Character Insight No. 235: Culhane

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review ensign Culhane, one of the most prolific background recurring characters on Voyager.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp235

Culhane is another background character played by a stand-in, and like many others in Voyager, he is around for all seasons of the show thanks to the premise of a small crew being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. He actually appears in the second most episodes for recurring characters, so a lot of good work for this background actor.

Culhane is an ensign who receives assignments as a conn officer, an engineer, and a tactical officer.  Thus, we see Culhane working in engineering on many occasions, as well as walking past major characters in the corridors of the ship.  He also fills in at Harry Kim's station on the bridge and at Tuvok's station on the bridge during non-primary shifts, although we also see him working at another generic aft station of the bridge as well.

Culhane nearly takes Tom Paris's chief conn officer job away when Tom has to serve a 30 day sentence in the brig for actions taken in the fifth season of the show, and that was as close as he got to a more significant role.  Unlike most background characters, we actually do not see Culhane in the common areas or the mess hall very much, so maybe he is a workaholic.

Ensign Culhane was played by Louis Ortiz in all 49 appearances of this character.  Ortiz appeared as many characters, mostly aliens and often as a Borg, throughout the runs of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.  He was known on set for mentoring and training other actors on how to properly move like aliens, so he had a strong presence and important effect behind the scenes to make these shows better.

Ortiz has transitioned to a director role in the last five years, but as an actor, he had many credits over a 20 year career, including as a valet in the Jim Carrey movie The Mask, and as a spectator in Fight Club.  He's not to be confused with another recent famous Louis Ortiz, the Barack Omaba impressionist and comic known as Bronx Obama.

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Character Insight No. 234: Youngblood

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Ensign Youngblood, a background character from the early seasons of TNG.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp234

As covered recently on this segment, many of the regular "faces in the crowd" used in Star Trek are actually played by the stand in actors for the main cast.  Ensign Youngblood is another character in this category, as the tall, lanky character bears a resemblance to William Riker, except younger and without the beard.

In season 1, Youngblood is a constant background presence in nearly episode, which makes sense since Riker had no beard at the time.  He is a sciences division officer usually seen wearing blue, and most of his appearances are during his duty shifts on an aft bridge station.  Most often, we see Youngblood reacting as an average Joe to the major events that occur to the crew of the Enterprise.

In season 2, Youngblood apparently switches to command division, taking on the red tunic.  Ironically, his bridge appearances substantially disappear at this point, as he is most often used as the guy who walks past a major character in the corridors of the ship in about half this season's episodes.  It's thankless work, but some background actor has to do it.

Youngblood's final season was season 3, and most of his handful of appearances are in Ten Forward this time.  He's seen interacting with female crewmembers on multiple occasions, and playing a game of three-dimensional chess.  In his only credited appearance in the episode The Offspring, we see him introduced to another crewmember interested in him in one scene and then sharing drinks and good conversation in another scene, all as back dressing to the android Lal working in Ten Forward to learn crew behaviors.

Perhaps hitting it off with this crewmate led these two lovebirds off the ship, as we only see Youngblood in a couple more episodes.  The sendoff in The Offspring was planned, as Jonathan Frakes directed that episode, and it's likely a new stand in was needed for his Riker character at that point.  Plus the actor had decided to leave the show and go back to college to pursue his degree.

Ensign Youngblood was played by James G. Becker in all 41 appearances.  Becker grew up on a farm in Oswego Illinois, and he decided to try acting based on his fascination with television shows like the original Star Trek.  His only acting credit is on TNG, as he then moved to Iowa to get married and have children, and led a life as an insurance salesman until his death two years ago.  He basically lived the American dream, all the way around.

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Character Insight No. 233: Torg

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review another memorable character from the TOS movies, the Klingon officer Torg from Star Trek III.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp233

Back when we covered the best Star Trek movie villains a couple years ago, Ken and I did an April Fools switch and he covered Commander Kruge for that list. However, his right-hand man Torg has yet to be covered by this segment, so we review this other prominent Klingon villain from The Search for Spock.

While serving on the Bird-of-Prey which would later become the HMS Bounty, Torg supported Kruge in his attempt to obtain the Genesis technology from the Federation. As discussed last week in the Ambassador Kamarag segment, the Klingons believed based on a stolen summary of the device that this was a potential weapon that was to be used against the Empire.

Torg is in command of the Bird of Prey when Kruge locates the stranded away team on the Genesis Planet following the destruction of the science ship USS Grissom. He wisely goes to cloak when the Enterprise arrives to look for the same away team, which includes the reborn Spock as well as Kirk's son David Marcus. While that tactical move gives Kruge the advantage in the eventual combat with the Enterprise, Kirk has the last laugh.

To this end, Torg leads the boarding party to take over Enterprise when Kirk surrenders to the Bird of Prey. Torg could not figure out that the ship was deserted because the self destruct had been activated until it was too late, and Kirk's ploy works as the Enterprise crew eventually takes over the Bird of Prey following the dramatic clifftop end to Commander Kruge. Unfortunately, Torg is just the henchman of a villain destined to fail when he battles wits with Captain Kirk. That being said, he's a good counterpart to Christopher Lee's Kruge in this movie, and the duo are arguably the most classic of the Klingon villains in the movies.

