Adam Scott Is In Star Trek, See Who He Played
Nerd? Yes--nerd.
If, like a lot of fans, you know Adam Scott first and foremost as Ben Wyatt–Parks and Recreation‘s creator of the ill-fated IceTown–you would probably not be surprised to hear that the actor wanted to show up in Star Trek. In the course of Parks and Recreation‘s run Ben Wyatt creates the overcomplicated tabletop board game The Cones of Dunshire, buys himself an expensive Batman outfit for “Treat Yourself” Day, and occasionally stops his train of thought to argue for the artistic merits of Game of Thrones. Ironically, as much as Adam Scott is a big nerd in real life, he apparently doesn’t count Star Trek among his more passionate nerd interests; and yet he did, in fact, appear in the franchise. Specifically, he showed up in 1996’s Star Trek: First Contact.
Early in the film, a massive starship battle is waged at Earth’s doorstep between a single Borg Cube and a large gathering of Starfleet vessels. In spite of Starfleet having a clear numbers advantage, by the time the battle is shown on the screen, the Borg are close to winning the day. Most of the good guy ships left are badly damaged, including the U.S.S. Defiant commanded by Worf (Michael Dorn); up until that point the ship had shown up exclusively on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Inside the ship, everything is dark and there’s smoke and sparks flying everywhere as Worf pulls himself from the deck and demands a report. That’s when Adam Scott’s Star Trek role is revealed. As the Defiant Conn Officer, Scott gives Worf the bleak report. At first, Worf seems ready to sacrifice himself and his crew by ramming into the cube, but then Scott announces the arrival of the Enterprise. You can watch the scene below, followed by a screenshot of Scott in the film.
After the action shifts to the bridge of the Enterprise, Adam Scott isn’t seen in Star Trek: First Contact again, but regardless the notion that he would’ve survived the events of the rest of the movie aren’t very good. Right after Scott disappears from the screen, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) orders the Defiant’s survivors beamed aboard the Enterprise. But even assuming his character survived to see the Enterprise’s sick bay, he and everyone else aboard the ship would later have the Borg’s incursion to deal with. The life expectancy of any character without a first or last name after that isn’t very long.
In fact, while it’s tough to tell whether or not he was joking about it, Adam Scott himself said his Star Trek character didn’t survive First Contact. In a 2015 episode of Moviefone’s Unscripted, Scott said his character died in the movie, but that he thought the officer deserved a prequel film set around 5 years before the events of First Contact. Since he’s clearly kidding about some of what he says–for example that his proposed prequel would be “at most, five years long”–he could’ve been joking about his character’s death. Though it’s just as believable he was assimilated by the Borg, slaughtered by the Borg, or died in some other horrible way that only unnamed Star Trek characters–or Tasha Yar–die.
