When Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, it offered Trekkies a new character that flew past everything they knew. In the original Star Trek, the lazy Klingons were often offered as aggressive antagonists, usually standing as the Federation's archenemy. On The Next Generation, a Klingon - Worf, played by Michael Dorn - was part of the senior staff of the USS Enterprise-D. In the second season of the series, Worf even became the head of the ship's security. All hostility towards the Klingons, Trekkies had to learn, was old-fashioned and even ill-advised. Peace was declared, and the Klingons were now allies.

Of course, Worf wasn't the sunniest, calmest character. He was often quick to suggest violent courses of action to his captain and often viewed all alien visitors with suspicion. Of course, as head of security, that was his job. Occasionally, he will get angry. Worf was also, for lack of a better term, a huge nerd. He was raised on Earth, Russia to be exact, by human parents and had to learn about his Klingon heritage from books and studies. As such, he became a humorless honor nerd, determined to have as little fun as possible. Even compared to other Klingons, Worf was taciturn and inflexible.

The character was so popular that it was eventually carried over to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," giving Worf four additional seasons to the seven he already lived on "Next Generation." Michael Dorn has appeared in more episodes of Star Trek than any other actor.

Dorn, of course, was happy about the job and followed the role wherever it led. Even in the early days of The Next Generation, he knew he was only there to play Worf to the best of his ability. It wasn't concerned with his character's likability or personal story in the least. In 2012 interview with StarTrek.comDorn admitted that he was only there to do the job and do it well. That was it.

Dorn was pragmatic when it came to his work as Worf. When asked if he was worried that acting in a large ensemble might diminish his character, Dorn said he wasn't. After all, Dorn admitted that he's not a writer on the show and that all of Worf's life choices will be out of his hands. He didn't even do stunts. "I basically took it every day," he said. "My main thing was to get the part right and be as good as possible." I just didn't think about the future like that.

Two things: doing the part right and doing a good job. A healthy look for any job, really.

Dorn recalls that some of his colleagues did not share his opinion. Some of them, he said, wanted to play characters that the audience would perceive as friendly. The idea was that if an actor played a friendly character, the writer would want to write more scenes for him. This was especially true in the early years of the show, when, Dorn recalls, everyone was still finding their footing. However, Dorne had no such preoccupations with Worf's future. He said:

“Everybody was running around. They were doing their job, but you could tell they were trying to realize their future, basically. You want to be friends with Data. You want to be friends with Geordi. You want to be friends with Picard. You want to align with all these people because their feeling is: writers write relationships and, if you have a relationship, they'll write more of a relationship for you, I'm just going to be this weird, mean, angry guy who cares about you.''

Dorne's commitment to being mean and angry, it seems, ended up being useful.

Dorne, just reading his lines and doing a good job, allowed Worf to form as a character. Dorne brought his violent temper to Worf as well as his fierce devotion to honor, and the writers of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" latched onto what he laid down. Dorn was happy to accept the Worf stories that were handed to him, knowing that the writers probably knew what to do with Worf in the long run. Dorn said:

"Thankfully, the writers took off with it." All that stuff they wrote about Worf being an orphan and being raised by Russian parents, that's all on the writers. I didn't do anything about it. I just gave them the character it was, and that was it."

Of course, that didn't stop Dorne from running around with Worf a bit. After Deep Space Nine ended in 1999, Dorn felt that Worf could easily continue his series. By the end of his tenure in DS9, Worf had become the Federation ambassador to the Klingon world, Qo'noS. Dorn wrote an entire pilot for a Worf-centric TV series about how Qo'noS had to be rebuilt after the war, and how the Klingons had to unwittingly accept the Federation as a huge galactic power.

That streak never came to fruition, but Worf eventually returned. In the third season of Star Trek: Picard in 2023, Dorn played the gray-haired Worf, who now works as a secret agent for Starfleet, rooting out non-Federation criminals. Star Trek, it seems, can't do without Worf for long.