The Quiet Dignity of Commander William T. Riker on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’

Filmmaker Andrew Muir of The Art of Storytelling explored the story arc of the distinctly human Star Trek: The Next Generation character, Commander William T. Riker, noting that the distinctly human “Number One” was portrayed by Jonathan Frakes with quiet dignity, loyalty, and an innate sense of morality.

Commander Riker is just a guy with a beard who plays the trombone. So, for a show all about strange new worlds and places no one has ever gone before, this relatively normal character might have been forgettable. And the reason he’s not is that his story arc asks some profound questions about loyalty, friendship, and personal ambition.

Muir also addressed how the character was someone viewers could fully relate to without knowing his entire history.

Commander Riker was clearly written as an everyman, a kind of surrogate for the viewer, the one whose perspective we might find the most familiar or relatable to our own. This type of character is generally advisable in any fictional world that is strange or foreign to our own. ….So instead of getting a ton of background on Riker, he’s used as a way in to learn about the other weirder characters.