Jonathan Frakes Looks Back on a Career of Directing 'Star Trek'

Jonathan Frakes directs Shazad Latif (Ash Tyler) and Sonequa martin-Green (Michael Burnham) on STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS. Image: Paramount+.

JULY 31, 2023 - Counting his work in front of and behind the camera, Jonathan Frakes may have worked on more iterations of Star Trek than anyone else alive. In a career spanning 36 years within the franchise, Frakes made his debut as the dashing Commander William T. Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) in 1987, alongside Patrick Stewart's iconic Capt. Jean-Luc Picard. But his association with Star Trek didn't end with acting. It was only the beginning of a journey that would make him a prominent director within the Trek universe.

In 1990, Frakes took the director's chair for the first time on TNG, kickstarting his second career. In an interview with Variety, he discussed his career including that first time in the director’s chair for the episode “The Offspring.”

“Our cast, as you probably know, is notoriously rambunctious. I was, for better or for worse, one of the leaders of that kind of behavior on the set,” he told the magazine. “I had a lot of support, including from my acting company. But I realized what these other directors had gone through and what assholes we were. And I had not a leg to stand on in terms of asking them to behave.

Frakes ultimately helmed eight episodes of the show. After TNG concluded in 1994, he continued his directorial contributions to Star Trek with three episodes each for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. But that was not all; Frakes directed two of the four Next Gen feature films, Star Trek: First Contact (1996) and Star Trek: Insurrection (1998).

His involvement didn't stop there. Frakes went on to work on Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, accumulating an impressive tally of 221 episodes of Star Trek over the years. Each show brought its own unique style and themes, but Frakes masterfully navigated each one, never losing sight of the essence of Trek.

Recently, Frakes took up the challenge of directing the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode titled "Those Old Scientists." The episode presented a unique directorial challenge as it merged the animated Lower Decks characters Ensign Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid) and Ensign Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) into a live-action setting, with Quaid and Newsome embodying their roles for the first time on screen. (They had previously been seen in live-action costumes at a convention appearance.)

Frakes, being the perfect fit for the job, remarked, "I think because of all the Star Trek canon involved and because I knew the tone of Lower Decks because I played Riker on that show, it made sense." 

The result was an outrageously entertaining episode that seamlessly blended the humor of Lower Decks with the grounded tone of Strange New Worlds.

Having previously directed Anson Mount, Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn during their tenure on Discovery, Frakes had a keen understanding of their talents. He shared his excitement at allowing Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome to improvise during several scenes, a rarity in the structured world of Star Trek. This improvisation added a delightful and infectious energy to the episode.

“Which doesn’t happen a lot on Star Trek, as you probably have heard,” Frakes said in the interview. “I mean, especially in our fucking show, they were so strict. It was like we were doing Shakespeare or Chekhov.”