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TREKCORE
> VOY >
EPISODES >
PRIME FACTORS >
Behind the Scenes
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Jeri Taylor:
"The problem we had was Tim Russ had
a lot of trouble with it," referring to Tuvok's betrayal
of Janeway. "Tim has a very protective streak about Tuvok.
I suspect Tim is actually a Vulcan. He thinks like Tuvok
and he knows TOS very well. He knows Vulcans. He knows
Spock, he knows his Star Trek role and he knows every tiny
facet of anything Vulcan. He was very afraid that this was
something a Vulcan would never do. I disagreed; Michael
disagreed. We saw it as a noble, heroic act that he would
do to spare his captain her personal ethical dilemma and
that he would find the logical way to rationalize that. I
told Tim that if he is never going to have flaws or make a
mistake or take a step that's beyond the Vulcan limit,
what are we going to do with him? It's a death-signature
to a character that he cannot push the envelope and that
his reach does not exceed his grasp at some time. We made
some minor modifications that made it possible for Tim to
integrate that action into his conception of his character
and we shot the film. To my mind, it's one of the best
that we did first season." |
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Michael Piller agrees,
likening the debate to that about the
TNG episode
"The
Enemy", another episode in which an actor vehemently
opposed an unpleasant choice made by his character (in
that case Michael Dorn was opposed to his character, the Klingon called Worf, allowing an ailing Romulan to die
when Worf withholds a critical blood transfusion).
"Tim was adamant that he would
never, as a Vulcan, violate the trust of his captain. We
felt very strongly the opposite way. Someone who thinks
logic is the answer to all questions should think again.
Logic can lead you the wrong way too." |
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Tim Russ:
"We had a good deal of debate about
how far we were going to take that particular move from
this character. I think that the only thing we didn't have
enough time for was to get more clarification on the
reasons for his motivation. I think there was a basic
difference between what I thought and the producers
thought in terms of why he did what he did. We could have
clarified those reasons more than we did, but there just
wasn't enough time to go back and forth on it since we
were shooting in a few days. We changed about thirty
percent of the script just from my input alone. I would
have liked to have changed about another twenty-five
percent. The main thing that they wanted was for Tuvok to
use logic as to why he did it. Now, that's not a reason
why you do anything. That is just a method by which you do
things. It's a method of execution. It's a way of thinking
and a way of doing things, not a reason for action. There
are Vulcans who are capable of choosing whatever road they
wish to choose." |
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Tim Russ:
"Look at the feature
Star Trek VI:
The Undiscovered Country. There's a Vulcan character
who's a saboteur. Now why has she chosen this particular
path? She believes in whatever philosophical doctrine it
is that she believes in and she chooses a methodical,
logical way of executing it. She does her part. They never
explored those reasons, but she was Vulcan. She wasn't
another race, and so you know you could question from now
till doomsday why she, as a Vulcan, joined in a
conspiracy, and Tuvok also sacrificed his commission and
risked court-martial in order to help the captain achieve
her goal. He did this because he had a special
relationship with her and he knew he was going to be
court-marshalled. It's a sacrifice. It's kind of a choice.
There's nothing logical or illogical about it, it's just
his choice. The second thing about it that I wanted to
point out was the fact that Janeway says, 'How can I tell
the crew I can't get involved because of my principles,'
and, in my position as tactical security officer, I also
wanted to make a point that if she did not do that she
might be risking mutiny." |
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Tim Russ:
"Lieutenant Carey, who was a regular
Starfleet officer, was involved in the conspiracy. He was
not a Maquis. He was involved in getting that thing (the Sikarian spatial trajector) to work as well. He wanted to
get home. How many others wanted to do that, and how many
others in a situation like that would be willing to take
over the ship? You're walking a very precarious balance
when you're that far away from home. The base of authority
is nowhere near you. It's almost the same as a pirate
ship. If you don't give the pirates enough gold, you as
captain aren't going to be captain anymore. If you are in
a situation in a society where everything breaks down,
it's every man for himself when there's no authority to
back up the law." |
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Tim Russ:
"Take away the police - you saw what
happened in L.A. - and you have riots. OK, so without the
authority, people are going to do what they want to do,
and I think that Janeway is walking a very fine line in
making a decision based on her standards and principles
when all they're talking about is a trade, not a direct
violation of the Prime Directive by taking the technology.
They offered to trade it with someone who was on the
planet for something that they had as a commodity. It was
a very technical reason why she did not want to do it. And
that I don't think would've been seen the same way by a
lot of crew. I think there would've been a lot more
tension and a lot more trouble." |
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For Michael Piller,
Janeway's dilemma had great resonance, although the
hedonistic alien culture was less effective.
"I just felt nothing seemed to work
with the aliens. They looked like they should be on that
commercial with the director for HBO where they go to a
party and everybody mistakes this guy for an HBO movie
director. What was tricky about it was to flesh out those
pleasure-seekers so that they were something other than
people walking around always talking about pleasure. I
don't think people act like that, so I looked for other
things, including the idea that stories were very
important to them.
We felt really good about the script when it was done. I
think it was one that everybody thought was working. We
got a little concerned with the dailies because the stuff
that was happening on the planet, in spite of all our
efforts, was tending to look a little too much like that
hedonistic Roddenberry-esque society.
I was worried that it was going to be sort of off-putting
and that people would not get involved with what the real
story was, which had to do with our people and the moral
dilemma that was happening around the ship. But when it
was done, I thought it was marvellously produced and that
part of the story you kind of moved through really
quickly. When you got onto the ship with the dilemmas and
decisions, that's when the story grabbed hold." |
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