5 Sci-Fi Shows Leonard Nimoy Appeared In (That Aren't Star Trek)

If Spock was the only role that Leonard Nimoy ever played, it would still be more than enough to earn him a spot in the pantheon of TV's greatest sci-fi actors. But while Nimoy is understandably best associated with the USS Enterprise's Vulcan first officer, having played him in "Star Trek: The Original Series," a number of spin-off shows, and several films, it was hardly his only role in the genre.

In part thanks to "Trek" making him a sci-fi icon, Nimoy frequently appeared in other genre-defining sci-fi TV shows. Sometimes, these were self-aware cameos. Other roles were more meaty, however, taking advantage of Nimoy's abilities as an actor as much as his name recognition.

Here are five of Nimoy's best non-"Trek" sci-fi parts — although it bears mentioning that even this list doesn't fully capture his impact on small screen sci-fi. In addition to acting, Nimoy was also a prolific director, and he was behind the camera for episodes of sci-fi shows like "Night Gallery," "The Powers of Matthew Star," and "Deadly Games."

Leonard Nimoy's first foray into sci-fi television came five years before "Star Trek" premiered, when he featured in an episode of "The Twilight Zone." While many stories in Rod Serling's CBS anthology series boast all the hallmarks of great science fiction, Nimoy's Season 3 episode is a little more subtle — and supernatural.

In "A Quality of Mercy," Nimoy plays an American infantryman fighting in the Philippines in the final days of World War II. When his squad gets a new leader, Dean Stockwell's ambitious Second Lieutenant Katell wants to send them into battle to finish off a group of wounded Japanese soldiers. But when Katell inexplicably finds himself in the body of a Japanese soldier three years earlier — who has been given similar orders to finish off trapped American troops — he begins to understand the value of empathy.

Nimoy may only have a supporting role in "A Quality of Mercy," but this "Twilight Zone" episode still has a big "Trek" legacy. Two other actors from the episode, Stockwell and Michael Pataki, would also go on to have small parts in the "Star Trek" franchise. The tenth episode of the Paramount+ series "Strange New Worlds" was even titled "A Quality of Mercy" to pay homage to "The Twilight Zone" episode in which they all appeared.

Leonard Nimoy appeared in three episodes of "The Outer Limits" — although two of those were the same episode, remade for a reboot series that aired three decades after the original.

For the original "Outer Limits," which debuted on ABC in the '60s, Nimoy played a scientist in the episode "Production and Decay of Strange Particles." This Season 1 episode revolves around an accident at a nuclear research facility that opens a doorway to another dimension.

Nimoy next appeared in "I, Robot," which aired as part of the sophomore season in 1964. In 1995, he starred in a remake of the episode, which aired on Showtime as part of the "Outer Limits" reboot. Not an adaptation of the Isaac Asimov story of the same name, these episodes follow a robot that's being put on trial for the murder of its creator. In the original episode, Nimoy appears as a newspaper reporter; in the remake, he plays the lawyer charged with defending the machine Nimoy's son, television director Adam Nimoy, was also behind the camera of the '90s version of the episode.

In the '90s, Steven Spielberg and Harve Bennett, the executive producer who created the original outline for "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," teamed up to create a primetime animated series about an alien civil war. With that kind of pedigree behind the scenes, it's kind of surprising that "Invasion America," which aired on The WB in the summer of 1998, has been largely forgotten. Reviews for the show weren't great, though that shouldn't be held against Leonard Nimoy, who voices a supporting villain in the cartoon.

"Invasion America" follows a teenager, David Carter, who discovers that his father is actually a royal member of an alien species known as the Tyrusians. When a rogue faction of Tyrusians stage a coup in an effort to conquer Earth, David finds himself in danger. Nimoy voiced General Konrad, a high-ranking member of the U.S. Air Force who is really a Tyrusian working to advance the alien takeover of Earth. Ruthless and willing to sacrifice his own men to achieve his ends, Konrad dies in a plane crash in the fourth episode of the 13-episode season.

Leonard Nimoy made two memorable appearances as himself in "The Simpsons," but that show doesn't quite count as sci-fi — no matter how many times Kang and Kodos might turn up. What is undeniable, however, is Nimoy's pair of appearances in another Matt Groening series: "Futurama."

Nimoy features in the series premiere, "Space Pilot 3000," which aired in 1999. As the recently defrosted Philip J. Fry (Billy West) explores the future after being accidentally cryogenically frozen for a millenium, he comes across a familiar face. Nimoy is the first of the show's many disembodied celebrity heads floating in jars, and he voices himself as he welcomes Fry to the New New York's Head Museum. 

Three seasons later, Nimoy had a bigger role in the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before." Upon discovering that "Star Trek" has been outlawed in the future, Fry takes Nimoy's head and the rest of the Planet Express crew on a mission to recover lost episode tapes. He finds them — as well as the rest of the cast of "The Original Series" crew, who have been given new bodies by an omnipotent, energy-based Trekkie. William Shatner, Walter Koenig, George Takei, and Nichelle Nichols all joined Nimoy in voicing themselves in the episode.

After "Star Trek," Leonard Nimoy's most substantial role in a sci-fi television show came in the late '00s and early '10s, when he featured in the cult classic Fox series "Fringe." Nimoy played William Bell, a scientist whose shared past with Walter Bishop (John Noble) and role as the founder of a powerful biotech company drives much of the plot. Enigmatic and ethically dubious, Bell starts the series off as a somewhat shadowy ally of the protagonists, only to become an outright antagonist by the end.

Nimoy, who played Bell across nearly a dozen episodes over the course of the show's four-season run, clearly enjoyed his time on "Fringe." He had announced his retirement from acting in 2010, but J.J. Abrams, who created "Fringe" and directed Nimoy in the 2009 "Star Trek" remake, was able to coax him out of retirement to appear in the final season.

"I'm a sucker for a good role," Nimoy said in an interview with IGN, explaining that the character's more overtly villainous turn intrigued him. "There were new aspects to the character that were attractive to me and some things that I enjoy playing that I haven't gotten to play in a long time." "Fringe" would end up being Nimoy's final proper TV role before his death in February 2015.