Will the Star Trek: The Next Generation characters ever be recast?

The cast of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is mostly from legacy characters recast, but could that ever happen for Star Trek: The Next Generation? 

It’s difficult to think that someone else could play Admiral Jean-Luc Picard, Worf, or Captain Riker, and it’s doubtful that it will happen anytime in the very near future. But there is always that possibility that, one day, one of these characters will be given a new face by a new actor. It’s such a possibility that Yahoo! Entertainment posed the question to both Michael Dorn and Jonathan Frakes. How would they feel if someone else began playing their parts?

Dorn didn’t seem to think it would ever be a reality, and if it does happen, he jokingly said he won’t be around when it does.

"Well, hopefully, I’ll be dead by then [laughs]. You know, who knows? I mean, they’d have to go back to before Next Generation, I would think, to cast something like that. I don’t think they would do that. I really don’t."

Frakes had a different take on it, and even offered up Wil Wheaton as a suitable replacement for Riker.

"I would nominate Wil Wheaton to play Will Riker… He’s a wonderful actor, and he’s got Riker’s beard now."

The current Star Trek: The Next Generation cast still has a lot of adventures left in them.

If there’s one thing that Star Trek: Picard has taught us this season it’s that the cast from The Next Generation haven’t run out of steam. And with the hope for spin-offs that will involve these legacy characters, I don’t think any fan would appreciate a recasting just yet.

Dorn mentioned that Paramount would have to go back to before The Next Generation even began if they wanted to recreate these characters, but, unlike Star Trek: The Original Series, we saw the journeys of these characters begin on the Enterprise. To bring them together as a team with a new cast would be difficult because of that.

While there’s certainly always something new to learn about one or more of these characters, this season of Picard is giving us brand new reasons to want to see more of them. And we’re much more interested in where they’re going from here than where they started.