Walter Koenig's Best Sci-Fi Performance Wasn't On Star Trek

Actor Walter Koenig has sadly passed away, and while he's most remembered for his work in the "Star Trek" franchise, many sci-fi fans often herald a different part of Koenig's career. On the rival sci-fi series "Babylon 5," Koenig played the sinister telepath Alfred Bester. Many actors appeared on both "Babylon 5" and "Star Trek,"but Koenig was the most prolific shared star. Bester also showed Koenig was a much more capable actor than he often got to be playing Chekov.

This isn't a mark against Koenig, but Chekov is the most ancillary member of the "Star Trek: The Original Series" cast. He only joined the show in Season 2 and rarely got to play a central role in most episodes. His impact on "Star Trek" was mostly politically symbolic — during the Cold War, it was no small deal for U.S. television to have a hero with a Russian accent like Chekov did.

Ironically, while Bester only had a recurring role on "Babylon 5" (in 12 episodes across all five of the show's seasons), he was a more substantive character. In the future of "Babylon 5," human telepaths have been around for generations and are regulated under a trade organization, the Psi Corps. But the Psi Corps has become unofficially self-governing and is aligned with more authoritarian factions of the government. Bester, a "Psi Cop" and one of the Corps' strongest agents, is always dressed in a black uniform like the kind worn by secret police of fascist states.

With a sharp tongue and sharper mind, Bester is a recurring thorn in the side of Babylon 5's bridge crew. He sometimes acts as an ally of circumstance, but the heroes (rightly) never trust him. If you knew Koenig as Chekov, you'd be shocked at how menacing he is as Bester.

Walter Koenig/Chekov was intended to add some youthful appeal to "Star Trek." On "Babylon 5," it was the opposite — Bester always made episodes darker and more mysterious, and the role helped Koenig break typecasting. Again, Bester isn't just a stoic evil "man in black" character, he's got layers. One is his sense of humor, even if the heroes are rarely laughing at his wisecracks. 

When Security Chief Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) tells Bester he'd like to beat him like a piñata, Bester replies, "So, you think of me as something bright and cheerful, full of toys and candy for young children? Thank you! That makes me feel much better about our relationship."

That sort of acid dipped in politeness is a ways away from Chekov's pluckiness, but Koenig took to it like it was dialogue he was born to deliver.

Bester also always has a solid grounding for his motivations beyond "screw around with Babylon 5." He's a nationalist for the telepath "race." Much of the Psi Corps see themselves as the future of the human race, and Bester works to secure that future because "mundane" humans distrust telepaths. For an easy comparison, he's akin to Magneto from "X-Men" (but, ironically, with Professor X's telepathic power).

Koenig discussed his part as Bester in an interview with the Archive of American Television. Bester wasn't the first part that "Babylon 5" creator J. Michael Straczynski first offered him. Koenig was originally supposed to appear in the episode "And the Sky Full of Stars" as a secret agent who abducts Commander Jeffrey Sinclair (Michael O'Hare) and literally enters his mind to try and find some of Sinclair's suspected secrets. But before Koenig could shoot the episode, he had a heart attack.

Walter Koenig had to miss "And the Sky Full of Stars" to recover (and his part was filled by English actor Christopher Neame). But J. Michael Straczynski didn't forget Koenig.

As Koenig noted, playing Bester was better for him because he got to play a recurring character instead of a one-time guest villain. It's worth noting that Bester/Koenig only appeared once on "Babylon 5" Season 1 and then once more in Season 2. Bester's role started picking up in Season 3, and he wound up even more pivotal in Seasons 4 and 5. A character's role steadily growing like that across TV seasons is a sign of an actor clicking well.

In his interview with the Archive of American Television, Koenig — who called playing Bester "one of the best, most satisfying experiences [he] ever had" — explicitly compared playing Bester to playing Chekov, noting that "Babylon 5" demanded more of him as an actor than "Star Trek" often did:

"In each episode, I was critical to the story. It wasn't like [Chekov voice]: 'Captain I don't know what's out there,' and then let Captain Kirk tell you all about what's going on. Here was a character who moved the story along, not just articulated the circumstances but actually was involved in the story itself, who had his own belief system, his own internal life, his own personal problems and conflicts, and we got to investigate those over the course of 12 episodes."

"Babylon 5" is easily one of the best sci-fi shows of the 1990s, and Walter Koenig as Alfred Bester is a crucial piece of the show's legacy — as well as a mark of how it cooked some familiar ingredients much differently than "Star Trek" did. May his memory be a blessing.