Is it just me, or was Scotty unnecessary as a recurring role?
- Thread starter A.V.I.A.F.
- Start date
After the big three, Kirk, Spock and McCoy the next biggest character was Scotty. As others have stated he was often left in charge of the ship when Kirk and Spock were off ship (he was generally considered to be the second Officer).
As others have already said we need someone in that role, a Mister Fixit for lack of a better term. Would a series of guest characters doing this work worked, yes of course it would have worked. But the real question is would it have been better or worse that way. I'd vote it would have worked out worse.
But if the OP believes the role of Scotty to be unnecessary, do they hold the same view for the other Chief Engineers in the franchise; Trip, LaForge, O'Brien and Torres? And if not why not?
As others have already said we need someone in that role, a Mister Fixit for lack of a better term. Would a series of guest characters doing this work worked, yes of course it would have worked. But the real question is would it have been better or worse that way. I'd vote it would have worked out worse.
But if the OP believes the role of Scotty to be unnecessary, do they hold the same view for the other Chief Engineers in the franchise; Trip, LaForge, O'Brien and Torres? And if not why not?
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
Don't get me wrong, I really want Scotty to be more relevant and I think he should have been. As for LaForge I cannot comment because first of all I always found TNG to be horrid and I had a hard time buying that the Reading Rainbow guy was a badass engineer. As for Trip, as I have stated above, I think they got it right with him. As for O'Brien, all I can say is Scotty Jr.
I don't think it's really a fair comparison, though. All the modern Trek series were ensemble shows where the engineers were main-title regulars who were expected to be pretty much on a par with most of the other members of the cast. But TOS was made in a different era, where most shows had only a small core cast and assorted recurring players, and where the dramatic emphasis was usually expected to be on the main stars and the featured guest stars, with the recurring players taking more of a background role.
(If you look at the first-season credits, the featured guests are usually billed higher than McCoy, Rand, Sulu, Scotty, and Uhura, who are lumped together under "Featuring." It reflects the intent of the "Wagon Train to the stars" pitch -- which wasn't intended to mean "Western in space" as modern audiences generally assume, but was specifically a reference to the format of the acclaimed series Wagon Train, which took an anthology-style approach where each episode focused on a different featured guest star.)
So there's just no reason to expect Scotty -- or Sulu or Uhura or Chekov -- to have gotten the same kind of focus and development as the members of later Trek ensembles, because the approach was just too different back then. Given that Scotty wasn't a regular, it's impressive that he even got as many focus episodes as he did (things like "Wolf in the Fold" and "Who Mourns for Adonais"), or got to be a major part of the team as often as he was. By '60s standards, for someone who isn't a main-titles regular, that's exceptional.
A.V.I.A.F.
Captain
Your points are all well-taken. Essentially what I am hearing here is that GR and TOS broke rank with television conventions of the time. Great! That's part of the reason why the show is so special. So why did they not go that one teensy-tiny step further and make Scotty part of the core-cast. I don't mean just adding his name to the opening credits but also giving his character the amount of exposure which his position on the ship warranted. For me, having a show about a huge spaceship that travels to unknown regions of the galaxy where the guy who is in charge of keeping that ship in good working order has a lesser part than the ship's doctor is like having a show like M*A*S*H where the surgeon characters are given less face-time and lines than the characters who play the MP's or Radar. Do you know what I mean?
Maybe. And maybe in some imaginary universe this kind of comment would be considered funny and/or thoughtful. As it stands, it's neither.
It is, that's why I said "main character". There have been a few minor characters with Italian or Italian-sounding names over the year: a quick search reveals that in TOS, beside the above-mentioned Giotto, we had D'Amato (That Which Survives), Gaetano (The Galileo Seven), Rizzo (Obsession), Spinelli (Space Seed), and Vinci (various episodes). Still, hardly main characters.
I don't think there's a Scot in Scotland who would disagree that whatever he was saying it wasn't Aberdonian and it wasn't remotely Scottish.
Did you see Gosford Park? Ryan Phillippe deliberately kitched up a Scotty accent for his 'acting' as a servant. Kelly McDonald spoke for the whole nation when she said "I could have told you that - not from any part of Scotland I know". The GodBen would be nodding in agreement since Scotland is a forgotten backwater compared to what American entertainment does to Ireland.
I'm not saying anything so melodramatic. I don't think there was any intentional "breaking rank." Of course every convention had its exceptions. The thing to keep in mind is that the progression of a television show is not strictly dependent on the choices of the producers and writers. The actors themselves contribute a lot. If an actor proves especially popular or engaging, it often prompts the writers to increase that actor's role. That happened with Leonard Nimoy, who became the breakout star of the series, and with DeForest Kelley, who went from an end-credits recurring character to a main-title regular. Later on it happened with Colm Meaney, who went from a bit player on TNG to a regular on DS9.
