Appearances by classic Star Trek: The Original Series actors were an exciting fixture of the Star Trek: The Next Generation era. The legend goes that, for its first three seasons, TNG struggled to win over the hardcore fans of TOS. It was a wise move, therefore, to limit the cameo appearances by legacy characters so as not to upstage or undermine the new USS Enterprise-D crew. As TNG became more established and popular in the wake of "The Best of Both Worlds", the production team relaxed somewhat and began exploring ways to bring back the original Enterprise crew.
In 1996, as the TNG era celebrated the 30th anniversary of Star Trek, both Star Trek: Deep Space Nineand Star Trek: Voyagercommemorated the event in different ways. Voyager featured classic Star Trek guest stars in a flashback episode that took place during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Meanwhile, DS9 took a creative approach of featuring classic TOS characters by inserting Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his crew into the episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". Here's every TOS actor that returned to their roles on TV and in movies in the TNG era.
