What Star Trek actor has appeared on screen the most times?

Star Trek has a huge crop of talent to grace the screens but who has appeared the most times?

With nearly 60 years of content, 13 movies, and 11 series, the Star Trek brand is among the longest-running and most bountiful franchises in all of entertainment. The series has featured some of the best characters and most renowned actors and actresses to ever grace the world of television, streaming, or films.

The franchise has seen many actors come back for a few different series, and a bunch of films, while featuring in several starring roles across the entire franchise. These names have become synonymous with Star Trek but of all the great icons the franchise has featured, who has appeared the most?

Well Slashfilm did a deep dive and found out which actors or actresses appeared in Star Trek the most, in person. That’s a key distinction, as Majel Barrett appeared in the most installments, but usually only as a voice-over actress.

We’re looking just at physical appearances, and apparently, so is Slashfilms.

Who has appeared in the most Star Trek installments across the franchise?

The first name you may think of as appearing in the most episodes is obviously Patrick Stewart. He was the key character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it’s sequel series Picard. Not only that but he appeared in the pilot episode of Deep Space Nine, and across four films. That takes his total tally to 213 episodes of Trek.

It shouldn’t be surprising that all three names came from The Next Generation, but the other two names all broke the marks due to their work on Deep Space Nine.

Colm Meaney, for example, was a side character on The Next Generation, and only had a handful of episodes for him to star in. The franchise saw him leave for Deep Space Nine, become a starring character on the show, and appeared in 225 episodes. Meaney never did appear in a Star Trek film.

The grand champion is the one and only Michael Dorn. As with Meaney, Dorn started on The Next Generation, but unlike Meaney, Dorn was a leading character on the series. When The Next Generation ended, he went on to reprise his role on Deep Space Nine, while also appearing in the four Next Generation films. Altogether, he’s been in 292 different Trek shows or movies.

Now, who deserves the crown, however? Dorn appeared in person the most times out of anyone and it’s a record not likely to be broken. That said, Barrett appeared in the original series, the Next Generation, and the Deep Space Nine series, and was the voice of the ship’s computer across the three series from the 80s and 90s.

Yet, she rarely ever appeared in person in Star Trek. All totaled, she appeared in 309 episodes or films. Considering you’re looking at nearly 500 possible episodes for her to star in, to see she was only in about 60% of all possible episodes, in my opinion, hurts her standing.

She also has the fact that she got most of her roles, in part, due to being Gene Roddenberry’s wife. She was a fine actress, but clearly, her addition as the ship’s computer was done as for Roddenberry.

So all in all, I’d give the nod to Dorn over Barrett, simply because he appeared in just about every episode of the series he possibly could. If we count the first three series of DS9 against Dorn, he still has appeared in 81% of the episodes possible. A far better percentage than Barrett.