would be Sabiha Gokcen.

(Dollars to donuts Mr. “1950s on Youtube” above has zero clue who she is, at least not without consulting the Google.)

Ignoring the bit about Wang, but in terms of playing women with fortitude and strength, all four actresses did that. Torres and Kes may have gotten shortchanged at times, but the characters were strong women, haphazardly written.

I thought Roxann was wonderful in the series and as a director too. She went on to direct ten episodes of Enterprise. She broke ground for female directors of Star Trek. There aren’t a whole lot of them. They should be celebrated.

Whatever the merits of her acting on VOY, I’ve enjoyed her directorial work on THE AMERICANS, and she’s clearly vastly expanded herself in her post-Star Trek director career.

I don’t understand why the new Trek shows aren’t using her as a director. She always does very solid work with her directing, elevating the written material visually.

I find that weird as well. Maybe she is too busy directing other shows? No idea. But I’d like to see her name appear again on a new Star Trek episode(s)

Are you both ignoring the red elephant in the room?

Which is???

That the Discovery Team fired a black writer who used the N-word only as a quote in a story. If they are so sensitive about such things, why should they hire an AllLivesMatter hashtagger?

And if Dawson thinks it is decent to twitter anti-BLM, she would think Discovery is a show to her taste?

Come on have we really come to that time where what people post on twitter became more important than their talents and skills? This is probably a rhetorical question as everyone probably knows the answer. You know Odradek, you may have a point, I feel like this over-sensitivity was why Nick Meyer refused or didn’t work in Discovery after the 1st season.

A discovery actor? a couple of Ds9 actors? TOS? in a voyager Doc I would rather hear from the crew and cast of voyager rather than listening to people who was not involved talk about what voyager meant to them.

George Takei actually had a Captain Sulu episode so it is germane to the topic.

Yeah Voyager was the last tine Takei officially played Sulu as well. Hard to believe that was nearly 25 years ago now.

Andrew Robinson actually directed two episodes on VOY, which I only found out after I asked myself what he was doing there, so at least he has a connection to the show.

My personal guess is they included him (I don´t know how many other directors will be in the documentary) because Garak is so well known an loved as a character.

I would Like to buy the ds9 doc in europe…. Gut where

Same here, buddy…

I thought we weren’t supposed to share the trailers as it was backers only? I don’t get how this is exclisive content when it is distributed a week later to everyone.

What’s the point in a trailer that’s for backers only? The backers are already probably planning to watch the thing. They need to build up hype for general audiences.

I like the fact that they’re not putting the main cast up front. They usually tend to tell their small stories in such interviews, but its the backstage people who can talk about the meat and bones of the show. Color me interested.

Obviously it’s not that way but watching this made me feel like “those DS9 actors are always up for an interview huh, no matter how small the link might be”

Hopefully this is better than the ds9 documentary, where 1. Way too much Behr, he is annoying especially his cheesy sunglasses, and facial hair 2. It was odd to see them criticizing certain aspects of the show, for instance one case was in the use of gay characters. When they say that I think should remember the context that there were only three or four gay characters on TV when ds9 started and about 6 or 7 when ds9 ended.

Context like that needs to be remembered when they make comments about things.

But for a series that is part of a forward-thinking franchise that celebrates diversity, it was a black mark. I’m glad they did Rejoined, and little things like the rest of the crew not batting an eye over the idea of two women dating was appreciated, but this has always been an area where the franchise actually fell behind the curve.

There’s also a moment a lot of people overlook, in the episode “Rules of Acquisition”: before anyone knows that Pel is actually a woman– when everyone believes Pel to be a man– Dax says “it’s obvious hw you feel about [Quark]” meaning Pel’s romantic interest. This says that Dax found nothing odd about a Ferengi man’s attraction to another Ferengi man.

It’s a nice moment BECAUSE it doesn’t get highlighted, if you ask me.

Now it’s possible Dax saw it as no big deal because she is, essentially, a transgender species that does not prescribe to strictly heteronormative relationships, but I choose to believe that outside of Ferenginar– within the Federation– LGBTQ people are not seen as abnormal (and are perhaps even the norm, considering how many different alien races are members) in the 24th century.

