10 Actors Who Appeared In Star Trek AND Battlestar Galactica

3. Michelle Forbes

Ensign, lieutenant, then later commander in Star Trek — and not to forget Kaelon civilian, Dara — Michelle Forbes got a promotion in Battlestar Galactica to Rear Admiral of the Colonial Fleet. Helena Cain, her character, was, shall we say, a little less redeemable than Ro. In fact, Cain was downright despicable at times. As ever with Forbes, she was always most powerfully portrayed.

Forbes first appeared as Cain in the second season episode Pegasus, named after, and featuring, the only other battlestar to have survived the Cylon attack on the Twelve Colonies. Reunion with the fleet did not go well… at all. The situation quickly escalated. Pegasus and the two episodes that followed — Resurrection Ship, Part I and Part II — rank amongst the tensest of the entire series. With BSG, that is saying something! Far be it from us to tell you how it all turned out.

Forbes returned to the role in 2007's direct-to-DVD film Battlestar Galactica: Razor, largely considered to be a prelude to season four, though set some time before. There is another Star Trek connection via Admiral Cain. Lloyd Bridges, who played Commander Cain in the original Battlestar Galactica, was sought out by Gene Roddenberry to play Captain Pike in The Cage. According to Star Trek: Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures, Bridges "turned [Roddenberry] down".