William Riker: 11 Star Trek TNG facts fans often miss

William Riker had the beard and the chair maneuver, and he somehow made being second in command look like the best job in Starfleet. Here are 11 facts about him that go deeper than the usual trivia: a forgotten name, a family connection hiding in Voyager, and a behind the scenes idea that could have completely changed the final season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

The Next Generation premiered in 1987, starring Patrick Stewart and Jonathan Frakes, with Frakes as Riker. The biggest surprise on this list comes last: the writers once considered killing Will Riker while keeping Frakes on the show.

11. Billy Campbell almost played Riker, then guest starred as Okona

Thadiun Okona, the charming freighter captain from Season 2 who arrives on the Enterprise and immediately starts enjoying himself? That's Billy Campbell. According to Campbell, the Riker casting process came down to him and Jonathan Frakes.

Campbell later contacted the casting director about getting a guest appearance, and that's how he ended up aboard. When you watch The Outrageous Okona, you're watching the Riker we got share an episode with the Riker we almost got. They gave the other guy a role built around a handsome, confident, slightly too comfortable person. They saw the potential.

10. Riker's middle name was Thelonious in Peter David's novel Imzadi

We know Riker as William Thomas Riker, William T. Riker. We know that because his transporter duplicate eventually starts using the middle name. But Peter David's novel Imzadi, published well before Second Chances aired, called him William Thelonious Riker.

That's a novel detail, not an alternate name established by a television series. Still, it means readers had already been given an answer to that middle initial before TNG came along and supplied a different one. Imagine reading that book, then watching Thomas introduce himself and thinking, "Wait a second. We just changed this man's entire paperwork." Even Riker's name managed to develop a continuity issue.

9. Turning down the USS Drake may have saved Riker's life

Everybody remembers Riker dragging his feet about becoming a captain, but one of those rejected commands had an ugly ending. In The Arsenal of Freedom, we learn he was offered command of the USS Drake and chose the Enterprise first officer position instead.

Paul Rice took the Drake, and that ship was later lost investigating Minos and its automated weapons. We can't say Riker would have made the same decisions Rice did. Maybe he gets everybody out. But the actual ship he declined was destroyed. So the next time somebody says Riker should have stopped hanging around Picard and taken a promotion, remember that one of those promotions came with a very bad ending.

8. Riker and Troi have roots in the abandoned Star Trek: Phase II

Go back before TNG, before The Motion Picture, to the abandoned television project Star Trek: Phase II. Two of its characters were Will Decker and Ilia. He was a younger first officer, and she was an alien officer with whom he shared a romantic history. Those characters eventually appeared in The Motion Picture.

Parts of that setup also influenced Riker and Troi: the younger officer serving beneath an older captain, the former lovers suddenly working together aboard the Enterprise, and that emotional history sitting underneath their professional relationship. TNG developed Will and Deanna into their own people, but the familiar tension between them grew partly from an idea Roddenberry had been working with years earlier.

7. Riker became a Trill host in The Host, and it rarely comes up

In The Host, Ambassador Odan's host body dies while important peace negotiations are underway. The symbiont needs somewhere to survive until a replacement arrives, and Riker volunteers.

Think about what he's offering here. This isn't lending somebody his quarters. He lets another conscious being inhabit his body with no guarantee a human can safely handle it, and his body does begin rejecting the symbiont. Meanwhile, Beverly is in love with Odan, which makes the situation considerably more complicated.

Riker temporarily becomes the physical home of the ship's visiting diplomat and nearly dies helping prevent a war. That should probably come up more often when we're discussing his best moments, but it doesn't.

6. Riker's Lower Decks cameo came from a promise to Jonathan Frakes

Riker arriving aboard the Titan at the end of the first season of Star Trek: Lower Decks feels like the perfect payoff, but there's a very human reason he ended up there. The series creator said he showed Frakes the pitch for the show while they were working on other Trek projects. Frakes enjoyed it, and a promise was made that Riker would appear.