There was a scene in Captain’s Holiday that seemed to me more progressiv, when I first saw it, than it really was. I saw it in dubbed version. When the Risean woman hits on Picard, Picard says his Horg’ahn for is his friend Riker. Now the woman assumes that Picard and Riker were lovers and because of the way Picard addressed Riker ln my language she would indicate that Riker is a man and she had to assume they were both gay. I expected the typical nervous ” no, no not that king of friend…” routine from Picard and was pleasently surprised when he was all non chalant about it. I thought :” How cool in the future no one cares about it orfeels the need to set the record straight if you are gay or not. I was a little disappointed after I saw the original version with no indication she thought Picard was gay.

I think you might be mistaken, because Picard very much does respond with the nervous “no, not that kind of friend” an even if you read it otherwise, the intent of the scene is clearly to make the audience laugh at a gay panic joke.

Actually, the woman says, “someone you love”, and Picard says, “I wouldn’t go that far”.

…which to be fair, was the point of “Rules of Acquisition” but the reaction of Dax was not meant to be a joke.

Star Trek should always be ahead of the curve when it comes to diversity. It is a shame that in this instance they were not.

To be honest, I found his self-criticism quite impressive. Believe me, Behr knew the context.

And why does it matter HOW MANY gay characters there were on TV in 1993 or 1998? The fact is, there were openly gay characters on mainstream TV as early as the 60s and 70s, in shows that discussed the issues facing LGBTQ people in a frank and serious way. Why Trek felt– even well into the 1990s– that they couldn’t include an open character, or make an existing character (like Garak) gay, is to me, an embarrassment to the franchise. Clearly Behr agreed, and I think that’s a GOOD thing.

I also felt that not using the Trill as a trans allegory, despite the VERY obvious parallels, to be a huge oversight (and one they finally followed through on in DSC) .

By the way, I find it rather odd that in the same paragraph as you hit back against the criticism of not representing LGBTQ characters, you mock the “annoying” sunglasses and facial hair of Behr; you seem to have some kind of inherent bias against people who are different.

I plan to get this on dvd just like I did the DS9 documentary and I sure hope they will do one for Enterprise

The Star Trek Captain That Saved The Series Finale From Failing By Making A Race Argument

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine remains the best Star Trek show, and unlike fellow shows Voyager and Enterprise , its final episode truly ended with a crowdpleasing bang. In addition to seeing Starfleet finally beat the Dominion, we got to see Captain Benjamin Sisko kill a possessed Gul Dukat before joining the god-like Prophets in their Celestial Temple. These wormhole aliens are non-linear, and Sisko tells his pregnant wife that he will return "maybe in a year, maybe yesterday," but that almost never happened: in fact, Sisko actor Avery Brooks had to convince producers to change a conclusion that would have left his character trapped in the wormhole forever.

The main reason Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's writers and producers wanted to end Sisko's story like this is to pay off a warning he previously received from his biological mother, who is also a Prophet. The captain was understandably keen to marry Kasidy Yates, and he was warned by the Prophets that if he did so, he "would know nothing but sorrow." Sisko ignores the warning, marries Yates, and the two of them soon conceive a child together.

Therefore, the original finale of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was going to involve Sisko being unable to leave the wormhole, fulfilling his mother's prophecy because he would be unable to spend any significant time with either his wife or their child once the kid is born. This would have added a lot of sadness to the finale and likely recontextualized the name of the last episode: "What You Leave Behind." However, like his Sisko character, it didn't take long for Avery Brooks to pull rank and change this planned Deep Space Nine conclusion.

Within two days of shooting a scene where Sisko definitively tells Yates he won't be back, Brooks contacted showrunner Ira Behr to voice his displeasure. Brooks argued that it sent a very bad message to portray a Black man leaving his pregnant wife behind to raise their child on his own. Behr agreed with Brooks, and they reshot some of the scenes with Sisko emphatically telling her, "I will be back."

One reason Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fans like this ending is because it leaves room for Sisko to come back in some exciting ways. While this sadly hasn't happened onscreen (yet), the non-canonical Star Trek comics from IDW have brought Sisko back to help fight a mysterious force killing other gods. The comics make for an excellent read, and they demonstrate what the return of Sisko could mean for live-action Star Trek if done right.

I'm ultimately very glad that Avery Brooks changed this major scene of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale, both because it no longer sends a negative message and because it opens up the door for Sisko's triumphant return. In the meantime, we get to bask in the irony that Sisko began the series feeling very uncomfortable that he was the Bajorans' space Jesus, and he eventually became one of their gods by the end of Star Trek's greatest show.

