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Who Is He?
James Morrison: Actor and ... ?
Part 2 of 7
It's the year 2064. Earth is at war with the Chigs, a mysterious alien
enemy. The Chigs announced their presence in the universe by destroying
an Earth colony on the planet Tellus. They have been engaging Earth
forces and winning. Now, rumors have begun to fly of an ace Chig pilot,
who can sneak up on any squadron and blow them out of the sky.
In his quarters on board the Navy carrier
Saratoga, Marine Lt. Col. T. C. McQueen looks at a blurry picture of the
elusive Chig ace. He picks up a pen and writes on the picture, in big,
insistent letters: "Who am I?"
Viewers had wondered this since the pilot. A
mystery man, McQueen appeared in only a few scenes, filling a largely
formulaic role as the loner military man. Yet there was one scene that
caught many viewers' attention. McQueen, still scarred from a disastrous
encounter between his squadron and the Chigs, walked into the operations
room on the Saratoga, overturned a table, and with a few well-chosen
words prepared a group of young, scared cadets for one of the most
important battles in the early part of the war.
By the end of the pilot, all that viewers knew about McQueen was that he
was the commander of an elite squadron of pilots, the 127th Air Attack
Wing - who were all killed during their encounter with the Chigs. Adding
to the mystery about McQueen is that he is an In Vitro, a member of a
race of artificially conceived and gestated human beings. And it was the
mystery that attracted Morrison to the character.
And, as Morrison explained (while the show was still in production), he
was also attracted to the character because "I saw the potential for
exactly what has happened. As the series has progressed, what's been
revealed about the character, and the direction that they've gone with
it, and the dynamics that have evolved around the character."
What happened, of course, was that McQueen grew from an important but
un-emphasized character to a pivotal part of the drama. He was still the
commander of the 58th Squadron, Nathan West (Morgan Weisser), Shane
Vansen (Kristen Cloke), Cooper Hawkes (Rodney Rowland), Paul Wang (Joel
de la Fuente), and Vanessa Damphousse). But he was also developed and
explored as a character in his own right. Fan interest in the character
had a lot to do with the change, an interest that apparently almost
everyone involved with the show didn't expect. Except Morrison. "I saw
the potential [for what happened], and I don't know frankly whether they
did or not, because they were so focused on the three young leads. I
think that's the direction the network was going."
If the official Fox Web pages about the show were any indication of the
network's focus, then it's telling that when the site first went up,
there was information about the five young leads, but none about McQueen
or Morrison. Enough fans pointed out the lack that info was soon added.
There is also a fan-built web page devoted to Morrison's work, and a
mailing list on which the members discuss a wide range of topics,
including acting and directing, the issues surrounding the character, and
the excellent acting ability and good looks of the actor who played him.
The mailing list has survived the demise of the show, the subscribers
trading video tapes of Morrison's past work, discussing the episodes of
"Space" all over again, and watching for new work.
When asked the question that probably became all too familiar, how did he
feel about the initial lack of publicity and what happened to cause the
change, he is typically gracious. "It didn't have anything to do with
me, and it didn't have anything to do with the character. What it had to
do with was the machine that is series television. And when you start
that machine, you start with a concept, and you put it on autopilot, and
it begins to roll, and it does what it does regardless of what is
actually happening. And then all of a sudden somebody goes, 'Oh, wait a
minute, we'd better stop the machine and get it up to speed with what is
happening,' and that's what happened. It's just getting the machine to
work with the actual product, and everybody has to get up to speed. It
evolved differently than they thought it would, and that's true with any
series."
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