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The Center Seat Director on Star Trek Resilience, The Orville & More

The Center Seat creator Brian Volk-Weiss discussed how 60 years prove Star Trek's resilience, The Orville, the franchise's future, and more.

Director and The Center Seat creator Brian Volk-Weiss is as passionate as it gets when it comes to his fandom with his Nacelle Company, specializing in recapturing cult-favorite IPs of beloved animated and live-action shows through their toy line to producing docuseries like The Toys That Made Us, The Movies That Made Us, Jeff Dunham's The Cars That Drove Us, and that doesn't even include the countless specials he's produced for comedians like Jim Gaffigan, Paul Reiser, Maria Bamford, Jimmy O. Yang, Katt Williams, and more.

His latest project is The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Star Trek, one of a few franchise-related shows which also includes Investi-Gates with Gates McFadden (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard), which jumps into the second half of Star Trek's cinematic run from the TNG films (1994 to 2002) J. J. Abrams's Kelvin universe (2009 to 2016) that follows the first season's pre-Paramount+ TV run and The Original Series films from 1969 – 2005.

In part two of our interview, Volk-Weiss spoke to Bleeding Cool about whether it's awkward to release this as Star Trek faces uncertainty with no new active TV productions filming as Paramount+ runs off the remaining seasons of Strange New Worlds and Starfleet Academy, and the latest reboot film still in development; if he felt any of the films might have aged better as a cult hit after its initial release, and what would season three of The Center Seat might look like and if it would include the Seth MacFarlane-created Trek-inspired The Orville, and why Paramount+'s Section 31 is a guilty pleasure.

The Center Seat Director Brian Volk-Weiss on the Resilience of Star Trek, Being "Diplomatic" About Season 3 with Paramount+ Era, and More.

Bleeding Cool: As you were filming, I don't know how far along you guys were with announcements, because there was some timing with the way you close this season, where you do touch upon the Paramount+ shows. Was it awkward with the timing of it all? I know the 60th anniversary was going to be static and everything, but having this whole aura where there's no active Star Trek show in production right now?

Volk-Weiss: I mean, I could take the easy way out, and it would still be true, and the easy answer would be: we had locked the show long before they canceled 'Starfleet Academy' and 'Strange New Worlds,' so I could hide behind that and say, "Well, it happened after we locked, so there's nothing I can do." The truth of the matter, though, if I'm being fully transparent, which I always try to be, is: Listen, Star Trek is 60 years old. There have been at least three periods before now where there was no active production. There was no production between 1969 and 1983, then there was production between 'Enterprise' ending and JJ (Abrams) getting started. It's happened before, and it'll happen again.

The way I always look at Star Trek, I mean, look at James Bond. James Bond had five movies in a row; I think four of the five broke a billion, and they haven't made a new movie in almost five years. I don't know; it happens with 'Star Wars' and 'Doctor Who.' It happens, and I don't think it's relevant, because as it relates to us being filmmakers, and this is going to sound so cheesy, but I mean it. It's what's in our hearts, minds, and souls that we take with us everywhere we go. If it's in there and we have a good feeling about it, then it truly does live forever, and we're not covering modern Trek. Even the last JJ movie is about 10 years old, let alone the first one.

Keeping with the frame of what you've been covering, do you feel there's a Star Trek film or project that probably has aged better with time that people could look more fondly at, or at least, in your own personal bad or mixed reaction initially, and then, like, you know what, this wasn't as bad as they made it?

Are you talking about Star Trek movies?

All of them.

Definitely 'The Motion Picture,' but I'm not alone in giving it a second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth chance; now I love it. It's one of these movies, and I love 'The Motion Picture.' If you saw my collection, you could tell how much I love it, but to compare it to say, 'First Contact.' I mean, 'First Contact' is fun. It's 'Star Trek'; it's deep and powerful, but it's fun. 'The Motion Picture' is like going to the museum and studying Monet. It's cool; Monet is great. I don't know how much fun it is to go to a museum and study Monet, at least for me. One thing I've seen go the opposite way is that I have always loved 'The Search for Spock,' and I still do, but I see a lot of people crapping on it now. That's a great movie. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that movie; it's a perfect sequel to 'The Wrath of Khan,' and it's the phenomenal setup to 'The Voyage Home,' so I never understand people who crap on that. At the same time, a lot of people lately are like, "I love 'The Final Frontier,' and I'm like, "You know what? I respect your opinion. God bless you, but yeah, I don't. I do not like that movie."

It was interesting that 'Strange New Worlds' is popping into this, and now I'm wondering how, and maybe we'll find out more in season five, but they did touch upon this in season four, with Kirk's relationship with Carol Marcus and their son, David (from 'TWOK'). It wasn't a narrative that 'The Original Series' dove into, because it was invented for 'TWOK,' since Kirk's personal life wasn't addressed much in the previous canon. Since the film, creatives have found a way to revisit that narrative. Circling back here to the main topic at hand, would you be waiting another five or so years to do season three of 'The Center Seat' Do you feel you have enough to cover the Paramount+ era, and in addition to that, would you include 'The Orville' in that too?

