TWITrek Character Insight No. 64: Harry Kim

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 Harry Kim, the operations officer aboard Voyager.

 

Harry Kim tracks a similar path as Sulu in the Original Series: a young officer who starts on the bridge right away and works his way up through the years to leading away missions and serving as acting captain on some shifts. Kim turns into one of the most important players in the battles against the Borg that represent much of the Voyager's time within the Delta Quadrant.

Kim becomes close friends with Tom Paris, which is a classic case of opposites attract. Tom Paris was onboard as a convicted criminal and former Starfleet dropout helping track down the Maquis, while Harry was the valedictorian of his class and on his first assignment. While Paris is teaching Kim the benefits of being a rebel or creative at times, Kim's friendship helps Paris transition back into the role of a Starfleet military officer.


Kim and Paris love holodeck programs, doing everything from Captain Proton to playing pool at a local pub. Unfortunately, that affinity for the holodeck leads to some of the dreaded "Dumb Holodeck Episodes" that plagued this part of Star Trek history.

Harry Kim wears a sleeping mask at night after sharing a room with a nocturnal student at the Academy, and it reminds him of his retained memories from being inside his mother's womb. Harry loves Parrises squares, which is the football of Star Trek, so much so that he won the Academy Championship three times. Kim loves to compete at mental games as well, always challenging Tuvok to games of kal-toh much like Spock would be challenged to 3D Chess on TOS.

Kim was a talented clarinet player as a youth, and he saves up replicator rations to make a new clarinet after forgetting his before coming aboard Voyager. He also learns the saxophone to lead a jazz combo band entitled Harry Kim and the Kimtones. You can just call him the original Smooth Federation.

 Our notable quote this week comes from The Chute:
Harry Kim: I'm not a killer.
Zio: Do you want to survive? In here? You'd better learn to be.
Harry Kim: If that's what it takes to stay alive... then I'd rather die.
 
Actor: Garrett Wang played Harry Kim, and he has only enjoyed spot roles outside Star Trek. He can be seen in a cameo during a short entitled "A Super Duper Exotic Fetish Sexy Must See Story...A Tragedy of Oriental Proportions!"

TWITrek Character Insight No. 63: Montgomery Scott

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 continue our Abrams timeline profile series with Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott.

 

Scotty comes aboard the Enterprise late in the Star Trek 2009 movie, becoming the last regular crew member to join the others. After losing Admiral Archer's dog in a transwarp beaming experiment, Scotty is abandoned on Delta Vega with a single companion Keenser. This is implied to be the same Archer as in Enterprise, which means...POOR PORTHOS!

In the most unlikely and criticized of plot twists, Delta Vega is a cold blizzard world that is close enough to monitor Vulcan, which just happens to be a convenient place for Kirk to get marooned and for Spock to be placed by Nero. That allows Spock to watch the destruction of Vulcan and then later find Kirk. Indeed, it is prime Spock's advice about the future relationship between Kirk and Spock that allows Kirk to become captain and later friends with Spock.


Although Spock prime does allow Scotty of this timeline to discover the formula for transwarp beaming a few years before Scotty would have invented it anyway (again, to advance the story), Scotty makes some mistakes when learning how to become a master technician of long distance beaming. However, he proves intelligent and innovative enough to win the job of Chief Engineer from the deceased prior engineer Olson, who was killed in action during a mission to sabotage Nero's drill.

Ironically, Scotty spends much of the Into Darkness movie on the sidelines and off the Enterprise as well, following a scuffle with Kirk over allowing the mysterious cryotube torpedoes on the ship. However, much like being stranded on Delta Vega, this story line allows Scotty to be an inside agent in the Vengeance ship when Kirk and John Harrison need to sneak aboard. We also get to see Scotty and Keenser in their spare time drinking, a pastime for a Scotsman that traverses into this timeline as well.


When the third Abrams movie is made, it will be nice to see Scotty stay aboard the ship and not be just a convenient plot solution and comical relief. Those roles are important, but we need to see Scotty actually being an engineer to cement his miracle worker character. Plus, more Keenser is a good thing.

 Our notable quote this week comes from Star Trek 09:
"Kirk to Engineering. Get us outta here Scotty."
"You bet your arse Captain!"
"I'm giving her all she's got, captain!"
 
Actor: Simon Pegg plays Scotty, and he is a perfect fit for making a slightly more comic Scotty following his series of camp movies Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and upcoming The World's End. Pegg has also appeared in two Mission Impossible movies.

TWITrek Character Insight No. 62: Gul Dukat

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 Gul Dukat, one of the primary antagonists from Deep Space Nine.