The doubting Thomas has become himself divine, creating one of the greatest character arcs in all of Star Trek history .

The post The Star Trek Captain That Saved The Series Finale From Failing By Making A Race Argument appeared first on GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT .

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The Intriguing World Of Entertainment

Whatever Happened To Avery Brooks?

By Nick Lee | December 9, 2022

Avery Brooks will forever be known as Captain Benjamin Sisko from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. His groundbreaking work on the third Star Trek series will live on, but he also had other notable acting roles. In addition, Brooks has also made a name for himself as a talented musician and educator.

Background Info and Early Life

The story of Avery Brooks begins on October 2, 1948 in Evansville, Indiana. He was born to parents Samuel Brooks and Eva Crawford, and for a little while, it seemed like Avery’s life might take a different course than it ultimately did.

The family he was born into was heavily connected in the music world, which gave Brooks his first example of creative expression.

Avery’s grandfather Samuel Travis Crawford would tour the country as a singer in the 1930’s.

Brooks would learn how to play the jazz piano, and sang in many productions, including the lead in an opera called “X”.

He graduated from Livingston College in 1973 and in 1976 he earned the distinction of being Rutgers University’s first black MFA graduate in acting and direcitng.

Avery Brooks’ Early Acting Career

Eventually, Avery Brooks’ work in the creative realm would lead him into acting. Compared to some other actors, he got his start relatively late in life, as his first credit didn’t come until he was 36 years old on American Playhouse. He appeared in one episode as a character named Solomon Northup.

Spenser: For Hire

His first big break would come a year later, as he landed a recurring role on a TV series called Spenser: For Hire, playing a main character named Hawk. He is an enforcer that helps Spenser get out of difficult situations. Brooks would appear in all 65 episodes of the show. 

This opportunity would lead to a spinoff for Brooks’ character titled A Man Called Hawk. The show would last for 13 episodes in 1989, but had some pretty notable cast members, such as Angela Bassett and William Fichtner. 

American History X

In 1998, Avery Brooks would earn a role in American History X, playing Dr. Bob Sweeney. He played a school principal who advised the Edward Furlong’s character to change his racist ways.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

While Brooks does receive some recognition for the work he did above, he is by far most prominently identified as Captain Benjamin Sisko in the 1990’s series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

It was a relatively random, but career defining break for Brooks, who had largely continued to reprise his role as Hawk in various Spenser spinoffs through the early part of the decade.

The Star Trek world had always promoted learning about different species and the way they lived, so explorers could enhance their view and make a connection with aliens all over the galaxy.

In terms of their cast, the series did incorporate diversity on to their respective crews, such as Nichelle Nichols in the original Star Trek, and Michael Dorn in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.

However, the lead character of each series had been a white male, and selecting Brooks as the authority figure on the space station was a groundbreaking moment for the franchise.

Unlike the previous two iterations of Star Trek, the Deep Space Nine cast was in transition, and not as outwardly mobile as their predecessors.

The show was set on a sedentary station, whose cast members were adjusting to life after Cardassian occupation, and getting used to a Bajoran-Federation alliance.

Sisko was officially named the captain of Deep Space Nine, which was also strategically placed near a busy space transit corridor called a wormhole.  

Not only was Sisko the first African-American main character on the series; he was the first captain to have an active role as a parent while running an entire starship/space station.

Deep Space Nine would enhance Sisko’s character by involving him in professional situations and personal situations back to back, much the way real life tends to unfold.

Benjamin Sisko and his son, Jake, would rely upon one another to get over the loss of Benjamin’s wife and Jake’s mother. 

The crew of Deep Space Nine would also need to fend of the ever powerful Dominion, who was comprised of several different species of the course of the show.

This faction would look to take over entire quadrants of space by military force, and Sisko would be placed in the tough position of utilizing diplomacy or combat in order to navigate the situation.

Star Trek Legacy And Fame

Trekkies are among the most passionate fans of any fictional content, and come out in droves to support beloved characters.

Avery Brooks has appeared at Star Trek conventions in front of large numbers to give the fans a glimpse of Benjamin Sisko in the flesh.

Avery Brooks at Star Trek Conventions

There have been rumblings over the years that Brooks has not appeared as engaged as some of the other actors and actresses who have a special place in Star Trek lore during these conventions.

