Star Trek brought back a lot of legacy characters this year and these are our three favorites.
Star Trek did a wonderful job in 2022 honoring the names that came before. While some shows like Discovery like to alter established lore, and other shows like Picard like to significantly alter characters to a near-unrecognizable level, not every show did such a disservice to those who came before.
Nearly every series that aired in 2022 had at least one returning actor to the brand and many of them portrayed their iconic characters. That’s what we’re looking at here, three of our favorite returning actors, who reprised their iconic roles.
This is not a definitive list, just the three we most enjoyed.
Three legacy actors we’re glad to see again in 2022.
Nana Visitor as Kira Nerys
I never thought we’d get Nana Visitor back as Kira Nerys, least of all as the top dog on Deep Space Nine. Yet, we did, and that’s all a credit to Lower Decks, who brought Visitor and Armin Shimerman back to reprise their roles of Kira and Quark respectively. A third Voyager character was also brought back, as Rene Auberjonois reprised his role as Odo on Prodigy, though since Auberjonois had passed, the producers of Prodigy pulled lines from scenes shot for Deep Space Nine to make the cameo happen in the episode Kobayashi.
Leonard Nimoy as Spock (Prodigy)
Speaking of said episode of Prodigy, Odo wasn’t the only character re-created from past dialogue, as Spock appeared to give Del R’El advice following his defeat at the hands of the Kobayashi Maru simulation. Hearing Nimoy’s voice once again was a heartwarming experience, especially since it came as such a surprise to many.
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Kate Mulgrew returning as Kathryn Janeway was the best part of the entire year that was. Granted she debuted as the Emergency Command Hologram Janeway in 2021, but since that was the start of season one and we only got the end of season one in December of 2022, we’re counting it. We also wanted to put Chakotay on this list as well, but we only have so much time in our days and we can’t include every great use of a legacy actor and character.