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It was an Enterprise-D Sickbay reunion for Dr Beverly Crusher and Nurse Alyssa Ogawa when Gates McFadden and Patti Yasutake took to the stage at SF Ball 23. Nick Joy spoke to the popular Star Trek: The Next Generation actors about technobabble, home surgery and fighting your corner in a man’s world…

Gates made her debut as Dr Crusher in the series pilot Encounter at Farpoint, leaving the show at the end of Season 1, to be replaced by Diana Muldaur as Dr Kate Pulaski. She returned for Season 3, remaining until the show ended, and then onwards into the four movies. We’ll discuss her ‘gap year’ later. Patti made her debut in Season 4’s Future Imperfect, appearing a total of 16 episodes across Seasons 4-7. She too transitioned to the big screen, returning in Generations and First Contact…

Last year marked Star Trek‘s 50th anniversary and 2017 is The Next Generation‘s 30th. Does it feel like you’re running from one celebration to the next?

Gates McFadden: It does feel a bit like that. When they told me it was our 50th anniversary I went ‘What? How is that possible? I didn’t do it in the womb!’ But then when they clarified it was for the original, I was ok. There have been quite a few anniversaries. I don’t think I’ve ever done so many appearances as I have in the last three years. It’s just been so amazing. We’ve been to so many places and it’s incredible how there literally is a next generation… or two… watching the show now.

Has the nature of fandom changed over the years?

Gates: Yes, and what’s fantastic is that there’s a different energy. There used to be more people who wouldn’t even make eye contact with us when asking for autographs, but now they are very together; they understand the whole thing that you just play a character, and they themselves are becoming doctors and lawyers. They’re talking to me all about what they do and the influence and impact of Star Trek. I actually end up learning from them a whole lot about the Star Trek universe.

In some strange crazy way do people feel that you’ve got medical knowledge and that they can talk to you about their ailments?

Gates: Well sure, but then I still do a little bit of brain surgery at weekends in the garage. But I only take very specific patients [laughs].

Did the technobabble ever get any easier when you read the scripts?

Gates: No, it never got easier

Patti Yasutake: Actually, I loved it [Beams widely]. I actually think that’s why they hired me, because I loved talking that kind of language. I really don’t how my brain took to it and would let me say it!

Did you ever have an agreement between the two of you that if a shared scene was too complex you could collaborate to make it easier?

Gates: No, we were never allowed to do that. Everything was so precise. You had to learn the technobabble and just do it. The only fun part was initially being able to decide where and how I used props.

You got to decide how the instruments worked?

Gates: At the beginning of the first season I was given all the props and no-one had ever used them [on screen] before, so I decided where you do the hypospray. That was fun, working out how I was going to do the medical tricorder. But the technobabble was always – ‘Oh, ok, yeah’. Ok, in some ways it got easier because you became familiar with certain words we used again and again.

Patti, you were coming back to the show three or four times a year rather than appearing in all the episodes. Did that make things fresher for you because you didn’t have the grind of long days and 26 episodes?

Patti: Oh no, I’m an actor – you wanna be there all the time. You wanna be on the lot working all the time. But it was really fun when you get the call to come back because it made you feel good that you were probably doing something that they appreciated. Joy, the head hair designer, used to say ‘You’re her mascot!’ [Points to Gates]. So I thought fine, I’ll take it.

There’s a line in Lower Decks where Beverly says: “Alyssa, I think you know how much I’ve come to depend on you.”

Gates: We loved her!

Dr Crusher was a strong female character – she had the ability to remove the Captain from command if need be. In many ways she was a trailblazer for the likes of Janeway, and now we hear there’s a female Captain [Michelle Yeoh] and a female Number One [Sonequa Martin-Green] on Star Trek: Discovery. Is that gratifying, considering you were in a very male cast?

Gates: Yes… [Pause] Yes I did feel it was a very male-run set and a very male-dominated show. I think that the only time it wasn’t that case was when Guinan – the character played by Whoopi Goldberg – was on set, and then there was a very female energy. I loved everybody, but yes it was hard. That was why I got fired after my first season, because I would argue with one of the writer-producers, and then they fired him and asked me back the following year.

Beverly was greatly missed

Gates: My character had been very popular with the fans – it wasn’t that she had been an unpopular character. They were so happy to see a strong woman, but meanwhile, back in the trenches, it was tough. There were a lot of times where I would say ‘That’s sexist’. Having been a person who at a very young age was on university graduate school faculties – not that I was so great, it just happened that way – I was given respect. And I had also been in theatre. Patti and I are both theatre people and we were talking about this – you collaborate, you work together and you’re only as good as that person right there. You’re doing a show for two hours and all of you had better make it work.

I was very naive about the whole way television worked; hitting your mark and the politics of it, and I think I was really awful with all of those aspects. I had a lot to learn. So I just spoke my mind and then realised you weren’t supposed to do that, especially if you were female.

And with that, Gates and Patti were off to sign autographs, pose for photos and find a way to turn Riker back from being a caveman.

With thanks to Andrew, Anne, B and the crew at SF Ball, raising funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Top photo by Stephen Wright; other photos by Helen Renouf http://www.renoufdesign.co.uk