Susanna Thompson

In this column, we have deep appreciation of the Working Actor. The person who is just doing a job, and if that means they’ve almost exclusively done single episodes of a few dozen different shows, well, that’s what they do. They’re paying their bills doing a job that a lot of people would love to have, and good for them. If you’re lucky, people will remember you for an episode of a cult show and you’ll be able to live on the convention circuit for the rest of your life. Star Trek and The X-Files are particularly good for that, and if you’ve been on both, so much the better.

Oh, to be fair, Susanna Thompson also did fifty episodes of Once and Again, with Sela Ward and Billy Campbell. It’s a 2000s adult drama about divorced parents forming a romance. It ran three seasons and has no real cultural footprint that I know of. That’s fine—that’s another part of the Working Actor gig. I think she played Billy Campbell’s ex-wife. Someone had to. And those kinds of shows are filled with roles like that; television has been filled with shows like that. It’s very much a Working Actor kind of role.

But really, her legacy is from playing the Borg Queen on Star Trek: Voyager. There’s a lot to be said about whether having a Borg Queen makes any damn sense in the context of the Borg as we know them, and a lot of people have said it. But she’ll be able to eat out on her three episodes in the role for the rest of her life, and that can’t be said for three episodes of Medical Examination. Sure, she already had two of Star Trek: The Next Generation or one of Deep Space Nine. And, of course, one of The X-Files. But the Borg Queen is a prominent character, so there we are.

Now, since then, she’s done forty-eight episodes of Arrow. Which is, you know, more than three. I’m pretty sure the DC fandom has taken her into their hearts at at least the power of the Star Trek fandom; for one thing, she appeared as an uncredited voice in Legends of Tomorrow. But it’s also possible she got hired for Arrow because she’d been the Borg Queen. Nerd TV can be insular that way; I was just this morning saying I’m never surprised when Mark Hamill shows up on things.

I was sent an article recently talking about how Voyager was the best Star Trek for women. And maybe it was better at passing the Bechdel Test than the other ones, though I’m pretty sure Next Generation did at least now and again. But as far as recurring female characters, it’s the hardest one I’ve had to write about. Oh, it’s not helped by having written about Kate Mulgrew ages ago. But it should not have been this much of a struggle to find five notable women without worrying criminal records besides her, especially since I haven’t even gotten through all the actual male regulars yet over the last two months.