How one Star Trek actor’s desire to stay got him fired

In fifty-five plus years many Star Trek actors have come and gone.

But not all have gone willingly as we know by actors such as Jennifer Lien who played Kes on Star Trek: Voyager and Gates McFadden who was let go after the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Fortunately, she returned for the series third season and stayed through the remainder of the series and into the movies.  There was another actor who didn’t go willingly, but it was his determination to stay, according to Whatculture, that resulted in his termination.

In two episodes of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise’s cheif engineer was Lieutenant Commander Argyle who was portrayed by Biff Yaeger. Producers liked him for the role and had intended to give him a much bigger role on the show and to make it permanent. That all changed when letters began pouring into the Paramount production offices.

It’s understandable that most actors would want to stay with Star Trek.

And according to Wil Wheaton, in a review he wrote for “Where No One Has Gone Before,” one of the episodes in which Yaeger appeared, Paramount received a large amount of letters asking that Yaeger be given a larger part on the show. Producers were excited that the actor had impressed the audience and fully planned on giving them what they wanted. Until they noticed that some of those letters praising Yaeger’s performance referenced episodes that had not yet aired.

Paramount dug a little deeper and discovered that Yaeger was behind the letter-writing campaign. The actor had written to fans personally and asked them to send letters to Paramount. Once the studio learned of the actor’s actions, they fired him from The Next Generation immediately.

Unfortunately, Yaeger’s desire to remain with the series and his machinations lost him what could have been a solid career with Star Trek. Though he’s gone on to be a prolific guest-starring actor, he has never appeared in another Trek series.