10 Star Trek Characters We Had To Wait Years To See Again
5. Less Than Outrageous Okona
Gaining his own entry on the list has to be Billy Campbell's Thaduin Okona. Managing to woo a pre-Lois and Clark Teri Hatcher is usually noted in the same breath about one of TNG's - for better or worse - most memorable second-season episodes.
Campbell makes the list as one of the few not to return in live action but as an animated incarnation in both Lower Decks and Prodigy. 2021's An Embarrassment of Dooplers (Lower Decks) would see the delinquent dealer DJing at the Starfleet captains' party, although Okona would have no speaking part in this fleeting appearance.
His two-episode run in Crossroads and Masquerade from 2022's second half of Prodigy's first season granted that missing vocal ability. Now sporting an eyepatch and as charming as ever, Campbell reprised his TNG character some 33 years after he helped out a pair of star-crossed lovers.
Perhaps a little slimier than in TNG, Okona remains up to his old tricks in the smuggling game however when the chips are down, he's the first out of the picture and leaves the scene even more quickly than he appeared.