Some have opined that Brooks might be uncomfortable by the attention, and others feel like he might not be interested in reliving the past as much as the other cast members or fans. 

Be that as it may, the character Brooks played is a central figure in the Star Trek timeline, as Sisko’s actions helped preserve peace when utter chaos was on the brink of ensuing.

What did Avery think about his role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?

Although some fans have come to the conclusion that Avery regretted his time on DS9, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Avery said he is very grateful for being give the opportunity.

“I was very grateful for the part, and remain very grateful today for what Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has meant to me in terms of my career,”

He went on to say that he was also proud of his role.

The program is one that I am extremely proud to have been a part. I will always have fond memories, especially in terms of it giving me a worldwide forum and letting the world see black and brown people doing all types of things without their color being the critical aspect of what or who they are.”

Although he is grateful and proud of his time on the show, Avery doesn’t want to be solely defined by this one role.

What Is Avery Brooks Doing Now? Why Did Avery Brooks Stop Acting?

Brooks did not appear in very many other shows or movies after Deep Space Nine, and there are a few different theories as to why that is.

A logical explanation could be that Brooks gave everything he had in his role as Sisko, and wanted to pivot out of that world to get back into a more relaxed setting.

Did Avery Brooks Get Blacklisted From Hollywood?

There have been rumors suggesting that Avery Brooks got blacklisted from Hollywood. This rumor started when his costar on DS9, Cirroc Lofton alleges that Avery is a victim of discrimination and that is why he has not been in significant tv or movie shows in nearly 20 years.

“something bigger there, in which he is kind of being discriminated against.”

Rumors aside, Avery has continued to focus on his music, having released an album called ‘ Here ‘ in 2007, which features jazz and blues covers, as well as spoken word pieces. He has appeared in theater and stage productions and he also spent time teaching at Rutgers University, his alma mater.

Family Life

Avery has been married to his wife Vicki Lenora since 1976. Vicki is an assistant dean at Rutgers University.

The couple has three children named Ayana, Cabral and Asante.

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About Nick Lee

Nick is a Senior Staff Writer for Ned Hardy. Some of his favorite subjects include sci-fi, history, and obscure facts about 90's television. When he's not writing, he's probably wondering how Frank Dux got 52 consecutive knockouts in a single tournament. More from Nick

Star Trek Takes Place In A Post-Religious World

A well-known piece of trivia among Trekkies is that "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry once rejected a note from the studio to include a Christian chaplain as a character on board the USS Enterprise. 

In David Alexander's 1995 book "Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry," the ur-Trekkie himself, raised Southern Baptist, described himself as a Humanist who would eventually consider religion "to be more spice than nourishment." He described himself as a "total pagan," although he seemingly wouldn't go so far as to describe himself as an atheist. In Yvonne Fern's 1994 book "Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation," he more or less declared himself a deist, saying, "It's not true that I don't believe in God. I believe in a kind of God. It's just not other people's God. I reject religion. I accept the notion of God."

Looking at "Star Trek," one has a great deal of trouble locating any recognizable Earth religion. While multiple alien species still abide by varying religious practices — the Bajorans on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" leap immediately to mind — none of the franchise's human characters ever make reference to their Christianity, their Hinduism, their Judaism, their Buddhism, or their being a Muslim. Indeed, any reference to Earth religions is scant at best. In an episode of "Star Trek: Enterprise," for instance, Dr. Phlox (John Billingsley), an alien keenly interested in the sociological practices of humans, makes a passing reference to having spent time with Tibetan monks and attending mass at St. Peter's Basilica. It seems religion still exists in the future, but not in any kind of active capacity. 

Indeed, part of Roddenberry's utopia seems to be that religion as we know it has passed from human history.

The post-religious world

Thanks to the Prime Directive , "Star Trek" may be seen as an anti-colonialist show. The Prime Directive dictates that no Starfleet vessel is allowed to interfere in the natural evolution of any alien world. This not only prevents obvious societal shake-ups, like giving phasers to cavemen, but also assures that the Federation is expressly not imposing its will on anyone. The Prime Directive becomes morally tricky, of course, when the USS Enterprise encounters a world that is actively involved in slavery. While the Enterprise could use its superior technology to free the slaves and improve the quality of life for the planet, it would not be permitted. That planet has to, essentially, figure out its own crap first. 

