“Leverage” Trek’s Out

Yay, Star Trek is back!

Just kidding. But what was I supposed to think when I saw Jonathan Frakes, Kitty Swink, Armin Shimerman and Brent Spiner in the credits for tonight’s Leverage? My poor, little, Trekking heart went all a-flutter! Then I saw this interview with Jonathan Frakes and the memories came flooding back. Take a look:

Tomorrow night’s episode of Leverage, “The Juror #6 Job”, was directed by TV veteran Jonathan Frakes and reunites him with Star Trek alums Brent Spiner, Armin Shimerman, and Kitty Swink. I had a chance to talk with Frakes about his experience on this episode and with the Leverage team in general (he’s directed two episodes so far.) We also talked a bit about the present and future of television.

Your first directing job was a Star Trek episode, but when did you know that was something you wanted to do? Was the first time a lark, you wanted to try it out, or did you already know you were interested?
No, it took me years to get my friend Rick Berman to actually give me an episode to direct. No, I knew from early on in the series that there was an opportunity there just by virtue of being on the set every day with a television series to learn from some of the wonderful TV directors that we had and to shadow them and trail them and then I was lucky enough to get time in the editing room to figure out what that part of it was about. Eventually, after it being clear to Rick that I wasn’t going to stop pursuing it, he relented.  (Read entire interview here.)

Watch Leverage tonight at 10/9 Central, on TNT.