Character Insight No. 159: Dmitri Valtane

This is the latest installment in a series of "Character Insight" articles regarding the rich history of characters in the Star Trek universe. An audio version will appear on the This Week in Trek podcast, available for direct download here.  
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Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review a character who spanned between the movies and the TV shows, this being Dmitri Valtane from Star Trek VI and also from Voyager.

(Dmitri from his older days in Star Trek VI, courtesy memory-alpha.org)

Valtane is a Lieutenant Commander and the science officer and possibly also the first officer aboard the Excelsior during its three year mission under Captain Hikaru Sulu in the Beta Quadrant. Although it seems unusual, he had roommates or bunkmates aboard the ship, including Tuvok. That latter point was not established until the Voyager episode Flashback, which added some back story to Tuvok while tying it all in with characters and ships we had seen previously in the movies.

Before discussing Valtane in further detail, let's take a moment to review this type of character back story, which happens with some regularity in Star Trek. Certainly these episodes give a chance for viewers to be nostalgic about past characters and iterations of Star Trek, but it may also cheapen the legacy of those shows by making the world a little too small. Not everything can be tied together so neatly, despite the existence of certain theories like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon separation, etc.

However, I do not mind when the callback has little effect on the original universe, which is really the case with Tuvok's backstory here and also in the DS9 episode Trials and Tribbleations. How do you feel about such retcons and tie-backs, on Star Trek or otherwise?

Valtane comes back into play and is given a name because he unknowingly transfers a memory virus to Tuvok after being critically injured in a Klingon attack. In these memories, we see Dmitri as a child as well as him on the bridge of Excelsior. It is never established whether he is actually first officer on screen, but that's how he has consistently been portrayed in the novels, including in the novelization of Star Trek VI.

One of the few speaking lines he has is an expression of surprise and approval at Captain Sulu's general recklessness in attempting to rescue Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy from the Klingon prison planet:

Valtane - "I can't believe we're going to do this. I didn't think the Captain had it in him."
Tuvok - "Had what in him?"
Valtane - "You know, the guts to defy direct orders and run off on some rescue mission to save old friends."
Tuvok - "I take it from the tone of your voice that you admire this trait."
Valtane - "Well, yeah. It's courageous."
Tuvok - "It is illogical and reckless."

One wouldn't have to stretch the imagination too far to hear the same words spoken by Riker about Picard, in a similar first officer-captain relationship. Dmitri may just be another face in the crowd, but it is kind of nifty to see him get some more play when the Excelsior was revisited for Flashback in Voyager.

Valtane was played by Jeremy Roberts. He hasn't acted since 2009, but he can be seen in movies like Jim Carrey's The Mask, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

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Feedback can be sent to me with future segment suggestions on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy. Until next time, live long and prosper..

Character Insight No. 158: Toral

This is the latest installment in a series of "Character Insight" articles regarding the rich history of characters in the Star Trek universe. An audio version will appear on the This Week in Trek podcast, available for direct download here.  

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Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we profile another Klingon character who spans stories in TNG and Deep Space Nine, that being Toral, son of Duras.

 


(Toral from TNG days, courtesy memory-alpha.org)

Toral is an illegitimate son of the Klingon Duras household, which leads him to be kept in the custody of his aunts Lursa and B'Etor. As you will recall from our segment on these Klingon villains from the movies, these sisters try to take over the Klingon Empire for themselves on multiple occasions.

In the first of these instances, Toral is put up by his aunts to be a rightful heir to the Klingon throne in the two-part episode Redemption. However, this plot falls apart when it is revealed that the Romulans are assisting the House of Duras, and only Worf's peaceful nature prevents Toral from being killed for his actions in this plot. He likely should have just left the family at that point, but like a good Klingon villain, he doesn't know when to stop.

The next time we see this character is four years later, which is after his aunts had been killed in the plot of Star Trek Generations. After meeting with a drunken Kahar Master, he sends a lackey named Soto to go retrieve the Sword of Kahless from the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately for his power-wielding plans, the sword is jettisoned in deep space rather than being turned over to him. So like his aunts, his plans to overthrow the leadership of the Klingon Empire just never pan out.

Toral: "I'm not giving the emperor anything. With the sword In my hand, I'll be leading the Empire."

