Tag: voyager

Weren't You on Star Trek? – Vaughn Armstrong Edition

This week’s W.Y.O.S.T. subject is Vaughn Armstrong. And the answer is a resounding YES, he HAS been in many a Star Trek show. In fact, he holds the record for having played the most different characters on the various Trek shows. He’s appeared 27 times as 11 different characters of 8 different races — 3 Klingons, 2 Cardassians, a Borg, a Romulan, a Vidiian, a Hirogen, a Kreetassan … and even a plain old human. He played 5 different characters on the Voyager series alone, and shares with Jeffrey Combs the distinction of being the only actor to portray 3 characters in the same season of the same show (Enterprise). The only Trek show he never appeared on was The Original Series … but I’m sure it’s only because he was a teenager at the time.

A Vietnam War veteran, Armstrong did a lot of stage acting in his early days, and didn’t actually enter the Hollywood scene until he was 27 years old. The following year (1978), he landed a one-shot role on a Wonder Woman episode, and the next decade would find him on such popular shows as Lou Grant, Matt Houston, Simon & Simon, Remington Steele, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, and the classic 1984 time travel movie The Philadelphia Experiment.

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Frak vs. Trek

Sam Miller has written a spot-on examination of the difference between Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica over at mental_floss that any fan of either show MUST read. It may be an idea you’ve heard expressed before, but Miller expresses it so well in this essay that it’s worth revisiting …

Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek

“Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica have wildly different aesthetics and ideologies, and both aspire to very different goals. Fundamentally, it boils down to this: Star Trek is about who we want to be, and Battlestar Galactica is about who we are.”

I have some less profound thoughts about the Star Trek franchise, if you care to read them …

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