Roxann Dawson Reflects on Star Trek and Her Ongoing Career

Image: Paramount / IMDB

SEPTEMBER 20, 2023 – Roxann Dawson is known to Star Trek fans for her portrayal of Lieutenant B’Elanna Torres over seven seasons of Star Trek: Voyager. Toward the end of Voyager’s run, Dawson got her chance to direct two episodes, “Riddles” in season six and “Workforce, Part II” in season seven. She went on to pursue a career in television directing, which included ten episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise.

Since then, Dawson has amassed almost sixty directorial credits, and while the question has arisen about her return to the Star Trek Universe in that role, she has not taken that opportunity, and she has her reasons.

In an interview with /Film, Dawson puts Star Trek in the context of her wider directorial career. Since her episodes of Enterprise, she says she has tried to move away from science fiction. From an episode of Medical Investigation shortly after Enterprise, she directed episodes of shows such as Crossing Jordan, Melrose Place, The Mentalist, Hell on Wheels, and The Americans.

Dawson says she was approached about a few of the new Star Trek shows, and even though she was not ready to do science fiction again, she does admire where Trek is going. “The current versions of Star Trek I think are wonderful. I've seen Discovery, I've seen Picard. I think there's such wonderful and modern work being done there right now that we really can't categorize it in the way that we might have in the '90s.”

Although her most recent work has represented a return to science fiction with episodes of Foundation and the upcoming Dark Matter, Dawson still doesn’t envision a return to Star Trek. “I haven't really wanted to go back. I feel like I've been there, and I've done that, and I love moving on to other things. So that's where I am at with it.”

For more from Roxann Dawson, head over to /Film.