10 Best Star Trek Documentaries

The Captains is an excellent mini-series that was created by William Shatner, featuring Chris Pine, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula. Filmed before Star Trek: Discovery had even been conceived, it focuses on the franchise to that point, going in-depth with each main actor to pick apart what their respective Star Trek experiences were like.

Patrick Stewart's assertion, that were he to be remembered forever as Captain Picard, seems more prescient than ever as the second season of Picard approaches, while Kate Mulgrew reminds Shatner that, at the end of the day, Voyager was (initially) just a job that she took on. Though it would grow to become so much more, she recounts rough days of 18-hour shifts, struggling to find time enough to even use the bathroom.

There is a special interview with the late Christopher Plummer, with whom Shatner starred in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, though it is perhaps the interview with Brooks that makes the entire project worthwhile. As Brooks himself turned down the opportunity to appear in the Deep Space Nine anniversary documentary, this earlier film is perhaps the most detailed account of his feelings on the franchise to date.

While the series does suffer from a sheen of vanity on the part of the interviewer, The Captains is perhaps one of the most revealing engagements with each Star Trek Captain ever committed to film.