Did You Know?: Star Trek: Voyager has a fun little Gremlins cameo

Star Trek: Voyager included one Gremlins legend in a nice cameo.

Star Trek’s original series and Deep Space Nine dealt with tribbles, but Star Trek: Voyager dealt with Gremlins. Kinda. In one specific Voyager episode, the group got an unexpected Gremlins tie-in and no, it wasn’t with Gizmo. It was instead with Gizmo’s buddy, Billy.

That’s right, Billy, played famously by Zach Galligan, appeared in a Star Trek: Voyager episode where the crew had to deal with their own version of Gremlins. Well, Species 8472 to be exact, but those suckers could be as destructive as a Gremlin.

And admittedly, maybe cameo isn’t the best word, but it’s what we’re going with. In the fourth episode of the fifth season, “In the Flesh”, we get introduced to the notion of diplomacy between Species 8472 and Voyager.

Having used what they know about Starfleet, they design a space station that replicates Starfleet Academy and stockpiles it with their own species, just genetically altered to look and act like humans. One of those 8472-Starfleet officers is played, by Galligan. His character, David Gentry, had a small role but it was his character that The Doctor used to figure out that these “Starfleet personnel” were in fact members of 8472.

It’s a small role but for fans of the Gremlins franchise, it was a neat little moment.

Fans of Gremlins should be excited about the future.

A new Gremlins show is coming to HBO Max very soon. It’s an animated prequel to the first movie and will explain how Mr. Wing from the original movie came into possession of Gizmo, the loveable face of the franchise, and will also highlight more of the mogwai’s backstory.

Book of Boba Fett star Ming Na Wen, Jurassic Park’s BD Wong, and the legend himself, James Hong, star of many movies such as Big Trouble in Little China and Kung Fu Panda.