Montgomery Scott is an uncommon engineering officer in the Enterprise Crew.
Montgomery Scott’s Captain’s Maneuver
Miracle Worker – Scotty reduces the time needed to repair the ship by 10%.
This one seems underpowered. This is a reference to Scotty’s “But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.” line from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
So it would make sense for his captain’s maneuver to reduce repair time by much more than 10%. Something like 75% would be more fitting, given that using him takes away an opportunity to have an ability that helps in combat.
And I know that with synergy, this number can get up to 30%, it just seems underpowered for such an important officer. It also seems like a bit of a sleight to have him as just an uncommon officer.
Officer Ability
Born Engineer – Scotty increases the total Hull Health of the ship by (10% 12% 14% 16% 20%) of its original Hull Health.
This one too is a bit of a letdown. It does get up to a 20% hull bonus when fully promoted. Now, there’s nothing wrong with hull health per se, but when you’ve got Spock giving massive shield repair bonuses, it would seem fitting for Scotty to have something similar with the hull, especially given that his main job was fixing the ship during battles.
It pains me to say this, but unless you’re awash in officer badges, I can’t justify fully promoting Montgomery Scott.
(Maybe I should have written the officer part before I did the Jimmy Doohan bio below, as right now, I’m thinking he was amazing, and the officer deserves better. Maybe when we get to TOS.)
James Doohan Trivia
Since I went over Simon Pegg in the article about Cadet Scotty, I’m going to go over the great James Doohan here. By the way, since it looks like Scopely will be introducing The Original Series versions of these characters at some point in the future, I think I’ll save a more thorough discussion of the characters for those articles. For now, it’s the bios, and there’s great stuff here, and I could have included a lot more. (Not whales, yet, just great stuff.)
I think it would surprise people that “Scotty” James Doohan isn’t actually from Scotland. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on March 3rd, 1920. His parents had emigrated from Belfast, Northern Ireland. His father owned a chemist’s shop, and invented a form of high-octane gasoline. His mother was born Sarah Montgomery (more on that later.)
In 1938, he enrolled in the 102nd Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps.
World War II
Simon Pegg acted in Band of Brothers. Jimmy Doohan lived it.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Canadian Artillery. He was commissioned a Lieutenant in the 14th Field Artillery Regiment of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division.
(It was there, in 1940, that Doohan met a soldier from Aberdeen, Scotland, and learned to imitate his Scottish accent.)
He first saw combat landing at Juno Beach on D-Day. Shooting two snipers, Doohan led his men to higher ground through a field of anti-tank mines, where they took defensive positions for the night. Crossing between command posts at 11:30 that night, Doohan was hit by six rounds fired from a Bren Gun by a nervous Canadian sentry: four in his leg, one in the chest, and one through his right middle finger. The bullet to his chest was stopped by a silver cigarette case given to him by his brother. Seriously. The cigarette case.
His right middle finger had to be amputated, something he would conceal on-screen during most of his career as an actor.
Doohan graduated from Air Observation Pilot Course 40 with eleven other Canadian artillery officers and flew Taylorcraft Auster Mark V aircraft for 666 (AOP) Squadron, RCAF as a Royal Canadian Artillery officer in support of 1st Army Group Royal Artillery.
Although he was never actually a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Doohan was labeled the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Force”. In the late spring of 1945, he slalomed a plane between telegraph poles “to prove it could be done”—earning a serious reprimand.
Acting Career
After the war, he moved to London (Ontario), and got involved in radio. He later won a scholarship to to the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City where he was a classmate with Leslie Nielsen and Tony Randall.
During the late 40s he went back and forth between New York and Toronto, as he did work for the CBC. He appeared in “in over 4,000 radio programs and 450 television programs.”
He appeared as Timber Tom (the Canadian version of Buffalo Bob) in the CBC version of Howdy Doody. And if you’ll remember my William Shatner profile, he appeared in the American version of Howdy Doody. Ask your grandparents about Howdy Doody.
