Online show Star Trek Continues has boldly gone where no other web series has gone before – completing the Enterprise’s original five-year mission. Actors Vic Mignogna and Chris Doohan (son of James, the original Scotty) have respectively played Kirk and Scotty across the 11 episodes and explain why these are roles they’ve wanted to play for some time, how to avoid spoofing classic characters and why they’re proud of their legacy. Nick Joy caught up with them at the Sci-Fi Ball.

 

Vic, Chris, I’ve done a lot of catching up watching Star Trek Continues and wonder how I managed to miss this show along the way.

Chris Doohan: We hear that a lot.

For those who aren’t too familiar with the series, where’s a good jumping-on point?

Vic Mignogna: I think you should start with the first, Pilgrim of Eternity. We did intentionally work some overarching themes into some of the episodes, so there are some bigger things that are happening that you might not be able to track if you start in one place and then go back.

Having said that, each episode is its own story, its own complete entity. Our ultimate end goal was to finish the five-year mission, account for what happened to the remaining Constitution class starships, account for why Spock would decide to go back to Vulcan, why Kirk would take promotion to Admiral, why McCoy would leave the service. We started planting some of the those seeds early on, knowing where we were going.

I guess the only risk with that strategy is that if you don’t get to complete the series, some of those threads are left dangling. Did you have a firm commitment from the word go, or was each episode funded with the hope you’d get another one?

Vic: I funded the first episode and none of us had any knowledge whether there would be any more than just the one. We did it out of love, we did it the best we could, and we put it out. The response was really great to Pilgrim of Eternity and it was at that point we launched a crowdfunding campaign, which paid for us to make 2, 3 and 4. We launched another crowdfunding campaign to make 5, 6 and 7, and then one last one to make the remaining episodes.

But it wasn’t until probably episode 7 or 8 when things started happening in the fan film world and the climate towards fan film productions was beginning to change that we realised we’d better have an end game in mind here. We always knew we were going to produce a finite number of episodes, but we weren’t yet thinking about the end.

Chris, did you see the original sets when your father was working on the show, and how did it feel to be working on this wonderful recreation of the Enterprise?

Chris: I did, and it’s very strange. It’s like going back to your old elementary school and everything looks so tiny when you see it as an adult, because when you’re small you’re looking up at everything. I did get to visit the original set on several occasions and most of the time my brother and I would be hanging about in the shuttlecraft.

When first seeing the sets on Star Trek Continues they did seem a little small, but they eventually… grew on me! (laughs) To go from seeing them as a child to actually working on the sets as my father did forty-something years later… it was surreal I would say.

The level of detail is quite remarkable, as is the clear love and affection towards the original series.

Vic: Thank you. It was a lot of work.

Focusing on your performances as Kirk and Scotty, probably every mimic has got an impression of these characters in their repertoire. How did you temper your acting so that it didn’t come across as mimicry?

Vic: I have always, since I was a little boy, loved Kirk and Shatner. It was literally Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk and Nimoy as Spock that made me want to try getting into acting. So when it came time for me to pay this role – I hold it in very great reverence – the last thing I would ever want was let into slip into some kind of parody or satire or mimicking. In fact I told people on the set you have permission to let me know if I go too far with it because I don’t want that. But I think caring as much as I do about that character kept me in check with myself. I wanted it to be honest and taken seriously and not have people laughing, making fun of some stereotype of the character.

Chris, was your dad ever Scotty when he came home?

Chris: Never. He was never Scotty when he came home. Occasionally I would hear him rehearsing his lines and what not, although did he did have a photographic memory and didn’t really need to. In a sense, when Vic asked me to be Scotty, I worried about the accent a little bit, but as far as acting like Scotty, I didn’t even think about that.

I wouldn’t say that I inherited it, but I just knew Scotty, I knew the character, my dad’s mannerisms. I saw them so much that I didn’t even try to do that. I just memorised my lines and did the best Scottish accent I could possibly do. It was not the greatest… but neither was my dad’s!

Not only did Chris appear (uncredited) as an extra in Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, but as a Starfleet Officer in J.J. Abrams’ 2009 movie reboot, and Transport Officer alongside Simon Pegg in 2013’s Star Trek into Darkness.

Simon Pegg famously has a Scottish wife who he refers back to to check his accent is correct.

Chris: Yes, and in-laws too! I know Simon very well and we’ve become good friends, so we’ve talked a lot about this.

Did Simon plug you for insight into Scotty?

Chris: We talked occasionally, especially on set when you’re sitting there waiting, with hours to kill. But we didn’t get into specifics about Scotty. He already knew what he was going to do at that point and he was not trying to be James Doohan – he was doing his own thing. I think he does a fantastic job. I think he was cast for the reason that they would bring out more of Scotty’s humour.

It was a smart move casting Nicola Bryant and Colin Baker in some of your episodes, thus bringing over the Doctor Who audience too.

Vic: I’m a big Doctor Who fan and so when I started the show I didn’t just want to limit it to Star Trek alumni. I thought it would be neat to incorporate people from Battlestar Galactica [Jamie Barber, Anne Lockhart, Rekha Sharma], Star Wars [Daniel Logan], Doctor Who, Buffy [Clare Kramer], Buck Rogers [Erin Gray], The Incredible Hulk [Lou Ferrigno], Farscape [Gigi Edgley]. We’ve had the real privilege to bring in a lot of people from different sci-fi pop culture productions.

Chris: What was great about that too, because Vic had a lot of contacts through various conventions, was that they’d heard about Star Trek Continues and they wanted to be on the show. That says a lot about the show.

Vic: Even John de Lancie [Q]. These people don’t typically do fan stuff but the quality of what we were doing I think preceded us so they knew they weren’t getting themselves into some shabby backyard fan thing. Everybody who came down to play a guest role would consistently two weeks later call and go: “What about bringing my character back?” Even now, we remain social friends; whenever we have a get together in LA with our Star Trek Continues team, Mike Forest and his wife will be there, Clare Kramer may be there, Gigi Edgley will be there… they became part of the family, even though they did just the one episode. [A lot of them did indeed join the team on stage at the recent Gallifrey One convention.]

Chris: I heard from many people that they were surprised how professional it was. They didn’t know what to expect, but it was right up to par with every other thing they had done… or better. So that was a big compliment.

We’ve just gone past the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, and I wondered how you feel about that landmark?

Vic: I would love to think ideally that 10 years from now, 15 years from now at another anniversary, our series will be considered part of the watching experience. That enough people will have found out about it – just by word of mouth we have had 8 million views already – and I hope that maybe a handful of years from now you’ll watch the original series, then you’ll watch Star Trek Continues and watch The Motion Picture. As for the 50th, I went to the Vegas 50th event.

Chris: For me, filming in the 50th year was a gift, the fact that we could extend it a little bit further and see that continuation. I also went to the Star Trek event in Las Vegas to celebrate the 50th year. I was there as an official guest, but Vic and Michele [Specht] were there just because of their love of Star Trek. They would walk down the hallways and people would be clamouring to them, saying “My God, this Dr McKennah and Kirk!” I was blown away watching them; I had this pride in me – it made me feel really good that we’d accomplished something.

 

You can watch all 11 episodes of Star Trek Continues for free at http://www.startrekcontinues.com

 Sci-Fi Ball is a not-for-profit convention that raises funds for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Thanks to Ann Lindup, Andrew Keates and the Ball’s directors for arranging this interview. Actor shots by Steven Wright