FROM
TREKKER TO DIRECTORROBERT DUNCAN MCNEILL
Tom Paris, Voyager
Robert
Duncan McNeill’s Tom Paris came aboard Voyager a
traitorous, self-absorbed brat. Happily, he was a pilot of
incomparable skill, and soon managed to redeem himself with
his wicked grin, design of the Delta Flyer and anachronistic
love of the 20th century. McNeill, who had previously
starred in 1987’s Masters of the Universe, as well
as in The Next Generation as quite another
disgraced Starfleet officer, hasn’t really been seen on
screen since 2002. But that’s probably because he has been
otherwise occupied. Very, very occupied.McNeill started out in directing with the Voyager episode “Sacred Ground” (03.07) -- yep, one of those tiresome spirit quest ones; not the most auspicious beginning -- and followed that up with three more, including “Someone to Watch Over Me” (05.22), in which The Doctor creepily gets the hots for Seven of Nine. McNeill also offered up four episodes of Enterprise… and, hey, one of them is actually pretty good! You know “Twilight” (03.08), the one that’s kind of like 50 First Dates? Remember that one? No? (Great title, too!)
McNeill’s
name after the “Directed by” is all over the soap set, with
one episode of Everwood, two episodes each of
One Tree Hill and The O. C., four episodes of
Summerland and seven of Dawson’s Creek to
his credit. (Including that one after Joey and Dawson
finally sleep together. Ooh!) He’s also turned in work for
several short-lived series -- The Days, Eyes, The Nine,
the Gina Torres/Ron Livingston awesomeness that was
Standoff… anyone? -- and directed two episodes of ABC’s
2007 cameo-laden crime caper The Knights of Prosperity.
He directed the pilot of Samantha Who? (which
featured his Voyager cohort Tim Russ), did one
episode of TBS’s sports-writer sitcom My Boys, two
of Desperate Housewives, two of What About
Brian? and four of Las Vegas.
In
genre, McNeill is practically a fixture with his offerings
of two excellent episodes of Dead Like Me, the
shapeshiftery goodness of Supernatural’s “Skin”
(01.06) and V’s best episode by far, the
aforementioned kick-ass “Red Sky” (01.13). But most
outstanding are his 13 episodes of Chuck --
including Season 3’s
“Chuck Versus the Honeymooners” (03.14), which may have
featured the most ridiculous European train journey ever in
it, but also had some incredible train-based stunts -- and
such a host of other first-rate Chuckness that we
can only hope he will be around for much of the
joyfully-anticipated Season 4.LEONARD NIMOY
Spock, The Original Series
Sure,
he’s done a slew of voice work (even appearing as himself in
The Simpsons), and was most recently seen in live
action as the enigmatic reality-tripping scientist William
Bell in Fringe. He’s known as the author of two
best-selling autobiographies, I Am Not Spock and
the contradictory I Am Spock, and who could forget
his oh-so-successful
recording career? But it is Nimoy’s directorial career that is really a surprise.
It is well known, of course, that he helmed the under-rated Star Trek III:
The
Search for Spock (1984) and the just-nicely-rated
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986); he also turned in
an episode of T. J. Hooker, starring his erstwhile
Captain, back in 1983. But did you know he also directed the
Diane Keaton drama The Good Mother (1988), the Gene
Wilder romantic comedy Funny About Love (1990), and
the box-office smash hit comedy 3 Men and a Baby
(1987)? You didn’t, huh?
ANDREW ROBINSON
Garak, Deep Space Nine
Before
Star Trek, Andrew Robinson was best known as the
Scorpio Killer from Dirty Harry (1971) and Larry
from Hellraiser (1987). Robinson’s stint as the
smooth operator that was Garak the Cardassian tailor-cum-spy
was one of Deep Space Nine’s highlights; he ended
up directing one episode of that very show, the fifth season
effort “Looking For parMach in All the Wrong Places” (in
which Klingon sex proves to be even more violent than
vampire sex), and thence two of Voyager: the Season
3 episode “Blood Fever” (more alien sex stuff, both Klingon
and Vulcan), and the Season 4 episode “Unforgettable” (more
sex, this time Virginia Madsen and Chakotay). 
Since
DS9, he’s been seen in a bunch of procedural dramas
-- Profiler, The Practice, Without a Trace, JAG and
the like – and he directed seven episodes of Judging Amy,
in one of which his daughter Rachel appeared.Currently running the Master of Fine Arts program at USC (University of Southern California), Robinson is also very involved with stage production as part of the Matrix Theater Company, which he founded in 1997.
Away from the bright lights, Robinson also wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel A Stitch in Time (2000), which sees the former tailor returned to Cardassia after the end of the Dominion War, and in which there is no doubt Robinson nailed his character’s unique voice. Perhaps he should have called it I Am Garak?
