#and he was soooooo fucking good in this Star Trek arc

[ericathemad]

I'm currently watching Star Trek: Voyager for the first time, and overall really enjoying it. But few things matched my delight as seeing the name and face of my favorite weird little guy in season 2 - Brad Dourif.

First off, the idea for a character that is a sociopathic Betazoid is really clever - what happens to a person born into a race of telepaths and empaths who has no empathy? A serial killer hiding themselves amongst revolutionaries to hide his violent tendencies is also pretty smart. Then our poor Vulcan friend Tuvok has to grapple with the side effects of mind-melding a violent, unfeeling creature. Great work, great episode, and I got to see my favorite little guy be all weird and creepy.

BUT THEN THEY BRING HIM BACK.

Our little sociopathic killer is finding redemption and a path forward through meditation with Tuvok and genetic engineering in orchids. He's learning to control his violent urges and not give in to them. He wants to contribute to the wellbeing of the crew and the ship.

And then disaster happens, Voyager is captured, and my boy Brad is the only crew member left (apart from the Doctor, my favorite main cast character). He's hiding in the Jeffries tubes, crawling through the bowels of the ship, causing malfunctions and undoing repairs the invaders are making on Voyager. Being a perfect sneaky, weird little guy.

But then, in a brilliant twist, scrungly little Brad is asked to start killing the invaders. Because there is no way to take back the ship and rescue Voyager's crew without ending the life of a few Kazon.

And my beautiful butterfly of a boy Brad acts the HELL out of this. Because here his character is, a man with overwhelming violent urges and a desire to kill, a man who has spent months fighting that nature and trying to be a person who can contribute to society in a positive way. He's been fighting who he's been his whole life. And now he's asked to slip back to this worse version of himself.

It's soooooo good. And when he does it, when Brad takes out several of the Kazon, theres a moment where be pauses and closes his eyes, a slight smile on his face. And you can see that relief, that happiness to act out his worst impulses again. A brief moment of that sociopathic joy before he turns back to the job of reaching the computer to set-up the ship for rescue.

God. It was so good. Such a great character story line. Such superb acting from my kooky, creepy little dude. I love Star Trek, and I love when character actors get a chance to absolutely own a story.

[ichayalovesyou]

Loving your Goncharov posts. Can’t wait for your Goncharov playlist. Who would you cast if making Goncharov today?

Oooh! That’s a toughy! I’ll do my best!

Goncharov: Oscar Isaac

Period drama with protagonist with a moral corruption arc, a looming sense of doom, a really frayed but sexy fucked up relationship with his wife while also coming off as incredibly bisexual? Who else could you POSSIBLY want?!

Mario: James Frain

He’s a conniving boot licker in Tron: Legacy as Jarvis, and a stone cold bitch as Sarek in the new Star Trek shows, Mario is somewhere in that ballpark so why not?!

Andrey: Michael Fassbender

Fassbender is sooooo good at simultaneously being extremely emotionally raw and cold and calculating and I swear to gawd if that ain’t Andrey he’s soooooo, gawd, such a juicy role. Plus I think it would be sick to see Oscar and Michael chew on the scenery together and be well… Like That. As Goncharov and Andrey

Michailov: Adrien Brody

I’ve said before that I’d love to see a Wes Anderson take in these film and Adrien Brody is in like all of Anderson’s movies and he’s always playing stuck up little hard asses like Katya’s brother so I think that works super well!

Katya: Elle Fanning

MAN I love Elle Fanning I can’t tell you how much I need this. Between the Maleficent films and also THE GREAT (she’s already a Russian aristocrat I mean come ON) she could totally pull the ‘disillusioned old money trophy wife’ thing easy! I NEED her to be Katya I neeeeeeeed it!!

Sofia: Jesse James Keitel

I mean… just LOOK at her??? Amazing, hardened chaotic and queer tough chick I mean please, Keitel can and has absolutely ROCKED that shit and would do it again, Captain Angel but make it 1970s mafia sapphic I mean that’s just CORRECT

Ice Pick Joe: Steve Buscemi

I know he doesn’t do a lot of on camera stuff anymore but god this man is so good in Fargo and I love it when he plays baddies and I think he could really lean into Joe’s homicidal tendencies with that sly voice I associate with Randall from Monsters Inc who also spooked me as a kid.