The Star Trek Character You Forgot Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane Played

In case it wasn’t obvious from his sci-fi comedy show “The Orville,” TV guru Seth MacFarlane is a huge, huge Trekkie. “The Orville,” in its construct, lighting, and character types, very much resembles “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” just with a few crass jokes and flippant commentary added throughout. MacFarlane also once presented William Shatner, in character as Captain Kirk, on a big screen at the Academy Awards. Some might even know about the “Star Trek” fan film that MacFarlane made back in high school, wherein he cast himself as Captain Kirk. 

His Trekkie credentials don’t end there. On one of the “Next Generation” Blu-rays, MacFarlane hosted a commentary track for the episode “Cause and Effect,” talking to the episode’s writer, Brannon Braga. He was also in the documentary “Trek Nation,” and has included myriad “Star Trek” references in his animated sitcoms “Family Guy,” “American Dad!,” and “The Cleveland Show.” Yes, MacFarlane has always been a dyed-in-the-wool “Star Trek” fan. 

So it must have been a formative experience for him to appear on “Star Trek: Enterprise.” Many Trekkies may have forgotten this, but MacFarlane played a character named Ensign Rivers on two episodes of that series. He didn’t have a substantial role, but his appearance solidifies him as a canonical character throughout Trek lore. Ensign Rivers first appeared in the third season episode “The Forgotten” (April 28, 2004) as an unnamed engineer who is berated by Trip Tucker (Connor Trinneer), the Enterprise’s engineering chief. He also appeared in the fourth season episode “Affliction” (February 18, 2005) when his character was finally given a name. It seems that Ensign Rivers didn’t like his experience on the Enterprise, though, as he was serving on board a new ship, the U.S.S. Columbia, the second time we saw him. 

In “The Forgotten,” the U.S.S. Enterprise is recovering from a conflagration in previous episodes, having to repair many of its systems. Trip Tucker is underslept and overworked, having to oversee every aspect of the ship’s engine improvements. Ensign Rivers is briefly berated for missing a microfracture in the engine’s magnesium jacket. Rivers defends himself by saying that he ran a pressure test, but that wasn’t enough for the angry Tucker. That’s the whole of his cameo in “The Forgotten.”

Rivers appears again, however, a few additional times in “Affliction,” but only to deliver lines like “Aye, sir,” and “Here’s the diagnostic you asked for” and “The dilithium matrix is stable.” He has maybe a minute of screen time overall. In one scene, he questions why Trip wants the dilithium matrix aligned within .3 microns when the manual says .5 is acceptable. Ensign Rivers is not a dynamic or complete character by any means, but it was surely exhilarating for MacFarlane to read off classical “Star Trek” technobabble. It’s the technobabble and technical attention to detail that bring so many Trekkies back to the franchise, so MacFarlane was likely wholly comfortable with it. Not all “Star Trek” actors liked it.

Because Rivers was played by a recognizable celebrity like MacFarlane, his character was a little more recognizable than most of Trek’s random engineers, doctors, and bridge officers. As such, Ensign Rivers was given his own playable card in the 2006 edition of the “Star Trek Customizable Card Game,” a popular and expansive game that was first released in 1994 and has been expanding ever since. On his card, Ensign Rivers was finally given the first name of Stewart, which was no doubt a deliberate reference to Stewie Griffin, a character MacFarlane plays on his show “Family Guy.”