The Most Famous Star Trek Alien Nearly Had An Unthinkable Onscreen Romance

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 19 seconds ago

Worf is one of the most popular characters in Star Trek, and for good reason: appearing in three shows and four movies as his iconic character, Michael Dorn has spent more time onscreen in this franchise than any other actor. Fortunately for him, the writers really loved Worf, giving him meaty storylines revolving around his tangled family history and fractured Klingon society. They also gave him Troi and Jadzia Dax (two smoking hot fan favorites) as his romantic partners.

At the time, hooking a warlike Klingon up with an emotional Betazed and an ancient body swapper likely felt very transgressive. However, Star Trek: The Next Generation missed the opportunity to give this character a mate that nobody would see coming, and fans would likely still be picking their jaws off the floor, all these decades later. You see, there was once a plan to hook Worf up with Selar, the Enterprise’s resident Vulcan doctor!

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It all started with the script for the TNG’s “The Emissary,” which is the Season 2 episode where Worf falls in love with the future mother of his child, K’Ehleyr. The characters worked well onscreen together, which is partially due to actors Michael Dorn and Suzie Plakson having such amazing chemistry. But given the other women who would fall in love with him on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, the decision to pair Worf up with another Klingon was a little obvious.

That’s exactly how Tracy Tormé felt about this decision. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, Tormé was an early TNG writer responsible for such ambitious episodes as “The Schizoid Man.” While the story has some solid qualities, most fans love one thing about this episode above all else: Suzie Plakson, who makes her Star Trek debut as Dr. Selar, a Vulcan medical officer working for Dr. Beverly Crusher.

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While Selar ended up being a very minor character, Tormé originally wanted her to be a romantic love interest for Worf. Unfortunately, his plans were vetoed once the TNG staff began working on “The Emissary,” a script that called for Worf to fall in love with a Klingon woman. In a way, you could say the producers compromised: because she had impressed them so much as Dr. Selar, they ended up hiring Suzie Plakson to play K’Ehleyr.

However, Tormé was unimpressed, later calling the decision to pair Worf up with another Klingon “obvious.” He summed up his objection to this plot point quite succinctly: “Had it been a Vulcan, it would have been a lot more interesting.” He has a real point here, especially considering that the cool and logical Vulcans are pretty much the polar opposites of the hot-blooded and passionate Klingons.

After butting heads with notorious TNG showrunner Maurice Hurley enough times, Tormé left the show after Season 2. However, the spirit of his idea to romantically pair up Worf with someone completely different from himself lived on. This is part of why the writers eventually hooked him up with Deanna Troi: the peace-loving, hyper-emotional Betazed was the last person fans expected to end up with the ship’s brooding Klingon. Deep Space Nine took this idea to an even greater extreme, having uptight control freak Worf fall in love with and eventually marry a free-spirited Trill who just wants to have fun.

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As for Dr. Selar, she never appeared onscreen again, though the Vulcan doctor is mentioned by name several times throughout The Next Generation. However, the late, great Star Trek author Peter David gave Selar a very meaty role, making her the chief medical officer of the Excalibur in his non-canonical New Frontier series of books. There, she found her own surprise romantic partner: Burgoyne 172, a hermaphrodite alien as outgoing as s/he is frisky.

I’ve always been a big fan of Worf, and his crazy love life is just one of the things that made this hulking Klingon so compelling. But I have to admit, it would have been hilarious to see him dating a Vulcan, especially one played by the insanely talented Suzie Plakson. Fortunately, she would continue to grace Star Trek for many more years to come, each time as a completely different character. But these very different roles all had something important in common: each was more epic than the one before!