Star Trek actors are ignored by the Emmys once again

The Emmy nomations were announced today, and no Star Trek actors were nominated.

Many of the various Star Trek series have repeatedly been nominated for Creative Arts Emmys for make-up or sound editing, but the actors are almost always left out when it comes to the Emmys. Leonard Nimoy was nominated in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Star Trek: The Next Generation received 58 nominations during its run, and none were for the actors. How Patrick Stewart wasn’t nominated for “Chain of Command,” I’ll never know.

Every one of the series and most of all of the actors have had at least one or two breakout moments that would be considered award-worthy under any condition. Colm Meaney’s acting in the season four episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine “Hard Time” deserved much more attention. Meaney took Chief Miles O’Brien to a dark place and made it so believable.

What is it about Star Trek that the Emmys don’t like?

It can’t be because the franchise is science fiction as Giancarlo Esposito has been nominated twice for The Mandalorian. Carl Weathers and Timothy Olyphant have also been nominated for the same series.  And actors in science fiction have been nominated and/or won Emmys in the past like Gillian Anderson who won an Emmy in 1997 for The X-Files.

But how many Emmys have the main cast of any Trek series won? Zero. Because the actors don’t get nominated. And it’s baffling. The franchise has some of the most highly acclaimed actors in the industry like LeVar Burton who has won several Daytime Emmys for Reading Rainbow and has been nominated for three Primetime Emmys and Kate Mulgrew who was nominated for an Emmy in 2014 for Orange is the New Black. Of course, William Shatner went on to win two Emmys for his portrayal of Denny Crane in Boston Legal. So there isn’t a lack of talent in the franchise. There never has been.

And Trek is going above and beyond with its casting on current shows, and these actors bring their all with every scene. One in particular, Babs Olusanmokun, who plays Dr. M’Benga on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds should have been nominated for “The Elysian Kingdom.”  But he, like all the other actors, was skipped over.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about this, but I believe great acting should be acknowledged, something which hasn’t happened for an actor appearing on a Star Trek series since 1969.