But the Prime Directive, by design, is (intellectually, anyway) preventing the culturally devastating actions committed by so many missionaries throughout Earth's history. For centuries, religious pilgrims have traveled far from their homes with the express goal of spreading the Gospels and converting people. This Christo-centric thinking is directly linked to the historical persecution of non-converts, as well as to slavery and the seizing of lands. "Pagans" — a word originally meant to describe any non-converts during the Roman conversion to Christianity — wouldn't be allowed to keep their property, and non-Pagans would be justified in plundering villages if they had the temerity to not be part of the "correct" church. 

"Star Trek" aimed to undo that dark part of human history by eliminating colonialism as a matter of course, and — importantly — jettisoning religion as a motivating factor for galactic exploration. The Enterprise did not seek to conquer or to influence, but to learn. In the world of "Star Trek," its citizens aimed to better themselves through scientific knowledge and exposure to other cultures. 

They are but children

When religion did appear in the original "Star Trek," it was typically seen as something childish and naïve, something that easily hoodwinked innocents are duped into doing. In "The Apple" (October 13, 1967), the Enterprise encounters a Paradise-like garden populated by crimson-skinned, hut-swelling aliens who have no notion of sexuality and who worship a giant stone snakehead named Vaal. The aliens are, of course, an Adam and Eve metaphor, and their growth will come when the Enterprise literally kills God. 

In "Bread and Circuses" (March 15, 1968), the Enterprise encounters a species that looks like 20th-century Earth, but that still lives by an ancient Roman code of ethics, including (now-televised) blood sports and slavery. At the end of that episode, Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) translates some local scriptures and finds that a Christ-like figure is coming to shake up the Romans' hold on things, just like on Earth thousands of years before. It is implied that the rise of a Christ is but a mere phase in societal evolution, and the Roman planet is about to change. No one says that it's necessarily for the better. Just that it's inevitable. 

Notably, whenever the Enterprise encountered an actual deity — Apollo in "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (September 22, 1967), Kukulkan in " How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth " (October 5, 1974) — they were wounded, abandoned aliens who left Earth long ago and who resented being rejected. In both cases, Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) explained to the pouty gods that humans outgrew them a long time ago, and have now found a lifestyle that eschews worship. In Kukulkan's case, he accepts his fate as a forgotten deity, happy that his human "children" are now on their own. 

In "Star Trek," religion is for kids, meant to be outgrown.

Preventing religion

In a notable episode of " Star Trek: The Next Generation " called "Who Watches the Watchers?" (October 16, 1989), a disguised Federation study outpost is accidentally exposed to the local aliens, then only in an agrarian state of their development. It is explained that these aliens have already abandoned gods, have embraced logic and observation as preferable, and will likely develop quickly as a result. When one of them is injured by Federation technology, they are sedated and taken on board the Enterprise where they see Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) in an anesthetized haze. This causes him to start believing that Picard is a god, and it takes the utmost diplomacy for Picard to approach the tribe and explain that he is a mortal like them. He's willing to take an arrow to the chest and die to prove his point. Picard's life is less important than ensuring this species does not begin the bad habit of worship. 

This is, of course, not to say that religion is completely absent from "Star Trek." In "Deep Space Nine," the Bajoran people have a complex polytheistic religion centered on the Prophets, deities whose descriptions just so happen to fall in line with a species of non-corporeal aliens that live in a stable wormhole above their planet. On that show, people are often driven by visions and Capt. Sisko (Avery Brooks) reluctantly becomes the Bajoran Emissary, a fate he will eventually embrace. Gods are essentially real on "Deep Space Nine."

However, while the Bajoran are religious people, much of their church is depicted as corrupt and hungry for power, eager to set up a theocracy during a period of planetary reconstruction. Faith is important, "Deep Space Nine" says, but churches, it seems, aren't. 

Mortal Coil

When it came to spiritual matters, however, "Star Trek" left worshipping in the hands of aliens. Klingons spoke of their afterlife frequently, looking forward to being honored by dead ancestors. Vulcans, while logical, seemed to understand that worshiping is a part of their consciousness and engage in religious-like rituals of meditation. Ferengi, their society devoted to wealth, speak of buying their way into Heaven. 

