Character Insight No. 346: Remembering Rene Auberjonois and His Roles

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we catch up on the sad news during my recent break and do a memorial segment honoring the life and career of Rene Auberjonois, who passed away in December.

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Auberjonois became the first regular cast member of any Trek spinoff show to pass away at the end of last year, and his contributions in acting will stand the test of time well beyond our realm of Star Trek. His family background is very interesting as his mother was a princess descended from the family of Napoleon Bonaparte. He grew up in New York City as the son of a journalist and the grandson of a painter, so his passion and connection to the arts began early in life.

As with many actors, he began his career on Broadway in many plays of the 1960's and 70's. His first breakthrough television role was as the memorable Clayton Endicott III on the comedy series Benson in the 1980's. During this time and the following years, Auberjonois became a regular face in many films and television shows, though mostly in smaller roles. One such small role was as Starfleet Colonel West in Star Trek VI, but his scenes were cut from the theatrical release of this film.

That opened the door of Trek to him, and he quickly earned the role of Odo, the chief of security aboard Deep Space 9. As the changeling Founders became a core nemesis in the DS9 story arc, it allowed Auberjonois to really stretch his legs in character development as we learned more about the other side of the conflict through Odo's own discovery of his kind. Although he had to endure long days in the makeup chair, usually alongside close friend Armin Schimmerman, he added a lot of gravity and acting chops to the show that raised the game of everyone else in the cast.

Auberjonois was considered strongly for the EMH role in Voyager, but his only other Trek role came in a guest appearance as a character named Ezral in Enterprise. Around this same time, he got to co-star with William Shatner in Boston Legal, which was a legal comedy spun off from another show he appeared in called The Practice. If you want to enjoy more of Auberjonois's work, I recommend this show highly, even as an attorney who generally dislikes legal shows.

Auberjonois was married for the final 56 years of his life and leaves behind two children, Tessa and Remy, who have also dabbled in their father's acting craft. As someone who was very quotable, we'll leave you with two of his quotes about life and acting:

- "If you do your job properly you usually learn a lot about yourself from any role you play."
AND
- "The best part is the part I'm working at the moment."

Rest in peace, Rene, and thank you for your great contributions to the growing tapestry of Star Trek.

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Character Insight No. 345: Prepping for Star Trek Picard

Welcome back to Character Insight! I apologize for my absence over the holidays and past few weeks as I dealt with a bug that took my voice away with coughing fits most days, but I'm back for the new year just in time for new Trek.  To that end, This week, we provide some guidance on what to re-watch in preparation for Star Trek Picard, which launches later this week.

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Whether you are binging some content before Picard begins or you are seeking some filler to spend the long hours between each week's episode release, a good way to spend this time is watching the best Picard content previously released.  So with that in mind, and looking at some of the characters and themes that appeared in the trailers for the new show, here are some suggestions for episodes and movies to catch up on.  I've split these by some themes rather than by chronological order, as you may want to focus on particular themes especially after they come up in the new show.

Picard

Family, TNG S4

Tapestry, TNG S6

Starship Mine, TNG S6

All Good Things, TNG S7

These Picard-centric episodes provide some of the best glimpses we have into the multi-faceted Captain.  Family is probably the must-watch here for the new series, but the TNG finale also provides a similar future vision to what it appears we will end up with in the new series.  

Borg

Q Who, TNG S2

Best of Both Worlds, TNG S3/4

I, Borg, TNG S5

First Contact (movie)

For the Borg, these selections hit the beginning and the high points of Picard's interaction with them.  As it is confirmed that the former Borg drone Hugh will be in the series, the one episode you should definitely refresh is I, Borg.

Data

The Measure of a Man, TNG S2

Data's Day, S4

Descent, TNG S6/7

Nemesis (movie)

Turning to Data, I've selected a sampling showing the many investigations we have into Data's journey and desire to become more human.  The new series will certainly pick up on the threads left by Data's demise in Nemesis, but even the other movies Generations and First Contact are helpful in refreshing yourself on Data's storyline.

Romulans

The Defector, TNG S3

Unification, TNG S5

Face of the Enemy, TNG S6

Inter Arma Eni Silent Leges, DS9 S7

Star Trek (2009 movie)

Reading the earl grey tea leaves, it seems the Romulans will play a central role in the new series following the events of the Abrams 2009 movie, so that's required viewing.  Just like Klingons in Discovery, it may be helpful to have some background on what we know about how Romulans work, and that's why these episodes have been identified.  Of course, I would also expect the new series to provide its own background on Romulans if relevant.

