The Captains

I watched The Captains last night over Netflix streaming. It's a documentary by William Shatner where he talks to Sir Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula and Chris Pine (as well as himself) about their tenure as captains of each of each of their respected Star Trek TV series.

While not a huge fan of Shatner's over-bloated ego, he comes off pretty even here. The convention stuff still fills me with unease. Yes, I love Star Trek, but never felt the need to dress up in costumes and parade around with a bunch of other fans to point of that I liked Star Trek. I was, and perhaps always will be, the fan who likes to watch from a safe distance. My friend Marc back in Chicago used to say that I have a healthy obsession with Star Trek.

One thing they addressed in the documentary was what success did to their lives outside of the set, that the work seemed to destroy personal relationships. It is no surprise that all the actors (with the exception of Pine) had marriages that failed due to the strain of production. As Mulgrew pointed out, they were sometimes on the set for at 12 hours, but that usually stretched (especially if it was a Friday) to 16 or 18 hours.

And think about that. Each of the spin-offs produced about 26 hours of television a week. Spending that many hours away from spouses and children on average 9 months out the year, and you can see why a lot of actors and production people (who spend more hours on a set than cast) were either divorced or single. Then add on appearances and now conventions, and you can see further why appearing in Star Trek can be more cause for concern than happiness -though their are tons of advantages. 

While both Mulgrew and Bakula has success early in life -she doing the soap Ryan's Hope and he doing Quantum Leap- when they entered the realm of Trek and already were battle damaged in the relationship department, Shatner, Stewart and Brooks had relationships that broke (or were strained) during their productions run. Stewart, perhaps, is more forth right with his two failed marriages, while Brooks sort of skirts the issue a bit (he's been married since 1976), but does admit the strain DS9 put on their relationship.

Like any actor taking on a living legend that is Star Trek, they have to reconcile the possible success it will bring with the downside of what damages it can do to the ones you love. Chris Pine, the new Captain Kirk, seems to understand this (he's third generation actor, his dad being Robert Pine of CHiP's fame) a bit.

While I was watching it, I reflected on the actors who've played The Doctor in the long-running BBC series Doctor Who. Each of them -long even before its revival in 2005- has to set a time for their departure. I think they understand that committing to a long contract (Stewart mentions how fearful he was of committing 6 years to TNG). While it may never come clear why Eccelston left after one year, you have to fully understand why David Tennant only stayed as long as thought possible, and why Matt Smith will have to do the same.

While being part of a popular, long playing franchise that Star Trek (and Doctor Who) is, and the love and the financial boom it brings, these actors have to weigh that against their souls and their family relationships. We as fans, perhaps, cannot understand why Matt Smith or David Tennant would give up their roles after a few years, but in the end, its not about the fans.

It's about the soul. It's about the love waiting at the door when you home at the end of the day. That is more important than being a Starship captain or the last of the Time Lords.