Michael Dorn has been playing Star Trek’s Whorf for a long time, off and on, and he’s maintained an interest in the franchise the whole time. He’d love to come back with the character, and he has just the idea to do it.
In a great interview with Trek Movie, Dorn lays out the pitch he has for the series, which he’s given to CBS and which lives in some sort of production purgatory that even he isn’t entirely clear on.
Here’s the full pitch, which is worth reading in its entirety:
Basically, the script I wrote was: Instead of looking at the Klingon Empire from Starfleet, we look at Starfleet from the Klingon Empire. And it has been going on for decades, the Klingon Empire just can’t go on. It’s the Russians, basically. And they decide that they have to either die with a sword in their hands and go extinct, or change with the times and become something different. And Worf is the guy that says, “We have to change with the times, that is the mark of a warrior.”
And so two things happen. They start letting other races into the Klingon world. And the only way they can do that is by letting in Starfleet officers. That’s sort of the way it’s done. ‘We’ll let in other people, but first Starfleet offers because we understand Starfleet. They’re soldiers, we’re soldiers.’ The second thing they have to do is their resources are limited and dwindling, because the Klingon universe is just like the Federation. They have planets and worlds and societies that they own, but they do it in a brutal way. And so they have to go out to every one of these worlds and either give them their freedom, or try to work with them, which is something that’s anathema to Klingons.
And since Worf opened his big mouth and said, “This is what we have to do,” then they say, “OK, then you’re the guy that has to go out to all these worlds.” And every world is different. Some worlds are rebelling. Some worlds want to be part of the Klingon Empire. Some worlds want to be independent. And so every episode is that.
That’s really intriguing! Worf presiding over a changing Klingon world sounds like a neat way to develop the storyline of that part of the universe, which hasn’t gotten as much attention in that era of Trek as some others. It could take place around the same time as Picard, and depict a galaxy in a broad, broad state of change. I think it’s an inspired idea.
CBS may not be interested, though. “There’s interest and then there’s not,” Dorn said, saying that it was a couple of years ago that it was discussed in earnest last.
As for Dorn returning to Trek on an existing show like Picard, his answer is, well, maybe.
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“The one thing you have to realise is that I have to get into makeup. You are talking about three hours. For me to do that, it really has to be kind of worth it, you know what I mean? I don’t want to get in makeup and just stand around and scowl at people,” he said.
So, there you go. CBS, if you give him a good role, he’ll be there. I think you should.