Although "Star Trek: Voyager" will often deliberately face toward atheism. In the episode "Mortal Coil" (December 17, 1997), the otherwise jolly Neelix ( Ethan Phillips ) is killed in an accident and remains dead for the better part of a day before Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) uses Borg technology to repair his body and bring him back to life. Having been dead, Neelix was upset to have encountered oblivion and not the expected Talaxian afterlife he believed in. He realizes that there is no afterlife after all and is thrown into an existential crisis. By the end, he comes to realize he has meaning to those still living, and his value is not measured by where he will go when he dies. It's difficult for Neelix, but he loses his faith and is all the better for it.

And, finally, who could forget "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" where Capt. Kirk had the planet-sized cojones to ask God what he might need with a starship? In that film's climax, the zealot character literally fights himself to the death, and Spock (Leonard Nimoy), a being of logic, literally kills God. Overall, "Star Trek" vaunts science over superstition and study over worship. Roddenberry may have been a deist, but Trek has no baseline philosophies connected to a god. It is a Humanist show. 

And, yes, we can all enjoy it.

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine accidentally predicted the 2020s by writing about the 1990s

Income inequality, homelessness, and other social ills of the 2020s — predicted by TV writers looking out their windows in 1995.

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The idea that science fiction “predicts” the future is a misnomer.

Understandably, when a work of science fiction eerily and accurately seems to predict what happened in the world, there’s an unsettling feeling of magical prophecy to it. Back to the Future II didn’t nail everything about 2015, but it did get some things right , and isn’t that interesting? And that’s before we consider that film’s portrayal of the villainous Biff Tannen as a megalomaniacal casino magnate whose characterization drew plenty from one Donald Trump , which has made the movie feel even more prescient.

But the idea that a sci-fi story can “predict” the future misrepresents the genre’s strengths. Science fiction is almost never really about the future, and shouldn’t aim to be — it’s much more effective as a way to make sense of the present. A book like Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Talents (about a brutally racist, fascist United States, ruled by a president who ran on the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”) doesn’t act as a crystal ball. It acts as a mirror. Butler wasn’t really writing about an imagined 2030s, when the book is set. She was using dystopian fiction to create a lens through which the readers of 1998 (when the book was published) could see the rot that had already taken hold in their own world.

Science fiction has been pointing toward a dystopian America, ruled by prejudice and often outright fascism, for decades now . But that trend hasn’t always made its way to television — especially not to the Star Trek franchise , which boasts a utopian worldview of a humanity that settled its many conflicts and united to explore the furthest reaches of space. Star Trek is not completely devoid of dystopias, but they typically pop up only in the form of one-off planets of the week.

And yet one of the pieces of science fiction that has best seemed to herald the 2020s is a two-parter from the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . The episodes are set in 2024, but they were filmed in 1994 and aired in early 1995. They depict an America where inequality has spun out of control, where homelessness is a problem that no one is particularly interested in tackling compassionately, and where divisions centered on race and income spiral into violence.

The “Past Tense” pair of episodes isn’t just remarkable for how uncannily it reflects the world we live in now. It’s remarkable for how it’s been sitting there for nearly 30 years, in plain sight, within one of the most popular TV franchises of all time.

“Past Tense” is all about a world where wealth inequality is out of control

“Past Tense, Part I” and “Past Tense, Part II” aired on January 2 and January 9, 1995. They’re part of a long line of Star Trek time travel episodes, but only a few of those time travel episodes visit an Earth that is in the characters’ distant past but the audience’s near future. As such, they are among just a handful of Star Trek stories that take place during the part of the Star Trek mythos where humanity had to overcome its differences to get to the utopia awaiting us in the 2300s.

Due to a transporter malfunction, three crew members of the Deep Space Nine space station are dropped in San Francisco in the year 2024. Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), both men of color, are deposited in what amounts to an internment camp. Chief science officer Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), who presents as a white woman, ends up hanging out with the mega-rich. (Dax is a Trill symbiote, meaning that while her body may seem human, her mind has been joined with sluglike alien that contains the memories of seven past lives. Just go with it. It’s Star Trek .)

Sisko realizes that they have been sent to the past mere days before what are now known in the Star Trek universe as the Bell riots, an event that will bring knowledge of the inhumane conditions within the “sanctuary districts” to a national audience, leading to an early flowering of social change. (Bashir, for his part, has never studied 21st-century history, dubbing it “too depressing.”)

Eventually, Sisko and Bashir meet Gabriel Bell, the man whose death will give the Bell riots their name. But by the end of “Past Tense, Part I,” Bell has died before the riots begin, altering the timeline irreparably. To preserve the timeline, Sisko must adopt Bell’s identity — with all the risk that entails.

