Posted in: Paramount+, Star Trek, streaming, TV | Tagged: Jonathan Frakes, lower decks, paramount, star trek, Star Trek Picard, strange new worlds

Star Trek: Jonathan Frakes Discusses SNW/Lower Decks Crossover & More

Jonathan Frakes discusses why he thinks he was picked to direct Paramount+'s Star Trek: Strange New Worlds/Lower Decks crossover.

It's not a stretch to say how much Star Trek has had on Jonathan Frakes' career as an actor and a director. While it's common to have cast members direct episodes, the actor has gone above and beyond taking his experience from The Next Generation and fashioned his own separate career as a director while giving back to the franchise that helped launch it into the Paramount+ era. Originally playing the first officer Commander William T. Riker, Frakes first went behind the chair on TNG before expanding his ventures with episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise during Star Trek's syndicated era. He's also directed two of the TNG feature films, 1996's First Contact, and 1998's Insurrection.

Frakes jumped back into the Star Trek franchise in the Paramount+ era directing episodes of Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks, working on 221 episodes across 36 years. His 222nd episode was "Those Old Scientists," the Lower Decks crossover episode of Strange New Worlds. It's not like Frakes has retired from acting in Star Trek either, with his appearances in Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, Lower Decks, and Picard.

"I didn't campaign for [the crossover]," Frakes told Variety in an interview that took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike. "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." The story found LD's Jack Quaid's Brad Boimler and Tawny Newsome's Beckett Mariner travel to the world of live-action thanks to a portal discovered on a planet. Boimler is the first to get pulled through as he meets the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise. As he recovers, the fanboying of the senior staff begins, to the annoyance of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount).

"I knew from having done 'Discovery' for a year with Anson that he is really sneaky funny, even though you don't see much of that with Pike," Frakes said. "Rebecca [Romijn], she's a singer as well as a comedian. And Ethan has a delightful sense of humor. So I secretly knew that this was going to be a playground." For more, including his favorite moment from "Those Old Scientists" and reflecting on his most memorable directed episodes, you can check out the interview here. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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