Character Insight No. 305: The Roles of Marco Rodriguez

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review the background characters brought to life in Star Trek by actor Marco Rodriguez.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp305 

Rodriguez was a background actor who played a couple of different roles on The Next Generation.  In the episode The Arsenal of Freedom, he plays a holographic recreation of Captain Paul Rice, one of Will Riker's former Academy classmates.  The hologram is made by the Minosian weapon Echo Papa 607, which is trying to gather intelligence on Starfleet and the Enterprise.  Will Riker sees through this ruse after testing the apparent Mr. Rice as follows.

QUOTE (the U.S.S. Lollipop)

In the episode The Wounded, Rodriguez plays a Cardassian named Glinn Telle.  The Enterprise tries to prevent the beginning of another war with the Cardassians caused by a rogue Starfleet Captain.  Telle is an assistant in a delegation of Cardassians who come aboard Enterprise to observe the ship while passing through some Cardassian space.  He speaks much less in this role than he did as the fake Captain Rice.

Interestingly, stock footage from the Paul Rice episode was re-used in the finale All Good Things.  He can be seen for the sharp-eyed viewer on a computer screen in this episode.  So the character of Paul Rice is credited with multiple appearances, despite Rodriguez only ever donning a character costume once for each character. 

Marco Rodriguez did not have any further Trek appearances, but he can be seen in other movies including High School High and Million Dollar Baby.  In 2019, you will be able to see him in the mystery crime film from Quentin Tarantino entitled Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. 

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Character Insight No. 304: Best of Wesley Crusher

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on the best of TNG with a look at the best moments of Wesley Crusher.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp304 

Wesley Crusher was the first regular recurring young adult actor in Star Trek.  As the wonder-boy son of the Chief Medical Officer on board, there was plenty of canvas to build his character within, and he serves an important role in growing the characters of others like Captain Picard, who becomes his mentor and a father figure of sorts.

For this segment we will skip past many awkward first and second season episodes featuring Wesley and go right to Evolution, the third season premiere.  Wesley must overcome a mistake he makes in letting nanites loose during a science experiment he runs on board, while also learning to deal with his mother coming back on board and the high expectations of all the adults around him.  As always, Guinan is around to help with those human issues.

QUOTE (from Evolution, S3):
Wesley - "You won't tell anybody will you...oh ok, I will...if it's true."
Guinan - "Wes, do you think you're going to get a good grade?"

Wesley - "I always get an A"
Guinan - "So did Dr. Frankenstein"

After learning all he can from the Enterprise crew, the acting ensign receives admission to Starfleet Academy.  Captain Picard decides to transport Wesley to the ship that will take Wesley to Academy so they can spend some final time together, but the shuttle crashes on a desert moon and Wesley must keep Picard alive until they can be rescued.  When things look grim for the duo, Picard shares his best life advice and Wesley expresses his gratitude for his years aboard Enterprise.

QUOTE (from Final Mission, S4):
Ensign Wesley Crusher: "Sir, in the past three years, I've lived more than most people do in a lifetime. I think I'm very lucky, no matter what happens. How many people get to serve with Jean-Luc Picard?"

Ironically, the best Wesley episode comes when he is off the ship as a regular character, that being the season 5 episode The First Duty.  Now an academy student, Wesley is part of an elite flight team Nova Squadron that is to perform a flight demonstration for graduation ceremonies at the Academy.  But when the flight team commander convinces his team to do a dangerous and banned maneuver, leading to the death of one of the team in a practice run, Wesley is torn between loyalty to his remaining team members and telling the truth in the investigation.  It takes some strong words from Picard, who was to speak at the graduation ceremony, to get Wesley to admit the team's fault and suffer the consequences.

QUOTE (from The First Duty, S5):
Picard - "The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based, and if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform. I'm going to make this simple for you, Mr. Crusher; either you come forward and tell Admiral Brand what really took place, or I will."
Crusher - "Captain-"
Picard - "Dismissed!"

Although Star Trek writers have often struggled with young adult and child actors, the TNG series would not have been as memorable without Wesley Crusher.  It's made actor Wil Wheaton a bit of a nerd cult hero following the general initial dislike for his character.  Wheaton can be found today on the web series Tabletop as well as on Big Bang Theory and as voices in Transformers and Teen Titans Go.

Other great episodes featuring Wesley include The Game, the Dauphin, Coming of Age, and Justice.  And we'll never forget the iconic 80's rainbow shirt Wesley wore in his early appearances.  So let's close with:

QUOTE
"Shut up Wesley!"

