Character Insight No. 122: Michael Eddington

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 Michael Eddington, a recurring character from Deep Space Nine.
 

 ("Another security officer you just can't trust") 

Eddington first appears when he is assigned to Deep Space Nine as a Chief of Starfleet Security after the Dominion contacts and conflict begin. Although he was added to the crew because Starfleet did not trust Odo completely, these two security officers worked together well during Eddington's short stint aboard the station.

Eddington ends up playing a critical role in some of the biggest early missions of the Dominion conflict prior to breakout of full war. He sabotages the Defiant's cloaking mechanism when Sisko disobeys an Admiral's orders to hunt down an Obsidian Order fleet. He later also plays a huge role discovering that blood tests can be used to detect infiltrator shapeshifters in Starfleet as well as in the plot to make a second wormhole to the Founder's home planet.

Eddington then serves an interesting bridge between the stories of the first part of DS9 and the Dominion War storyline as he defects to the Maquis in his second year aboard the station. It turns out that the Maquis battle against the Cardassians appears to be the moral battle to take when the Dominion and Cardassians appear to gain the upper hand in the war. Of course, Eddington and the Maquis take it to the next level, far beyond what Starfleet can tolerate.

To this end, Eddington prepares a biogenic weapon to cause fatal nerve damage to Cardassians and he begins deploying this weapon at Cardassion colonies in the Demilitarized Zone. Sisko and the Defiant outsmart Eddington though and prevent the destruction of further colonies by detonating a trilithium resin device over one Maquis colony with threats to do others unless Eddington turns himself in, which he does. 

From Blaze of Glory
Captain Sisko: [about Cal Hudson] He was a good man.
Michael Eddington: He felt the same about you. He thought you were wrong about the Maquis; but he forgave you. Which is ironic, considering you never forgave him. You can't forgive any of us. And not because we betrayed Starfleet or the Federation. But because we betrayed *you*.

The last we see of Eddington is his assistance of Sisko with the rescue of the final Maquis survivors after the Jem'Hadar take this resistance movement out. He saves his wife Rebecca and Sisko before falling to the Jem'Hadar himself, a fitting fate for a Maquis leader.

Eddington was fond of the novel Les Miserables, and he saw himself as the hero Valjean, always trying to elude the inflexible policeman which he saw as Commander Sisko. Eddington's character is based on a similarly named character in the 1965 movie In Harm's Way, a very unlikeable protagonist. His character ties together some of the important aspects of this TV series while also providing some contrast from the tendencies of the main cast in the late seasons. This type of character works well for that very reason.

Eddington was played by Kenneth Marshall, who has not acted in over a decade. However, you can relive some of his greatest hits in the 80s movies Krull and Feds.

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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. 121: Best of Geordi La Forge

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 try a new type of segment based on a listener question to the show last week. Let's circle back to some major characters and look at which episodes are best for establishing their character development, and we start with Geordi La Forge from TNG.
 

 ("VISOR Geordi is the original and best version of Geordi") 

The best episode for learning some of Geordi's past was Hero Worship, where Geordi and Data help a sole survivor child of a ship crash deal with his trauma. Geordi reveals that he also had similar struggles as a young child, once being trapped in a burning building and then learning how to see with a VISOR for the first time at the age of five. 

From Hero Worship
Data - Did you ever experience a traumatic experience?
La Forge - I was caught in a fire once...and it was only a couple of minutes before my parents found me and pulled me out. I tell ya, that was the longest couple of minutes of my life.

We also learn a lot about Geordi and how he got the assignment aboard the Enterprise by impressing Riker and Picard when on former assignments in the episode where everyone thinks he and Ro Laren are dead, The Next Phase. For example, he stays up all night to fix a shuttle's engine efficiency after an offhand remark from Picard during a shuttle ride, which endears La Forge to the future Enterprise captain. 

From The Next Phase
Picard - "I've been thinking about the first time I met Geordi La Forge. He was a young officer, assigned to pilot me on an inspection tour, and... I made some off-hand remark about the... the shuttle's engine efficiency not being what it should, and the next morning I found that... he'd stayed up all night, re-fitting the fusion initiators. Well, I knew then that I wanted to have him with me on my next command."

If there's anything that defines Geordi, it's professional success matched with occasional problems dealing with people. He initially butts heads with legendary engineer Montgomery Scott after saving Scott from a transporter buffer accident in the episode Relics, but they eventually hit it off and work together to save the Enterprise.

From Relics



La Forge - "I told the Captain I would have this diagnostic done in an hour."
Scotty - "And how long will it really take you?"
La Forge - "An hour!"
Scotty - "Oh, you didn't tell him how long it would really take, did you?"
La Forge - "Of course I did."
Scotty - "Oh, laddie, you have a lot to learn if you want people to think of you as a miracle worker."

