Ferengi reunion! Max Grodenchik and Aron Eisenberg visited Indianapolis and revisited the roles of Rom and Nog from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Ferengi makeup effects provided by John Paladin. (Not made-up: this writer and his wife.)
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: on Thanksgiving weekend my wife and I attended the nineteenth Starbase Indy, a homegrown, fan-run convention that’s more intimate than your Wizard Worlds and more stable than your out-of-town, fly-by-night upstarts.
Part One was the costumes; in Part 2, the actors and special guests. A few even dressed up for the occasion.
Two of the guests we’d met before: Max Grodenchik (the feeble, spineless Rom) and Aron Eisenberg (Rom’s rascally son Nog, who later joined Starfleet) were guests previously at Starbase Indy in 2005. Their return engagement was nonetheless welcome and fun. For their Saturday Q&A and photo ops, makeup artist John Paladin (also a guest at the con) rigged makeshift versions of their Ferengi headgear and let them loose onstage.
They brought a scripted skit to perform. They stuck to maybe 20% of it, but kept each other laughing so hard that they couldn’t get through it, and no one minded if they did or not.
The most well-known Ferengi of all, Armin Shimerman, was a guest at last year’s Starbase Indy. He didn’t return this year, but his character Quark, Rom’s brother and Nog’s uncle, was there in spirit and in cardboard. His base was unstable, so he wasn’t upright much, which is apropos because Quark wasn’t an upright citizen on the station, either.
Rom and Nog took potshots at a defenseless, weightless Quark, who wasn’t there in person to fire them both from his bar.
A few other guests were on hand from shows we haven’t watch, but maybe you have. Someday I’ll get around to Battlestar Galactica. Until then, here’s Kate Vernon.
We caught some of her Q&A. She was charming and didn’t spoil too much BSG for me.
Fans of Stargate Atlantis were in for a treat: not one, but two honorable guests. David Nykl had just popped in from a cross-country flight and joked that he’d already, um, started the party before he arrived. We think he was joking.
He also had a recurring role on season 2 of Arrow. Someday I’ll maybe get around to that.
Also in the house: SGA’s Paul McGillion. Judging by his Scottish accent, I’m prepared to guess that he has plenty of fans.
He was also the Knave of Hearts in a couple of brief scenes on Once Upon a Time a while back, but he was a bit overshadowed by some fellow names Sebastian Stan.
On Saturday McGillion and Nykl held a joint Q&A that concluded with charity auction of behind-the-scenes goodies such as SGA call sheets.
Everything was sold. Charity was benefited. The day was saved. SGA FTW!
Another returning SBI guest: Lolita Fatjo, who served as script coordinator on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.
She’d also attended SBI 2005 with Max and Aron.
A SBI mainstay: effervescent podcaster Moxie Magnus, who serenaded the crowd at Friday night’s opening ceremonies with a ukulele medley of snippets from “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy”, “Witch Doctor”, “Da Doo Ron Ron”, “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da”, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, “Mmmbop”, “Bad Romance”, and other bouncy tunes whose lyrics defy Webster’s Dictionary.
Moxie freely admitted to shouldering one of the most daunting responsibilities a con guest can have: stalling the crowd until the other guests are ready to do their part. Final score: 10/10.
Indianapolis’ own il Troubadore, a Klingon folk band, brought their own musical stylings and sent one of their members to liven up opening ceremonies.
Today is a good day to UKULELE!
Once more, with feeling: power-pop guests Five Year Mission! They make fun Trek songs and you should go buy them all.
I picked up a copy of their Year Three at this year’s Indy Pop Con. Favorite track: “Wolf in the Fold”.
But the guest my wife was most excited to meet was Deep Space Nine‘s Nana Visitor, whose Bajoran liaison Kira Nerys would rise in rank from Major to Colonel to Commander throughout the series’ seven-season run, assuming full command of the station formerly known as Terok Nor by the finale.
She made the necklace herself. She reminisced about the show, and spoke of her upcoming role in Ted 2.
She spoke of many aspects and roles from her career: her premature death on James Cameron’s Dark Angel; the wondrous cuisine in Portland, Oregon, that was her favorite part of shooting a season-one episode of Grimm; and her recurring voice parts on Family Guy despite not being a fan of the show.
At opening ceremonies she interrupted Grodenchik and Eisenberg on stage. Hilarity ensued.
Visitor spoke of her preference for working with older, serious actors who are into the art and craft of Acting itself, as opposed to those fiending for celebrity and social-media domination instead of concentrating on the bothersome professional parts of the job such as memorizing their lines. Her dream role, if she had a say in it: Sweeney Todd. The character, I mean, not just the musical. Her favorite DS9 episode was “Duet”, the one where Kira goes toe-to-toe with Jerry Hardin as a Cardassian official who may or may not be a war criminal responsible for the torture and deaths of innumerable Bajorans. And she’s a huge fan of Puddles Pity Party, which I’m kind of afraid to look into but maybe ought to anyway.
She was an absolute joy to listen to and a pleasure to meet.
Nana Visitor was, without hyperbole, the reason we were there. Worth it.
…and that’s the year that was. We bailed out shortly after 4 p.m. Saturday due to other obligations and having completed 98% of our convention to-do list. My wife returned momentarily on Sunday just to pick up our photos, and was treated to the interesting sight of a convention volunteer trying to prevent Aron Eisenberg from entering the Con Suite (snack room) because he wasn’t wearing a lanyard. Fortunately other attendees were willing to vouch for his identity.
And they all snacked happily ever after. See you next year!
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 
I’m going to sound extremely corny here but your family is fun.
I’m not familiar with the woman you went to see but she sounds interesting based on what she talked about & she has great style.
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Thanks. 🙂 Fun occasions like this really help make up for the rote, featureless five-days-a-week we spend on work/internet/TV/sleep/repeat.
And yeah, she was pretty cool. As Major Kira Nerys, she was the first Trek series regular to play a female character with an officer rank, beating Captain Janeway by a few years. She could be angry at times because Kira had history as a P.O.W., but she was kind of groundbreaking in her own way. DS9 was also our favorite Trek series, and their cast doesn’t do conventions as often as other Trek actors do, so for her to come out to Indy on a holiday weekend was a huge deal for us.
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Star Trek question! Do you think there’s another version of the series coming soon, it seems like most of the ST series were ahead of their time in a way. Not ahead because obviously people watched them and still deeply love them but it seems like today’s TV is made for them and people would be ready to embrace another series or is there one and I don’t know and I’m insane??
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I think there are people out there — old fans and non-fans alike — who could get into a new series. Problem is, the showrunners in charge ran Enterprise into the ground and got it canceled. That was a hefty blow to everyone’s confidence. Now that they’ve got a new film series up and running, Paramount hasn’t announced any new Trek TV plans, and is probably so satisfied with the box office returns that they’re happy to stick with that for the time being. I won’t be surprised if it comes back to TV, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them try, but I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon…
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I forgot about Enterprise! What a shame though, seems like science fiction is more mainstream then ever or more accessible or something & they could get a really high quality Star Trek show on. Boo to them
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Tell me more about the Ferengi make-up effects. I’m all ears. 🙂
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LOL! Just for that, I’m also adding a serious answer! 😀
They’re not simple helmets or Halloween masks, but a few prosthetic pieces that have to be kind of locked together, plus some makeup bits. Sadly these weren’t their original headgear from the show, but were pieces loaned from a third party. Maybe not ready for HDTV programming, but for fun fan purposes, they were pretty nifty.
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