To Trekkies, Michael Dorn is always going to be remembered as Worf, who was a top star for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Like other TNG actors, Dorn took his turn directing (three DS9 episodes). He later went on to direct the season 1 Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Two Days and Two Nights.” Dorn was scheduled to do more, but for an amazing reason, it never happened! While appearing on The D-Con Chamber podcast, Dorn revealed the shameless lie he was told about Enterprise star Scott Bakula by saying:
"It was extremely disappointing, extremely disappointing, because you kind of go, ‘You mean I was that bad?’ [Laughs...] They're like saying, ‘We don’t want to see him ever again. It was just terrible.’ And I'm going [...] And then also, they said, my agents called them and said, ‘Look, what the hell is going on?’ And they said, ‘Scott Bakula hated Michael.’ It’s bull[expletive]. So that’s why they didn’t want me."
During the podcast, Dorn also revealed that the reason for his directing Enterprise was that he was unhappy with the script for Star Trek: Nemesis, the final TNG movie. Dorn didn’t like how Worf didn’t have a lot to do in the film and used that in his negotiations with the studio. Dorn said earlier in the same sit-down:
“But they said, ‘Well, what do you want?’ And I said I wanted to direct. And they said... and I was supposed to do three episodes of Enterprise, three or four. And it was my fault because [...] They said, ‘Well, look, we’ll give you one guaranteed and three pay-or-play.’ And I should’ve said, ‘No, guaranteed.’ And so, I did the one, and they paid me off for the other three.”
The episode itself had the crew take shore leave on the resort planet, Risa where they get into various misadventures. It was a light-hearted episode and viewers responded to it well. So, one would have expected Dorn to get more opportunities to work with the franchise. Instead, an unexpected wrinkle occurred.
Dorn was upset when the promised future director’s offers didn’t come and he was simply paid for the other episodes. When he asked why, the answer he got from producers was shocking.
Naturally, the podcast's hosts, Enterprise stars Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer, quickly defended him. Keating openly said it was rude to use Scott Bakula's name as an excuse for not bringing Dorn back. Thankfully, Dorn himself acknowledged he realized even then this was a bad excuse, as he had met Bakula and thus knew the man wasn't that big a jerk as they had gotten along fine on set.
It’s good Michael Dorn and Scott Bakula never had a falling out over this, yet it's troubling how both men were set against each other by producers trying to cover up a bad mistake. One can hope Dorn gets another shot at directing Star Trek in the future.
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