One of Geordi's weaknesses is dealing with women and romance, and like his mentee Reginald Barclay, Geordi gets himself into trouble falling for holographic representations of  women. This was most evident when he ends up meeting and having to work with the real life Leah Brahms in the episode Galaxy's Child after falling for her hologram in the episode Booby Trap. 

From Galaxy's Child
La Forge: "The acoustic signature doesn't sound right."
Leah Brahms: "You're probably the only other person in the galaxy who could pick that up."

Do you like this new take on the Character Insight segment? Please send feedback into the show and on Twitter. If you like it, we will mix these in every 2 or 3 weeks along with the regular version of the segment, which now focuses on some of the best recurring characters in the shows. 

Give feedback!

Character Insight No. 120: Alyssa Ogawa

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 character from TNG, Nurse Alyssa Ogawa.
  
 

 ("Such a bright-faced young'un at the beginning") 
Ogawa serves a similar role as Christine Chapel in TOS, that being a regular recurring nurse in sickbay. Ogawa was not featured until early in season 4, although she becomes a more regular fixture for the final four seasons as well as two of the TNG films. Ogawa comes aboard as an ensign, but her good effort leads to a promotion to lieutenant, junior grade, and she is a trusted fallback for Dr. Crusher that communicates to the other senior staff when Crusher is unavailable. Thus, we get to see her develop into a vital member of the sickbay crew.
Unlike many recurring characters, Nurse Ogawa does not see a lot of away mission roles. Instead, she is mostly seen assisting with important research and surgeries in sickbay and around the ship. One of these notable surgeries was the work on a trill ambassador, which was the first time Federation officers had actual observations of a trill symbiont. Although she also appears in each of the first two TNG movies, in both cases she is shown merely leading an evacuation of sickbay when the Enterprise is crashing on a planet or overrun with a Borg invasion.
Alyssa is very close to Dr. Crusher and considers her boss a close friend. We also see her hang out and play poker with other junior officers in the notable episode Lower Decks. She dated a small handful of people on the ship and even became a subject of gossip by the Captain and Dr. Crusher, but this leads to her engagement and marriage to Andrew Powell. They conceive a child who was born shortly before the movie Star Trek Generations, and this child saves the crew thanks to using amniotic fluid from Ogawa's pregnancy to overcome a contagion called Barclay's Protomorophsis Syndrome. The magical healing powers of pregnancy and babies even works in Star Trek. 

Quote: from Suspicions
Doctor Beverly Crusher: I don't want you to get involved in this.
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Is that an order, Doctor?
Doctor Beverly Crusher: Yes.
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa: Too bad you're not my boss anymore.

This is a high-quality and well-written recurring character who becomes a familiar face the audience cares about thanks to the stories told about her. It was great to see her star in a couple late episodes such as Lower Decks, and this is the type of character who adds significant depth to a series, even with a well-established ensemble crew already in place.  
This character was named by the TNG budget estimator Suzi Shimizu, who picked alyssa based on her daughter's name and ogawa based on her maiden name. Although her daughter's name is officially spelled with a "y" in Alyssa, the character's first name is indicated to be spelled with an "i" in about half of her script appearances. If you enjoy this character, she lives on as a major character in the novel series Star Trek Titan, which is the ship led by Riker and Troi after their departure from the Enterprise following Star Trek Nemesis. 

Nurse Ogawa is played by Patti Yasutake. Her biggest non-Star Trek role was in the movie Drop Dead Gorgeous, but she has recently done voice work for games such as Bioshock Infinite.

Character Insight No. 117: Corporal R. Ryan

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 Corporal R. Ryan, a recurring character appearing on Enterprise.
  
 
("Why is it the enlisted never look too happy to be around?") 

Ryan is one of the enlisted crewmembers who is part of the MACO force assigned to Enterprise during the Delphic Expanse mission. As a result, he shows up on many critical away missions and as a guard on multiple episodes, although his role is nearly always a background one.

The MACO, or Military Assault Command Operations, had access to weapons three or more years advanced than the Enterprise crew, keeping them on the cutting edge for future combat. Thus, Ryan is a sniper who has access to the newest toys, including better scopes and particle rifles. He uses this sniper rifle to shoot a mine foreman on a planet where Captain Archer needs to be rescued. That mission succeeds, as do many when this character contributes to them. It is interesting that this shooting role was written for the leader of the MACO's Major Hayes, but this was reconfigured during filming to give Ryan the spotlight in his first of a dozen appearances over 4 seasons.

