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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Monday, April 17, 2017
Monday, April 10, 2017
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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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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!
-----
Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Monday, April 3, 2017
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.
QUOTE
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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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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.
QUOTE
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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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Monday, March 27, 2017
Character Insight No. 230: Colonel Green
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Colonel Phillip Green, a recurring character who appeared on TOS and Enterprise.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp230
Colonel Green was a despotic militia leader on Earth during World War III in the 21st Century. He was known for his ruthless waging of war as well as some other very Hitler-esque qualities. For example, in his only appearance in TOS in the episode The Savage Curtain, we find out that one of his tactics was striking at enemies during treaty negotiations. So in dealing with him, it was kind of like dealing with the Freys in Game of Thrones...AKA, never to be trusted.
The reason we see Green in The Savage Curtain is that an alien race called the Excalibans formed a replication of him to help them study various concepts of the nature of humans and their concepts of good and evil. Obviously, there was not a much better example of evil than this.
His motto says it all:
QUOTE
"Overwhelm and Devastate!"
The character appears again in the final season of Enterprise. As we covered last week in the Arik Soong segment, a descendant of Colonel Green was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Augments trilogy of episodes, but that was re-written for Brent Spiner when that actor showed interest. Nevertheless, other stories were written to work this character in to Enterprise.
The most notable of these is in the episode Terra Prime, where a student of Green's teachings made use of the same ideologies to try and expel all non-humans from the Sol system. We learn in this episode another atrocity of Green, that being the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of radiation-sickened humans over 3 years after the World War ended, on the basis of not passing mutations onto future generations. Much like the complicated figure of Hitler, this act had two sides and was fiercely argued at the time and in the history books. But it was pretty evil, indeed.
The character of Green was developed by Gene Roddenberry as a direct corollary to the then-recent word history, so this was another chance to speak on a social issue as Trek does so well. Green was played by Phillip Pine in TOS, who loved the part because it was such a perfect Machiavellian role. He stated before his death that it was his most recognized role, likely because in his words, "he was such an unmitigated bastard, he had no redeeming qualities at all!"
Because Pine had passed away before Enterprise was made, Steve Rankin played him during his appearances in the latter show. Rankin still acts today, but his most notable role was a 25 year stint on the soap opera All My Children.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp230
Colonel Green was a despotic militia leader on Earth during World War III in the 21st Century. He was known for his ruthless waging of war as well as some other very Hitler-esque qualities. For example, in his only appearance in TOS in the episode The Savage Curtain, we find out that one of his tactics was striking at enemies during treaty negotiations. So in dealing with him, it was kind of like dealing with the Freys in Game of Thrones...AKA, never to be trusted.
The reason we see Green in The Savage Curtain is that an alien race called the Excalibans formed a replication of him to help them study various concepts of the nature of humans and their concepts of good and evil. Obviously, there was not a much better example of evil than this.
His motto says it all:
QUOTE
"Overwhelm and Devastate!"
The character appears again in the final season of Enterprise. As we covered last week in the Arik Soong segment, a descendant of Colonel Green was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Augments trilogy of episodes, but that was re-written for Brent Spiner when that actor showed interest. Nevertheless, other stories were written to work this character in to Enterprise.
The most notable of these is in the episode Terra Prime, where a student of Green's teachings made use of the same ideologies to try and expel all non-humans from the Sol system. We learn in this episode another atrocity of Green, that being the euthanasia of hundreds of thousands of radiation-sickened humans over 3 years after the World War ended, on the basis of not passing mutations onto future generations. Much like the complicated figure of Hitler, this act had two sides and was fiercely argued at the time and in the history books. But it was pretty evil, indeed.
The character of Green was developed by Gene Roddenberry as a direct corollary to the then-recent word history, so this was another chance to speak on a social issue as Trek does so well. Green was played by Phillip Pine in TOS, who loved the part because it was such a perfect Machiavellian role. He stated before his death that it was his most recognized role, likely because in his words, "he was such an unmitigated bastard, he had no redeeming qualities at all!"
Because Pine had passed away before Enterprise was made, Steve Rankin played him during his appearances in the latter show. Rankin still acts today, but his most notable role was a 25 year stint on the soap opera All My Children.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Monday, March 20, 2017
Character Insight No. 229: Arik Soong
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Arik Soong, a background character and scientist who appears on multiple episodes of Enterprise.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp229
Soong is a doctor specializing in genetics in the 22nd Century, and as you might guess from the name, he is an ancestor of Dr. Noonian Soong, the creator of Data. Arik Soong is a proponent of genetic engineering, and he spends his life trying to prove that the problems with this process that led to the Eugenics Wars were based on human failures, not the technology itself.
That puts him on the wrong side of the law, of course, in the Earth culture we know from later Federation times. Soong first steals a number of Augment embryos and raises them as his children by trading for goods and supplies with the Orion Syndicate. After about 10 years of this, he is captured and imprisoned for violating the prohibition on eugenics. But his Augment children still existed, letting the proverbial cat out of the bag once again.
