The Unauthorized Trekkers’ Guide to the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. James Hise van

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СКАЧАТЬ pleasure.” He said that it would have been nice had it happened when he was nineteen, which is when he lost all his hair and thought no woman would ever look at him again. Stewart had worn a series of wigs over the years and even wore one when he tested for the part of Captain Picard. The producers decided he looked fine without it. Apparently a lot of female viewers agree with them.

COMMANDER WILLIAM RIKER

      Not since the first starship Enterprise 1701 was under the command of Captain Christopher Pike has the executive officer been called “Number One.” William Riker has been given this honor by his commander, Captain Picard, to whom he is responsible for vastly important duties. When a landing team, or Away Team, is assembled, Riker is generally in charge of the team. Although it is not strictly prohibited for the starship captain to head up the team, Riker correctly recognizes that too much depends on the captain remaining safe to guide and protect his vessel.

      Sending the most experienced officer down into an unknown situation is deemed too dangerous by Number One until he checks out the status of the planet and its culture for himself. Picard isn’t entirely happy being forced to remain behind, but he understands and respects his executive officer’s viewpoint.

      Riker is also in charge of overseeing the condition of the vessel and the crew. When a Federation propulsion expert came aboard in “Where No One Has Gone Before,” Riker would not allow him to run tests on the system until they had been fully outlined to him and approved by the ship’s chief engineer.

      “Number One” is an expression whose meaning has not appreciably altered since Earth’s seventeenth century, when the second-in-command of a sailing ship was generally known as a “first lieutenant” (hence “Number One” is used in the sense of “first”). The term also implies executive officer and captain-in-training.

      THE CAPTAIN IS NOT EXPENDABLE

      In those bygone days, the executive officer was also generally in command of shore parties for the same reason Riker takes such tasks upon himself now—the life of a ship’s captain is not considered to be expendable. But even though Number One is in charge of the Away Team on the ground, Captain Picard retains final authority over their actions.

      William Riker joined the Enterprise crew when it picked him up at the Farpoint Station, which is where he also met some other crew members for the first time, including Beverly and Wesley Crusher, and Geordi La Forge.

      Riker regards his captain with a mixture of awe and affection, but is also privy to Picard’s self-doubts, such as his annoyance at having to deal with children and families in a starship setting. As time passes, Riker has seen the captain adjust to this new situation.

      While Riker has a lively interest in women, he considers it a point of honor never to let it come between himself and his duty. He is intellectually committed to sexual equality and tries to live up to that. This was put to the test in “Justice,” in which the people on Edo proved to be extremely affectionate and greeted the opposite sex with deep hugs and kisses instead of a bow or a handshake. The whole truth is that, at thirty, Riker is still young and hasn’t learned yet how completely different the two sexes can be.

      Number One was surprised to see Deanna Troi after beaming aboard the Enterprise. They had been in a previous relationship and had a strong attraction for one another. Riker is slightly uncomfortable thrown into a situation where he deals with Troi every day, but each treats the other with respect, and they seem to have put their past relationship behind them.

      ACCEPTING DATA

      While Riker can accept Troi, and even the Klingon Worf, Lt. Commander Data posed some problems at first, but Riker has come to accept the android as an equal. He agonized when he was obliged to act as prosecutor in “The Measure of a Man,” but carried out his duty, perhaps too well for his conscience. Data helped him cope with this by pointing out that if he had declined to fulfill that duty, the judge would have made a summary judgment against Data, but the full hearing gave Picard a chance to mount his most persuasive arguments.

      While Riker is called Number One by the captain and crew alike, this distinction is reserved for starship personnel and not for people who are not a part of the ship’s complement.

      JONATHAN FRAKES

      “I knew this was a real part, a big one,” says Jonathan Frakes regarding the six weeks of auditions he went through for the role, “and I had to get it.”

      The actor credits Gene Roddenberry with giving him the needed insight into the character that eventually became his.

      “Gene was so very non-Hollywood and quite paternal. One of the things he said to me was, ‘You have a Machiavellian glint in your eye. Life is a bowl of cherries.’ I think Gene felt that way, which is why he wrote the way he did. He’s very positive and Commander Riker will reflect that,” states Frakes.

      The actor sees Riker as, “strong, centered, honorable, and somewhat driven. His job is to provide Captain Picard with the most efficiently run ship and the best-prepared crew he can. Because of this he seems to maintain a more military bearing than the other characters in behavior, despite the fact that salutes and other military protocol no longer exist in the twenty-fourth century.”

      While Frakes cannot help but regard this role as “a real step up in my career,” he’s had recurring roles on other series such as Falcon Crest, Paper Dolls, and Bare Essence. For a year he was even a regular on the daytime drama The Doctors. Other television appearances include a role in the made-for-TV movie The Nutcracker and critically praised roles in the miniseries Dream West and both parts of the extended miniseries North and South. The actor has also appeared both on and off-Broadway and in regional theater productions.

      FRAKES’S ROOTS

      Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Frakes did undergraduate work at Penn State before going to Harvard. He also spent several seasons with the Loeb Drama Center before moving to New York.

      “I gave myself a five-year limit,” he reveals. “If I wasn’t making a living at acting in five years, I would find something else to do. After a year and a half of being the worst waiter in New York and screwing up my back as a furniture mover, I got a role in Shenandoah on Broadway and then landed a part in The Doctors.”

      Frakes spent the next five years in New York City and then moved to Los Angeles in 1979, at the suggestion of his agent. “I really have been very lucky. There’s a cliché in this business that says the easy part of being an actor is doing the job. The hardest part is getting the job.”

      Jonathan Frakes resides in Los Angeles and is married to actress Genie Francis, who appears on Days of Our Lives. He’s also started directing episodes of The Next Generation, including “The Offspring,” “The Drumhead,” “Reunion,” and “Cause and Effect.”

LT. COMMANDER DATA

      Data is an android so perfectly fabricated that he can pass for human. It was thought that he was the product of some advanced alien technology until the discovery of an earlier model, Lore, revealed him to be the work of Dr. Noonian Soong, a human cyberneticist believed to be dead.

      Much of the information given by Lore may be false, as is learned in “Brothers,” when a homing signal brings Data face-to-face with his creator, who in fact created both of his androids quite СКАЧАТЬ