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Character Insight No. 303: Lydia Anderson

Welcome back to Character Insight!  This week, we review a background character from Voyager named Lydia Anderson.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp303 

We've covered a number of these regular background "face in the crowd" characters from Voyager, and Lydia Anderson is a crewman who serves in the engineering and security divisions.  As such, many of her appearances are as part of teams working on ship problems or escorts for guests and hostiles.

Unlike some of the other background characters of this variety, Anderson appears in episodes spanning from the first season to the last.  In her only first-season appearance in the episode Fury, Anderson wields a phaser rifle and helps other security officers in a firefight with invading Vidiians.  This leaves a memorable first impression that likely caused the show writers to use her more and more for background in future seasons.

Many of Voyager's two-part episodes involved crises where the Voyager crew would have to abandon ship or be abducted or the like.  So it should come as no surprise that crewman Anderson plays roles in these episodes as security detail in Equinox and as a brainwashed crew member in Workforce.  It is in this latter two-parter where her image appears on screen in Tuvok's computer files, and the name Lydia Anderson is finally applied to this character.

While crewman Anderson has no speaking lines in her 16 appearances, and thus is uncredited throughout the show's run, she ranks in the top 10 of recurring characters in number of appearances.  It may be hard to believe, but she shows up as much as Naomi Wildman.

Joyce Lasley played Lydia Anderson, and this was her most notable role as a regular background and stand-in character for Voyager and Deep Space 9.  She played a number of aliens throughout Voyager as well, often wearing prosthetics with no nose holes and no ear holes!  She also recurred as a background Starfleet instructor in the 2009 Star Trek movie, and most recently has served as a stand-in for the TV show Glee.

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Character Insight No. 302: Best of Dr. Katherine Pulaski

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we continue our series on the best of TNG with a look at the best moments of Darrell's favorite main character, Dr. Katherine Pulaski.

https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp302 

Dr. Pulaski comes in to season 2 as a result of the show writers being unhappy with how Dr. Crusher's character had failed to develop enough in season 1.  Pulaski was initially written to be a bit of an homage to Doctor McCoy from TOS, although her brash style and crankiness did not really fit well with the completely revised cast in TNG.

Over the course of season 2, we see Pulaski go from completely bigoted views about artificial life forms like Data to someone who learns to care for her crewmate Data.  One of the shining examples of her misunderstanding of Commander Data comes in her first episode where she can't understand his interaction with other crew members.

QUOTE (from The Child, S2):

"Counsellor Troi is going to need the comfort of a Human touch, not the cold hand of technology."

When not being a royal pain for all non-human life forms on board in her first few episodes, the new Doctor espouses her view for old world medicine sometimes being the best option.  Again, this fits in with her overall molding after the prior character of Dr. McCoy. 

QUOTE (from Contagion, S2):

"It's a time-honored way to practice medicine, with your head and your heart and your hands."

One of the turning points with Data comes in the episode Unnatural Selection, in which Data stays with Pulaski for a long period of time when she is infected during the crisis at the Darwin Station.  Her respect for him grows in this and other episodes and she ends up being one of Data's biggest backers when she and Picard guide Data through challenging world champion Kolrami to a couple of games of stratagema in the episode Peak Performance.

QUOTE (from Peak Performance, S2):

"Pulaski - Alright Data, enough of this.  How long are you going to sit sulking like Achilles in his tent?

Data - I am running diagnostics. 

Pulaski - You may be able to sell Troi that story, but not me.  And you may be able to sell Troi that story, but not me. 

Data - I am concerned about giving the Captain faulty advice.

Pulaski - I wish I had never convinced you to play that game."

Thus, while the show writers and actress Diana Muldaur mutually decided to part ways following season 2, her biggest contribution was helping in the fast tracking of Data's character development, which hit several key notes in season 2 including Measure of a Man and the aforementioned Peak Performance.  She is also memorable in her fascination with Worf and Klingon culture, and her challenging of Captain Picard on multiple occasions.  So while Darrell and many others may rightfully dislike this copycat character, she served some purposes and held us over until the writers bought back Dr. Crusher and successfully developed her character in seasons 3-7.

Diana Muldaur was the only regular cast member of a post-TOS Trek to have appeared on TOS, as she guested on a couple of episodes Return to Tomorrow and Is There in Truth No Beauty.  She retired from acting in 1993 but was best known for her role on L.A. Law following her short stint on TNG.

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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!