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I was recently reminded that the same actor, Diana Muldaur, played blind human telepath Miranda Jones in TOS and Doctor Pulaski in TNG. Majel Barrett Roddenberry played Nurse Chapel in TOS and Lwaxana Troi (Counsellor Deanna Troi's mother) in TNG.

I'm well aware that TOS actors Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, DeForest Kelly, and Mark Lenard (as Sarek) played the same characters on cameo appearances in TNG; of these, only Mark Lenard had played another character (most notably the first Romulan commander seen in the series, but apparently also one or two others), though Doohan voiced some puppets.

Which, if any, other actors from TOS played different characters in TNG-era series (including DS9 and Voyager) or movies?

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  • Judson Scott and Merritt Butrick (from STII/III) both appeared in S1 of TNG. They should count on the same grounds as Rene Auberjonois (TOS era). Hat tip to @Servitor who's now deleted answer was imo, valid. Scott also appeared in a VOY episode
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 20:26

3 Answers 3

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Going by the memory-alpha.wikia.com data dump as of 27th October 2018 taking the pages tagged "TOS performers" and cross-referencing they're at least tagged additionally as a performer in at least one of TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, DIS or Films, filtering out the characters being the same (Trials and tribulations was fun) then just having a quick scan through to remove mostly uncredited appearances/stunt people), you get:

  • Malachi Throne (TOS: Commodore Mendez) (TNG: Pardek)
  • Grace Lee Whitney - (TOS: Yeoman Janice Rand) (VOY: "Flashback" episode)
  • Diana Muldaur - (TOS: Ann Mulhall, Miranda Jones) (TNG: Katherine Pulaski)
  • Clint Howard - (TOS: Balok) (DS9: Grady) (ENT: Muk) (DIS: Creepy Orion)
  • Gene Dynarski - (TOS: Ben Childress, Krodak) (TNG: Commander Orfil Quinteros)
  • Michael Pataki - (TOS: Korax) (DS9: Karnax)
  • Joseph Ruskin - (TOS: Galt) (DS9: Tumek, Cardassian Informant) (VOY: "Vulcan Master") (ENT: "Suliban Doctor") (ST:Insurrection "Son'a officer")
  • Michael Ansara - (TOS: Kang) (TNG: Jeyal)
  • Brian Tochi - (TOS: Ray Tsing Tao) (TNG: Ensign Peter Lin)
  • Jack Donner - (TOS: Subcommander Tal) (ENT: "Vulcan Priest")
  • Phil Morris - (TOS: "Boy in Army Helmet") (DS9: Commander Thopok, Third Remata'Klan) (VOY: Lieutenant John Kelly) (ST:III Cadet Foster)
  • Ned Romero - (TOS: Krell) (TNG: Anthwara) (VOY: "Chakotay's grandfather")
  • Charles Napier - (TOS: Adam) (DS9: Lt. Gen. Rex Denning)
  • Carolyn Barry - (TOS: Metron) (TNG: "Female Engineer")
  • Majel Barret-Roddenberry - (TOS: Number One, Christine Chapel) (TNG: Lwaxana Troi) (DS9: Lwaxana Troi)
  • Iona Morris - (TOS: Child in "Miri" episode) (VOY: Umali)

Note I've been fairly zealous in pruning what looks dubious so there may well be a couple more that would probably be okay - but I'm relatively happy all of the above are correct (with suitable disclaimer about reliability of wiki data etc..).

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  • excellent! I'm such a herbert, I forgot all about Charles Napier. It's a great list - but still missing Judson Scott and Merritt Butrick (both were in Wrath of Khan the same TNGS1 episode "Symbiosis"
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 0:32
  • @NKCampbell I took Which, if any, other actors from TOS played... as being literally TOS (the series) not as anything TOS "era" so my query wouldn't have turned those up... Not going to re-run it tonight ;) Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 0:40
  • Looks like I didn't copy/paste Mark Lenard from the query results either... Will do that later as well :) Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 0:42
  • I see, I misread the "performer in at least one of TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, DIS or Films" and was counting them in films. Also - as I said below, if you include the TOS era films, you could possibly include Michael Dorn as well
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 1:15
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    Grace Lee Whitney was implied to be playing Rand when she appeared on "Voyager", although that wasn't explicitly stated. Commented Nov 7, 2018 at 15:47
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Clint Howard played

Rene Auberjonois played

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  • Umm... the latest IMDB dumps seem off... Don't even have Shatner down as known for ST:TOS let alone non-principal cast/crew any more... that's frustrating... :) Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 19:58
  • I knew Clint Howard from the end of S1 Discovery (was one of those cameos that got a lot of buzz). And I remembered Odo did some TOS movie bit role. Otherwise I'm in the same boat. Memory Alpha does have some complete lists if you wanna go digging
    – Machavity
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 20:00
  • Meh... got some stuff that pulls down the IMDB dumps and shoves 'em in a graph database for some easy querying but it's not proving as useful (or at all really) as it did for scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/158695/… Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 20:01
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Mark Lenard also played the captain of the Klingon ship in ST:TMP.

If you include the TOS movies, especially the latter ones, there's a lot more such as Brock Peters, Robin Curtis, and Auberjonois. Limiting it to TOS proper, aside from the aforementioned Majel Barrett, Diana Muldaur, and Clint Howard:

Joseph Ruskin played Galt in the "Gamesters of Triskelion", then played the Klingon Tumek on DS9 as well as a Cardassian informant, was one of the Son'a in Star Trek Insurrection, was a Vulcan on VOY, and a Suliban on ENT.

Malachi Throne was Commodore Mendez in "The Menagerie" two-parter of TOS and was Romulan Senator Pardek in the two-parter "Unification" of TNG.

Phil Morris was one of the kids in the episode "Miri". He later played Trainee Foster in STIII, Thopok and Remata'Klan on DS9 and Lieutenant John Kelly on VOY.

The two-decade gap between TOS and TNG is what limited the number of crossover actors. After TNG and the last two TOS movies (5 and especially 6), the number of actors who became repeat performers increased substantially.

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  • including the movies, you'd also be able to add Michael Dorn--sort of (kind of a reverse from the premise of the question, but if watched in in-universe chronology it works ;) )
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Nov 6, 2018 at 21:55

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