Did You Ever Notice Riker Doing This?

Three pages & no mention of Riker's penchant for trying to ram through doors with his forehead (or, from S5 on, fivehead)? Tch.

 

Heh, the way he flings his leg around like getting on a horse, makes me think that Frakes had this song going on in his head at the time: "I wanna be a cowboy... and you can be my cowgirl!"

 

That is what he does when he has something very, very serious to pursue. Sometimes he has to go into the Ready Room to talk Picard out of an away mission, or express displeasure about a female or transporter twin competitor. Sometimes he is pursuing an alien hottie. Sometimes he is just confused.

He's like the bull in a bullfight. Toro, Riker!

 

It's just a very manly manner of sitting down.

 

Riker leads with his chin, until Beverly makes fun of his beard in "Quality of Life", then he begins leading with his forehead, since his hairline isn't receding and he has nothing to compensate for there. Unless he feels the need to mount a desk chair.

 

/\ Lol. Someone should question Frakes about his acting choices at the next con he's at. Be interesting to see what he says.

 

I just want to know if the thing with the chairs is something HE normally does, or something that he decided Riker would do.

 

Good question. Riker has an authoritative swagger that I've rarely seen Frakes do outside of the character, but I could be wrong.

(on the other hand, and not-Trek related, but I've noticed that all of David Tennant's characters seem to have the same physical quirks as the Tenth Doctor -- even walking on any bit of furniture just to get across the room)

 

What about the inexplicable need to shine his flashlight in everyone's face when he first goes aboard the Enterprise-C in Yesterday's Enterprise. Even Geordi? Pretty sure the VISOR is a technological step or two above a flashlight...


"Back off, Commander. I GOT IT."

 

This thread makes me want a Riker spinoff show.

 

I think, perhaps, some of you are somewhat over-analyzing this.

For me, Frakes is injecting as much charm and humour into the character as he can. Riker is supposed to be a bit brash, young, perhaps egotistical, sly, with a good heart and a wry smile.

While Picard is stoic, proper, intelligent and reserved Riker is far more 'in your face', he is the 'cheeky chappy' as they say. The style of sitting just emphasizes this. His wise-cracks and grins are all part of the character.

As for the walk, I think Frakes is just naturally lanky and walks with a funny...slant. He IS a tall dude.

 

No way!

That's the fun part!

 

I never noticed that before!

 

His smile isn't wry. It's smarmy.

 

And it isn't a smile, it's more a kind of... smirk.

 

I wonder why the writers chose the trombone as his instrument of choice? Saxophones are certainly smarmier...maybe Frakes already knew how to play, or the trombone was somehow supposed to represent something Riker was missing?

I think Riker is more of a Kenny G type, he needs a perm and a soprano sax.

 

Frakes plays the trombone IRL. I think that he used to play in clubs and so forth in the early days of TNG and I've read reports that the cast would sometimes rock up to see him.

I think it's interesting that there is such a divide in opinion on Riker as a character. I don't think there is another character that divides opinion so much, except maybe for Kirk.

 

I like Riker as a character, there's no difference of opinion there at all. Like Kirk/Shatner, who I also like, it's just really easy to find some humor in Frakes' performances.

 

I think Frakes tried to add energy, character and humor to his scenes. For all the talk of how supposedly bland TNG was the actors did try to add character and energy tho their scene with little characters traits and oddities.