Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on actors who played multiple roles in Star Trek, with a look at Brock Peters.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp279
Peters was born in New York City to immigrant parents who came from Africa and West India, so he's kind of like a modern day Alexander Hamilton. He studied acting in high school and quickly landed a role in the opera Porgy and Bess coming into college.
That led to roles in several movies and on Broadway shows, most notably as the black man unjustly accused and convicted suspect in the rape of a white woman in the classic 1962 film To Kill A Mockingbird. He also became friends with Charlton Heston in this time period and that led to roles in several of this famous actor's films, including Major Dundee and Soylent Green.
He eventually became a regular TV show guest star, with credits on shows spanning from Gunsmoke to Murder, She Wrote. In this middle of this span, he was a regular on the soap opera The Young and The Restless, playing a character for seven years. While on this soap opera, he started in Trek and became Admiral Cartwright from the TOS movies The Voyage Home and The Undiscovered Country. We covered the Admiral in detail on our movie villains series of this segment.
QUOTE (from Star Trek VI)
Admiral Cartwright: Arrest those men!
Spock: Arrest yourself.
The Star Trek production team couldn't just leave such a good actor as a villain, so Peters was brought back to play Commander Sisko's father Joseph Sisko, a restaurant owner in New Orleans on Earth, in several latter season episodes of Deep Space 9. He was the only actor to portray a parent of a commanding officer, at least before the events of Star Trek Discovery. That allowed the writers to add more depth and complexity to the main character of Ben Sisko, as a result of his interactions with Joseph.
QUOTE (from Joseph Sisko)
More detail on this character can be found in last year's segment dedicated to Joseph Sisko. Peters adds one additional Trek credit in one of these Joseph Sisko episodes, as he also appears as a 20th Century preacher in the episode Far Beyond the Stars.
Brock Peters is like other actors we have profiled in this series in that he brought multiple highly memorable characters to life for Star Trek. His contributions to the tapestry of characters will not soon be forgotten. Peters continued acting until his death of pancreatic cancer in 2005. His many characters live on, however, thanks to his broad reach and depth of experience in movies, television, and stage shows.
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Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Monday, March 12, 2018
Character Insight No. 278: Timothy Lang
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Timothy Lang, a security officer who appears on several episodes of Voyager.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp278
Lang is a technician who works in the security branch of Voyager under Commander Tuvok's leadership. He is seen in many such contexts in this role, including on the bridge station and as a guard in the brig. One such example of his brig duty is shown in the episode Thirty Days, where he must escort Tom Paris to the brig and guard him until Voyager comes under attack.
Like other background characters, we also see Lang in other non-duty contexts. He is asleep in sickbay when a deuterium shortage forces him and the other patients to evacuate sickbay to conserve ship resources. He is also seen in receptions in the mess hall, such as in the episode Someone to Watch Over Me.
He also shows up as a part of away missions, such as when he accompanies Harry Kim and the Doctor on a rescue mission that ends up being for a Druoda missile. He is instructed to watch the missile and keep it company while the other crewmates debate whether to beam this missile back to the ship.
QUOTE? (from Warhead)
Timothy Lang is confirmed to be one of the casualties on board when those are listed on a readout in the final season episode Imperfection. No details are known about this death of the technician. Lang appears in over 10 episodes, but he's just a consistent background face like so many others in the Voyager series.
Regular background actor Sylvester Foster played Lang in all appearances, despite not being credited for this role. Sly Foster also appeared in the movie First Contact and in other roles on Voyager, as a stand-in or a background character. He also recurs in the background of many other shows like The Shield, Dexter, and Castle. He continues to act and work as a TV producer today at the age of 61.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp278
Lang is a technician who works in the security branch of Voyager under Commander Tuvok's leadership. He is seen in many such contexts in this role, including on the bridge station and as a guard in the brig. One such example of his brig duty is shown in the episode Thirty Days, where he must escort Tom Paris to the brig and guard him until Voyager comes under attack.
Like other background characters, we also see Lang in other non-duty contexts. He is asleep in sickbay when a deuterium shortage forces him and the other patients to evacuate sickbay to conserve ship resources. He is also seen in receptions in the mess hall, such as in the episode Someone to Watch Over Me.
He also shows up as a part of away missions, such as when he accompanies Harry Kim and the Doctor on a rescue mission that ends up being for a Druoda missile. He is instructed to watch the missile and keep it company while the other crewmates debate whether to beam this missile back to the ship.
