Re: UFO/Trek personalities

Dear Denise:

Man, I have to agree with you on the TNG lack of closeness! In fact, the
first season was the reason I rarely watched the show for the first 3-4 yrs
of its run! I felt it was trying to "recapture" the glories of TOS and
couldn't, I just didn't find the characters or the storylines as compelling.
And, once the TOS movies came out, and we saw Kirk dealing with the angst of
finding and losing his son, facing old age and retirement, etc - well - TNG
just paled by comparison for me! I felt the TOS movies were fabulous for
fleshing out most of the characters and giving them so much more depth. The
TOS movies made me a firm Kirk fan and before that I'd always been a Spock
fan.

Like you, I thought Peter Carlin and Lew Waterman were terrific characters.
I thought Gary Myers did an exceptional job in Court Martial, making it
obvious he didn't want to testify against Foster - whom he regarded as a
fellow officer and a friend. Peter Gordeno's character was a bit brooding -
you're right - and very quiet by comparison with Foster. He had his own
grudge against the aliens to settle (because of his sister's murder). Alec
Freeman, as you say, was SHADO's conscience and I've tried to write him in
that way in my own stories, telling Straker to make some decisions with his
heart instead of his head (esp when they find out Kovac is preggers). I do
enjoy Jackson's villany in Court Martial and at other times he seems like an
"eminence grise" - sort of a mole for General Henderson to keep tabs on
Straker - and Straker KNOWS it. I like writing him as a sort of creepy,
sneaky, slimy guy who everyone acknowledges as the best there is in his
business - but they still don't LIKE him. Kind of a modern day Sydney
Greenstreet or Claude Rains.....

One of things that I find sad is that there are some folks on the egroup who
think most of the UFO actors were very poor performers. I don't agree. I've
seen stellar performances from them all at some point in the eps I have and
sometimes they have to convey concern or emotion with their eyes - which is
a difficult thing to do - and they do it beautifully. Bishop and Billington
were particularly adept at eye contact. Did you know Mike B. studied with
Lee Strasberg at the famous Actors' Studio in NYC? Yup. Alma Mater to
Marilyn Monroe, Eli Wallach, Marlon Brando, etc.

Because in my series of stories the characters are all 20 yrs older, I tend
to hold Straker back from alot of the action - I see Straker (almost 60) by
the year 2000, as commanding a la Capt Picard in TNG - sending out "away
teams" to handle crises as they arise. In a way, I've made Foster the Will
Riker of the group, leading these teams and generally getting into hot
water. After all, as Gene Roddenberry said, you have to put some of your
main characters in jeopardy! I've also tried to utilize Lew Waterman's
character more often, as I like him so much. I've left Peter out of the last
few stories - I must re-use him again shortly! I saw pix of Peter at a con
just lately and with his head shaved bald, he looked fabulous! (however, I
understand the baldness may have been the result of chemotherapy???).

One of the nice features of fan fiction is that you can place your stories
on the UFO timeline anywhere you want. I did my UFO-MFU crossover in 1972,
just as SHADO was getting under way. I placed a short story in the 1980's.
The rest are from 2000 on. Other writers keep the story in the 1980's, to
maintain the flavour of the original series, and that works nicely too.
There's scope for so much with UFO. So much leeway. I think that makes UFO a
hell of a lot more fun to write than Trek which has been mined so often that
it's now (in my humble opinion) tapped out. I'm really curious to see how
they can do anything new with this new series coming this fall.....

Hope to hear from you when you have the time - Ciao for now - Pam