Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Sarek

If you want a character done right, you need the right actor. Fortunately for the crew of TOS, they already had an actor on their books who could convincingly pull off the pointy ears of Star Trek's most logical of races.

A prolific television actor by this point, Mark Lenard had impressed the crew with his performance as a Romulan Commander in the seminal Balance of Terror, becoming history's first Romulan to appear fully onscreen. Subsequently considered to replace Spock had Leonard Nimoy not signed on for a second season, Lenard was the obvious choice for the Vulcan's father when Journey To Babel began production.

According to Nimoy, Lenard was voracious in his desire for knowledge of Vulcans, and was even instrumental in devising the intimate Vulcan ritual of finger touching.

For the last word on Lenard's perfect casting, we have to look at writer D.C. Fontana's original conversation with Gene Roddenberry. When discussing the subject in the book I Am Spock, Fontana recalls Roddenberry suggesting the actor during the writing of Journey To Babel, to which the writer could only respond 'Whoopy-do! Let's Go!'

I take it that was a yes then.