The greatest black eye for Star Trek: Voyager involves an actor who never should've been on the show

If you're a long-time reader of our site, you may know that I'm a very big fan of Star Trek: Voyager. It's truly one of the best shows the franchise has ever produced, and it's mind-boggling that it doesn't get the love it deserves, despite it featuring banger after banger. That said, it's not perfect.

We all know about "Threshold", one of the worst episodes in all of Star Trek history. We know about the forced romance between Seven of Nine and Chakotay. We know that it isn't perfect, but what we don't talk about enough is the heinous act of bringing in arguably the worst actor and comedian of all time in a major guest role; Andy Dick.

Now, Dick is a bad person. He's done everything from abuse drugs to people and probably everything in between. He's on all sorts of lists and registrations, none of which any sane person would like to be on. He's not a good guy.

Yet, somehow, Dick had a long career. A long and bad career. In fact, unlike people like Mel Gibson and Kevin Spacey who were seen as talented but whose misdeeds ended successful careers, Dick was never seen as a good actor or a good comedian. So while Star Trek may have had a talent or two come through their doors who had issues pop up after their appearance, it's unlikely they were as negatively seen as Dick was.

Dick was a guest star on Star Trek: Voyager's fourth season episode, "Message in a Bottle". He played an upgraded Emergency Medical Hologram that helped The Doctor after The Doctor got sent to a Federation ship in the Alpha Quadrant, which was unknowingly under siege. The episode was surprisingly solid despite Dick's involvement, but due to Dicks' behavior and lack of talent, it hasn't aged well.

While Dicks' weak acting wasn't helping the episode, it would have been worse if he was a bad actor and a known public nuisance. A fact the series got lucky with, as Dicks' downfall would begin in 1999, about a year after "Message in a Bottle" aired. So his appearance wasn't as problematic as it could've been, but considering all the allegations, accusations, and convictions that came following the episode, it's fair to say this episode won't be on many people's re-watch list.

A true black eye, a smudge, a dark spot in an other wise brilliant series.

While Dick was a largely unpopular name already by 1998, the year the episode aired, he was still a part of the widely popular News Radio series, and so his arrival was seen as a bit of a "get". It's a get that the series didn't need, and one that certainly didn't help anything.

While there's a lot of Star Trek moment's we'd like to see erased from time, maybe none more so from Voyager than Dick's cameo.