Walter Koenig

The Star Trek universe lost another actor today. Walter Koenig passed away at age 90. Of course, he was not an original member of the cast. His character, Pavel Chekov, doesn’t show up on the Starship Enterprise until the second season. That of course lead to a famous continuity error. Chekov does not meet Kahn when Kahn first shows up in the season one episode titled Space Seed. In the movie The Wrath of Kahn though, Kahn says he recognizes him and that he never forgets a face. I read a social media post today explaining that Koenig told a story of how he solved that continuity puzzle. Chekov was there during Space Seed, he was just locked in the bathroom most of time. That makes perfect sense to me.

The only other story involving Walter Koenig that I know of doesn’t exactly involve him. It involved a party at his house. Harlan Ellison (who wrote the best episode of Star Trek, City on the Edge of Forever… well… he wrote it then someone else rewrote it and massively dumbed it down and hacked it to bits, but whatever) was a friend of Koenig’s and while at a party at the Koenig house he got an idea for one of his better stories. He over heard someone ask someone else how Jeff was doing and the response was, “Jeff is fine. He’s always fine.” Ellison misheard this (on purpose?) as “Jeff is five. He’s always five.” That lead to a story called Jefty is Five about a boy who stops aging at five years old. He also based the character of Jefty on Koenig’s son.

I heard one more great story today. It was actually on the post where I first heard that he passed. Fellow Star Trek actor George Takei posted that Koenig was gone. He mentioned that when Takei married his husband in 2008, Koenig stood as Best Man for both of them. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I found that wonderful. What does it say about you as a person when both of them wanted you to be their Best Man.

Rest in peace Walter Koenig. Our Ensign Chekov. Traveling at warp speed, looking for those nuclear wessles.