 


Gul Dukat is a Cardassian military officer who was the final Prefect of Bajor during the Cardassian occupation of that planet.  As a result of losing this occupation to the Federation under his time, Dukat slowly loses favor in his own military and that leads him on a downward spiral. This progression makes Dukat probably the most complex and fully developed bad guy in Star Trek.

Before suffering a complete mental breakdown, Dukat manages to become ruler of the entire Cardassian Union after negotiating entry into the Dominion.  This move proves to be a costly one both for Dukat and for the Cardassian Union, as the rest of the Alpha Quadrant bands together to repel the Dominion and censure the Cardassians for turning traitor.

Dukat was despised in Bajoran society for the atrocities he had committed against their people during the end of the Occupation.  Dukat felt as though he was compassionate and misunderstood, as he took actions such as cutting labor camp quotas and abolishing child labor.  Dukat found comfort by falling in love with multiple Bajoran women, including Kira Meru, who is Kira Nerys's mother, although he could never get the rest of Bajorans to accept him as a beloved superior and master.

One of these relationships results in a half Bajoran child for Dukat, a daughter named Tora Ziyal.  Dukat sends Ziyal to live on DS9 when he is declared a terrorist in a war against the Klingons, and she helps Kira Nerys and the Federation take back the station during a first Dominion offensive.  Ziyal later admits this betrayal in front of Dukat's second in command, who kills her in front of Dukat.  That is the final straw for Dukat's sanity.

Dukat then tries to destory the Bajoran people and the wormhole by being imbued with a Pah-wraith. During this possession, he kills Jadzia Dax, but he later becomes permanently banished in the realm of Pah-Wraiths by Sisko and the Prophets.


Dukat has some interesting quirks, such as preferring to be called a lower rank Gul than Legate because he feels it makes him seem more "hands on."  Gul Dukat also pursues Kira Nerys romantically during the Dominion occupation of DS9, but she will have none of it.  Dukat also has a special hatred for Elim Garak, who had killed Dukat's father as a spy and had fallen in love with his daughter as well.

 Our notable quote this week comes from By Inferno's Light:
"One man's villain is another man's hero, captain."
 
Actor: Marc Alaimo played Dukat, and he did not take the role until a couple days into shooting of the pilot when the original actor was not working out. His prominent neck led the show producers to give the Cardassians their signature neck ridges.  He can be seen in the original movie Total Recall and also playing other alien roles in TNG.

TWITrek Character Insight No. 61: Dr. Bones McCoy

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 continue our review of characters from the Abrams timeline with a look at Dr. Leonard McCoy, also known as "Bones."

 


Similar to the regular timeline, McCoy joins Starfleet at an older age than most of the other major characters. As he sits next to Kirk on the new recruit shuttle, he immediately makes friends by sharing his flask and his story with the future Captain. He was forced into Starfleet after a nasty divorce, despite being aviophobic,  mistrustful of technology, and none to keen on space travel.

Although Kirk and Spock have a tough start on the road to friendship in these first two movies, McCoy and Kirk begin much closer thanks to time spent at the Academy. Bones is so loyal to his friend that he attends all three of his Kobayashi Maru attempts as well as smuggles Kirk aboard the Enterprise before the conflict with Nero.

That act of friendship puts both men in position to be promoted to their well-known roles as a result of the twists and turns of the battle with Nero. Bones takes over for original chief medical officer Doctor Puri when Puri is killed in Nero's first attack. Much like Uhura, the promotion to CMO was not one that was ever going to be reversed for McCoy as he takes to the job well.

McCoy remains a trusted advisor to both Kirk and Spock, although his advice is often ignored by both when their instincts get the best of them. McCoy serves a critical role during Into Darkness in figuring out that John Harrison's torpedos have cryogenic tubes inside and figuring out that Harrison's blood can regenerate dead life forms. Thus, Harrison's greatest strength turns out to be McCoy's greatest asset at the end of the movie.


McCoy has a penchant for witty metaphors and sayings, and he takes this to a new level in Into Darkness. He uses so many metaphors that even Kirk tells him to shove the metaphors before the end of the second movie. Here's guessing that doesn't happen from the most quotable character in Starfleet.

 Our notable quote this week comes from both movies:
"Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!"
Damn it, man, I'm a doctor, not a torpedo technician!"
"Jim, you don't rob a bank when the getaway car has a flat tire."
 
Actor: Karl Urban plays McCoy in the Abrams movies, and his improvisation led to both his line in Star Trek 09 about the nickname Bones and Kirk's line about stopping the metaphors in Into Darkness. Urban can also be seen as Judge Dredd in the 2012 remake and as Eomer in the final two Lord of the Rings movies.