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.
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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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