TWO TO BEAM UP

Last week was tough on us Trekkies. Within a few days of each other, we had to say farewell to Walter Koenig, aka Ensign Chekhov...

...and to Patrick Stewart, aka Captain Picard...

...on The Next Generation and other Star Trek iterations.

I was lucky enough to meet both of them. In the mid-'80s, Koenig came to a sci-fi convention in my beloved hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania, and between autograph sessions I got to sit down with him briefly for the Erie Times-News. He was very nice, though I recall he spent a good bit of the interview on the usual supporting actor's complaint: He wasn't given enough to do.

He grumbled that he and George Takei were "somewhere between furniture and air" in Star Trek III, though he was pleased that he had just gotten to do a funny bit in StarTrek IV; presumably asking about "nuclear wessels" in a Russian accent on the street in San Francisco in the middle of the Cold War. He also mentioned that he had just gotten to write an issue of the DC Comics Star Trek series, and had agreed to do so only if Chekhov's name was in the title and his picture was on the cover...

It was startling, last week, to realize that the perennially boyish Koenig was 90 when he died. Looking at contemporary pictures of him, his age doesn't real; he looks like a college kid made up to play Nonno in Night of the Iguana...

My Patrick Stewart story is a little better. I met him in L.A. in 1996, on Paramount's joint press junket for Star Trek: First Contact and Beavis and Butt-Head Do America. Stewart came in apologizing that he had a cold, and sat next to me at the critic's round tables.

He was given a small plate of fruit, which he picked at as he told me that he hoped to do King Lear twice, once as a character part when he was relatively young and vital, and then again when he was actually old and doddering. I can find no evidence that he ever did play the role onstage (though he played Cornwall opposite Eric Porter in the early '70s). But he did play "John Lear" in a 2002 TV movie Western adaptation called King of Texas.

Anyway, when he finished his session, he thanked us graciously and got up, then placed his less than half finished plate of fruit in front of me. I wasn't about to miss the chance to share a fruit plate with the great Patrick Stewart, so I snarfed the remainder up. And caught his cold.

Unlike Koenig, Stewart didn't seem boyish at 86--he probably never seemed boyish, even when he was a boy--but he did seem vital. It was shock to hear he had passed, and of dementia at that; it seemed like he was working until very recently.

I've never been a passionate fan of The Next Generation; I like it, and I like the movies spun off from it, but I never got in the regular habit of watching the series, and there are many episodes I have yet to see. Stewart, however, I'm a big fan of. I think the first time I saw him to notice him was as Claudius in a 1980 BBC production of Hamlet starring Derek Jacobi; it was impossible not to notice Sewart's voice and presence. He was also one of the best, most imaginative versions of Scrooge, in a 1999 TV-movie of  A Christmas Carol.

To commemorate Koenig and Stewart, this weekend I watched 1994's Star Trek: Generations...

...the only adventure (I think) in which both Chekhov and Picard appear, though they have no scenes together.

I was trying to think which episodes of the original series would be most Chekhov-forward for use in a memorial retrospective. I read that Koenig's own favorite episode was "Spectre of the Gun," in which he had a romance--with Wavy Gravy's wife in real life, Bonnie Beecher--and got to bravely face death. Okay, fair enough, but there should also be episodes that show his cool hand during battle, episodes in which he went muderously crazy, and above all...episodes in which he screamed. Walter Koenig was the Fay Wray of Star Trek; he had a better, more agonized shriek than any of the women on the show.

So here is my Chekhovian Top Ten:

"Spectre of the Gun" (because he liked it.)

"I, Mudd" (because he gets to act silly.)

"The Gamesters of Triskelion" (because he has an awkward scene with an imposing, deep-voiced woman who likes him, and refers to him as "Cheek-oov.") 

"The Deadly Years" (excellent scream near the beginning.)

"Mirror, Mirror" (gets to act evil; also screams.)

"The Trouble with Tribbles" (claims, of Scotch, that "a little old lady from Leningrad inwented it.")

"The Day of the Dove" (goes nuts toward the Klingons because of his non-existent brother "Pyotr"; also sexually assualts Susan Howard as a Klingon woman who looks like she could knock him on his ass.)

"The Tholian Web" (goes crazy; screams; "And the Children Shall Lead" would be another alternate.)

"Journey to Babel" (cool in battle; "Elaan of Troyius" would be another alternate.)

"The Way to Eden" (the notorious "hippie" episode; he gets a romance with an old flame.)

And of course, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan should be mentioned, for Chekhov's memorable encounter with Khan's pets. Also, he screams.

Peace and joy eternal, gentlemen; thank you both.