Both Shatner and Doohan appeared on a Canadian children’s TV show, Space Command, in 1953. Here’s the only surviving episode.
Here’s an irony for you. James Doohan’s first film role was as Bob in a short 1956 Canadian documentary, The Cage. The first pilot for Star Trek was also called The Cage, but Doohan didn’t appear in it.
Also in ’56, he starred in a Canadian television movie, Flight into Danger. I’m going to say there’s about a 100% certainty you’ve never heard of it. If you’re a comedy nerd like me, you’ve heard of the remake… Zero Hour.
And I guarantee you’ve heard of the spoof remake of Zero Hour, Airplane!, featuring Doohan’s old school classmate, Leslie Neilsen. (By the way, if you haven’t seen the side-by-side comparison of Zero Hour and Airplane, stop reading this, and go watch it now. I’ll wait.)
(And in trivia you didn’t ask for, and probably don’t want, here’s the West German version, Flug in Gefahr. And for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, you can see that it’s set in Canada. Sorry, back to Doohan.)
Going to California
By the early 60’s, Doohan had made his way to California, and started doing the TV guest star circuit that just about every other actor from the Original Series was doing pre-Star Trek.
He made an appearance on Hazel as Gordie, the Scottish suitor. (This was the only time he’d done a Scottish accent on screen before Star Trek.)
He showed up (with Majel Barrett, no less) on an episode of Bonanza.
Doohan also made an appearance on Bewitched, playing a Warlock during the second season episode, A Strange Little Visitor (that you can watch here for free if you’ve got Amazon Prime.)
He also turned up on both The Outer Limits and the Twilight Zone.
Becoming Montgomery Scott
When James Doohan auditioned for Star Trek, he auditioned for the part of Chief Engineer. There was no name for the character. He did several accents for Gene Rodenberry. He tried German and Italian accents, among others and finally suggested that the engineer should be a Scotsman.
The character was eventually named for Doohan’s maternal grandfather, James Montgomery.
Doohan was also a primary voice-over actor whenever a disembodied voice was needed. He was the voice of Sargon in Return to Tomorrow, the M-5 multitronic unit in The Ultimate Computer, a Melkotian buoy in Spectre of the Gun, and the Oracle of the People in For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.
When it came time for the animated series, Doohan was again the go-to voice guy. He voiced not only Scotty, but Lt. Arex, and 49 other characters. He played Klingons, Romulans, Andorians, Vulcans, and many, many others.
Ironically, one of the characters he did was Kolath, played in live action on both the Original Series and Deep Space Nine by the late William Campbell.
Ironic, as Campbell was the best man at Doohan’s 1974 wedding.
Other Work
After Star Trek, Doohan found it difficult to get other work, but he did get some. And it’s fun to look at.
In the 70s, he made appearances on Marcus Welby, MD, and Return to Peyton Place.
He starred as Commander Canarvin for 16 episodes of Jason of Star Command. That series, which had nothing at all to do with the “Space Command” film from the 50s that also starred Doohan. It was produced by Filmation of all people. Filmation was primarily an animation company (they produced Star Trek: The Animated Series.
Doohan left Space Command to do Sar Trek: The Motion Picture.
He made a guest appearance on Magnum, P.I., which you can watch here in 1983.
He made an appearance with Ricardo Montalban on Fantasy Island.
His last TV credit was a role on Duckman in 1997 in the episode, Where No Duckman Has Gone Before. (You can watch it here, if you want to.) He plays a giant green floating head. It’s not that good, but it does have Gilbert Gottfried in it. So there’s that.
His last movie role was in Skinwalker: Curse of the Shaman in 2005.
On July 20, 2005, Doohan died at his home from complications of pulmonary fibrosis, which was believed to be from exposure to noxious substances during World War II. His body was subsequently cremated. A portion of his ashes was subsequently launched into orbit.