And don't read too much into any given convention. It's an overall trend, not some rigid rule that you have to be a daring iconoclast to break. Naturally any trend has its exceptions. There have always been supporting characters who have become significant recurring presences without being added to the main cast. Larrabee on Get Smart comes to mind. Or a lot of recurring characters on M*A*S*H like Igor, Zale, Rizzo, Kellye, and the like. Klinger and Father Mulcahy went from occasional guests to regulars, but most of the other recurring players stayed recurring throughout. And what about Deep Space Nine? It eventually got to the point where the important recurring players like Rom and Nog and Winn and Dukat and Weyoun and Vic and Kasidy and so on pretty much outnumbered the regular cast.
See above. Lots of recurring characters have become semi-regulars without being added to the core cast.
Keep in mind, also, that TOS was a low-budget show, yet one that was expensive to make given its elaborate special effects. A regular gets paid a lot more than a recurring player. Bumping someone up to regular status is not a "teensy-tiny step" at all -- it's an expensive step. And TOS had to slash its budget with each passing season in order to stay on the air. I doubt they could've afforded to add a fourth regular to the cast even if they'd wanted to.
As I understand it, the ethnic background was Doohan's suggestion. And really, you wanted a real Scotsman? Jeez, we never would have understood a word he was sayin'! ;-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IKnv0QIemw
It can be said that the first-year TOS opening credits, which indicated starring roles for Shatner and Nimoy only, since served as the dead giveaway that no matter what the original intent was for using major and supporting characters in that first year, the notion of an ensemble-based TREK slowly evolved naturally from the stories. First, it started by giving more and more weight to McCoy. (McCoy, of course, eventually was advanced from being a supporting character to being a a major role.) As McCoy began to figure more prominently in the first year, so it naturally followed that the engineer character evolved into a more substantial role as well. I don't know if the creative crew on TOS was conscious of it or not, but you can begin to see Scott emerging as a character right from the start of "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Scott starts out as little more than one of the anonymous "department heads" on the bridge, to the point where he's the last guy to talk to the ill-fated Kelso. Check out the scene where Scott installs the new console on the Bridge, and then compliments the "talented thief." Doohan was giving his character substance right from the beginning and it was an obvious natural fit for the emerging series format seen in subsequent episodes.
I don't know about that. The thing is, it was fairly common in the '60s to bill only one or two lead actors. But if you ask me, TOS started out as much more of an ensemble show than it ended up being. The early first-season episodes, such as "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Man Trap," give the supporting cast of Scotty, Rand, and Sulu (and to some extent Uhura, though not in "Corbomite") more to do than they often got later on. They aren't just on the bridge pushing buttons and saying "Aye, sir," but are having friendly conversations, eating together, leading off-duty lives, etc. I particularly enjoy the banter among the ensemble in "Corbomite," something we got less of as the show went on and the focus fell more heavily on the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triad. (Or rather, as the fanbase and network pushed for more and more Spock focus and Kirk and McCoy got to ride on Spock's coattails by being the characters he was most closely linked to.)
It's important to remember that credits aren't really about story prominence -- they're fundamentally about who gets paid how much. Sometimes actors who aren't billed in the main titles can be nearly as important to the story as those who are. I think I already mentioned Deep Space Nine and its ever-growing ensemble of supporting players. For a more contemporary example, there's The Time Tunnel, where only Robert Colbert and James Darren were billed in the opening titles but Lee Meriwether and Whit Bissell were important players every week.
No, McCoy was a heavily featured player from the beginning. Right at the start in "Corbomite," he was Kirk's closest confidante. The McCoy focus "The Man Trap" was one of the earliest episodes shot and the first episode aired. His prominence was pretty much steady from the get-go, and Kelley was always the first-billed of the featured recurring players in the end credits -- unlike Doohan, who gradually migrated upward from second-last. Kelley's promotion from end titles to main titles was, again, about a change in his contract and payment, not about a change in his story status. (I think they wanted to get him added to the main titles during the first season but the network or the studio wouldn't authorize the pay hike. Could be wrong, though.)
I don't understand that logic. There's only so much time per episode, so wouldn't it actually follow that a greater focus on one character would tend to mean a diminished focus on others? As I said, the initial ensemble focus of the earliest episodes faded as Spock became the dominant character and everyone who wasn't closely linked to Spock got shoved into the background.
Scotty was very necessary as a recurring character.