While Sisko and Bashir are struggling to survive the frequent violence within the sanctuary district — which usually occurs at the hands of the police — Dax finds herself rubbing elbows with some extremely rich citizens of the Bay Area. As someone who seems to be a beautiful white woman, she is granted access to high society and luxury. That choice was intentional, says one of the writers who worked on the episodes.

Robert Hewitt Wolfe, who co-conceived of the story for “Past Tense” (with Ira Steven Behr) and wrote the teleplay for the first installment, pointed out to me in an interview that if there’s one thing these two episodes got desperately wrong about the 2020s, it’s the computers, which woefully lag behind what we have right now. And yet they seem to have anticipated the wealth disparities in Silicon Valley all the same.

Most notably, “Past Tense” reveals an extremely rigid caste system built atop race and class, a real-world problem that has taken on incredible urgency in recent years. Yet the impetus for its story, according to Wolfe, was the large unhoused population in Santa Monica, California, more than two decades ago.

“We weren’t being predictive. We were just looking out our windows in the ’90s,” Wolfe says. “My wife worked with homeless and mentally ill people as a psychotherapist. Ira [Steven Behr] said what convinced him to do the episodes was walking through Palisades Park in Santa Monica and seeing all the homeless people there. They’re still there. It hasn’t changed. We weren’t being predictive. We were just being observant.”

“Past Tense” also suggests that knowledge of brutal inequality will lead to a demand for it to change. So far, reality hasn’t borne this out.

Deep Space Nine is unique in the Star Trek franchise for the view it provides of the worst aspects of humanity’s present (or, within the Star Trek universe, its past). Sisko was the franchise’s first Black captain, and his knowledge of America’s long history of racism drove some of Deep Space Nine ’s best episodes, including the “Past Tense” two-parter. Wolfe told me that having Sisko paired up with the much less knowledgeable Bashir was deliberate, so that Bashir could learn, in real time, lessons that Sisko has always known, even though both exist in a more tolerant future.

But Sisko’s knowledge of his history only goes so far in helping us understand our present. Implicit in “Past Tense” is that so long as the Bell riots happen and so long as Gabriel Bell dies trying to defend hostages that the rioters have captured to ensure their safety, the world will learn just how bad conditions are in the sanctuary districts, and a grassroots groundswell will lead to sweeping social change.

Certainly, the scenes in “Past Tense” where the riots break out now read as reminiscent of last summer’s ongoing protests against police violence, after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. In Star Trek ’s fictional world, as in our real one, a group of people who have been systemically oppressed rose up and caught the attention of those who might not normally have noticed. (In “Past Tense,” Dax is our link to the world of those who might ignore the sanctuary districts.)

But a point of view that looks optimistically toward real-world reform seems hopelessly naive in 2021, when presenting a coherent narrative that might lead to social change is harder than ever.

Deep Space Nine existed in a world with much more homogeneous media consumption. There were still only a handful of major television networks. Most towns of any size still had their own newspaper, and sometimes a radio station. A story like the Bell riots really might have garnered widespread frustration with the ruling class and spurred measurable change in a world with such a controlled media ecosystem. That world is not our world.

The protests of summer 2020 successfully directed Americans’ attention toward police violence against communities of color, especially Black communities. But the country’s media ecosystem has become so bifurcated in recent years that it was far too easy for anchors on Fox News to push the idea that protesters were a lawless mob, while left-leaning outlets too often focused on minute questions of whether the slogan “Defund the police” was too confrontational for the sorts of moderate voters who ultimately helped elect Joe Biden to the presidency. Finding a singular narrative amid all that noise ended up being impossible.

Since he wrote that episode of Star Trek , “the militarization of police has gotten even more advanced. They have even more weaponry and seemingly more willingness to use it,” Wolfe told me. “As the SWAT team was coming in [to the Sanctuary District during the riots], they were somewhat careful at least. Today, we probably wouldn’t portray that the same way.”

Yet even if “Past Tense” didn’t predict the future with 100 percent accuracy (which, again, shouldn’t have been its goal to begin with), it remains a chilling look at our present by a TV show looking out its own window in the past and seeing the problems we’re still dealing with today. In many cases, those problems have even gotten much, much worse.

