The bizarre moment Iggy Pop appeared in ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’
The Stooges frontman Iggy Pop has led a life stranger than most. From carving the letter ‘X’ into his chest with a steak knife during a performance to playing the blender in the first show by the Ann Arbor band, Pop’s life is brimming with hilarious and often confounding moments. Whilst in the early days, many of these anecdotes could be attributed to drug abuse, but as Pop grew older and on the straight and narrow, he still had a penchant for the bizarre, weird and wonderful. Perhaps one of the oddest moments in Pop’s career came when he appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as a Vortan named Yelgrun.
The episode in question is 1997’s season six outing, ‘The Magnificent Ferengi’. As Yelgrun, Pop dons full Vortan grey skin and ridged ears, but his broad Michigan accent remains, creating what might be his best television appearance. It is brimming with deadpan and often flat lines that are hard not to crack up at, such as the comeback, “I was cloned”, when Quark shrugs about his family.
In season six of DS9, the Dominion War is in full swing, with many of the episodes taking a darker turn than before. However, in the show’s true fashion, levity was introduced when appropriate, with this Quark-centred episode offering ample, mostly courtesy of Iggy Pop.
At one point, a prisoner exchange ensues, where Avery Brooks’s character Sisko uses a spare Vorta he has captured. To make the swap, the band of protagonists head to the former Cardassian space station, Empok Nor. It is here that Iggy Pop first appears. Yelgrun is the strongman sent by the intergalactic superpower, the Dominion, to oversee their side of the deal.
Ultimately, Vorta is captured by the Ferengi and taken back to Deep Space Nine. Whilst he is ostensibly a villain, he doesn’t do much to make the viewer hate him. He might be a bit of a crank, but he’s more humourous than anything, with props going to Pop for making him stand out so greatly. Reportedly, DS9 executive producer Ira Steven Behr attempted to get Iggy Pop to play Grady for the season three episode ‘Past Tense’. However, scheduling clashed, so the role went to Clint Howard, the younger brother of famed director and Happy Days legend Ron Howard.
