Seven years. That’s how long DOMINION MEDIA co-showrunner GARY DAVIS has been playing Captain Jason Brousseau, commanding officer of the DREADNOUGHT DOMINION. And in the two years before that, Gary played Commander Brousseau, the ship’s first officer. So that’s NINE years in front of the camera on this long-running fan series.
DAVID “RANDY” WRENN, the other Dominion Media co-showrunner, has played his character, Chief Engineer Stephen Denson, for just as long, himself rising through the ranks to first officer and eventually captain of engineering. But as of September 29, 2023, both men performed those roles as leads for a final time in their swan song episode “IN OUR OWN TIME,” which saw them pass the command baton of the U.S.S. Dominion to Captain Maurine Farrell, played by popular fan film actress of multiple fan series, VICTORIA AVALON.
The episode was another strong offering from the team, with a fun, original, and engaging story and their typical mix of seriousness and humor. Take a look…
I plan to speak more with Victoria Avalon when Dominion‘s next episode premieres. But right now, I’ve decided to focus on Gary and Randy and their decisions to step away from the front of the camera to focus (no pun intended) more of their attention to efforts behind the scenes…
DREADNOUGHT DOMINION got its start back in 2015 when the first two episodes “Haunted” and “Anchors Aweigh” were released. Afterward, the showrunner and lead actor, FRANK PARKER, JR. (playing Commodore Samuel Grissom) departed the series, leaving GARY DAVIS and RANDY WRENN to take Dominion where no fan series had gone before…onto the bridge (and corridors) of a Federation-class dreadnought starship.
And so they did, producing and releasing an additional FIFTEEN fan films, including a few crossovers with other fan series, over the course of seven years. (You can watch all the episodes of Dreadnough Dominionon this playlist.) But they didn’t stop there. In July of 2021, using a TOS-era runabout set that Gary constructed in his basement, they filmed and premiered the pilot episode of a new Dominion spinoff series called PROJECT: RUNABOUT. And a little over a year later, they released the second episode of that new fan series, “YORKTOWN,” shot both on the runabout set as well as at the U.S.S. Yorktown Naval and Maritime Museum in the Charlestown Harbor in South Carolina.
You might think that simultaneously producing two ongoing fan series would be enough to keep these two guys busy, and you’d be correct! But when has being busy ever stopped them before???
And so, in July of this year, Dominion Media launched its SECOND spinoff fan series: WARBIRD VALDORE. As you might be able to guess from the title, its stories are told from the perspective of a Romulan warbird commander and her crew. This isn’t the first time a fan series has spotlighted the adventures of another spacefaring alien race. POTEMKIN PICTURES’ BATTLECRUISER KUPOK and SCOUTSHIP QAB’ELTHare both set on Klingon vessels. But this is the first time, to my knowledge, that a Romulan warbird has been been the primary focus of a series.
The new series is filmed in part on sets located at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA and stars JOAN SAVAGE as Romulan Commander Jhu D’Varo, reprising a role she previously played in Dreadnought Dominion. Check out their first episode…
Assuming you just watched it (SPOILER ALERT if you didn’t!), you’ll notice an appearance by MICHAEL BEDNAR, reprising his role of Robert Tacket from STARSHIP FARRAGUT and the upcoming FARRAGUT FORWARD. Now a full captain, Tacket is now in command of the U.S.S. Constitution. His appearance was quite a happy surprise for longtime fans familiar with Farragut (like me!).
Dominion has just launched a new crowd-funder trying to raise $5,000 for their three fan series. If you’d like to donate, click on the link below (I just tossed in $50 myself)…
I was able to assemble Gary, Randy, Joan, and Mike for a group interview to discuss the new Valdore fan series, their involvement, and of course, the campaign…
It takes a special kinda crazy to be a part of Star Trek (or any) fan films. But when I heard that GARY DAVIS, showrunner of the long-running fan series DREADNOUGHT DOMINION, and his wife Tracey had driven 12 HOURS from central Ohio to the southeast corner of Georgia, installed a chair, and then drove 12 hours back home, well, I just had to find out more!
Now, just to be clear, the chair was the iconic CAPTAIN’S CHAIR, the center of command on the bridge set recreation at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA, which is used for multiple TOS-era fan films and series…including Gary’s. So he’s sat in that chair a lot and would know as well as anyone that it needed replacing. (He also built the chair that was being replaced!)
But let’s also make clear that Gary and Tracey drove down there, staying overnight in a hotel along the way, installed the chair, and then turned around and went back home, staying overnight in another hotel. They didn’t film anything at the studio or hang out any longer than to have a quick chat with people there. According to Gary, he simply did a short walk around the studio looking for things to use in their next Dominion shoot on November 4-6 and then they headed out.
And yes, my friends, you read that right: Gary will be heading BACK to Neutral Zone Studios in two weeks! So he and Tracey made this 1,600-mile round-trip drive just to deliver and install a chair that they could have delivered and installed 14 days later! Huh????
I can’t take it. Gary, get your butt over here now! We need to have a little chat…
