{"id":335460,"date":"2026-03-08T14:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T14:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/335460\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T14:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T14:14:09","slug":"star-trek-legend-teases-return-of-legendary-tng-captain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/335460\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek Legend Teases Return of Legendary TNG Captain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Star Trek<\/a> continues to deliver great television to this day, and one legendary actor has teased that his captain could be back on screen soon. At the moment, Star Trek: Starfleet Academy is entertaining fans with a look at the next generation of heroes, looking at the cadets training to join Starfleet. While the series remains polarizing for some fans who don\u2019t care about the kids with dreams of being starship captains and ensigns, it remains a solid addition to the Star Trek lore. It also recently brought back a Star Trek: The Next Generation icon to direct an episode of the new series.<\/p>\n

In an interview with TrekMovie<\/a>, Jonathan Frakes talked about directing the episode \u201c300th Night\u201d as well as his future in the Star Trek franchise. Excitedly, he admitted fans could see the return of Captain Riker in something in the franchise\u2019s future. When asked about his future, he said he directed a couple of episodes of the Big Bang Theory spinoff, Stewart Fails to Save the Universe, which is \u201cTrek-adjacent.\u201d But then he dropped the bomb and said he was willing to return to Star Trek. \u201cAbsolutely, of course, I am an eternal optimist. I\u2019m not ready to start looking back,\u201d Frakes said. When asked if he would return on screen, he said, \u201cWhy not?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Frakes Remains Connected to Star Trek<\/p>\n

\"RikerImage Courtesy of Paramount<\/p>\n

Jonathan Frakes has never really lost his connection to Star Trek since his days playing William Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He appeared in the TV show, the movies, and has been a regular at many of the conventions. He directed both Star Trek: First Contact and Star Trek: Insurrection. He also directed episodes of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard, and now Starfleet Academy<\/a>. He also returned as Riker in Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Picard, and Lower Decks.<\/p>\n

Of course, in both Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Lower Decks<\/a>, he was Captain William T. Riker. He accepted the command of the USS Titan, where he and his wife, Deanna Troi, had two children. He ended up moving to Nepenthe and remained there. However, he returned to Starfleet full-time in 2401, where he helped Picard in that later series. <\/p>\n

What kind of story Riker could be involved in remains to be seen, but as Jonathan Frakes showed in Picard, he can still do whatever is needed of him as he gets older. It also helps that he has remained closely connected with the Star Trek universe, especially with his new podcast alongside Brent Spiner called\u00a0Dropping Names with Brent and Jonny<\/a>. It is clear Frakes still has a great love for the franchise, and seeing Captain Riker back one day could be a huge treat for Trekkies everywhere. <\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the\u00a0ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star Trek continues to deliver great television to this day, and one legendary actor has teased that his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,57251,51828,282],"class_list":["post-335460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-regular-news","tag-star-trek","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}