Favourite Trek ep directors

[jgdst]

Hi everyone. I've just finished watching the Voyager episode Distant Origin, which was a little different than your average Trek fare. I've always been a fan of David Livingston's direction (he always manages to do a shot which makes me think "how did he even think to get the camera in there?!"), and this episode was one of the better examples of him 'thinking outside the box' - trying new angles, different takes on scenes, etc.

So I'd say he was my favourite TV Trek director. Robert Picardo a close second, despite only helming two episodes, he has a slightly different take on things... I can't explain it, but it seems calm and quiet, but at the same time getting you right in on the action.

I'm also tempted to say Allan Kroeker to complete the holy trinity, as he seemed to be given a lot of the more action orientated episodes, and knows how to get you involved.

Does anyone else have a director whose episodes they look forward to and enjoy? Or do most people do the normal thing and just watch the episode, without agonising about how much time probably went into setting up a 10 second shot?

 

[crouteru]

I'd have to agree with David Livingstone. He did DS9's superb 'The Visitor' for example. Also Michael Vejar has done some great episodes aswell, such as DS9's 'The Darkness and the Light', 'Rocks and Shoals' and Voyager's 'Barge Of The Dead'.

 

[diankra]

To be honest, I never really noticed that much variation in the direction of the later Trek series - partly a result of the Berman tendency towards wanting a sense of consistency across episodes that's been reported with regard to the music, more likely due to the sheer mass of episodes at the time making it difficult to keep upwith the credits (there'd been years to reread the original series episode guides and spot the patterns!).
But in the original series, episodes by Marc Daniels and Joseph Pevney tended to stand out more often than not (they did 30 between them, and had maybe half a dozen flops between them).
TNG: Rob Bowman's work was pretty impressive across seasons one and two, compared with those around them (anyone who can make the 'evil twin' episode work as well as Datalore did deserve a bit of credit). After that, things started to drift into either blandness, or 'too much to keep track of' when there was a stand-out episode that broke the pattern (such as The Visitor, it must be said).

 

[MyCylon]

Michael Vejar and Allan Kroeker are two names that have stuck in my mind from DS9. They did some really powerful episodes IIRC. Other than that I don't remember any people that stood out in particular.

 

[Smiley]

In addition to those mentioned, I like the work of Jonathan Frakes, Roxann Dawson, and Levar Burton.