Star Trek: Discovery actor given a second-life on show

Despite dealing with ALS, actor Kenneth Mitchell continues to find roles in Star Trek: Discovery despite being confined to a wheelchair.

While Star Trek: Discovery will forever remain one of the series most divisive shows, the fact they’re finding ways for Kenneth Mitchell to remain working is a wonderful thing. Following in past Star Trek customs, actors who are under heavy prosthetics are often brought back for different roles from time to time. Like Tony Todd, who played and adult Jake Sisko in the Deep Space Nine episode “The Visitor”. Did you know Todd also played Kurn, the brother of Worf? He also played a Hirogen Alpha in the Voyager episode “Prey”.

Same thing with Ethan Phillips from Voyager, who played Neelix. He cameoed in Star Trek: First Contact as a hologram Maitre d’. So it’s not surprising at all that Mitchell was brought back after playing the Klingon character Kol (as well as other Klingon characters in Kol-Sha and Tenavik). He’s done some voice-over work for Lower Decks but his return to the live-action realm of Star Trek happened on Discovery’s third season episode “There is a tide…”

The only problem with getting Mitchell back is that he has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), and has a hard time moving around.

Mitchell’s ALS has progressed to the point that he needs a wheelchair to move around, and the series wasted no time in creating a character (Aurellio), who like Mitchell, needs a chair to help move him around. The creation of the character has given Mitchell an opportunity to continue acting in Discovery and the series could seemingly keep him around as long as the show is going strong and as long as he would like to continue acting.

While Discovery does earn some ire from fans for a multitude of reasons, this is one of the best things to ever come out of the series. Mitchell is a fine actor as he ever was, so it’s good to see him still able to ply his craft. He revealed his illness in 2020 and then the rest of the year happened and people were just ready for it to be over. So it’s rather ironic that his return to Trek happened on the very last day of 2020. A fitting way to end a bad year, with a little bit of hope.

If you’re looking for some of his other works, go check out the post-apocalyptic drama Jericho. I will never miss an opportunity to put that show over.