5 Sci-Fi Shows George Takei Appeared In (That Aren’t Star Trek)

“Star Trek” legend George Takei will always be known as one of science fiction’s most recognizable talents. As one of the great Asian-American actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, he’s proven time and time again that his skills are worth celebrating, especially now, as he keeps acting through the winter of his life.

Although he likely didn’t intend to become a fixture in the sci-fi world, he’s continued to honor that legacy throughout his life — not only by championing “Trek,” but by returning to the genre time and time again. Takei’s had a lot of great roles, but he always feels at home in a science fiction series. We’ve rounded up five sci-fi shows George Takei starred in throughout his career — that aren’t part of the “Star Trek” franchise, that is. 

When we talk about the impact of Takei’s work as a performer, his episode of “The Twilight Zone” is almost always in the conversation. The actor starred in the Season 5 episode “The Encounter,” which originally aired in 1964. Takei played a young Japanese-American gardener named Arthur Takamori, opposite Neville Brand, who played Fenton, a white World War II vet.

Takamori is hired to work on Fenton’s yard, which leads to an encounter that lays bare the all-too-real race relations that were prevalent even after the war had ended. The episode ended up getting banned from syndication because of the negative response to a bombshell plot twist claiming that Takamori’s father had a hand in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, which incited the United States to join the war. Ultimately, Takei’s moving and effective performance makes this “Twilight Zone” episode a must-watch.

A decade later, Takei took his talents to “The Six Million Dollar Man,” ABC’s 1973 sci-fi series that spawned a franchise of comics, novels, a spin-off series, and — still, to this day — the hope of a movie adaptation. The series centers on an ex-astronaut, Steve Austin (Lee Majors), who has reconstructive surgery that gives him bionic body parts with superhuman abilities after a massive accident on the job. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

Unfortunately for Takei, he didn’t get a chance to embody the titular Six Million Dollar Man in question. The actor had a guest-starring role in one of the later episodes of Season 1 titled “The Coward.” In it, he played Chin-Ling, a Himalayan mountain climber who helps Austin scale a mountain when he is tasked to retrieve important World War II documents from the wreckage of a downed plane. Sad spoiler alert, but Takei’s character doesn’t end up making it through the episode — but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make a meal out of the small part.

Unlike his “Star Trek” co-star, William Shatner — also known, of course, as Captain James T. Kirk — Takei made his appearance on the hilarious 1996 sitcom, “3rd Rock From the Sun” as himself. The show’s sitcom packaging made it feel especially unique as a science fiction series. “3rd Rock From the Sun” follows a group of aliens visiting Earth and masquerading as a typical American family in order to keep their true identities secret. 

In Takei’s episode, the group goes on a vacation to a science fiction convention. While they’re there, the alien pseudo-matriarch (Sally Solomon, played by Kristen Johnston) becomes infatuated with the hotel’s room service and racks up an insane bill … which, with a little bit of hacking, the show’s pseudo-son (Tommy Solomon, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) hilariously gets reassigned to Takei’s hotel tab. Tough break. Fun fact: There’s an end-credits scene where Takei takes the charges to the front desk to give them a piece of his mind — and you know you’d do the same.

Again, unlike his “Trek” co-star, William Shatner, Takei graced the animated world of Fox’s generational sci-fi hit series “Futurama” more than once. In fact, our pal Sulu has appeared on the 1999 series a solid four times over the course of its nearly 30-year, albeit intermittent, run so far. “Futurama,” created by “Simpsons” guru Matt Groening, follows the employees of the interplanetary delivery service Planet Express.

All four of Takei’s guest-starring stints on the show are as himself, most often as specifically his own sentient head, which lives in a place called the Head Museum – yes, literally a museum of famous people’s heads. Takei appeared in the Season 4 episode “Where No Fan Has Gone Before,” Season 7’s “Proposition Infinity,” Season 9’s “Zapp Dingbat,” and the Season 10 episode, “Saturday Morning Fun Pit.”

During his first appearance in Season 4, he technically played himself with his full body intact when Fry (Billy West) traveled to a planet where “Star Trek” and its cast had been banished to after it grew prevalent as a global religion.

There’s no denying the place NBC’s 2006 smash “Heroes” has in the long history of science fiction television. The show followed an ensemble cast of seemingly ordinary people who discover that they actually have superhuman powers. How the main characters used their powers for good (and some for evil) made “Heroes” one of the best superhero shows ever made – at least for its first season. 

This engaging and compelling drama gave Takei some real meat to work with. “Heroes” cast him for twelve episodes over the show’s four seasons. He played Kaito Nakamura, the Japanese businessman father of Hiro Nakamura. Hiro isn’t a particularly driven character at first, which upsets his powerful dad — but they grow to have a better relationship as Hiro becomes a force to be reckoned with. Though Kaito never showed off his powers, he did, in fact, have some — which was revealed in a deleted scene in the Season 2 DVD boxset.