His gunmanship comes in handy when Captain Archer needs to retake the ship. This includes kicking the Triannons off the Enterprise after they had taken over, and defending the Enterprise from a Sphere Builders invasion while the bridge crew is away on mission. Sometimes, he is just a simple security guard, holding unwanted visitors out of meetings and carting people like Arik Soong and Malcolm Reed to and from the brig. 

Having MACOs on board is a constant reminder that space exploration requires a strong military hand in the early days of Starfleet. Especially when conflicts arise like with the Xindi, these guys are the little known backbone that keeps the ship out of harm's way.

Ryan is one of the few recurring characters who makes more than 10 appearances while being played by two different actors. Both actors who played him are regular background actors, Jason Collins and Aaron White. Collins is more of a television actor, but he has appeared in the movies The Frozen Ground, National Treasure Book of Secrets, and Treevenge. Yes, TREEVENGE. White has not acted as much, but he did appear on the TV show 24 as well as in the recent movie Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. This actor swapping can be a bit confusing when characters are a bit faceless without much personality, but it is a necessary evil of weekly episodic television sometimes for non-regular characters (who may have other acting gig or jobs).

We've covered similar small characters on this segment before like Engineer Alex, and guys like Corporal Ryan are good consistent background scenery for the most part. It would be nice to see some of these familiar faces develop more personality and character, like in the TNG episode lower decks, but it's hard enough to spread out sufficient time to an ensemble major crew let alone minor crew members. I guess that's what we have The Redshirt Diaries web show for!

Until next time, live long and prosper...

Character Insight No. 116: Michael Jonas

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 Michael Jonas, a recurring character on Voyager who plays a key role in the first long storyline of Voyager, the Seska storyline.
  
 
("Put on your constipated serious face...good, good") 

Jonas was one of the Maquis fighters who served aboard the Val Jean under Chakotay's command until their crew became stranded with Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. He, like B'Elanna Torres, serves as an engineer after joining the ship. He turns out to be one of the harder crew members to bring over to the Starfleet side, and his desire to look out for himself almost ends up in disastrous consequences for the entire Voyager crew.

Jonas was close friends with another former Maquis Kurt Bendera, who died at the hands of the Kazon. Bendera's death was the straw that broke the camel's back in the attempt to get Jonas to fully integrate into Starfleet. Jonas blames Captain Janeway's policies for Kurt's death, which leads him to secretly open communications with Seska to negotiate takeover of the Voyager by the Kazon.

Jonas transmits details of Voyager's new transwarp technology after Tom Paris breaks the Warp 10 barrier. Tuvok detects these transmissions, which were ingeniously sent in the waste energy emitted from the propulsion systems and the power grid. But that doesn't fool him, so he and Tom Paris set forth on a secret agent plan to flush out the traitor and figure out who has turned against the Voyager. 

Quote: (from Investigations)
 

When Jonas sabotages the magnetic constrictors of the USS Technobabble for Seska, Paris and Tuvok put a plan in place to make it seem like Paris is also defecting from the crew. Seska takes the bait, pulling in Paris, who then turns on her and the Kazon to determine that Jonas is the traitor. Meanwhile, Neelix also comes to the same conclusion in his own investigations aboard Voyager and he ends up trapped in a struggle with Jonas in main engineering. Neelix wins the day though, as Jonas ends up falling into a plasma fire near the warp core, a fitting way for a traitor to go out.

Jonas is a necessary evil character to fill a gap early in the show, although it is a bit lazy to have Tuvok always be ready to foil the rogue Maquis plans. Seska and the Kazon are the first great villains in the Delta Quadrant, and Jonas holds a special memorable role in this storyline, even as a small bit character. That's more than can be said for many recurring characters. 

Raphael Sbarge played Jonas, and his acting career began as a little kid on Sesame Street when that show was brand new. He has also played in various movies like Independence Day and Pearl Harbor, and more recently in TV series like Once Upon A Time. He's also a prolific video game voice actor, appearing in Mass Effect and Everquest, among others.

Until next time, live long and prosper...

Character Insight No. 115: Ro Laren

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 Ro Laren, a recurring character on TNG who almost became a major character on DS9.
  
 
("Nose ridges and earrings, yes indeed, it's a TNG era alien via forehead of the week") 

Ro grew up during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor, which means she spent most of her childhood in internment and refugeee camps. Her most traumatic moment was being forced to watch Cardassians question and torture her father to death, an incident that taught her not even her father could protect her. She felt ashamed to be a Bajoran in view of this weakness, and she ran away from her culture for a time before coming back to embrace it, once she was done grieving her father.

