4 times the Star Trek franchise and the Firefly series shared actors

Star Trek and Firefly have shared some actors over the years.

Today is the birthday of dearly departed actor Ron Glass. For science fiction fans, he might be most remembered as Shepherd Book in the cult franchise Firefly and its sequel film, Serenity. Yet, did you know he was in both Firefly and Star Trek?

The two franchises have shared some wonderful actors and even a quiet reference towards one another. Enterprise once had a scene where Malcolm, while having a dream, starts flirting with T’Pol. In this dream, T’pol tells Malcolm that “mol-kom” is the Vulcan word for Serenity.

Serenity is the name of the ship in the Firefly series and is captained by Malcolm Reynolds. Reynolds is of course played by Nathan Fillion, who would be perfect in Star Trek as a captain. So as you can see, the two series have touched bases before with one another but no more so than with the actors they’ve shared.

We’re going to talk about just four of them today, as there may and probably is more than just these four.

Four actors who appeared in both Firefly and Star Trek

Gregory Itzin

In the episode of Firefly where Jayne gets a town named after him, we see Magistrate Higgins, who was played by Gregory Itzin. Itzin was also on Star Trek: Enterprise as Admiral Black of Starfleet in the episode “In A Mirror Darkly” party 2. He also played a Vulcan by the name of Captain Sopek in the episode “Shadows of P’Jem”.

Dennis Cockrum

For Firefly fans, Dennis Cockrum played one of the Hands of Blue characters. They of course were the embodiment of the main villains of the short-lived series. In Star Trek, he was a man of many names. He appeared in three episodes across three franchises and a video game for Trek. He was Freebus in the Enterprise episode “Two Days and Two Nights”, then Orek in the Voyager episode “Live Fast and Prosper”, and finally as the Corvallen Freighter Captain in The Next Generation’s “Face of the Enemy”. In the Star Trek: Bridge Commander video game he played three roles, Captain Gregory MacCray, Commander Jonathan Willis, and Captain Robert Soto.

Mark Sheppard

Maybe most famous for his turn as Crowley in Supernatural, Mark Sheppard also made waves on the Battlestar Galactica revival, Doctor Who, and of course Firefly. In Firefly he played Badger, a “businessman” that encounters the main group. In Star Trek: Voyager he played Leucon, the father of Icheb in the episode “Child’s Play”.

Ron Glass

Lastly, we have Ron Glass, who was a featured player in Serenity, having played Shepard Book. Book was a man with a dark past but who was trying to be better and embraced the Christian bible as his way forward. In Star Trek, Glass played Loken in the Voyager episode “Nightingale”, which is, funny enough, the same episode where Harry Kim finally gets offered command of a ship. It’s almost like Firefly itself was trying to lure Harry away.