Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Scoop on the Original Cast Reunion on Family Guy

FOX’s animated Family Guy is about to enter the final frontier — or rather, the final frontier is about to crash land on Family Guy! The original cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) — Patrick Stewart, Levar Burton, Gates McFadden, Michael Dorn, Wil Wheaton, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Jonathan Frakes — are reuniting (albeit in animated form) on tonight’s episode, titled “Not All Dogs Go To Heaven.”

In the episode, the Griffin family heads to the annual Quahog Star Trek convention and young Stewie (Seth MacFarlane) is incensed when he is unable to ask the castmembers a question. As a result, the evil genius builds a transporter and beams the entire cast straight into his bedroom for a day of fun around town. What could possibly go wrong?

The cast apparently enjoyed taking part in the episode. Last month, Frakes told us that he had a great time but unfortunately the TNG actors didn’t actually reunite — they recorded their parts separately. Stewart even recorded his part in London.

Family Guy executive producer David Goldman admitted this was done for practical reasons. He said, “Just given people’s schedules and given how animation works, you almost never have people in at the same time. I think people were in on the same day. A few of them were in on the same day, but their schedules were scattered, and so we were amenable to working around their schedules. Most of them came in separately, but I think Gates McFadden and Denise Crosby came in around the same time, and I got some pictures taken with them.”

In an interview with TrekMovie, Wheaton admitted that that didn’t diminish his experience too much. He said, “I didn’t work with anyone except [executive producer] Seth MacFarlane, which was still awesome.”

The feelings are apparently mutual on the other side of the recoding booth glass. Goldman said of the cast, “They were all very game. We had fun playing with who they are. It’s easy to mock things that take themselves too seriously. Star Trek is both wonderful and pompous at the same time. I really am a die-hard Trekkie, but there are moments in Star Trek where it takes itself very seriously.”

When asked about his favorite part of the episode, Goldman admitted, “I’m a huge Star Trek fan, so the artists drew a version of me, and then I voiced the character dressed as a Star Trek… some might say fan, some might say geek, asking a question at the convention. And then I have a little bit of a run-in later with Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes. So that’s probably my favorite scene.”

So does this mean we’ll be seeing the casts of other Trek series? Goldman says, “You never know. Seth is a huge Star Trek fan, he’s watched all the series. He was on Enterprise when I was there. I wouldn’t necessarily count on it, but you never know.”