Some Star Trek actors step behind the camera and bring their own insight and personality to the episodes they direct. Jonathan Frakes, who directed episode 9 of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, is no different, especially when it came to reuniting two pivotal characters in the show: Caleb Mir and his long-lost mother, Anisha.
Frakes, who became famous for his role as Captain Picard's first officer, William Riker, on Star Trek: The Next Generation, spoke to TrekMoviie.com about directing the episode and whether action or intimate scenes require more presence. He said: "Oh, it’s definitely the intimate scenes. We had… The importance of reuniting mother and son after having had just moments of who they were in the pilot and then some quick flashbacks while he was putting the pieces together in his dorm room with SAM."
Frakes continued by saying:
"And then, you know, the chase, looking, the search, and then that wonderful reveal of her putting a knife on his throat. Their eyes are the only thing we see. So it was finding the emotion and the action and the import of what that meant. They hadn’t seen each other in 15 years. There’s a lot going on there. There’s a lot of packing, as I used to say in the acting world, that’s packed in there and then, and the decisions that Sandro had to make, and it was a great script."
These moments provide plenty of opportunity for both the actors and the directors to expose the emotional layering of a scene. Frakes accomplished this by using tight shots during Caleb and Anisha's reunion.
While the synergy of a director's keen eye, talented actors, there's something poignant about the franchise's mothers and how they fit into and shape their children's lives, just as Anisha's absence in Caleb's life shaped his. These mother/child dynamics provide plenty of opportunity for both the actors and the directors to expose the emotional layering of a scene.
Caleb and Anisha are not the first mother/child Star Trek characters to face conflict and bring intense emotions to an episode.
Spock and his human mother, Amanda, did not see eye to eye when she and Sarek, Spock's father, visited the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: The Original Series because she couldn't see any of herself in him, and he had no interest in openly displaying his human side.
On The Next Generation, Deanna Troi's mother, the always-amusing Betazoid Lwaxana Troi (daughter of the 5th House, etc.), caused plenty of trouble for Deanna with her antics, resulting in many emotional clashes.
It would be interesting to see how parent/child dynamics played a part in some other Star Trek characters' lives. For instance, Sulu and Uhura from The Original Series had very little backstory, and one has to wonder how much influence their mothers had on their decision to join Starfleet.
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