QUOTE? (from Warhead)
Timothy Lang is confirmed to be one of the casualties on board when those are listed on a readout in the final season episode Imperfection. No details are known about this death of the technician. Lang appears in over 10 episodes, but he's just a consistent background face like so many others in the Voyager series.
Regular background actor Sylvester Foster played Lang in all appearances, despite not being credited for this role. Sly Foster also appeared in the movie First Contact and in other roles on Voyager, as a stand-in or a background character. He also recurs in the background of many other shows like The Shield, Dexter, and Castle. He continues to act and work as a TV producer today at the age of 61.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Monday, March 5, 2018
Character Insight No. 277: Dr. Timicin
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, in memory of the passing of actor David Ogden Stiers, we profile his character in Star Trek as a guest star, that being Dr. Timicin from the TNG episode Half a Life.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp277
Sometimes a guest star role is written with such depth and complexity that shows go out of their way to cast well known actors to execute the part. This appears to be the case with Dr. Timicin, as the episode he is featured in includes a love story with another recurring character, a high level of scientific discovery for planet saving purposes, and conflict between culture, tradition, and individual desires. These are a lot of heavy themes to mix in one character and appearance, but thanks to David Ogden Stiers, this is pulled off rather successfully.
Dr. Timicin is a Kaelon who dedicates his life to finding a solution to their planet's dying sun. He develops a potential solution and travels on Picard's Enterprise to another star to test his theory out. Unfortunately, the test failed and he had to return home without a solution.
In the meantime, he falls in love with Lwaxana Troi during the journey. Honestly, if anybody could fall in true love with that strong-willed character, they should live happily ever after. But that was not meant to be, for when the Enterprise returns to Kaelon II, Dr. Timicin is scheduled to commit a Resolution in accordance with his society's beliefs, AKA suicide. While he temporarily decides to seek asylum on board the Enterprise from this fate, his daughter talks him out of the decision and he returns home to face his fate. So the love of the elder Troi was just not meant to be.
QUOTE
As good as this episode is, David Ogden Stiers will always be best known for his role on MASH, as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III. Winchester was the second in command of the unit after Frank Burns goes AWOL, and he provides comic relief thanks to his interactions with Hawkeye and B.J. Interestingly, this Midwesterner taught himself a Boston accent for the Winchester character without voice coaching.
Stiers enjoyed a long career also highlighted by conducting symphonies, stage acting, and voice acting roles in many Disney movies, most notably, as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast. He passed of bladder cancer this week at the age of 75, but he has provided a lifetime of great acting in Star Trek and beyond. The following quote of his view on the arts sums up his life perfectly: The thing I love about the arts - music, theater, museums, galleries - is that everybody wins because you are touched and hopefully moved, and it is unique to every person.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp277
Sometimes a guest star role is written with such depth and complexity that shows go out of their way to cast well known actors to execute the part. This appears to be the case with Dr. Timicin, as the episode he is featured in includes a love story with another recurring character, a high level of scientific discovery for planet saving purposes, and conflict between culture, tradition, and individual desires. These are a lot of heavy themes to mix in one character and appearance, but thanks to David Ogden Stiers, this is pulled off rather successfully.
Dr. Timicin is a Kaelon who dedicates his life to finding a solution to their planet's dying sun. He develops a potential solution and travels on Picard's Enterprise to another star to test his theory out. Unfortunately, the test failed and he had to return home without a solution.
In the meantime, he falls in love with Lwaxana Troi during the journey. Honestly, if anybody could fall in true love with that strong-willed character, they should live happily ever after. But that was not meant to be, for when the Enterprise returns to Kaelon II, Dr. Timicin is scheduled to commit a Resolution in accordance with his society's beliefs, AKA suicide. While he temporarily decides to seek asylum on board the Enterprise from this fate, his daughter talks him out of the decision and he returns home to face his fate. So the love of the elder Troi was just not meant to be.
QUOTE
As good as this episode is, David Ogden Stiers will always be best known for his role on MASH, as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III. Winchester was the second in command of the unit after Frank Burns goes AWOL, and he provides comic relief thanks to his interactions with Hawkeye and B.J. Interestingly, this Midwesterner taught himself a Boston accent for the Winchester character without voice coaching.
Stiers enjoyed a long career also highlighted by conducting symphonies, stage acting, and voice acting roles in many Disney movies, most notably, as Cogsworth in Beauty and the Beast. He passed of bladder cancer this week at the age of 75, but he has provided a lifetime of great acting in Star Trek and beyond. The following quote of his view on the arts sums up his life perfectly: The thing I love about the arts - music, theater, museums, galleries - is that everybody wins because you are touched and hopefully moved, and it is unique to every person.
-----
Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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