Trek guest actors in maybe surprising roles

Sorry! Here's more S2 spoilage: Morgan Woodward as one of three crazy wolf-hunting brothers (which includes Bruce Dern) in "The Wolfers."

 

I'm kind of surprised that Bruce Dern never made an appearance in Star Trek. He would have made a good crazed Starfleet officer.

 

I see Bruce Dern as the soul survivor of a Gorn attack, seeking revenge at all costs. Just as Kirk is about to let the Gorns off the hook to avoid a war, Dern commandeers the forward phaser control room and fires on the Gorns, destroying them. What a dilemma? Dern is arrested and the Federation may be at war in the near future...

 

Now that's a pairing!

 

Derrn would have made a good Lazarus.

 

The Immortal is based on a novel about the search for an immortal man thorough a few decades (his blood-which he donated to get some wine-helped rejuvenate somebody, so everybody wants him for what he's got in his veins.) The only problem is, the guy is homeless, and is completly off the grid, so finding him is a big chore, and as stated above, it takes about a century and a half to do so. This novel would've made a great TV miniseries, or a movie; instead, it got turned into this pile of poop (interesting that one of the OTA retro channels is playing this show instead of SyFy, which played it briefly back in the early '90's; it seems amazing that these channels are taking up showing short-lived shows like these [but if they can show The Immortal, Lotsa Luck, Good Morning World, and a few others, why not also play Slattery's People, East Side/West Side, Breaking Point, Coronet Blue, and He & She?]) The novel's author summed up why the show was crap; instead of running from Braddock and then eventually Maitland, Ben Richards and his wife should've just lost themselves and proceed to produce a lot of children, who will ensure that their good fortune will become the good fortune of the human race eventually.

Does she also sing the song 'Fire' by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown in this episode, too?

 

It's weird to see Morgan Woodward without his customary white hair (and the shock of his white skin) the only other time I've seen him with brown hair was in The Horse Race from Planet of The Apes!
JB

 

Her sad face is a classic.

 

The DVD episodes of Branded are clearly edited-for-TV versions at 22 minutes, with inexplicable awkward jump-cuts. In "Barbed Wire" a range war is brewing between cattle barons, and a few minutes before the end, Lief Ericson suddenly has a daughter pop into being (dialog makes it clear she was supposed to have been introduced earlier) to interfere. My confusion was put on hold when I saw it was my all-time favorite Trek girl, Sherry Jackson.

 

It's interesting to see how different shows approach reusing guest actors. Some shows, like Law and Order or Columbo, would do it all the time (Columbo busted Robert Culp and Jack Cassidy for murder three times apiece on the 70s series, and they were different characters each time). Other shows, like Homicide: Life on the Street (one of my all-time favorites), would never bring back an actor as a different character, so as to not detract from the reality of the series.

One of my favorite podcasts, The Weekly Planet, took an amusing look at that episode during the leadup to the last Mission: Impossible movie. You can check it out here:

 

A revolver-specific silencer, with a notch cut out for the ejector rod! How does the thing attach, set screws?

It would be great if some show would have the gunman fire the "silenced" revolver and then grab his ears in pain.

 

Louise Sorrel favored with many closeups by a wise director, as Moffat's old flame from Dunkirk, in The Rat Patrol episode "The Fatal Reunion Raid."

 

Did Gary Raymond not dance with Louise in this episode like Shatner and later on have some embarrassing stories to tell or be related to the fans by other actors and crew as well?
JB

 

Lawrence Dobkin, Kim Darby and Bill Quinn in The Streets of San Francisco pilot! (1972)
JB

 

I don't think they danced, just had coffee, and rolled in the hay.