Seven of Nine

Scorpion, VOY S3/4

The Gift, VOY S4

One, VOY S4

Infinite Regress, VOY S5

Finally, we also know Seven is coming back, and much like the Borg episodes, this selection both shows the high points of her character development and more background on the all-important Borg.  

Even if some of this material is not that relevant to the new series, it will be enjoyable to visit these high points in the series coming back together in the new show.  For those of us who grew up on TNG and the like, this is what we've been dreaming of, so let's get excited and enjoy the next chapter for our Captain and the rest.

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Character Insight No. 344: Ilia and Star Trek: TMP

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Star Trek movie by sharing my experience of seeing the movie for the first time, and then we do a character profile on Lieutenant Ilia from that movie.

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My personal first Trek movie experience was seeing The Final Frontier when it hit television, shortly before seeing The Undiscovered Country.  Needless to say, the sixth movie in the theater was far more impressive to a young BuckeyeFitzy than the What Does God Need With A Starship movie.  That led me to seek out a box set of the other movies at the ripe old age of 9 or 10, and so my first experience with The Motion Picture was on a fuzzy small TV screen and a VHS tape.  Given that this movie is more about the amazing big screen visuals than characters and action, that kind of made TMP a heavy disappointment, especially as compared to Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home.  But I admit, I didn't have a chance to appreciate it on the big screen as it was intended.

TMP opened the door for what is now 12 other movies and 6 future TV shows, so the original return of Trek is something we should all be thankful for.

Today's short segment will focus on Lieutenant Ilia, who was a Deltan female conn officer on the Enterprise during what becomes the V'Ger mission.  Deltans are known for their sexuality and strong affect on other races like humans, so in order to be a Starfleet officer, Ilia had to take a vow of celibacy.  This is a bit awkward as she had previously on her home planet had relations with Commander Will Decker, who is also on Kirk's Enterprise.

We don't see much character development of Ilia beyond this background, as she is killed in the movie by the V'Ger probe.  The V'Ger probe then creates an artificial life form in the guise of Ilia to act as a liaison to the "carbon units" infesting the ship.  Although the probe replicated her memories and personality, V'Ger suppresses these aspects of Ilia, which reveals that Ilia really is gone.  Nevertheless, Will Decker decides to sacrifice himself to join what's left of her and the V'Ger probe at the end of the movie, opening these roles on the ship to once again be filled by the TOS regulars in future films.

As you likely know, TMP was a replacement for a Phase II scrapped television project, and some of the general concepts from Phase II did live on when a second TV show eventually aired 8 years later in The Next Generation.  Once of these general concepts was an ESP and sex-positive attitude character who serves on a bridge crew with a commander who had a past romantic relationship with her, AKA Deanna Troi is based on Ilia while Commander Will Riker is a small leap of letters away from Will Decker.  They even named the Betazoid race in a similar fashion as Ilia's Deltans, based on the Greek alphabet.  So while Ilia and Commander Decker only show up in The Motion Picture, the general concepts and underlying character threads were more than fully developed, just with modified characters in TNG.

Persis Khambatta played Ilia, and she had a short unsuccessful Bollywood career in India before establishing herself primarily as a US television actress. TMP was one of her only breakout movie roles.  Khambatta passed away in 1998 at the age of 49.

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Character Insight No. 343: Persis

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we wish everybody in America a Happy Thanksgiving and follow up with another augment character from Enterprise related to Malik, who we covered last week.  This week's subject is Persis.

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Persis is one of 20 human augments raised by Arik Soong, the great grandfather of Noonien Soong, who would perfect artificial lifeforms.  As this elder Soong did not have the technology available for such innovations, he had to rely on human augments like Persis and genetic engineering, which he had access to as a chemist working on Cold Station 12.

Persis was beautiful and used that to put herself in a position close to power, by being the consort to augment leader Raakin.  However, she proves in what we see in this series of episodes that she is cunning and has high intellect, allowing her to be a natural leader herself.  She plays a key role in overthrowing Raakin when she decides to side with Malik, who she had also fallen in love with.  She goads Raakin into making a first move against Malik, leading to his capture and later death.