That's when we meet Soong in Enterprise, as Captain Archer recruits Arik Soong from prison to help track down and capture these Augments, who had killed a Klingon crew and stolen a Bird-of-Prey. This leads through an interesting 3-episode arc in Season 4 in which Soong helps the Enterprise crew find the Augments, then turns his back on them to join the Augments, and eventually loses charge of the Augments when their leader does not see things the same peaceful way that Soong does. Against Soong's best wishes, the Augments again wanted to cause a large-scale war, this time between humans and Klingons.
Soong therefore must escape the Augments and help Enterprise stop them once again, at which point Soong gives up on his work on genetics. However, as a brilliant scientist with plenty of time to burn in a continuing prison sentence, Arik Soong decides to dedicate his life to the study of artificial life. You know, androids like his eventual descendant made.
QUOTE from The Augments:
[Paul Harvey "and now you know, the rest of the story"]
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp229
Soong is a doctor specializing in genetics in the 22nd Century, and as you might guess from the name, he is an ancestor of Dr. Noonian Soong, the creator of Data. Arik Soong is a proponent of genetic engineering, and he spends his life trying to prove that the problems with this process that led to the Eugenics Wars were based on human failures, not the technology itself.
That puts him on the wrong side of the law, of course, in the Earth culture we know from later Federation times. Soong first steals a number of Augment embryos and raises them as his children by trading for goods and supplies with the Orion Syndicate. After about 10 years of this, he is captured and imprisoned for violating the prohibition on eugenics. But his Augment children still existed, letting the proverbial cat out of the bag once again.
That's when we meet Soong in Enterprise, as Captain Archer recruits Arik Soong from prison to help track down and capture these Augments, who had killed a Klingon crew and stolen a Bird-of-Prey. This leads through an interesting 3-episode arc in Season 4 in which Soong helps the Enterprise crew find the Augments, then turns his back on them to join the Augments, and eventually loses charge of the Augments when their leader does not see things the same peaceful way that Soong does. Against Soong's best wishes, the Augments again wanted to cause a large-scale war, this time between humans and Klingons.
Soong therefore must escape the Augments and help Enterprise stop them once again, at which point Soong gives up on his work on genetics. However, as a brilliant scientist with plenty of time to burn in a continuing prison sentence, Arik Soong decides to dedicate his life to the study of artificial life. You know, androids like his eventual descendant made.
QUOTE from The Augments:
[Paul Harvey "and now you know, the rest of the story"]
Arik Soong is played by Brent Spiner, which was a good excuse to get this TNG actor on the show in a different context than Data, who didn't exist yet. When the story was originally written, the character was supposed to be a callback to Colonel Phillip Green from TOS, but it was redone to fit Spiner when the producers realized the actor was interested in appearing on the show. What resulted was one of the top short story arcs presented in Enterprise, so kudos to the creative team for their flexibility here.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Character Insight No. 228: William McKenzie
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review William McKenzie, a crewman engineer who is a background character on Voyager.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp228
William McKenzie is a regular background character in the engineering department during the seven-year stranding of the Voyager ship in the Delta Quadrant. He appears in 34 episodes, ranking him among the most regular faces in the crowd on a show where regular background characters were used a large amount.
Although most appearances show McKenzie in civilian garb or with no rank pips, which indicates his crewman status, there are a couple episodes including Jetrel where the character is shown with Lieutenant pips. Thus, we do not know exactly what this character's rank status is.
However, it is clear he is an engineering specialist, as a good number of his appearances are as a worker in the background when notable events happen in engineering. These include when a photonic life form breaks out of the ship in the episode Heroes and Demons, when a console explodes in that department in the episode Investigations, and during the multiple tests of transwarp drive capabilities. His other appearances is as one of the most familiar faces during crew celebrations and assemblies. The most notable of these is when he blows the boatswain's whistle when Captain Janeway hallucinates her own death and funeral in the episode Coda.
Unlike Crewman Fitzpatrick, whose best "quote" was this whistle when we covered him a few months ago, we do hear or see McKenzie referred to by name verbally or visually in a couple episodes. Although he has no real speaking lines like most background characters, at least we know his name, and it's consistent.
As mentioned on profiles of other Voyager background characters, this show needed to keep a more consistent set of people in the background in view of the lack of potential transfers to and from the ship when stranded in the Delta Quadrant. This was a nice touch, and it gave character stand in actors a chance to have other roles on the show as well.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp228
William McKenzie is a regular background character in the engineering department during the seven-year stranding of the Voyager ship in the Delta Quadrant. He appears in 34 episodes, ranking him among the most regular faces in the crowd on a show where regular background characters were used a large amount.
