Glenn Morshower's 5 Star Trek Roles Explained

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Summary

Glenn Morshower portrayed five characters across multiple Star Trek series & films, showcasing his versatility as a character actor.
Morshower’s roles ranged from a junior officer to a sneaky alien, displaying his talent for embodying different personas effectively.
Known for playing military and law enforcement roles, Morshower’s commanding presence shines through in each of his Star Trek performances.

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Character actor Glenn Morshower has portrayed five different characters across three Star Trek series and one feature film. Morshower’s first Star Trek appearance came near the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation season 2, when he portrayed ensign Burke in “Peak Performance.” He later appeared as an alien named Mr. Orton in the TNG season 6 episode, “Starship Mine.” Morshower briefly appeared as the navigator on the USS Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations before popping up in episodes of Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Glenn Morshower has appeared in numerous films and television shows, often portraying military men or law enforcement officers. He is best known for playing Secret Service Agent Aaron Pierce in 24 and Colonel Sharp in the Transformers films. Morshower has also appeared in episodes of The X-Files, CSI, The West Wing, Friday Night Lights, and Agents of SHIELD. More recently Morshower played Marshall Winthrop in 25 episodes of The Resident and President Andrew Johnson in the Apple TV+ series Manhunt. Morshower has also done voice-over work for several popular video game franchises, including Call of Duty and Wolfenstein.

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5 Ensign Burke

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2, Episode 21 – “Peak Performance”

In Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “Peak Performance,” the USS Enterprise-D participates in war games exercises, as Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) faces off against Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) in command of the USS Hathaway. Glenn Morshower portrays Ensign Burke, who serves as a junior operations and tactical officer aboard the Enterprise. When Riker chooses Lt. Worf (Michael Dorn) to be a part of his crew on the Hathaway, Burke takes the Klingon’s place at the tactical station.

A Ferengi ship commanded by DaiMon Bractor (Armin Shimerman) arrives and attacks, unaware that the two Federation ships are participating in practice exercises. The two Federation ships and their crews are able to outsmart the Ferengi, and bring an end to the wargames. Ensign Burke then serves as a mediator during a game of Strategema between master strategist Sirna Kolrami (Roy Brocksmith) and Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner).

4 Mr. Orton

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 6, Episode 18 – “Starship Mine”

In Star Trek’s version of Die Hard, Captain Picard must singlehandedly thwart a group of thieves aboard the USS Enterprise-D. When the Enterprise docks at the Remmler Array to undergo a decontamination process, Captain Picard ends up stuck on the ship when the rest of the crew beams down to the station to attend a party. The party is quickly interrupted when the station administrator, an Arkarian named Mr. Orton, takes the senior officers captive, while his accomplices board the Enterprise.

With his alien appearance and prosthetics, Glenn Morshower is unrecognizable as Orton, who is eventually captured after the captive Enterprise crew members escape. Data and the other crew members had rigged the VISOR of Lt. Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) to emit a hypersonic pulse that rendered everyone other than Data unconscious. Orton initially played nice with the Enterprise crew members at the party, before revealing his part in the plot to steal trilithium from the Enterprise.

Tim Russ portrayed the first of the marauders taken out by Captain Picard on the Enterprise. Russ is most known for portraying Vulcan Chief of Security Tuvok in all 7 seasons of Star Trek: Voyager, but he also appeared briefly as a lieutenant aboard the Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations.

3 USS Enterprise-B Navigator

Star Trek Generations

Glenn Morshower’s unnamed navigator only appears in the opening sequence of Star Trek Generations as a crewmember aboard the USS Enterprise-B, under the command of Captain John Harriman (Alan Ruck). Setting out on its maiden voyage, the Enterprise-B soon gets pulled into a rescue mission to save two El-Aurian refugee ships. Morshower’s navigator informs Harriman that the Enterprise is the only ship in range of the El-Aurian ships, and he later releases plasma from the warp nacelles as part of the rescue attempt.

When the Enterprise gets trapped in the same energy ribbon that damaged the El-Aurian ships, the navigator is hit by an explosion and presumably killed. From this point forward, Montgomery Scott (James Doohan) takes over the navigator’s station and helps the Enterprise escape. Having gone down to the deflector control room to modify the main deflector, Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) gets caught in a hull breach and is presumed dead. In reality, he ends up in the mysterious Nexus, where Captain Picard later finds him.

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2 Mokra Order Guard

Star Trek: Voyager Season 2, Episode 12 – “Resistance”

As Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew), Lt. Tuvok, and Lt. B’Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) try to buy tellerium for the USS Voyager, they are targeted by the planet’s ruling body, the Mokra Order. Tuvok and B’Elanna are captured, while an injured Janeway is saved by a local man named Caylem (Joel Grey). Caylem believes Janeway to be his daughter, Ralkana, who was killed years ago trying to rescue her mother from prison.

Glenn Morshower only appears briefly as one of the Mokra Order guards stationed at the prison where Tuvok and B’Elanna were being held. When Janeway and Caylem mount their rescue attempt, Janeway lures this guard away from his post so that Caylem can knock him out. With distinct ridges at the tops of their noses, the Mokra Order soldiers were brutal members of the Alsaurian species opposed by the Alsaurian resistance movement.

1 Sheriff MacReady

Star Trek: Enterprise Season 3, Episode 9 – “North Star”

As the Enterprise NX-01 explores the Delphic Expanse, they discover a planet inhabited by humans living in a civilization modeled after the 1860s American frontier. Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula), Commander Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer) and Sub-Commander T’Pol (Jolene Blalock) visit the planet to investigate and soon meet Glenn Morshower’s Sheriff MacReady. MacReady is immediately suspicious of Archer, and orders his deputy to keep an eye on him.

Archer and his crew eventually learn that the humans were originally brought from Earth by a species called the Skagarans. The humans later overthrew their Skagaran masters and subjugated them, creating laws preventing them from getting an education or owning property. Archer later tells MacReady about modern Earth and emphasizes that humans of the 22nd century have moved past subjugating sentient species. With his penchant for playing law enforcement officers, Glenn Morshower brought a commanding presence to all five of his Star Trek roles.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, & Star Trek: Enterprise are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek Generations is available to stream on Max.