The creator later explained that bringing Riker into that finale came out of keeping that promise, with Marina Sirtis brought in as Troi as well. I love it. Sometimes a returning character starts with a complicated franchise strategy. Sometimes Jonathan Frakes sees your Trek cartoon and says, in effect, this looks fun, put me in it.

5. Riker spent 10 years failing to master the trombone piece Nightbird

We all know Riker plays the trombone. The part that's easier to forget is that he isn't automatically brilliant at everything he touches. At the beginning of Second Chances, Troi requests Nightbird during his performance in Ten Forward. She explains that Will has been trying to get that piece right for 10 years.

Ten years, and she requests it in front of an audience. Deanna knows exactly what she's doing. Right before he has to attempt it, Data calls him to the bridge, giving him a very convenient escape. It's a small character detail, but a good one. This man could command the Enterprise through a catastrophe, yet there's still a piece of music waiting at home to humble him.

4. Jonathan Frakes wanted a man cast as Soren in The Outcast

In The Outcast, Riker falls for Soren, a member of a race whose society rejects gender identification. Soren identifies as female and is punished for it. Melinda Culea played Soren, but Jonathan Frakes has repeatedly said he thought a man should have been cast in the role.

That's a significant detail coming from the actor playing TNG's supposed ladies' man. Frakes was proud of the episode, but he felt the casting could have made its challenge to the audience even stronger. So if you ever watch the story and wonder whether a bolder approach was considered, the man playing Riker was openly in favor of one.

3. Riker owes his existence to Quinn of the Q Continuum in Voyager

This isn't about the time our usual Q gave him powers. In the Voyager episode Death Wish, Riker is brought aboard as a witness during the hearing involving Quinn, another member of the Continuum. Riker initially has no idea why he's there.

Then he learns Quinn saved one of his ancestors during the American Civil War. Colonel Thaddius Riker was wounded, and Quinn carried him to safety. That rescue preserved the family line and eventually produced William Riker. Buried inside a Voyager episode is the revelation that the Enterprise's first officer owes his entire existence to a Q helping a wounded soldier centuries earlier. That's a considerably bigger family story than finding out your grandfather knew somebody famous.

2. Picard chose Riker partly because Riker would tell the captain no

This is one of my favorite details about the relationship. Before the Enterprise, Riker served under Captain DeSoto aboard the Hood. During a dangerous situation at Altair III, he refused to let DeSoto beam down because he believed the captain would be at unacceptable risk. Picard brings this up when they meet.

The Pegasus then gives us the deeper explanation. Picard had been reviewing roughly 50 candidates, and that incident made Riker stand out. He wanted somebody who would challenge him when necessary, somebody whose sense of duty could survive a disagreement with the man in the captain's chair. That makes their partnership better from the very beginning. Picard wasn't simply looking for a good officer. He was looking for an officer he could trust to stand in his way.

1. TNG writers considered killing Will Riker and keeping Thomas Riker

This is where Second Chances almost became a completely different episode. We got the story where Riker discovers his transporter duplicate, deals with some uncomfortable personal questions, and eventually watches Thomas leave for another assignment. But during development, the writing staff considered killing Commander William Riker and keeping Lieutenant Thomas Riker aboard the Enterprise.

Frakes would still be there. The face would be there. But the Riker we had followed for six seasons would be dead. Thomas would bring back an earlier version of the character: more openly ambitious, still deeply attached to Deanna, and missing the years of experience that shaped Will. One version of the proposal also would have moved Data into the first officer position.

This was an idea considered during development, not a filmed ending. But imagine that seventh season. Picard has a different Number One. Troi works alongside a man who remembers loving her before everything changed, and everybody has to look at their dead friend's face every single day.

That's the Riker fact that gets me. TNG considered keeping the actor while making the audience mourn the character. I can't decide whether that would have been brilliant or whether we'd all still be upset about it today.