Continuing Mission

After fans found out that the character of Dr. Beverly Crusher, the doctor aboard the Enterprise in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” was leaving, the “Star Trek” production offices at Paramount got a flood of angry mail.

However, when it was announced that actress Diana Muldaur would replace Gates McFadden as Dr. Katherine (Kate) Pulaski, the hate mail stopped. The fans were pleased. After all, Muldaur is an old hand at “Star Trek.” Tonight’s season premiere at 8 on KCOP-TV Channel 13 marks the third time Muldaur has been a part of the “Star Trek” universe. It’s also the third time she has played a doctor. Muldaur was featured in two earlier episodes of the original show “Return to Tomorrow” and “Is There No Truth in Beauty?”

“I feel the old show was very much like this one; the chances for real acting were great,” she says. “I’ve done sitcoms and all that, but I thought this had greater opportunities, it was like doing theater again.”

Muldaur has been most recently seen as the character Alice in “A Year in the Life” playing actor Richard Kiley’s love interest (and also a doctor).

But she is cautious about continuous TV work: “I just won’t do a series normally unless I totally believe in it, because I never wanted to be tied down like that.”

How will her character fit in with the crew of actors whose characters already have a season under their belts?

“Oh, I come in full bore and take right over,” she says. “They’re using me to aggravate Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) from time to time and to upset our dear Data (the android played by Brent Spiner) a great deal. I don’t deal with him as a human but as a machine, and that upsets the rest of the crew. I’m kind of a pain in the neck.

“But, the imagination can go anywhere in this show--and my imagination can, in the acting.”