Torg is not really a recurring character, but we see archive footage of this character in Star Trek IV, when Ambassador Kamarag makes his case that Kirk should be punished for crimes against the Empire. So this character does show up in two of the movies.

Torg was played by Stephen Liska, who had a number of small TV and movie roles in a 30 year acting career from the 80s to the 00s. He can be seen as a chauffeur in Beverly Hills Cop II, and as a detective in Lethal Weapon 4.

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Character Insight No. 232: Ambassador Kamarag

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Ambassador Kamarag, a recurring character who appeared in the latter TOS movies.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp232

Kamarag is the Klingon ambassador who serves as the official representative of the Empire to the Federation.  He is an outspoken and hotheaded diplomat in the appearances we see on screen, and his distaste for Captain Kirk is readily apparent.  It seems that one brash individual will never see eye-to-eye with a similar brash individual on the other side.  Regardless, this ambassador does clearly have the interests of the Klingon Empire at heart, and he therefore serves his role well.

In his first appearance, Kamarag is the lead protestor of the Federation's development and testing of the Genesis device.  Too bad he wasn't able to speak up more before the madman Khan got his hands on Genesis. 

He then defends the actions of Klingon crews who attacked the Enterprise on the Genesis planet as necessary to defend their race, as the Klingons apparently felt the weapon capabilities of this technology were a direct threat to them.  To this end, he proclaims that there can be no peace between the Klingons and the Federation as long as Kirk lives without prosecution by the Federation for his alleged war crimes in defending himself against the Klingon attack. 

It should come as no surprise that he then defends the Klingon government when they arrest Kirk and Dr. McCoy following up on the assassination of chancellor Gorkon.  He is forced to begrudgingly applaud Kirk when the Enterprise crew later saves the Federation president and the new Klingon chancellor from another assassination attempt, which was designed to bring war between these factions.

Kamarag was originally to be played by Eddie Murphy, and one wonders what an interesting difference that would have made on this character.  Instead, the character was played by John Schuck, who had ben previously married to Susan Bay, a friend and later spouse of Leonard Nimoy.

Schuck endured some long days of make-up and wardrobe design in order to pull off the unique look for the Klingon Ambassador.  One of the sacrifices was that the make-up base used on his skin to match the prosthetics did serious damage to his original skin, but all such issues heal with time. Schuck wanted to bring a King Lear-type theatrical performance that evoked a lot of humanity, and he successfully pulled this off, according to both Gene Roddenberry and film director Leonard Nimoy.

Schuck still occasionally acts today, although some of his older work on shows like The Munsters Today, Murder She Wrote, and Matlock is more memorable.  He's rarely recognized for this role as a result of the make-up, at least until he opens his mouth and speaks.  It's something a lot of podcasters and content producers can relate to!

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Character Insight No. 231: Admiral James Komack (and Admiral Westervliet)

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Admiral James Komack, a recurring character who appeared on TOS.  We also review a potentially related character named Admiral Westervliet.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp231

Admiral Komack is a flag officer who serves as the head of Starfleet Command in Sector 9, which is one of the Sectors of space where Kirk's Enterprise is exploring during the five year mission.  The first reference to this character happens in crew dialogue during the episode This Side of Paradise.  He was the oversight on the Omicron Ceti III mission, and he sends orders to the Enterprise to evacuate the colonists who were discovered to survive a bombardment of deadly berthold rays.  That would have been easier if not for the effect of some spores on the crew, which leads to some away mission craziness.

Komack appears on screen for the first time in the episode Amok Time.  In this episode, he first demands that the Enterprise stay on a mission rather than return to Vulcan to deal with Spock's onset of pon farr, but he later changes his orders when a separate request is made by Vulcan matriarch T'Pau.  This episode is notable, of course, as it shows other Vulcan characters for the first time while also establishing some of the important lore of this Federation species.

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It is clear from these appearances and the scripts of these episodes that Admiral Komack is a strong willed and highly competent leader, but he also does not like to have starship Captains question his orders.  He is also referred to and re-confirmed as a character in the 2009 Star Trek movie with the Abrams actors, in which we see a nameplate with this Admiral's name during one scene, but he has no active roles or appearances beyond the two episodes in TOS.

Interestingly, Byron Morrow, who played Admiral Komack, was also used to portray a different character named Admiral Westervliet in the episode For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.  The Admiral character in the script for Amok Time was also named Westervliet, but this was changed to Komack before final filming. 

Despite some noticeable changes made to Morrow's appearance between the two appearances to differentiate these Admirals, the high amount of overlap makes it unclear if these were really intended to be the same character.  So perhaps this Admiral should have more credits to his name in TOS.  Regardless, the character or characters are a bit unique in TOS because Kirk often reports to commodores rather than directly interacting with admirals.

The James Komack character is named for a director who worked on other parts of TOS.  When not playing Komack and Westervliet, Byron Morrow could be seen in many movies over a 35 year career and in other TV projects like Trapper John, M.D.  He was 94 when he passed away a little over 10 years ago.

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