Walter Koenig's Chekov turns every "v" into a "w" and is there to be laughed at, which he is, cheerfully. The surprise is what came after: a supporting actor who finally found, on Babylon 5, a part built for what he could actually do.
Fi1m perspective
Walter Koenig's Ensign Chekov turns every "v" into a "w", and that is most of the joke. He borrowed the accent from his father and was told it was for comic relief; he joined Star Trek in 1967 for its second and third seasons and spent them being young, keen and gently corrected by his elders. Our review of the series does not mention him, and that is fair. The show belongs to Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley, and Chekov's job is to sit at the back and be the youngest person on the bridge. We still smile at the accent every time, which says something about his timing, since the material he was given is thin.
He played Chekov again in all six films with the original cast, through 1991, and the part grew: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) gave him more to do than the series ever had. In between, and for a long stretch afterwards, the phone did not ring much. He had aged out of the boyish parts by the early 1970s and been typed by the one he was famous for, so he wrote to fill the time. It is a familiar story for supporting players in a hit, and Koenig's version has a particular sting, because thousands would queue to meet him at conventions while Hollywood had no work for him.
Then, in 1994, J. Michael Straczynski gave him Alfred Bester on Babylon 5, a Psi Cop, across twelve episodes to 1998. We have not reviewed it, so we will not weigh it here, but it is plainly the part he had been waiting for. Koenig has said of it: "I never thought of Bester as a villain. I thought of him as a man who was going to protect his people whatever the cost." That is how he plays men in authority generally, as people who are certain they are right and have a private reason for it, and it is the thing the accent had been hiding for thirty years.
The rest is guest spots, voices, stage, independent films and some directing, into the 2020s. He turned up as himself in a 2002 episode of Futurama to make fun of his own history, which is the sane response to it, and came back as Chekov's voice in Star Trek: Picard in 2023. If you meet him first as the ensign, as most people do, you will have met the least of him. The films with the old crew are where the character got room; the twelve episodes on a space station are where, by every account including his own, the actor did.
Biography
Walter Koenig is an American actor and screenwriter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1936 and trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York after studying at Grinnell College and the University of California, Los Angeles.
He is best known for playing Ensign Pavel Chekov in the original Star Trek television series from 1967 to 1969 and reprised the role in the first seven feature films. He later voiced President Anton Chekov in Star Trek: Picard (2020). Koenig also played the recurring character Alfred Bester in Babylon 5 (1994–1998) and has appeared in other television series including Futurama.