Yes, random engineers could have delivered the required lines, but not with the credibility and authority that a familiar recurring character can.
Some anonymous "Joe Engineer" can tell Kirk that if they don't slow down the Enterprise will explode, but why should the Captain listen to this random guy. It might be his first day on the job. He may just be quoting the manual.
When Scotty says the same line it comes with a whole load of extra meaning. The audience knows that Scotty doesn't mind breaking the rules, and he's not cowardly or incompetent.
If Scotty says it's dangerous, it really is.
I think it's less about the relationship the characters have with each other, and more about the relationship they have with the audience in this case.
Kirk may have absolute faith in the competence of every last one of his engineers, but the audience doesn't.
Yes, random engineers could have delivered the required lines, but not with the credibility and authority that a familiar recurring character can.
Some anonymous "Joe Engineer" can tell Kirk that if they don't slow down the Enterprise will explode, but why should the Captain listen to this random guy. It might be his first day on the job. He may just be quoting the manual.
When Scotty says the same line it comes with a whole load of extra meaning. The audience knows that Scotty doesn't mind breaking the rules, and he's not cowardly or incompetent.
If Scotty says it's dangerous, it really is.
I think it's less about the relationship the characters have with each other, and more about the relationship they have with the audience in this case.
Kirk may have absolute faith in the competence of every last one of his engineers, but the audience doesn't.
Very well said.
The interview in question is on the Archive of American Television. I just watched it the other week.Johnson wasn't interviewed for the DVDs.My memory (faulty at times, I admit) tells me it was George Clayton Johnson who said something of that nature in an interview. Seems he got that impression when first pitching, but soon realized it was not so.
I think...
Sir Rhosis
In a Cinefantastique feature on the 30th Anniversary of Trek, George Clayton Johnson said he suggested to Roddenberry that a Kirk-Scotty friendship would be more advantageous than a Kirk-McCoy friendship since Kirk and Scotty were both men in love with their ship.
Doohan left an indelible mark on the series because he knew how to make a lot out of very little. Whenever Scotty spoke you couldn't help but listen. The character was very likeable because Doohan gave him a fine personality. Scotty also had some great moments that made him memorable. That's what character actors do. They take a "little" and make it "alot".
The character was essential to the show but because of certain dynamics that came into play Scotty was not afforded more screen time.
I think it's a testament to Doohan's performance that this minor character from a 1960's television show ended up becoming so memorable that he ended up being featured in 7 motion pictures and even showed up in another television series some 20 years later.
To this day most folks in the general public probably recognize who "Scotty" is just by mentioning his name. Again a testament to the actor.
If you think the lines could've been spouted by just any random actor from week to week then isn't that a backhanded compliment as well to Doohan's performance? Following that logic, Doohan took lines that could've been throwaway lines for some random actors and made them memorable and the character indelible.
Unnecessary? I think not!
The character was essential to the show but because of certain dynamics that came into play Scotty was not afforded more screen time.
I think it's a testament to Doohan's performance that this minor character from a 1960's television show ended up becoming so memorable that he ended up being featured in 7 motion pictures and even showed up in another television series some 20 years later.
To this day most folks in the general public probably recognize who "Scotty" is just by mentioning his name. Again a testament to the actor.
If you think the lines could've been spouted by just any random actor from week to week then isn't that a backhanded compliment as well to Doohan's performance? Following that logic, Doohan took lines that could've been throwaway lines for some random actors and made them memorable and the character indelible.
Unnecessary? I think not!
I think Scotty as a character and having a chief engineer in general was very necessary to TOS. As was pointed out upthread, this is evidenced by the fact that when TNG tried to do without a chief engineer during the first season, it left a rather large and noticeable hole.
However, it did always annoy me that it seemed that Scotty always needed Spock's help to deal with whatever was going on. I understand the realities of Leonard Nimoy being a star and James Doohan being a lesser player. But it began to be unrealistic that the chief engineer of the starship, the man who came to be known as the miracle worker, always had to get an assist from Spock.
However, it did always annoy me that it seemed that Scotty always needed Spock's help to deal with whatever was going on. I understand the realities of Leonard Nimoy being a star and James Doohan being a lesser player. But it began to be unrealistic that the chief engineer of the starship, the man who came to be known as the miracle worker, always had to get an assist from Spock.
An interesting point -- particularly because I felt kind of the opposite about early DS9, where science officer Dax was often shown needing help from chief engineer O'Brien to come up with scientific solutions to things. That never made sense to me, particularly since Dax was nearly 10 times older and more experienced than O'Brien. I think they corrected the problem later on, though.
But wasn't that more because of her unfamiliarity with the Cardassian equipment?
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