February 27, 2013
Who knew?
I’m a big fan of the original Star Trek. The Next Generation? Not so much. (Kirk rulez!) While I appreciate it on an intellectual level, the show is too stodgy for me, the people too plain, the fictional world too genteel. The characters? Riker was all beard. Man of action-lite. Worf? Stick up his butt. Data? Interesting but not exciting.
But Brent Spiner? Well now…
As I said, The Next Generation is not my show and I have no involvement in any of the characters. (I did like DS9 after Worf joined, but it was just a ripoff of J. Michael Straczynski’s plan (which would later become the fantastic Babylon 5).
But Brent Spiner…
I was over on YouTube doing some research (if you count watching Harlem Shake videos research) when I saw in the sidebar a picture of Harry Anderson from Night Court. That caught my eye since I was a HUGE Night Court fan (and no, I will not apologize for the final season). It is still one of the funniest shows broadcast. But next to the picture of Harry Anderson, there was the heading “Brent Spiner in the role that made him famous.”
Brent Spiner… OH MY GOD I NEVER MADE THE CONNECTION! Brent Spiner was the hysterical Bob Wheeler! 6 appearances!
I had NO IDEA! But wow, now that I see him in that old sitcom I can’t believe that I never placed him. I guess that is a testament to how much he made Data a real, rounded character.
But no matter how famous he became or how big Star Trek became, Brent Spiner was never above reprising his Bob Wheeler role. Here is in the Next Generation episode “Your Honor, All The Pigs Died.”
He wasn’t the only Night Court actor to make it to Star Trek. While he may not have ridden the gravy train nearly as far as Spiner, who can forget John Larroquette in Star Trek III?
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
A lot of Trek alumni went on to other things. Rene Auberjonois ( Odo on DS9 ) became a recurring character on the Warehouse 13 series, & Brent Spiner appeared in the last season of the same series as a priest who wants an artifact from the Warehouse back. & a fair number of Trek actors ( Original Trek, Next Generation, DS9, Voyager ) appeared on Stargate, both SG1 & SG : Atlantis.
I remember the Bob & June Wheeler eps of Night Court, too.. They were hilarious !!
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& BTW : Brent Spiner made a brief, pre – TNG episode in an episode of the re – make of the Twilight Zone in an episode about a trucker who found himself smuggling lost souls out of hell. Whether ** that ** was his FIRST TV appearance, I don’t know.
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Brent Spiner is one of truly good actors that never became famous as others undeservedly did just because he wasn’t cute enough or scandalous enough for the general morons – I mean, audience.
Even in ST TNG he did an amazing, amazing job. One day I was watching an episode in which he interpreted both Data and his evil brother. My nephew (not a ST fan) watched a scene in which both characters appeared and his comment was, “It’s really incredible how they managed to make these two actors look totally identical, wow!” And no, my nephew is far from being an idiot, it’s just that Spiner managed to make the two characters so totally different in terms of movements, expressions, attitudes and all you can see behind and beyond one’s eyes that it seemed more likely that the make up department had made two actors look identical than an actor could make two characters so totally different both outside and inside, down to the smallest detail…
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Also the only show that made Yakov Smirnov funny. In Russia, meteorite hits you!
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