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Narrator

A narrator is a person who tells a story to the audience. Star Trek often used a narrator at the beginning of each new season or sporadically within a story arc. The narrator typically stated "last time on [series name]…" or "previously on [series name]…", to introduce or preface a montage of events to lead viewers to the events continued in the present episode, followed by "and now, the continuation" or "and now, the conclusion".

Initially, for Star Trek: The Original Series, narration was often given by William Shatner in the form of a captain's log as by Captain James T. Kirk, where he would describe events the viewers were seeing, often by breaking the fourth wall; as was evident in the episode "The Naked Time", when Kirk describes "…but unknown to us…". In other instances, Kirk's entries were made as a voice over to other events, overlapping with scenes of what he was describing, such as in the episode "Space Seed".

The introduction of "The Menagerie, Part II" the most unique example of this, during the run of the series, where the episode began with Kirk recording a personal log, "I find it hard to believe the events of the past twenty four hours or the plea of Mister Spock standing general court-martial," which lead into a short montage of events from the previous episode, that were being intertwined with the continuation of his log. This technique was similarly used as Kirk recapped the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, via Captain's log, at the introduction of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which also intertwined his log with the events from the previous films.

Majel Barrett was the go-to narrator for introducing such episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager. She did not begin receiving credit for her contribution as narrator until Voyager, where she received credit in six out of eight episodes she voiced over. Her narration for "Cold Fire" was unique from previous narrations, as it began: "Ten months ago, the crew of Voyager was pulled into the Delta Quadrant by an entity known as the Caretaker." This was intertwined with a recap of relevant scenes from "Caretaker", where she continued, "When he died, Voyager's best chance of getting home died with him, but he revealed one hopeful possibility." Rather than the usual, "and now, the continuation" or "and now, the conclusion", however, this recap was followed with the on screen text "ten months later…".

Beginning with Star Trek: Enterprise, Scott Bakula and Jolene Blalock took over the role of narrator.

Over a decade later, narration became much more frequent and commonplace in introducing episodes of Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, where narration was provided by a multitude of various actors from their respective series. Similarly, an opening narration provided by an unknown actress was used at the beginning of LD: "A Mathematically Perfect Redemption".

Episodes introduced by narration[]

An unidentified male voice, who also provided the computer voice for the Enterprise-D was heard in the syndicated second part of "Encounter at Farpoint", announcing, "Last time on 'Encounter at Farpoint'…" prior to the recap of the first part.

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