TWITrek Character Insight No. 66: Christine Chapel

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 Christine Chapel from TOS.

 

Christine Chapel serves as head nurse aboard the Enterprise, and she regularly serves as Dr. McCoy's right hand when medical emergencies occur on the five-year mission. Chapel appears in 25 episodes, making her character straddle the role between a main character and a regular recurring character.

Chapel surrenders a promising career in biomedical research to be in Starfleet, and her reasoning stems from hope in finding her lost fiance, Dr. Roger Korby. The Enterprise finds Dr. Korby transplanted into an android replica, but his madness forces the crew to destroy him. Having nothing left to search for, Chapel decides to stay aboard and continue exploring deep space.

In addition to serving as head nurse, Chapel proves adept at being an inventive lab assistant in the field. She helps develop a theragen derivative to solve effects of passing through Tholian space, and she also successfully synthesized an agent for counteracting effects of Scalosian water. That makes Chapel a key character in numerous episodes rather than a bit character.

Following up on the discovery of Dr. Korby, Chapel turns her love interest to Spock. Chapel becomes so infatuated with Spock that it becomes well-known and sort of a running joke, especially as Spock always rebuffs her advances. The only successes in romance between these two come as a result of telekinetics in Plato's Stepchildren and a brief stint with love potion crystals from Harry Mudd.

Chapel rises in the ranks from an ensign in TOS to a lieutenant in The Animated Series, and finally, a full fledged Doctor and commander in the movies. She was to serve as chief medical officer on board the Enterprise before McCoy rejoins the crew in the first movie.

 Our notable quote this week comes from The World is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky:
Nurse Christine Chapel: I am a nurse first, Dr. McCoy, and a member of the crew of the Enterprise second.
Dr. McCoy: You're excused! You may return to your quarters.
Nurse Christine Chapel: No, I'm sorry, Doctor! I have called the Captain, and I'll wait until he comes!
 
Actor: Majel Barrett played Christine Chapel, and this role was added to the show because Barrett was pressuring Gene Roddenberry to stay on the show after being fired following the pilot. Barrett was having an affair with Roddenberry at the time, so he made it happen. She also starred later as Lwaxana Troi in TNG and was the computer voice for much of Star Trek's history.

TWITrek Character Insight No. 65: Travis Mayweather

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 Travis Mayweather, the helmsman in the Enterprise series.

 

Travis Mayweather has the distinction of being a main cast member profiled behind other greats in Enterprise including Porthos and Engineer Alex, both of which were non-speaking roles! However, Mayweather does not get many lines either, and his stunted character development is one of the valid criticisms of this latest Star Trek series.

Mayweather grew up a space boomer, which is a person who grows up living in space. In Travis's case, he was a talented helmsman because he learned how to fly almost anything during his youth aboard starships. His youth was filled with space shenanigans like turning off gravity plating to jump on a bed with his friend Nora. His family runs a freighter ship called Horizon, and his relations with that family are strained when he leaves the Horizon to join Starfleet.

His talents as a helmsman were put to the test in some highlight moments of the series, including traversing a Romulan minefield and surviving the Delphic Expanse to enter Xindi space. Mayweather's love of adventure and climbing sports also leads him into important away missions, such as the one where he and Malcolm Reed become the first humans to walk on a comet. He also rescued some Denobulan geologists from caverns by knowing the art of spelunking better than others on the Enterprise crew.

Mayweather, much like Harry Kim who we profiled last week, went undeveloped as a character and unpromoted throughout the run of the series. He remains an ensign from the day he boards Enterprise to the day he leaves 10 years later. The character was initially named Joe Mayweather and was a lieutenant, but this was changed when Anthony Montgomery was cast for the role.

The best episodes featuring Mayweather include Horizon, Minefield, and Terra Prime

 Our notable quote this week comes from Horizon:
Ensign Travis Mayweather: Starfleet really ought to think about putting families on starships.
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed: You must be joking.
Ensign Travis Mayweather: No one would ever get homesick.
Lieutenant Malcolm Reed: Yes... Well, they'd better post a psychologist on board, because I'd need one if my parents were roaming the corridors.
 
Actor: Anthony Montgomery played Travis Mayweather. Montgomery has played mostly in television roles, although his movie career highlights include films like Why Am I Doing This? and Leprechaun in the Hood (again, not kidding).

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.

TWITrek Character Insight No. 60: Chekov

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 Pavel Andreievich Chekov.

 


Although Chekov joins the Enterprise as a junior office rotating around various stations as the age of 22 in the prime timeline, the Chekov of the Abrams timeline is an even younger child prodigy who comes aboard the Enterprise as a 17 year old ensign. Chekov is the most obvious example of the primary difference in this timeline, that being the forcing of the major crew members into their roles at a much younger age than in the original timeline.

In this timeline, Chekov serves as a navigator who has a special talent at running the transporter. Chekov is top in his academy class at stellar cartography and transporter theory, which makes sense given that he can calculate transporter paths faster than the ship's computer as evidenced in Star Trek 09. Chekov also comes up with the plan to drop out of warp near one of Saturn's moons to mask a beaming of Kirk and Spock aboard Nero's vessel in the plan to save Earth.

Unfortunately, that turns out to be Chekov's only real memorable moment thus far other than running the transporter.  Of all the characters in Into Darkness, Chekov is one of two that really took on a reduced role with few memorable moments, along with Sulu. Unlike Sulu, who gets a chance to show an affinity for command in a nod to the original timeline, Chekov does not move forward in character development much as he ends up stuck being Scotty's replacement in a hopeless sabotage situation.

Of course, Chekov has partially taken Scotty's role of transporter expert and temporary chief engineer, so he may be tracking into a much different character mentored by Scotty rather than leaning toward science officer and navigator in the original timeline. That would be an interesting big break, something that has not been used much thus far in this timeline. One would hope the writers make more of a role for Chekov if possible in the third Abrams movie.

 Our notable quote this week comes from the Star Trek 09:
"I can do that!...I can do that!....move, move, move, move...I can do that! (running to transporter)."
 
Actor: Anton Yelchin plays Chekov in the Abrams timeline. Yelchin has been acting since the age of 11, over half his life.  He can recently been seen as the title character in Odd Thomas, an adaptation of a Dean Koontz thriller, and heard as the voice of Clumsy Smurf in the Smurf movies.