Ten strange, unexpected, and interesting Star Trek guest stars

Stacey Abrams

Stacy Abrams is the two-time Democratic nominee for Georgia governor and served in the House of Representatives as minority leader from 2007 to 2017. As a gubernatorial candidate, she was the first female African-American major party candidate for state governor. After losing her first run at the governorship, she refused to concede, alleging that her opponent had engaged in voter suppression. She is now a voting rights advocate.

She’s also a surprisingly prolific author of both fiction and non-fiction.

Now, I’m going to be very careful about what I say here, because Red Shirts Always Die is non-political, which is the way we like it. But that’s sometimes awkward, because Star Trek can get very political, which is also the way we like it, and casting Abrams was a political decision on the part of the producers. She didn’t play an anonymous alien or background crewmember, she was the president of Earth in Discovery’s season 4 finale, a bold endorsement of her politics.

But it wasn’t just politics, Abrams is a mega fan too. In 2019 she told the New York Times “I love Voyager and I love Discovery and of course I respect the original…, but I revere The Next Generation.” That ranking may be controversial for its exclusion of DS9, but I suppose she gets enough politics in her day job.