Eight excellent Seinfeld/Star Trek crossovers (and four we wish for)
Seinfeld was the most culture-shifting, language-augmenting and straight-up funny sitcoms ever made. Star Trek is, well, you know all about the Star Trek franchise, a pillar of American storytelling in the franchise era.
With the peak of each’s success happening simultaneously – Seinfeld aired 1989 to ’98; the Next Generation/Deep Space Nine/Voyager series ran from 1987 to 2001 – no surprise that many up-and-coming and/or Trek-loving actors have played roles in each universe.
In fact, Star Trek Guide’ll bet you’ll be surprised at just how many have crossed over: Would you believe 87 – but that’s just between Seinfeld and Voyager! The total number of crossovers between the Show About Nothing and the 90s Treks is nearly double at 170.
You’d think that with 170 instances to look out for that STG would be satisfied – but nope. Below is our list of our eight favorite cross-universe storylines, and four we wish for.
Eight classic Seinfeld/Star Trek crossovers
• Ensign Ro and the Big Salad. For season 5 of ST:The Next Generation, the Enterprise crew got some fresh blood (at least occasionally) in the form of Ensign Ro (Michelle Forbes). Ro was a complex and conflicted character, a Bajoran who ultimately betrayed the Federation by handing Elaine a big salad which she hadn’t paid for.
• Admiral Paris and the New York Yankees. Perhaps due to controversy over his scandalous son Tom, Admiral Owen Paris (Richard Herd) took jobs first with baseball’s New York Yankees and later with the Mets. Paris rejoined Starfleet in time to stand around and look baffled as Voyager reenters the Alpha Quadrant – perhaps he was expecting them “Downtown”…
• They’re real, they’re spectacular, but blink and you’ll miss ‘em. Before joining Elaine’s gym, before consorting with Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, Sidra Holland (Teri Hatcher) was a transporter chief aboard the Enterprise. Not much can be discerned from her three lines of dialogue (one of which is “Hello there.”), but we do know that the Outrageous Okona may have been a tough act for even Superman to follow…
• Rain Robinson has the jimmy legs. When the crew of the USS Voyager found themselves trapped on 1990s Earth, Tom Paris and Tuvok befriended scientist Rain Robinson (Sarah Silverman). During their time together, Rain naturally fell prey to Paris’s charms but their brief romance was never consummated beyond a goodbye kiss – good thing for Tom, too, because as Kramer could have informed, “She’s got the jimmy legs!”
• Dr. Reston knows when it’s a fake. This is why you should never get romantically involved with your therapist. When Elaine wants to terminate just such a relationship with Dr. Reston (Stephen McHattie), she feels forced to make the proverbial deal-with-the-devil “in the pale moonlight”, involving certain unsavory types like Garak and Kramer. Naturally, the Romulan doctor sees through the ruse and things escalate from there…
• Elaine’s Father and the Black-Market Weapons Deal. Just as Jerry and George were terrified at the prospect of eating dinner with Elaine and her dangerous-looking dad (Lawrence Tierney), so does Quark rapidly become squeamish at the thought of making an arms deal with the Regent of Palamar. Spoilers: Justice is served up the Regent, who meets a fate similar to that of Joe Cabot.
• Ferengi make terrible caddies. Speaking (writing?) of Quark (Armin Shimmerman), Star Trek Guide is thinking that golf was never invented on Ferengenar, as planet-wide torrential rain is the meteorological standard – Clearly the reason Kramer got such crummy advice from Stan The Caddy.
• George Costanza has the solution to your problems. No, really. After assembling an outfield of Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr. and Bernie Williams for the 1997 New York Yankees, George Costanza (Jason Alexander) headed for the Delta Quadrant, where he teamed with three others to form an independent problem-solving consortium. Unfortunately for ol’ Kurros & Co., Captain Janeway proves his own axiom, “Every woman in the quadrant has complete control of my life…”
Four Seinfeld/Star Trek crossovers we’d love to see
• Larry Thomas serves the NX-01 crew. After four seasons of teasing “Cookie” in the pre-replicator days of Star Trek: Enterprise, the series finale had Will Riker filling the bill in a holodeck program. Well, anyone who saw that finale would have no qualms recutting the episode with the Soup Nazi aboard. No season five for you!
• John O’Hurley as Harry Mudd III, the Outrageous Okona's father or any dashing outsider, really. Harry Mudd, probably the most popular recurring character on TOS, has already been recast for Star Trek: Discovery, but we’re not exactly sure how 1990s Star Trek missed casting O’Hurley to take advantage of his bombastic style of J. Peterman’s adventure-filled storytelling.
• Wayne Knight as a Q. The dialogue writes itself:
GEORDI: Captain, the fusion reaction’s stopped, but these readings aren’t making any sense.
(Q appearing effect)
Q: Hello … Captain.
PICARD: Hello … Q.
• And, most obviously, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss as the President (or better yet, Vice President) of the Federation. Anyone who’s seen both Veep and Star Trek: Picard needs no further prompting to imagine the glorious possibilities here. Our guy Jean-Luc getting chastised by Admiral Clancy, who casts aside decades of universe-preserving heroics to get righteous, is a major bummer that would be serious lightened by some good old withering wit from Selina Meyer, the 45th & 47th POTUS. This is the woman who wrangled Tibet free of China: Planet-less Romulans and crippled Borg stand no chance at all…
–written by Os Davis