QUOTE

Persis also leads the assault on the Enterprise to rescue Soong, who was being held by the Enterprise crew to try and lure and trap these augments.  She succeeds in returning Soong to the augments, where Soong and Malik begin plotting to steal another 2000 augment embryos from Cold Station 12.  While Persis helps Malik again in taking command back from Soong, who had taken over, she ends up releasing Soong and hiding his escape path by disabling internal ship sensors.  Malik kills Persis for this betrayal once he figures it out.

Persis first appears as just a pretty face and a consort to a male leader, but we quickly see that she is the one pulling the strings to shift the balance of power when she deems it necessary.  Her character has more depth than the savagery of Malik, which makes it sad to see her get killed in this storyline.  Arik Soong believed that augments could be much better members of society than Khan, and in the case of Persis, he may have had a perfect example.

Persis was played by Abby Brammel, who continues to act today in small roles, mostly on television.  Her most notable recurring role outside Trek was on The Unit in the late 2000s, but she can more recently be seen as a recurring character on the popular Fox drama 9-1-1.  Brammel turned 40 just this year and has recently had her first child, so we can likely expect more out of this actress as the years go on.

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Character Insight No. 342: Malik

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review a character from Enterprise who appears in a couple episodes, this character being Malik.

https://archive.org/details/characterinsightep342 

Malik is one of 19 human augments who were made by 20th century genetic engineering in the timeline of Star Trek.  The embryos of these 19 augments were stolen by Arik Soong and then raised as children by Soong on a distant planet called Trialas IV.  However, at the age of 10, Soong is captured and put in prison for stealing the embryos, leaving the augments to fend for themselves.  It goes about as well as it did when Khan and his followers were stranded on Ceti Alpha.

To this end, Malik grows tired of being stashed away on a distant planet when the augments reach age 20.  Thus, he hatches a plan to steal a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which he successfully does with one of his augment brothers Saul.  This angers the leader of the augments, whose name was Raakin.  This also leads Raakin and Malik to become fully at odds with one another, a conflict that had initially arisen over a shared love interest in Persis, one of the female human augments in their group.

Malik convinces Persis, who was Raakin's consort, to help overthrow the leadership of Raakin shortly after the theft of the Bird-of-Prey.  Malik kills Raakin and then shows his true self to be incredibly ruthless, a familiar trait for augment leaders as we've seen in other stories.

QUOTE

The crew of Enterprise then runs into Malik and the augments when Malik detects that Soong is aboard Enterprise.  Malik successfully captures Soong by taking Captain Archer hostage to assure his safe escape from Enterprise.  The Bird-of-Prey then takes off for Cold Station 12, the place where 1800 more augment embryos are being stored.

This obviously would be a bad situation, so Archer and his crew continue to try and capture the augments to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.  Of course, there are thousands of nasty pathogens stored in stasis at the cold station, leading Malik to torture others and threaten to make biological weapons out of this nasty stuff.  Long story short, with great effort and many twists and turns, Archer and his crew stop the augments and end up killing Malik in the end.  Soong realizes the error of his ways based on how Malik turned out.

Malik was played by Alec Newman except one child appearance in a flashback played by Jordan Orr.  Newman is originally from Glasgow and studied in the Shakespeare theater until coming to the field of acting.  He continues to act in many TV shows today, but it possibly best known for his role Muad'Dib in the 2000 Dune movie.

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Character Insight No. 341: Calvin Hudson

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review a recurring character from The Maquis two-part episode of Deep Space 9, that being Calvin Hudson.

https://archive.org/details/characterinsightep341 

Calvin Hudson was a fellow Starfleet cadet at the Academy with Ben Sisko, and they graduate together in 2354. They remained close friends after the Academy, including spending time together in New Berlin as couples once they both were married, and also having adventures with shared friend Curzon Dax.

Hudson is a Lieutenant Commander by the time we meet him in the episode The Maquis, and he is serving as a double agent at this point for the Federation and the rebel Maquis.  Hudson had climbed the Federation ranks quickly thanks to having similar qualities as Sisko: good leadership and the ability to inspire trust in those he worked with.  That put him in position to be a primary attache to the Demilitarized Zone planets after the Federation-Cardassian Treaty is signed.

But after seeing firsthand the significant suffering and abuse of colonists by the Cardassians, he joins the Maquis and uses his Starfleet position to provide supplies and intelligence.  Sisko discovers Hudson's double agent role and Hudson initially tries to convince Sisko to allow the Maquis to use DS9 as a repair station for their ships, but Sisko is much more loyal to his Starfleet principles than Hudson and thus declines the proposal.  Hudson escapes the Federation grasp in a skirmish at the end of the two-part episode.

