Voyager’s “Flashback” had a part for Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols could have been in Voyager

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, Brannan Braga wrote “Flashback” for Star Trek: Voyager which included guest stars George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney. Braga had also written a part for Nichelle Nichols to return as Uhura, which would have had her in a scene with Takei. She would have been on a viewscreen while on the bridge of the USS Enterprise-A and would have given important plot points to Takei. Unfortunately, Nichols declined the part because she thought it was too limited and that it didn’t do her justice.

Takei said he had pleaded with Nichols on the phone to do the scene because it would have been wonderful to have her back as part of the guest stars as well, but he wasn’t able to convince her. To that end, Braga had to write her out of the episode which left an additional five minutes of screen time that needed to be filled. Braga wrote two additional scenes to lengthen the film time, one of which was extending Tuvok’s breakfast with Neelix, and the other was a scene between Kes and Tuvok.

Fans would have loved to have seen NIchelle Nichols again

By the time “Flashback” aired, all of the films from Star Trek: The Original Series had been completed. Had Nichols consented to the part in Voyager, it would have given fans the last chance to see her in complete Nyota Uhura character in an official Star Trek production. Since that didn’t happen, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was her last time appearing as her 1966 character in a canonical production.

In 2007, a fan production gave us the chance to see her again in character when Nichols appeared in Star Trek: Of Gods and Men as Captain Uhura. The film also reunited her with Grace Lee Whitney and Walter Koenig and was a noncanonical, three-part, unofficial Star Trek fan miniseries which also served as our last goodbye to Nichols’ Uhura.