Star Trek's Todd Stashwick Will Never Say No To Playing Shaw After Picard Season 3
When "Star Trek: Discovery" debuted on CBS All Access (later Paramount+) in 2017, no one could have guessed that the floodgates were about to open. "Discovery," which is struggling to get on its feet even to this day, was popular enough to spawn multiple additional "Star Trek" shows and spin-offs, leading to a 2023 landscape peppered with at least half a dozen different "Trek" series on the docket. With these new projects, the honchos over at "Star Trek," led by executive producer Alex Kurtzman, seem to be listening to the fans. In 2022, Paramount+ launched the very good "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," a throwback show set immediately before the original "Star Trek" series that features characters and actors who appeared on "Discovery." When Trekkies noticed how cool Pike (Anson Mount), Spock (Ethan Peck), and several others were, Paramount+ responded by kowtowing to demands and, miraculously, making a good show.
After "Strange New Worlds," Trekkies are now eager to force more potential fan-friendly projects off the ground. And if social media is to be believed, there is a great deal of demand for "Star Trek: Titan," a series about the Starfleet vessel featured prominently in the most recent season of "Star Trek: Picard." The U.S.S. Titan-A, once commanded by Captain Riker (Jonathan Frakes) has now been retrofitted and put under the command of one Captain Liam Shaw (Todd Stashwick), an appealingly hardass captain with none of Picard's warmth or patience. Shaw's first officer is Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), who carries over from both "Star Trek: Voyager" and the previous two seasons of "Picard."
In a recent interview with Decider, Stashwick revealed that if the phone rang for him to return as Shaw, he would immediately jump.
A Lifer
"Star Trek" has a very long memory, and Todd Stashwick knows it. Look no further than "Star Trek: Lower Decks," an Easter egg-heavy show that brings back many, many obscure concepts and characters from the franchise's past. On a recent episode of the animated series, fans were re-introduced to Captain Sonya Gomez (Lycia Naff), a character who had only small roles as an ensign on two 1988 episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." It seems that decades later, Gomez's career has been going quite well. Additionally, Ronny Cox, who played the curt Captain Jellico in two episodes of "TNG" back in the day, eventually returned for a cameo in the lovely kid-friendly animated series, "Star Trek: Prodigy." 2023 is the era of "Trek" where legacies are solidified.
Stashwick even witnessed something similar with his co-star Jeri Ryan, as Seven of Nine was brought back after many years. Becasue of this, Stashwick knew that he was locked into the "Trek" universe in perpetuity and was totally at peace with that. It could be for "Star Trek: Titan." It could be for an additional TV project a decade hence, but either way, Stashwick is ready to go. He said:
"[T]he way I see it, I am Aragorn and they will always have my sword, right? The story I tell is that Jeri Ryan was saying that when she started on 'Voyager' they gave her a t-shirt with the 'Star Trek' delta that had bars in front of it that said 'Lifer.' So, like, I am forever a part of this legacy, and they have me if they need me in any capacity. If all I ever get to do in the franchise is those episodes of 'Enterprise' and season three of 'Picard,' man, what an embarrassment of riches."
Star Trek: Titan
On the "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode "Kir'Shara" (December 3, 2004), Todd Stashwick played a character named Talok, a Vulcan security officer who was later revealed to be a Romulan agent in disguise. Talok is given a stirring line of dialogue at the episode's conclusion, stating that the reunification of Vulcan and Romulus will eventually happen. This was a reference to the "The Next Generation" episode "Unification," all about that very thing.
Shaw is a memorable character as well, and while many would be pleased with a "Star Trek: Titan" television series, merely stepping into "Trek" and becoming a Lifer would certainly be enough for many of us.
The current milieu of Trek — and indeed of any major, sprawling, commercially successful media franchise — is to delve deep into its own history and compile any and everything that has ever been stated in the past. The online game "Star Trek Timelines" has famously recreated just about every minor character that once appeared in "Star Trek." Did you know that "Parks & Recreation" actor Adam Scott appeared briefly as an unnamed helmsman in the 1996 film "Star Trek: First Contact?" He had one line of dialogue. In "Timelines," you can revisit that character. Evidently, he was named Wyatt, after Scott's role in "Parks."
Will Captain Shaw be back? The answer is yes. He is now a permanent fixture in "Star Trek" lore and references to his existence and adventures will be cited in perpetuity, even if it's just in small ways. Will "Star Trek: Titan" ever come to pass? Probably not. But Stashwick knows that the phone will eventually ring, even if it's in decades, and he'll be able to provide a voice or a performance for a character that became beloved in 2023.