Star Trek: Strange New Worlds - The RANDY Awards: Category IX, Season Two

Category 9 of the Randy Awards is another trifercated award in the Olympics style of Bronze, Silver and Gold.  The recipients are the actors who are not recurring cast members, but who are Featured with in a particular episode.  The second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds included more guest actors who's contributions qualified them for consideration.  In the end, the top two selections were absolute "No Brainers" in my view.  The Bronze winner required more consideration between the 5 candidates that met the criterion.  In the end, I chose Reed Birney for his portrayal of Luq, the gentle helper in the episode "Among the Lotus Eaters".  It was written by Kristen Byer and Davy Perez, and first aired on July 6, 2023.

The Silver Award winner could have been Gold, if it weren't for the Gold winner!  Now, that's a problem easy on the heart.  Jack Quaid had for several years been Ensign Bradwin Boimler's iconic voice on the animated sister series Star Trek: Below Decks.  The genius of this crossover episode where animation becomes live action and the future legacy of the Enterprise crew gets spilled out in dribs and drabs by this comedic Everyman is nothing short of brilliant.  Jack Quaid, Silver Award winner for "Those Old Scientists" written by Kathryn Lyn and Bill Wolkoff.  The episode first aired on July 22, 2023.

This leaves us with the Gold.  Yetide Badaki's portrayal of the Illyrian Lawyer, Neera Ketoul revolutionized the long running cliche of a Star Trek Character in trouble with the law and in need of an unorthodox legal counsel to save the day though with and cleverness.  There hasn't been a franchise save "Discovery" that hasn't built at least one episode around some version of this, and most revisited it more than once.  The writers of this episode must have wanted to accomplish two things: 1) to pay homage to the meme, and 2) to put it to bed once and for all with an episode that stunned the viewer for both its' clarity and cleverness.  And to accomplish this goal, Badaki's command of the role hit a home run completely out of the park.  No better performance to receive the GOLD.  "Ad Astra Per Aspera" was written by Dana Horgan and Onitra Johnson.  It aired for the first time on June 22, 2023.