Ro decided to serve in Starfleet, and despite good accolades at the Academy, her first assignment results in a court martial. Her decision to disobey orders on an away mission led to the deaths of 8 crew mates while serving on the USS Wellington. Thus, when she comes aboard the Enterprise to help with a Bajoran terrorist capture mission, she is only at the rank of ensign and has been just released from a prison sentence. Needless to say, Captain Picard and Commander Riker don't trust her initially.

However, Ro quickly showed her potential guiding the Enterprise through this terrorist capture mission. Captain Picard decides he cannot let this promising young officer go, so she appears in several other episodes in the final three seasons of TNG. The most notable of these is The Next Phase, an episode where Ro and Geordi La Forge get sent out of phase by new Romulan cloaking technology and they have to find a way to inform the rest of the crew that they are not dead and also about the Romulan threat.

Quote: Ro Laren: I was raised with Bajoran beliefs. And I even followed some of the practices. But I never really believed in a life after death. And then suddenly I was dead... and there was this other life. And that made me feel like I'd been pretty arrogant, to discount everything I'd been taught, you know? Now I don't know what to believe.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Hmm... Well, maybe we should develop our own interphase device. If it can teach Ro Laren humility, it can do anything.

Ro is later assigned to infiltrate the Maquis. In the process of gaining the trust of the Maquis, she again found her loyalties torn because her heritage led her to be sympathetic to the Maquis cause, which is opposed by the Cardassians. She ends up defecting from the Enterprise, with an apology to Picard for betraying his trust.

Quote: Ro Laren: Could you tell Captain Picard something for me?
Commander William T. Riker: Of course, what is it?
Ro Laren: Tell him I'm sorry.

Ro Laren is a good late-season character because she was designed as a sharp-edged character to contrast from the well-known main characters. Her personal backstory lends itself to good stories about her path to redemption and acceptance of her cultural heritage, even when it doesn't align with her Starfleet mentors.

It is also interesting that the character of Ro Laren was slated to be a main character on DS9, but this role was turned down by actress Michelle Forbes. While it would have been fun to see another character from TNG develop more like Miles O'Brien did, we still received a compelling alternate character when Kira Nerys was plugged into the role Ro Laren was to be in.

Michelle Forbes played Ro, and she has had recent roles on television shows like 24, True Blood, and Battlestar Galactica. She can also be seen in the upcoming Hunger Games movie, The Mockingjay Part 1.

Until next time, live long and prosper...

Character Insight No. 114: Brunt

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 Brunt, one of the many highly powerful Ferengi making multiple appearances on Deep Space Nine.
  
 
("Is that a Dominion spy?") 

Brunt is a liquidator for the Ferengi Commerce Authority, which is basically the IRS on steroids thanks to the stringent Rules of Acquisition all Ferengi businessmen subject themselves to. He first appears as an investigator working to punish Quark's mother for being a female making profit, and then to investigate Quark for causing a worker strike at his bar.

He finally is able to revoke Quark's business license for breaking a contract with the FCA, but the story did not end there for this micro-managing FCA agent. Instead, Brunt then tasks himself with bringing down Grand Nagus Zek to try and make himself the new leader of the Ferengi universe. Of course, Quark foils these plans because he can't bear to work with Brunt as a Grand Nagus, and also because Zek is a friend of Ferengi women's rights, important to Quark's mother.

Quote: "I want you back in business. It gives me an opportunity to keep my eye on you, because one day you are going to make a mistake, and on that day, you're going to lose more than your business license." (from Ferengi Love Songs).

But Brunt temporarily gets his way after the FCA deposes Zek following his bold reforms to give equal rights to Ferengi women. Quark again gets the best of Brunt by convincing enough FCA commissioners to return Zek to his position, a move that makes Zek indebted to Quark and his family forever. Which eventually leads to Quark's brother Rom becoming Grand Nagus, but that's another story. Why this plot twist required a story of Quark becoming a woman is beyond me, but it's not as if the Ferengi are taken terribly serious to begin with in Star Trek.

Brunt did return to his job as a FCA liquidator following his failed attempts to become Grand Nagus. One would expect he returned to his paper-pushing bullying ways with the small amount of power granted by his original position. This character would be more interesting if it weren't for the whole Ferengi culture and storyline being so ridiculous. With that as the backdrop, he simply becomes an irritation that leads to dumb things like Quark with boobs. 

No, I take it back, an annoying inflexible tax man is never terribly interesting. At least, assuming the show writers don't surprise us (and a bully with delusions of grandeur is not surprising in this role).

Jeffrey Combs played Brunt, and he is likely better known for his role as Weyoun of the Dominion in this same series. He played nine different roles in all his Star Trek time, which ranks among the top five for recurring character actors, and he continues to do a lot of cartoon voice work now.

Until next time, live long and prosper...