“As a writer, all you can do is be a voice in the wilderness, sometimes. You can yell, ‘Fire!’ but you can’t put it out,” Wolfe says. “It’s disappointing that we’re still grappling with this problem. I certainly would have hoped it would be better by now, and people would be like, ‘Ha! Remember that Deep Space Nine episode that said homelessness would still be a problem in the 2020s? They were so gloomy!’ But one of the themes of the show is that paradise doesn’t come for free. Even if it does get handed to you, you have to continually work to protect it and renew it and advance it.”

Correction: The original version of this article implied that Dax is human, while her brain is joined to a Trill. The truth is that both Dax’s body and mind are Trill. She is a humanoid, but not human. I have never meant the phrase, “I regret the error” as much as I do now.

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The Reckoning

• Episode aired Apr 29, 1998

Spiritualists on Bajor summon Captain Sisko to the planet surface, where they show him a stone tablet with some unknown inscriptions. Once on DS9, the inscription reveals an ancient prophecy... Read all Spiritualists on Bajor summon Captain Sisko to the planet surface, where they show him a stone tablet with some unknown inscriptions. Once on DS9, the inscription reveals an ancient prophecy of coming disasters surrounding the wormhole, Bajor, and DS9, as those around him voice t... Read all Spiritualists on Bajor summon Captain Sisko to the planet surface, where they show him a stone tablet with some unknown inscriptions. Once on DS9, the inscription reveals an ancient prophecy of coming disasters surrounding the wormhole, Bajor, and DS9, as those around him voice their uneasiness about Sisko being an Emissary for the planet.

• Jesús Salvador Treviño
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Avery Brooks
• Rene Auberjonois
• Michael Dorn
• 13 User reviews
• 4 Critic reviews

• Captain Benjamin 'Ben' Sisko

• Constable Odo

• Lt. Cmdr. Worf

• Lt. Cmdr. Jadzia Dax

• Chief Miles O'Brien
• (credit only)

• Doctor Julian Bashir

• Major Kira Nerys

• Station Computer
• (as Judi Durand)
• Bajoran Woman
• (uncredited)
• Bajoran Civilian

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Worf's line "The Prophets are the only thing keeping the Dominion from coming through the wormhole" establishes that the Dominion has still not brought any reinforcements from the Gamma Quadrant.

Lt. Commander Jadzia Dax : [scanning the stone tablet found at B'hala] I had a pretty good idea what this was the minute I laid eyes on it... That confirms it: it's a slab of stone with some writing on it!

• Soundtracks Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - Main Title (uncredited) Written by Dennis McCarthy Performed by Dennis McCarthy

User reviews 13

• Dec 12, 2019
• April 29, 1998 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 46 minutes

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ET flashes back to Avery Brooks’ interview on Far Beyond the Stars

By rachel carrington | dec 4, 2023.

The exceptional Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode, “Far Beyond the Stars” has been consistently listed as one of the best Deep Space Nine episodes with Avery Brooks. 

And those of us who had the pleasure of watching it (more times than we can count) know why. Captain Benjamin Sisko is exhausted after dealing with the Dominion War, and in a moment of rest, his dreams take him to Harlem in 1953.

Series star Avery Brooks not only starred as two people in this episode, he also directed it, and earlier this year, ET Online took us back to the interview it had with Brooks shortly before the episode’s release on February 9, 1998.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, starring Avery Brooks, wasn’t afraid to delve into the darkest parts of history.

And Brooks described the episode as “It is at once a fascinating story and part of the reason I sit here.” Playing the science fiction author Benny Russell, Brooks said though Benny Russell’s world is “inextricably connected to racism and prejudice,” he didn’t see “Far Beyond the Stars” as being about about racism and prejudice.

When asked what he hoped viewers would take away from the episode, Brooks summed up what he hoped they would take away from every episode.

"“The viewers complete the thought. And that’s the beauty of it. What they carry away, will be the thing that lives in the world… All we can do then is hope that you will stay long enough to see what the thought was and then complete it in your life.”"

Even if you have watched “Far Beyond the Stars,” at this time of the year when we’re, hopefully, more focused on peace, this episode should be added to your viewing schedule. And this interview adds to the depth of the episode. So rewatch, read, and learn just what “Far Beyond the Stars” was to Avery Brooks.

Unfortunately, Brooks hasn’t returned to portrayed Captain Benjamin Sikso since the role ended back in 1999, but at least we can view his many talents in episodes like this one that resonate even to this day.

Review: The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko. dark. Next