TIM RUSS
Tuvok, Voyager
Tim
Russ played Voyager’s Vulcan security chief Tuvok
with a calm intensity that wasn’t nearly as oxymoronic as it
sounds. Russ has been pretty occupied with the acting since
Voyager ended (most notably as the stoic doorman on
Samantha Who? and the snarky principal on
Nickelodeon’s iCarly), but he’s been busy
off-screen as well.His first and only Voyager episode was “Living Witness” (04.23), one of the best episodes of the series, in which The Doctor is brought on-line after 700 years and is forced to correct the mistaken history of the planet on which his emitter was left behind. Russ has since directed episodes of Psychic Investigators and The F. B. I. Files (he loves him some re-enactments), as well as one of those Tales From Dark Fall webisodes, Scene-5, which he also co-wrote.
Russ
also directed -- and appeared in -- the girl-fight-tastic
indie
Divas of Novella (2008), as well as a large number of
short films, all featuring various Star Trek
alumni. In 2003, Russ directed Rodenberry on Patrol, an 18-minute Star Trek origin parody starring many a Trek actor; most of whom rejoined him for his most important work to date, the independently-financed Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (2007). Everyone from Original Series stalwarts Walter Koenig (Chekov) and Nichelle Nicholls (Uhura) to Generations’ Alan Ruck (Harriman) to DS9’s Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko) and Chase Masterson (Leeta) to Voyager’s Garret Wang (Harry Kim) and Ethan Phillips (Neelix) -- along with Russ himself -- to Enterprise’s Gary Graham (Soval) all appear in this loving tribute (plus, hey, Yeoman Rand!). While some actors reprise their original roles, others get to mix things up considerably: Wang as a greasy-haired bad guy, Lofton as Uhura’s half-Vulcan son, Masterson as a buxom pleasure slave… oh, wait.
Star
Trek: Of Gods and Men tells an alternate timeline tale
of when Charlie Evans (from “Charlie X”) exacts his
vengeance on Starfleet by going through the Guardian (from
“The City on the Edge of Forever”) and changing the course
of Federation history. (And that’s not the only similarity
it has to the latest Star Trek movie--it, too,
features one of the longest weapons-firing sequences ever
committed to film, which also happens to take out
Vulcan.) ST: OGAM is pretty basic, effects-wise,
and it’s kind of like live-action fanfic, script-wise, but
it’s still a must see for any Trekkie or -er. And you can
must-see it here:
www.StarTrekOfGodsAndMen.com.In post-production for Russ is A Night at the Silent Movie Theater, a “raucous comedy of errors about a singer stuck in a dead-end job who sees his last, best shot at rock stardom threatened by freak accidents, movie theater politics, stressed-out relationships and a janitor who is much more than he seems.” And because it wouldn’t be a Tim Russ production otherwise, Ethan Phillips and Tony Todd are in it, flying the Trekkian flag.
WILLIAM SHATNER
James T. Kirk, The Original Series
Of
course, Shatner is an icon, and his post-Trek
acting work, from T. J. Hooker to Boston Legal’s
Denny Crane is varied and vast. He’s been everywhere, from
the pageant host in Miss Congeniality to the
Chancellor in Dodgeball to the voice of many a
cartoon character (including the Grandfather in the
underappreciated animated gem Atomic Betty)… and
he’s spent over a decade as the Priceline guy. (Less
prestigiously, his array of endorsements for various
ambulance-chasing lawyers are… um… odd.)As a writer, Shatner has not only brought us the post-apocalyptic cyberpunk Tek War series, but also the YA series Quest for Tomorrow, several biographies, and eleven Star Trek novels featuring one James Tiberius Kirk. (Who, in case you were unaware, Shatner makes it clear is very, very awesome.) And, as with Nimoy, let’s not forget his musical career. (Hey, Ben Folds contributed to his 2007 album Has Been, alright?)
As
a director? Well, Shatner first gave us Star Trek V: The
Final Frontier (1989), so, um, yeah. And he also gave
us ten episodes of T. J. Hooker and two of the
Tek War series they made in 1995, as well as the
original 1994 TV movie on which the series -- two seasons of
it! -- was based. He also wrote and directed 2002’s
Groom Lake, in which he cast Amy Acker as his
terminally-ill heroine.And all of which he also starred in.
Upcoming for Shatner is apparently The Captains, a documentary about, uh, himself, which was slated to begin production this month. If he is anything like the manic version of himself he played in indie comedy Free Enterprise (1998), it is sure to be an instant classic.
But, wait, what’s this? Wil Wheaton never directed an episode? His 1.6 million Twitter followers must be devastated.
Anyone for Star Trek: Wesley??
Further Reading
Close Encounters, meetings with our geek idols, this issue
Geek Speak's Chuck reviews
Geek Speak's Memories of the Future, Vol. 1 review
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