Walter Koenig Bester: The Role That Proved His Range

In August 1990, J. Michael Straczynski sat in the Los Angeles Art Theater watching Walter Koenig and Mark Lenard perform Bernard Sabath's The Boys in Autumn. Lenard played an older Huck Finn, while Koenig played Tom Sawyer. Straczynski called it a "two-hour masterclass in acting." For anyone who knew Koenig mainly as Chekov, the performance revealed a problem: an actor's most familiar part is not always the best measure of his ability. Koenig's later performance as Bester on Babylon 5 would put that difference beyond dispute.

Walter Koenig's Bester fulfilled a promise made in a theater

Straczynski watched Koenig handle Sawyer's loss, pain, and memories of earlier times with a precision that the original Star Trek had rarely demanded from him. He described Koenig as a revelation. He was also angry that some fans had judged the actor solely by Chekov, dismissing him as a lightweight because his best-known role gave him so little room to prove otherwise.

After the play, Straczynski promised Koenig that he would find a role worthy of his talent, even if he had to write it himself. Koenig accepted the compliment with the understandable reserve of an actor who had heard promises before. A planned appearance later fell through when Koenig became sick, but Straczynski kept his word. He eventually cast Koenig as Bester.

After the play, Straczynski promised Koenig that he would find a role worthy of his talent, even if he had to write it himself.

The role offered what Chekov seldom did: control, intelligence, menace, and absolute moral certainty. Bester became the villain we love to hate because the writing never reduced him to snarling opposition. His reasoning was clear, and in his own account of events, he was right. Koenig never pleaded for the audience's approval. He played Bester as a man who had settled the argument long before entering the room.

Chekov showed the limits of the original Star Trek ensemble

The original Star Trek centered primarily on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The rest of the crew formed a pool of supporting characters, and Koenig often got reaction shots or another chance to scream. An actor cannot display range that never reaches the page. Yet viewers often mistake the size and shape of an assignment for evidence of the performer's limits.

Bester corrected that impression. Babylon 5 gave Koenig room to command a scene rather than merely support one. His writing also complicates the narrow Chekov label. He wrote The Infinite Vulcan for the animated Star Trek series, an installment Lou identifies as one of the program's better episodes. Koenig was never simply the face and accent assigned to a bridge station.

A lunch during Babylon 5 production shows how his fellow performers regarded him. As Koenig approached a table occupied by actors playing Earthforce characters, Michael O'Hare called them to attention. They stood because junior officers were expected to rise for a senior officer. Koenig invited them to sit, then took the place at the head of the table. The joke landed because the respect behind it was real.

Koenig was never simply the face and accent assigned to a bridge station.

Patrick Stewart made "my captain" a generational identity

"My captain" reveals when Star Trek first took hold of us. For Lou and Jesse Jackson, Kirk was their captain. For Karen, it was Patrick Stewart's Picard. Jesse could admire William Shatner while recognizing that Stewart brought a depth to Picard that made Shatner difficult to picture in the same material. Lou went further, calling Stewart the best actor ever to star in a Star Trek series.

Stewart retained that screen presence in Star Trek: Picard. Karen's choices point to where his command was clearest: The Inner Light, Picard's encounters with Q, and the Robin Hood story. These were not interchangeable captain plots. Each required Stewart to carry sustained shifts in emotion and tone.

Lou went further, calling Stewart the best actor ever to star in a Star Trek series.

Koenig is 90, and Stewart is 86. They are icons of my youth, but that phrase has practical weight here. In 1969, 11-year-old Lou moved just after Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. At five o'clock, five days a week, Star Trek became his group of friends. Jesse attended 12 different schools from kindergarten through eighth grade, then entered a high school where the other students already knew one another. Star Trek became his refuge too. The deaths make the Star Trek family, and our own place beside it, feel finite.