I admit, I haven't been much of a fan film viewer for more than a few years, but aren't there more episodes starring Cawley that haven't been released yet?
For fans of Cawley, it's nice that he's doing one more, but as the saying goes, you have to go away to come back.
Harvey:
Our shot-but-still unreleased episodes are (in filming order): "Kitumba," "The Protracted Man" (aka "Origins") "Mind-Sifter," "Bread and Savagery," and "The Holiest Thing." The two lattermost episodes star Brian Gross and post-production should be completed on those fairly soon. (I think we have a couple of pick-up shots to get for both episodes, but they are largely done.)
"Kitumba" is all shot out and should be released soon. We've done the
Starship Exeter routine and have been putting out the episode in pieces--e.g., Teaser, Act 1, and Act 2 so far. (There was some acrimony that the director of "Kitumba" leaked out a fully finished "director's cut" of the episode because "the fans are entitled to see it" and, in so doing, "wrecked" the episode. We, on the other hand, are doing something different: we are putting out the episode in pieces, with each piece not having its final sound done, and not being fully color corrected because "the fans are entitled to finally see it."
I hear "The Protracted Man" needs to be-shot in its entirety. Doing so might be a lower priority than shooting new episodes, so I don't know what the thinking is. (Tobias Richter completed much of the VFX for the episode; it would be a shame to scrap those and I'm sure he would be unhappy.)
About half of "Mind-Sifter" was shot--the stuff on board the
Enterprise. None of the "Kirk trapped in the past" footage was done. It would be "easy" to get Brian Gross to do all those Kirk scenes, since we essentially shot around James' unavailability. The larger problem (I
guess it's a problem) is that much of the shipboard stuff that we did shoot included Mr. David Sherin as Doctor McCoy--instead of John Kelley--when John became unavailable at the last minute. So I'm not sure if we now have to re-shoot the McCoy scenes or if we'll, instead, release the episode with David Sherin (or if we simply are unlikely to ever finish the episode and release it, I suppose).
A comment that I often make regarding the "James is too much like Shatner"/"James is not enough like Shatner" issue: it's always hard to know how much to "emulate" Shatner and how much to avoid emulating him regardless of how much contortion is necessary. "Look--he pushes the chair's comm button just like Shatner!" (as if James should use his nose instead, in order to avoid the inevitable Shatner comparisons). But an important thing to remember is that James is often given direction on how "Shatner-like" to be by the episode's director. Sometimes James' portrayal of Kirk has been a directorial choice, not an action choice.
