Character Insight No. 272: Ikat'ika

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review Ikat'ika, a Jem'Hadar soldier and recurring character on Deep Space Nine.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp272 

Most Jem'Hadar characters show up only once on DS9, with the one exception of Ikat'ika.  Ikat'ika was the leader of a Dominion Internment Camp that is featured in the episodes Purgatory's Shadow and By Inferno's Light.  He oversees and participates in brutal combat with prisoners of the camp, which is done so that the Dominion can better understand the fighting tactics of their enemies.

The battles we see in these DS9 episodes include fights with General Martok and Lieutenant Commander Worf.  He maims Martok's eye in one of the fights, leading to the well-known eye patch appearance of this character moving forward in the series.  In the fight with Worf, he cannot force the Klingon to submit, and that earns his respect as a fellow warrior race.

QUOTE

"I yield. I cannot defeat this Klingon. All I can do is kill him, and that no longer holds my interest."

Of course, this decision goes over like a lead balloon with Ikat'ika's boss, the Vorta Deyos.  Predictably, Deyos has Ikat'ika executed for failing to kill Worf, but this leads to Worf surviving long enough to be rescued by the good guys.  

Ikat'ika allowed for a glimpse into an interesting comparison of the warrior races on both sides of the Dominion-Federation War.  The fact that a Jem'Hadar and Klingon could respect each other in deathly combat provides another layer of depth to the front-line soldiers that the Dominion uses in all conflicts.  Other than the episode Rocks and Shoals, this is probably the best story for building the character of the Jem'Hadar, and it all comes back to the portrayal of Ikat'ika.

James Horan played Ikat'ika in all appearances, and he's the only Jem'Hadar character to appear in more than one episode.  Horan has enjoyed a long acting career in several soap operas and other TV shows, including bit appearances in all four Star Trek series.  He continues to work in voice acting, particularly in video games like Everquest II and Knights of the Old Republic, and also in his original love of stage play acting.  He met his wife at a Star Trek convention in 2004 and they've been married since 2005, which just goes to show you never know where a soul mate will be found.

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Character Insight No. 271: Sito Jaxa

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review Sito Jaxa, a recurring character from a couple of the best episodes of TNG.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp271 

We first see Sito Jaxa as a Bajoran cadet at Starfleet Academy in the episode The First Duty, as she is one of the elite Nova Squadron pilots alongside Wesley Crusher.  When the squadron leader Nicholas Locarno has the squadron perform a dangerous Kolvoord Starburst maneuver, leading to the accidental death of one of the cadets, Jaxa stands with her crew mates in trying to cover this up.  Wesley eventually caves, and she loses a year of academic credit as punishment for her part in this endeavor.

That led to a tough remaining stretch at the Academy, as the stigma of being involved with this stunt was hard to overcome.  However, as Captain Picard mentored Wesley to the right solution, he also decides to give Ms. Jaxa a second chance by requesting her posting on the Enterprise-D a couple years later.

We see her pop back up a few months into this assignment, in the episode Lower Decks.  She is serving as an ensign security officer at this time, and Worf mentors her to stand up to Picard when the Captain tests her resolve to see if she has what it takes to be involved in a dangerous plot to get a Cardassian defector back to Cardassia Prime.

QUOTE

The plot of the mission was to have her pose as a captured Bajoran prisoner being returned to Cardassia by the defector Jorel Dal.  She would then be returned across the boundary to Federation space in an escape pod.  However, the Cardassians find the escape pod and destroy it, ending the promising young career of this ensign.  Or so we thought.

Actress Shannon Fill did such a nice job with this role that the writers room tried on multiple occasions in TNG and DS9 to bring the character back.  However, it was decided that bringing her back would cheapen the emotional impact of the story in Lower Decks, and so she stayed dead as far as the show was concerned.  The inspiration for the DS9 episode Hard Time featuring Miles O'Brien was one of the discarded scripts that was to originally feature Sito Jaxa.

As mentioned previously, Shannon Fill was the actress who played Sito Jaxa in these two appearances.  Her appearance in The First Duty was her first acting role of note, but she also showed up in small roles on shows like Murder, She Wrote and Walker Texas Ranger in her 5 year acting career.  She has settled in Sunland, California and is a clinical social worker now.

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Character Insight No. 270: The Roles of Mark Lenard

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we continue our series on actors who played multiple roles in Star Trek, with a look at Mark Lenard.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp270

Mark Lenard is best known for his portrayal of Sarek, Spock's Vulcan Ambassador father on various episodes of Star Trek as well as in several of the movies. Sarek marries a human named Amanda while serving as Ambassador, and that union leads to the half-Vulcan, half-human Spock character which is so vital in the original Star Trek. Of course, this is not the only role he played on TOS and its movies.

To this end, Lenard was first case in season 1's Balance of Terror as a Romulan Commander. He's the first Romulan to be seen on screen with Vulcan-like ears, and these must have been a natural fit considering his hiring to be Sarek just one year later. Lenard wanted to play Sarek in the first Star Trek feature film, but that character was not written into the script for him. Instead, Lenard gets to play a Klingon Commander and be the first to show off the then-new distinctive forehead ridges we now associate with all Klingons, as well as the Klingon language. Lenard also got his wish for Sarek to appear in three of the next five movies.

