10 Star Trek Actors Whose First Appearances You've Totally Forgotten

5. Tim Russ As Devor

Colonel Worf
CBS

Tim Russ has appeared alongside four different Star Trek captains during his career. As well as his Voyager captain Janeway, Russ has appeared in different roles alongside Picard, Sisko and even Kirk. He also auditioned for the role of Geordi La Forge and even reprised his role as the Vulcan security officer Tuvok for the unofficial fan series Star Trek: Renegades.

So it's therefore easy to lose track of when, exactly, Russ made his first appearance in the Star Trek universe. He played Devor in The Next Generation episode Starship Mine. With the Enterprise evacuated for an essential "baryon sweep", a process that cleanses the ship of excess radiation. It's also fatal to organic matter. Devor's crew of opportunistic thieves don't reckon on Jean-Luc Picard still being aboard.

What follows is one of Star Trek's numerous Die Hard homages, as Patrick Stewart gets to embrace his inner action hero, firing off crossbow bolts and, ironically, delivering a Vulcan nerve pinch to Tim Russ' Devon. Of course, Picard gets off the ship before the sweep vaporises him, but Devor and his crew of thieves aren't so lucky.

As for Tim Russ, that's one performance down and many, many more to come...

Contributor
Contributor

Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.