The Star Trek franchise is home to an immense number of characters. Everyone from protagonists with troubled pasts to exciting ship cooks together make up a huge list of names, personalities and appearances. While some were designed as background characters, bringing the often haunted ship corridors and promenades to life, they were often noticed and remembered by fans.
An example in the Deep space 9 series is the bar-visiting Morn – but there’s a lot more to this character than meets the eye. Morn, a Lurian, was a common background character in Deep space 9, which was first seen in the very first episode “Emissary”. He can be found quite consistently in the questionably designed Quark’s bar, and his character became something of a running joke.
Morn’s actor, a young man named Mark Allan Shepherd, wore a prosthetic mask designed by Michael Westmore. This mask was designed to allow the actor to speak and move his mouth, but on every shot Shepherd spoke, it looked weird. Moving it in a way that looked realistic was beyond the capabilities of the mask, and because of the large mouth, it looked more like a giant muppet-style doll when he spoke. Because of this, the character was used a lot in Quark bar scenes, but never spoke. The running gag was that although the public never saw Morn speak, he was actually a huge chatterbox – but every time he was shown on screen, it was just after he had finished talking. Other characters occasionally referred to him and said they were just stuck talking to Morn who wouldn’t shut up.
While he became a great addition to Quark’s Bar character, Morn’s appearance was somewhat fate. When Shepherd first arrived on set and answered a casting call for extras, he was outfitted with the Morn suit and prosthesis, currently dubbed the “Grinch alien mask,” and was asked to wait until he was needed on set. He sat there and waited, and when no one came to get him, he decided to wander downstairs to sit down and see what happened. This turned out to be a twist of fate as they had just started filming the scene where Quark’s Bar was first introduced. Shepherd was then asked to intervene, and the director placed him at the bar and asked him to tell the funniest joke in the universe as the camera panned over him. What he delivered was complete nonsense, but the way he delivered the lines with confidence and power caught the attention of the director. Although the scene itself was not used due to the doll’s mouth problem, Shepherd was asked to return as a regular extra.
After a few appearances in the background he was given the name Morn, the name itself is a reference to Norm’s character from the TV sitcom cheers, another great man who would be reliably found at the bar, as if he were part of the landscape there. Fans loved him so much that not only did he start showing more, with more running gags about his inability to stop talking, but he also got several mentions from the main cast. Notably, on one occasion it has been revealed that he often sparred with Klingon culture expert Worf, who commented on how great of a sparring partner he was.
Morn actually wrote an entire episode about him, “Who Mourns For Morn.” The station security officer, Odo, tries to get hold of Morn to move some of his cargo that’s rotting in the cargo hold, but discovers that the Morn who used to be with Quark is actually a hologram. Quark explains that he had been away for the past two weeks, and having become such a fixture at the bar, it felt wrong not to have him around, so he hologrammed him to help other customers ( and Quark itself) feel more at ease. There’s another joke here about how he specifically programmed the hologram not to speak, because the real Morn never shuts up. As the episode progresses, it is revealed that the real Morn was caused in an ion storm and supposedly perished, but in real Trek fashion this is just a trick used to help him escape from his former associates, and by the end of the episode he is revealed to be alive and well.
One of the best behind-the-scenes bits of this episode was that during the scene where Quark mourns his old friend, he feels like someone had to sit in Morn’s chair to honor his memory. He grabs a random Bajoran from the bar and forces him into the stool, but this, of course, is no substitute for the lost Lurian. The actor who plays the Bajoran is none other than Shepard himself. While it’s not known what happens to Morn after the show ends, an alternate timeline in the future shows (unfortunately not the Kelvin timeline) that he ran Quark’s bar and creatively called it “Morn’s.”
Although apparently a small part of the Star Trek universe, Morn’s character has somehow materialized himself as one of the best supporting characters, with many fans fondly remembering him and even having his own action figure. The fan service episode revolving around him bears witness to this, as does how the Lurians were quite subtly brought back into discovery — something that was most likely done purely to honor the old character. Morn added a touch of comedy and lightness to ‘s sometimes very dark and gritty series DS9something that was much needed for a show that aspired to cover much more difficult topics than any other Trek show of the time.
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