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Posted:
08:16:22 on January 14 2002
By: GustavoLeao
Dept: People
The Trek Brasilis website just posted an exclusive interview with Voyager actor Robert Duncan McNeill, who recently directed ENTERPRISE's "Cold Front". Here are some excerpts
TB - And how was your experience in "Cold Front"?
McNeill - My experience there was different than I had expected. It's funny when you're an actor on that show, and I knew all the other actors very well, we had a short hand, you know, I could use an example of something that we all were familiar with and they just get it right away. With Enterprise, it's all brand new, and I don't know the actors very well, so it was very unusual. I was surprised how challenging it was, because most of my Voyager episodes were a real pleasure, and they were hard work, but they were... everything just flowed together smoothly, and the Enterprise was a little more challenging. But the other interesting thing was that Enterprise, that episode that I directed, it was unusual for Star Trek because it didn't really have an ending. You know, usually in the end of a Star Trek episode, there's a moral to the story, and things are wrapped up kind of neatly, and this one was left open-ended. You know, Silik escaped Enterprise and there was no real lesson to be learned from it, except that there may be some trouble down the road.
TB - Do you think this kind of episode is signalling that the producers are trying to change some things that are established in Star Trek?
McNeill - Yes, I think so. I think traditionally, all the way back to the original series, the stories were very self-contained, you know, you didn't have to see the previous episode to know the backstory, if you come into a Star Trek show, you see a whole complete story and get a good moral, all in a good old-fashion fairy tale. Well, the new Enterprise show is more like an old-fashion serial, you know, you have to keep up with what's going on week to week, and the episodes don't always end very cleanly.
TB - How do you see the evolution of the Trek franchise from your very first involvement with it ?
McNeill - I did an episode of The Next Generation as well, so I have some memories that go all the way back to...more than eight years, back to 1991 or 1992, I can't remember, almost ten years now. I think that the franchise has changed in subtle ways, but it has changed. I think when The Next Generation was on the air, Star Trek was unique, there weren't any other science fiction shows to speak of. People viewed with a fresher eye, you know, they hadn't see any Star Trek in 25 years, and now here was some fresh new Star Trek, so it was a little fresher. I think now there's been to much, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, now Enterprise, that... it's not so fresh. You know, even the audiences looks at it and they compare to other Trek shows, they talk about how they've seen it before, seen the same stories. So it's... I don't know. If I were the head of Paramount, maybe I would stop making television series for a while.
TB - Do you believe we're next to reaching a point of saturation ?
McNeill - I think that it would be better for the franchise in the long run to stop and take two years just to enjoy the fruits of the labor they've made so far. And maybe allow themselves to get inspired in a new way, so that it comes back even more different than Enterprise. Enterprise is unique, it's different than Voyager, it's different than The Next Generation, certainly got its own personality, but still being so close to the other shows, inevitably it's going to kind of carry over many of the same tricks, the same styles that the other shows used. So I just think they need to walk away and do some other thinks and then come back.
The full interview, in which McNeill talks about his career, directing and criticism of Voyager, can be found here
Thanks to Salvador Nogueira for the tip.