QUOTE from The Maquis
"You're throwing away your entire life."
"And beginning a new one."

We later find out that Hudson dies in a different fight with the Cardassians a couple years later.  He is described by a fellow Starfleet defector as a martyr for the Maquis cause.  Hudson provides an interesting contrast of a similar character and a similar officer as Sisko, but he turns out much differently based on a different set of life experiences and decisions made.

Behind the scenes, the writers had originally planned to kill off the Calvin Hudson character in this two-part episode, but showrunner Michael Pillar convinced the writers to not do so because they had done that for a couple other interesting and notable guest star characters recently.  Later Michael regretted the decision, leading the writers to put in a note killing off the character in the script for Blaze of Glory.  So we never see Hudson show up again, despite the threads left open at the end of this notable Maquis-centric episode.

Calvin Hudson was played by Bernie Casey, who had fame as an actor by his appearances in 80s movies like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Revenge of the Nerds, and Never Say Never Again. Before acting, he was a track and field champion in college and a profession football player. He was not a fan of Star Trek, but he took this guest star role because he wanted to work with Avery Brooks, who he admired. He passed away two years ago at the age of 78.

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Character Insight No. 340: Icheb

Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we review a recurring character from the latter seasons of Voyager, the former Borg drone Icheb.

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Icheb was a young Brunali who was discovered by Voyager after he had been assimilated by the Borg. However, what Voyager did not know was why all of adult Borg drones on Icheb's cube were dead while several premature/developing Borg drones were alive. Voyager decides to try and re-integrate these four young people into non-Borg society and Seven of Nine decides to try and lead these children back, following her own successful re-integration.

Life aboard Voyager was difficult initially for the former Borg children, as Seven tried for a long time to control the children with heavy discipline and rules. When Icheb, the oldest but most gentle and soft-spoken one of the bunch, refuses a disciplinary order and yelled at Seven for never letting the children do what they want, she realizes that a different approach needs to be taken. She starts treating the children more as individuals and this helps them continue to re-integrate into normal society.

Icheb's original homeworld and his Brunali race are eventually discovered by Voyager. The Brunali are an agrarian society that used to be very technologically advanced, but that led to constant attacks by the Borg thanks to their planet being near the mouth of a Borg transwarp conduit. Janeway sends Icheb back home over Seven's objection, and Icheb discovers that his parents used their society's great knowledge in genetics to craft him as a virus to defeat the Borg Collective. In other words, they had made Icheb as a weapon rather than a son, and had voluntarily put him through assimilation.

QUOTE from Child's Play
"Then why does my stomach feel so strange?"
"You've got butterflies in there."
"I never assimilated… butterflies."

Icheb's parents sedate him and send him again towards the transwarp conduit to finish the process he had started, but Seven exposed their plan and stopped Icheb from being re-assimilated by the Borg. With no real home to return back to, Icheb decides to stay on Voyager. That makes him unlike all other locals who joined Voyager for a time, as all the other children, Neelix, and Kes all end up going back to their home societies or staying with another society before Voyager returns to the Alpha Quadrant.

Icheb eventually applies to Starfleet Academy to earn his commission that he earned in the field based on his strong aptitude in astrophysics. He becomes a valuable member of the crew, serving in various science and engineering fields over the last two years of Voyager's journey. At the same time, we see some fun character development as he mistakenly believes Lieutenant Torres has fallen in love with him, and he interacts regularly as a peer to Q Junior when that adolescent joins the crew for a time. Icheb also shows an appreciation for James Kirk and loves playing the Vulcan game kal-toh, once even beating Tuvok at the game.

Icheb was a modern version of Neelix and Kes, someone to give local flavor to the crew based on them undertaking a long journey far from Earth. In this regard, he adds interesting new character and story possibilities just like Seven of Nine did previously, while continuing the ongoing story of the journey home and the conflict with the Borg. He's a really important character to what made Voyager unique and good.

Icheb was played by Manu Intiraymi in most appearances and then by Mark Bennington in the one appearance we see this character as an adult. Intiraymi continues to act today, but his most notable regular role beyond Voyager was on the TV series One Tree Hill, where he plays Billy. His name is a combination of Incan words for the God of law and the God of the sun.

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