Mark Lenard thought Sarek’s death was disrespectful

Mark Lenard was happy to bring his character to Star Trek: The Next Generation in the episode “Unification.”

Lenard was only given part of the script to play Spock’s father once again, and though it was a small scene, he considered it a good scene so he agreed to play the role again. What he didn’t know, he found out at a Star Trek convention when Unification I & II were shown. The actor hadn’t known that Sarek had died onscreen.

In an interview with Paula M. Block and Terry J. Eromann, the authors of Star Trek: The Next Generation 365, Lenard was asked how he felt about the death of his character, and he didn’t hold back.

"“I thought it was kind of chintzy. I didn’t think it was respectful of the character. I got all kinds of letters about it.”"

His frustration was understandable as it does seem like the producers/writers of Unification would have informed Lenard that his character was going to die on the series.

Mark Lenard saw no reason why he couldn’t appear, though, in earlier films.

The actor thought he could return to the Star Trek universe as an earlier incarnation of his character and or even as another character as he’d already played a Romulan and a Klingon before. He did take comfort in the fact that Jimmy Doohan, who played Scotty on Star Trek: The Original Series and the follow-up movies, asked Lenard if anyone was there to see Sarek die. When Lenard told him no, Jimmy responded with “Well, then you’re all right.”

But 1991 was the last time Lenard would play Spock’s father. He returned to the Star Trek franchise once more in 1995 to narrate the video game Star Trek Omnipedia. The actor passed away in 1996 of multiple myeloma at the age of 72.  And though other actors have portrayed the role of Sarek, none have done so quite as memorably as Lenard.