INSERT KLINGON QUOTE

A couple interesting tidbits about Lenard's time on Trek. He was one of the options to replace Leonard Nimoy as Spock when contract negotiations for Season 2 broke down, but that obviously did not become necessary. He was also the first choice to play Abraham Lincoln in the episode The Savage Curtain, and that did not happen as a result of his regular role at the time on TV series Here Come the Brides. We just have to live with Lenard portraying groundbreaking Vulcan, Romulan, and Klingon characters instead.

Outside Trek, Lenard worked for many decades in theater, television, and film. He's a two-time graduate of the University of Michigan (Boooo!), and he settled in New York following the majority of his career wrapping up in 1980.  He still appeared in Star Trek at this time, but most of his work in this time period was teaching other actors and voiceover work for things like commercials, covering things like Saab vehicles and Zenith watches:

INSERT COMMERCIAL

Lenard was brought into acting while serving in the military as a paratrooper in World War 2.  He won the lead role in an Army presentation of the play Volpone, which toured throughout Europe during the war. His passion for writing and acting flourished and caused him to move to Hollywood and New York. He passed away of multiple myleoma in 1996 at the age of 72, leaving behind two adult daughters and his wife.

Although we see a different Sarek in the JJ Abrams movies as well as in Discovery, Mark Lenard established a high baseline for what to expect from this complicated parental figure. His contributions to be on the cutting edge of a number of different races in Star Trek adds a ton to what he brought to this franchise, and we have to respect and thank him for all that.

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Character Insight No. 269: Tess Allenby

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review Tess Allenby, a recurring character from TNG.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp269 

Tess Allenby is a human ensign who serves as a flight controller on Picard's Enterprise.  In this role, she is seen manning the conn in the episode Final Mission, in which the Enterprise assists natives from Gamelan V with pulling a waste barge out of their orbit.  She helps move this waste barge and dispose of it in the sun of that planet.

Another appearance for Allenby at the conn is in the episode The Loss, where the ship encounters two dimensional lifeforms.  She also runs the ship again in Suspicions, so we are provided numerous examples of her time on the bridge.  An interesting factoid about this latter appearance is that the footage used actually came from stock footage filmed for her first appearance in Final Mission.  This was done because two years had passed since the character had appeared.  Regardless, this character still gets credited with 3 appearances.

Although we hear her last name in the episodes, the first name Tess appears in the scripts only.  Unlike some other recurring characters who serve as regular faces in the crowd, Allenby does not show up in many books or other licensed works, except in the video game Starship Creator.

Mary Kohnert played Allenby.  Before appearing on Star Trek, she had mostly small TV and film appearances, including in the movies Mr. Baseball and Hunter.  Trek was her final acting role, and she moved into film development at TriStar Pictures and later spent many years at Michelle Pfeiffer's film company Via Rose Productions.  She does not serve an active role in filmmaking any longer, as she has apparently settled in the Portland, Oregon area as an average joe you might see at the grocery store...you know, just like her character Tess Allenby.

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Character Insight No. 268: The Roles of Peter Weller

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we start a new series thanks to a listener suggestion on actors who have played multiple roles in Star Trek series and movies.  Today we review the Trek roles and career of Peter Weller, who appeared on Enterprise as well as Star Trek Into Darkness. 

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp268

Peter Weller is best known as the lead character Officer Murphy in the Robocop movies, but he had a long history of Broadway work and some film work before that signature performance.  Weller grew up as an Army brat who moved around a lot, including a multi-year stint when his father was stationed in Germany.  Perhaps that background helps provide his authoritarian voice and stance, which he uses in his Trek roles as well as many others.

Turning to Trek, Weller obtained a role in Season 4 of Enterprise based on his former work as lead actor and a director with show runner Manny Coto on the sci-fi series Odyssey 5, which Coto was executive producer on.  Coto offered Weller the opportunity to direct some Season 5 episodes if he came on as a guest star, but that did not happen thanks to the cancellation of Enterprise.  However, Weller did appear as John Paxton, the Terra Prime leader in the episodes Demons and Terra Prime near the end of Season 4.  His acting further improved what was already a good two-part episode as the series drew to a close.

As a side note, the Weller and Coto connection continued for other TV series like 24, where Weller played another memorable villain, as well as Dexter.  An appearance on the TV show Fringe led to the introduction to J.J. Abrams and the new Star Trek film team, and Weller was cast as Admiral Marcus for Star Trek Into Darkness shortly thereafter.

We've profiled Admiral Marcus in detail before on our movie villains series, but needless to say, Weller brings much of the same depth and gravity to this complex character as he did in Enterprise.  Here's one memorable quote from that appearance:

Admiral Marcus - "All-out war with the Klingons is inevitable, Mr. Kirk. If you ask me, it's already begun...You killed a Klingon patrol. Even if you got away without a trace, war is coming."

In recent years, Weller has slowed down outside some directing roles.  He also recently completed a doctorate in Italian history, so you can call him Dr. Peter Weller.  Also, he was born in 1947 (INSERT), so happy 70th birthday to this actor, who has contributed two great characters to the Star Trek tapestry.

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