Brent Spiner, the actor known for portraying the role of the android Data in the Star Trek franchise got a little tired of playing the same character over and over again. In an honest interview, the actor had his fair share of problems with the Star Trek franchise, but he revealed that he kept coming back every year.
Well, the actor isn’t entirely wrong since Star Trek has been running for a long time and has been rebooted often with fresh faces and some OG characters. The reason that Spiner gave, however, was very similar to his co-star Denise Crosby’s for leaving the franchise!
Brent Spiner Kept Returning To Star Trek Every Year!
It was the year 1987 when Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and, Brent Spiner starred in the iconic series Star Trek: The Next Generation. Being a TV series that ran for quite a while, the cast and crew bonded quite well over the years.
Spiner became famous for portraying the role of the android Data, a character that he reprised several times. However, the actor revealed that he was always skeptical about returning back for another season every year.
In a 2012 interview with IGN, Spiner revealed that he wasn’t always entirely sure whether he wanted to return for another season or not.
Well, definitely … I did that every year. Seriously. Every year at the end of the year, I thought, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to come back and do another year. I’m going to get out of this contract.’
The actor further revealed that during his initial days, he didn’t think that the series would last more than a year!
The only thing it had going for it, from my point of view, was that it was pre-sold for a year. So I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to do this and I’m going to pay off my bills, then I’m going to be out of it; because it surely is not going to last more than a year.'”
Spoiler alert: the series ran for 8 years. However, Spiner continued to portray his role as Data in the subsequent sequels and movies that were created. The gist of his talk, however, was that he was tired of portraying the same character over and over again.
This reason seems quite a bit similar to Spiner’s co-star Denise Crosby who left the show during the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Although there were several reasons for her departure, the actress revealed that she grew disillusioned with her character.
Denise Crosby Didn’t Know What To Do With Her Ideas!
Portraying the role of Tasha Yar in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Denise Crosby was quite loved by fans until her character was brutally and unexpectedly killed during the first season. Wanting the audience to be shocked, the writers decided to kill off her character, but it wasn’t just a simple decision.
In an interview (via Web Archive), Denise Crosby revealed that she wanted to leave the show. Although she loved the character of Tasha Yar, the actress said that it was getting a bit dull for her. While listing out reasons, the actress revealed that she wasn’t able to do anything with her ideas and she struggled with it for a while.
I wanted to leave the show. Although it was Gene’s idea to have the character die. He thought it would be so shocking. I wanted to leave as I was struggling with not being able to do much with the character.
She further continued,
I had all these ideas and couldn’t do them. I was just stage dressing. I chose to leave instead of just being satisfied with that.
Whatever her decision might be, Crosby revealed that she never regretted it and that she was happy with her character. On the other hand, Brent Spiner even returned to reprise the role of Data in the 2020 show Star Trek: Picard.
Spiner and Denise Crosby’s iconic 1987 show was received well by the public and the series found much fame and love worldwide. Star Trek: The Next Generation received a rating of 8.7/10 on IMDB and a whopping 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
With 7 seasons to its name, the iconic show is available to stream on Paramount+ in the U.S.