Okay, as I assume you know, we make the action figures for Paramount with Star Trek, so I've got to be a little diplomatic about how I say this, but here's what I would say: If we're sitting here in 2031 and I start to…because I'll be honest with you, I wanted to keep going, but the issue is, as a rule, I want to be honest when I direct in anything, but at the same time, I don't want to punch down. I could make a very good episode about season three of 'Picard,' but I'm not the right guy to make an episode about seasons 1 or 2. I'm the right guy to make an episode about 'Lower Decks,' and that might be it. With 'Discovery,' they lost me in the pilot ('The Vulcan Hello') with the Spore Drive, like the minute…you're a hundred years before Kirk, and you have technology better than what he had. A Spore Drive would probably have come in quite handy on 'Voyager.' It's stuff like that, and it might sound to non-Trekkies like I'm splitting hairs, or I'm nitpicking, but I don't think I am. I believe a core tenet of Star Trek was warp drive; to come up with some nonsense and call it "Spore Drive," like, what is that? It's weird, and unfortunately, I didn't feel…I will say this: I loved the 'Section 31' movie, but I love it the same way I love 'Batman and Robin.' It's spectacularly bonkers, and I felt so bad for Michelle Yeoh. Every time Michelle Yeoh was walking around, I'm like, "Oh God! This poor actress." So yeah, I'm probably not the right guy to direct those, so let's leave it at that. That may not sound diplomatic, but that was as diplomatic as I can be at this time.

Yeah, I remember speaking to Doug [Drexler] for his documentary, and he couldn't put it more eloquently than about it echoing those thoughts in this season of 'The Center Seat.' I hate that the studio pushed off the old guard and did everything anew. This leads to my point about 'The Orville,' since many of the mainstays from the Trek franchise did end up working on that show.

I would do 'The Orville' in a billionth of a second. I have seen every episode at least twice. As popular as it is for people like you and me, I don't think people- again, I'm sorry I keep talking about my wife so much. My wife thinks 'Star Trek' is like a weird religion that I'm in, and she wants nothing to do with it. She loved 'The Orville,' like I couldn't even watch it without her. We have the same kind of rules we have for 'Game of Thrones' and other shows, like we had to watch together, and she applied them to 'The Orville.' Yes, I would love to do something about 'The Orville.'

If you had a wish list of people you want to speak with who are no longer with us for 'The Center Seat,' is there anyone who comes to mind off the top of your head?

I mean, this will sound cheesy and ridiculous, but I would have loved to have spoken to Gene Roddenberry. I mean, to meet the guy- all this came out of his brain. I met George Lucas once for like 40 seconds, which was almost 20 years ago, and I remember it like it was yesterday. All I did was shake his hand, and he said, "Hello," and I said, "Hello. It's an honor to meet you," and that's it. That was the whole thing. I remember, like, it was five minutes ago, and then the other person, and maybe even this is number one, is DeForest Kelley. I love Bones, especially the movie Bones. He passed away when I was either in college or at the end of high school. He was gone before I got to Hollywood.

Is there anything else that you wanted to share about this season of 'The Center Seat' that we didn't touch on?

The thing I would say is it's just like season one; it's a love letter to Star Trek, but it's one of the things that's the tough part about the way we make documentaries. I think a lot of documentaries take the pulp, like, imagine orange juice, but it's only pulp? We're from concentrate, so the reason why I bring it up is a lot of people tend to just watch the episodes that they love. Someone who loves 'Generations' and 'First Contact' might not watch 'Insurrection,' or 'Nemesis.' I would argue you should, for anybody out there who's thinking of watching the episodes about their favorites.

In many ways, I would say the episodes about 'Insurrection' and 'Nemesis' are incredibly interesting, because so few people have dedicated time to the reason why they're not as good as the first two. I would say the same thing about the second and third JJ movies. There is a very specific reason why 'Into Darkness' is not as good as 2009 'Star Trek,' and there's a very good reason why they brought in Justin Lin. There is a very good reason why Justin Lin had mixed success, and I think people will find that very interesting. I hope they watch all five, because they support each other. They're not just so cut-and-dry, one episode to one movie.

I love the fact that Walter [Koenig] got to talk about his scene in 'Generations' that was unfortunately cut, and it's also just as gut-wrenching to hear that for everything that Wil Wheaton gave to the franchise, the film did him dirty. He got like a two-second cameo, and that's all they brought him in for, and they took out his speaking scene. I would like love to have a director's cut where you throw those things back in there, and I'm surprised that it was never…

Me too.

'The X-Files: I Want to Believe' has a new cut on Hulu.

I know.

But we don't have these different cuts of Star Trek. [Director] Robert Wise came back to recut 'The Motion Picture.'

Twice.

You tell me that you couldn't have a redone version of those two 'TNG' movies?

Yeah, and by the way, they don't even have to be redone. This is what a lot of people don't understand. Just show [Jonathan] Frakes's first cut. That's all you have got to do. I guarantee you he has a two-and-a-half to four-hour-long cut. That's the first thing that was turned in; just correct it and let us see it. So, I completely agree.

The Center Seat, which features interviews with Leonard Nimoy (TOS), Jonathan Frakes (TNG, Picard), Alan Ruck (Generations), Brent Spiner (TNG, Picard), Walter Koenig (TOS), James Cromwell (Star Trek: First Contact), Malcolm McDowell (Generations), Shohreh Aghdashloo (Star Trek Beyond), writer/EP Ronald D. Moore, Alice Krige (First Contact), Deep Roy (Kelvin Films), writer/EP Brannon Braga, makeup designer Michael Westmore, EP Jeri Taylor, makeup designer/visual effects specialist Doug Drexler, writer/EP Bryan Fuller, writer/EP Rick Berman, Wil Wheaton (TNG), and more, is available on Prime Video, Tubi, Apple TV, and Nacelle's YouTube channel.

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