Although most appearances show McKenzie in civilian garb or with no rank pips, which indicates his crewman status, there are a couple episodes including Jetrel where the character is shown with Lieutenant pips. Thus, we do not know exactly what this character's rank status is.
However, it is clear he is an engineering specialist, as a good number of his appearances are as a worker in the background when notable events happen in engineering. These include when a photonic life form breaks out of the ship in the episode Heroes and Demons, when a console explodes in that department in the episode Investigations, and during the multiple tests of transwarp drive capabilities. His other appearances is as one of the most familiar faces during crew celebrations and assemblies. The most notable of these is when he blows the boatswain's whistle when Captain Janeway hallucinates her own death and funeral in the episode Coda.
Unlike Crewman Fitzpatrick, whose best "quote" was this whistle when we covered him a few months ago, we do hear or see McKenzie referred to by name verbally or visually in a couple episodes. Although he has no real speaking lines like most background characters, at least we know his name, and it's consistent.
As mentioned on profiles of other Voyager background characters, this show needed to keep a more consistent set of people in the background in view of the lack of potential transfers to and from the ship when stranded in the Delta Quadrant. This was a nice touch, and it gave character stand in actors a chance to have other roles on the show as well.
McKenzie was played by Richard Sarstedt, who was Robert Beltran's stand in when the real Choktay was unavailable. Sarstedt also played a long running background ensign on TNG and other background characters in Trek series and movies, which are his only credited roles in acting. His last work was in Enterprise, but perhaps this is the type of guy who shows up in Discovery at some point based on his long history with many versions of Trek.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
Monday, March 6, 2017
Character Insight No. 227: Vice Admiral Chekote
Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review Vice Admiral Chekote, a senior Starfleet Officer who appears in episodes of TNG as well as DS9.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp227
Chekote first appears in Deep Space Nine in an episode where Bajoran extremists try to seize control of the station. The Admiral orders Sisko and his crew to leave the station, despite evidence that this faction was backed by Cardassians. His reasoning is that the Prime Directive applies and forces Starfleet to take a non-interfering position, which is one of the stronger interpretations on the Prime Directive seen on screen. He appears to be mournful of the potential loss of the wormhole and Bajor, but nevertheless, the order was given.
QUOTE - "Hell of a Turn" (The Circle, DS9)
The next time we see Vice Admiral Chekote, he appears as a supervisor to the Enterprise-D. Unlike his first appearance, where he is the usual unsympathetic admiral, in this appearance he allows Commander Riker to delay a mission and investigate a mysterious apparent death of Captain Picard. Of course, Picard turns out to not be killed in the archaeological expedition, proving the Admiral's instincts right on this occasion.
Chekote is one of only five characters to appear on Deep Space Nine before appearing on TNG. Of those characters, he is the only non-regular and non-regular recurring face on Deep Space Nine, giving this character a unique aspect different than all other such characters. He does not really have a unique story though, as we receive another typical jerk admiral story as mentioned before.
Nonetheless, it's good to see the overlap in these shows with overlapping timelines, even though the show writers did not take advantage of crossovers much. Would the shows have been better with more crossover? Definitely food for thought in view of this character.
Chekote is played by Bruce Gray, who still acts today and has been a prolific TV actor for four decades. One of his most recent appearances is in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, because we needed another one of those.
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Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp227
Chekote first appears in Deep Space Nine in an episode where Bajoran extremists try to seize control of the station. The Admiral orders Sisko and his crew to leave the station, despite evidence that this faction was backed by Cardassians. His reasoning is that the Prime Directive applies and forces Starfleet to take a non-interfering position, which is one of the stronger interpretations on the Prime Directive seen on screen. He appears to be mournful of the potential loss of the wormhole and Bajor, but nevertheless, the order was given.
QUOTE - "Hell of a Turn" (The Circle, DS9)
The next time we see Vice Admiral Chekote, he appears as a supervisor to the Enterprise-D. Unlike his first appearance, where he is the usual unsympathetic admiral, in this appearance he allows Commander Riker to delay a mission and investigate a mysterious apparent death of Captain Picard. Of course, Picard turns out to not be killed in the archaeological expedition, proving the Admiral's instincts right on this occasion.
Chekote is one of only five characters to appear on Deep Space Nine before appearing on TNG. Of those characters, he is the only non-regular and non-regular recurring face on Deep Space Nine, giving this character a unique aspect different than all other such characters. He does not really have a unique story though, as we receive another typical jerk admiral story as mentioned before.
Nonetheless, it's good to see the overlap in these shows with overlapping timelines, even though the show writers did not take advantage of crossovers much. Would the shows have been better with more crossover? Definitely food for thought in view of this character.
Chekote is played by Bruce Gray, who still acts today and has been a prolific TV actor for four decades. One of his most recent appearances is in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, because we needed another one of those.
-----
Contact me with segment suggestions @BuckeyeFitzy on Twitter! Thanks!
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