10 Biggest WTF Moments From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
2. The Wrong Riker
Despite two former Enterprise crew members, Worf and O'Brien, serving aboard the station, the rest of the Next Generation cast didn't show up in the show often after the pilot. Fans were delighted when Jonathan Frakes showed up in the episode Defiant, but few could've predicted his character's true identity.
The Will Riker that arrived at the station was actually his transporter clone, Thomas Riker, from the Next Generation episode Second Chances. When a transporter accident split the two of them, Will continued to live out his life, and Thomas was left stranded on an uninhabited planet for eight years, before being saved by the Enterprise-D and his counterpart.
Thomas Riker came to Deep Space Nine posing as Will, and managed to steal the Defiant for the Maquis, which shows how spiteful he grew of Starfleet after his abandonment. The reveal that Will was actually Thomas was really unexpected, and turned a cameo that could've just been fan service into a shocking continuation of one of The Next Generation's most iconic stories.