In a relatively ironic twist of fate, Dax is the crew member who spares Toral's life after this plot is undermined in the Deep Space Nine episode The Sword of Kahless. So Worf and then his future lover and wife are the compassionate Starfleet officers which at least temporarily stop this son of Duras from ending up in the same dead fate as his aunts and former guardians. On the bright side, Toral is a guy, so he doesn't have to wear the incredibly sexist Klingon boob job outfits of this era.

This is another run-of-the-mill Klingon recurring character, but at least this one brings more story and life to the bumbling Duras family, one of the more entertaining plots when dealing with Klingon stories.

It may have been difficult to follow this tie when switching between the series because J.D. Cullum played Toral in the TNG episodes, while a different actor Rick Pasqualone played the role on DS9. Cullum likely earned the role thanks to being the son of Tony-Award winning actor John Cullum, of Northern Exposure fame. He recently appeared in Disney's remake of The Lone Ranger. Pasqualone does a lot of voice acting work for video games like Civilization V and Batman, Arkham Knight.

Until next time, keep busting into that glass ceiling Duras family. It's terribly entertaining to watch.

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Feedback can be sent to me with future segment suggestions on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy. Until next time, live long and prosper...

Character Insight No. 157: The Guardian of Forever

This is the latest installment in a series of "Character Insight" articles regarding the rich history of characters in the Star Trek universe. An audio version will appear on the This Week in Trek podcast, available for direct download here.  

Wondering where episode 156 is? I recorded an interview live with Darrell "the Trek Nerd" Skeels at Nerdtacular 2015! Check out episode 199 of This Week in Trek for the full story, but it was unscripted and silly, as most good interviews are.

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Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we profile a unique character which could be the subject of a future Star Trek movie, the Guardian of Forever.

 


(The Guardian of Forever in 2267, courtesy memory-alpha.org)

The Guardian of Forever was featured in the TOS episode The City on the Edge of Forever, which is deemed by many to be one of the better episodes of the series. The Guardian is a time portal that allows access to other times and dimensions, essentially acting as a core link between all the timelines of the Milky Way and possibly beyond. For example, time portals to various places like the Egyptian pyramids, the American Revolution, the civil war, and other historical times appear within the Guardian during this episode.

When the Enterprise first discovers the Guardian as a result of investigating the time/spatial ripples or disturbances caused by it, Dr. McCoy runs through a portal to the past as a result of paranoid delusions brought on by an accidental drug overdose. McCoy causes a change in the timeline around 1930 (insert Darrell 1930) that wipes out the Federation, so Spock and Kirk have to also travel back a little farther in time to prevent this from happening.

Kirk: "Are you machine or being?"The Guardian: "I am both... and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending."

This timeline changing concept was so popular and well done that it has spawned many similar story lines, including arguably the movies Star Trek IV, Star Trek First Contact, and Star Trek 2009.

As for the Guardian itself, the only other time it appears in canon is on The Animated Series episode Yesteryear, where Kirk and Spock and a support team cause more timeline shenanigans while investigating the history of Orion and Vulcan. It also served as an original story piece in the TNG episode that became Yesterday's Enterprise, but it did not end up in the final story.

However, this character or item has a rich history that lived on in more than 10 Star Trek books and many comics. A couple of the more interesting stories involve additional Guardians or similar objects made by the creators of this character, a race that could be considered to have Q-like powers considering their creation. Such a storyline having big science fiction concepts but simple time travel and timeline tropes could be too much for the movie scriptwriters to resist, so I wonder if the Guardian of Forever or its creators will be the subject of an Abrams timeline movie. You could certainly do a lot worse.

The Guardian: "Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway"

The Guardian was supposed to look far different than a silly-looking lopsided donut, but the regular set designer in charge of this script was out with the flu that week and his backup created the iconic donut. Despite this, the light effects added to the Guardian and the great voice work by Bart LaRue and James Doohan overcome any silliness in appearance.

Until next time, let's hope that if a retread character comes back in another Star Trek movie, it is something truly alien like the Guardian and hopefully it is done right.

Big congratulations to Darrell and Mike on 200 episodes and 4 years of this show. Thank you for making Character Insight a part of this fun ride Where No Man Has Gone Before.

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Feedback can be sent to me with future segment suggestions on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy. Until next time, live long and prosper...