After two years hosting The Shuttlepod Show, Star Trek: Enterprise actors Dominic Keating (Malcolm Reed) and Connor Trinner (Trip Tucker) have recently wrapped the first season of their latest podcast endeavor: The D-Con Chamber. Featuring interviews with Star Trek luminaries like William Shatner, Scott Bakula, and Sonequa Martin-Green, each episode sees Connor and Dom deep dive into the life and career of their guests.
As the show gears up for its second season, TrekCore had the opportunity to speak with Connor and Dom about their experiences on The D-Con Chamber, what it’s like to be podcasters, their ongoing affiliation with the Star Trek franchise, and how fans can support their latest effort.
You can listen to the unedited interview here, or catch a transcript below that has been edited for length and clarity.
TREKCORE: After you’ve both had lengthy and varied careers, why start a Star Trek podcast? What keeps bringing you back to Star Trek and wanting to do a Star Trek project?
DOMINIC KEATING: A mortgage!
CONNOR TRINNEER: I think that our particular show wasn’t represented. We had a conversation with Garrett Wang, who co-hosts The Delta Flyers podcast at the convention just after the COVID lockdown. And we just thought that it was an opportunity for the two of us to do something together again and to utilize the relationships and connections we had throughout the Star Trek world.
And look every podcast hosted by Star Trek actors is subtly different. The D-Con Chamber is different than The Seventh Rule. We’re different than The Delta Flyers. We’re different than Wil Wheaton’s The Ready Room and InvestiGates. And so our unique sort of take on this and our commitment to as often as we possibly can having guests live in a studio with us raises the bar on the whole idea.
KEATING: And there’s a 20 year friendship that’s kind of the secret sauce for us. We truly have been friends since the day we met at the table read for the Enterprise pilot. This was such a welcome opportunity to continue that friendship, and we sort of kicked ourselves for not really picking the baton up a bit earlier and running with the podcast relay. And while we had to walk away from our first iteration of the show, I think with The D-Con Chamber we’re back, we’re stronger, and we’re more polished.
TREKCORE: And how did you settle on an interview format for your show, as opposed to doing episode deep dives?
TRINNEER: I think it was a natural fit to do that — because we had the opportunity to film it in Los Angeles, and the luxury of having a remarkable number of actors living right here. They’ve been kind enough to come do our show. And we’ve always talked about the idea that eventually we are going to visit episodes and do different things like that. But so far we’ve not really had to because we’ve been very fortunate to get great guests to commit time out of their day and come chat with us person to person.
KEATING: Yeah we’d like to sprinkle in some episode watch-alongs eventually. And it would take the pressure off of us to find guests. But we knew all these people for a long time from the convention circuit, but also at the same time we didn’t know them. So this show has been a great opportunity to actually spend some quality time with these people that we’ve known over a couple of decades and really sit down and do a deep dive into their lives and what spurred them on to take the road they took to get into this crazy business.
TRINNEER: Dominic and I have done a lot of conventions, and like all Star Trek actors we do the Q and A’s where there’s probably roughly 15 or 20 topics that we’ve all refined our answers. But the wonderful thing that I’ve discovered about doing this long-form interview is that I think that our guests get to relax. They don’t have to push Star Trek, as it were. We’re investigating who they are and how they got there. And that’s been a good model for us.
TREKCORE: In recent episodes with William Shatner and Scott Bakula, you really got them to open up beyond their “stock” convention pitches. How do you accomplish that — is it through the research you do on the guest?
TRINNEER: When a guest comes on and finds that we also have prepared for them, and we’re not just having them on and asking them the same sort of questions you would ask at a convention, I think that that puts them at ease and offers them a willingness to expound on things that they might not otherwise. And the luxury of having an hour to talk with them. We’re never at a loss for what to talk about.
KEATING: And Bill Shatner, if I might call him that, I think he recognized that early on. As you can hear him discuss in the episode, he hadn’t had a great start to his morning. He’d been up since 6 AM with a family thing, and you could tell he was maybe just going to glide through the process.
But there was a moment when we realized he had opened up to us and was interested. And it pepped him up and I think he stepped up. I know he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. If you’re slow to the mark that doesn’t jive with him. And when he realized that we had read his books and we knew a lot about what he would like to talk about and it cheered him up.
TREKCORE: You also had the honor of interviewing James Darren in one of his last public appearances before his passing, and talked all about his life and career. What memories can you share from recording that episode and knowing him from the convention circuit?
TRINNEER: I feel blessed to have had that opportunity. And to be quite honest, he even told us he was happy to just keep talking. We had a long conversation with him and learned things that we didn’t otherwise know. But, you know, both Dom and I had encounters with him at conventions over the years and shared drinks at the bar and conversations. And he was a mensch.
KEATING: He truly was. Yeah. Jimmy Big Hands, they called him in Philly. He’s got boxers hands, man. Just the history of that man’s career and the people he rubbed shoulders with. And there are definitely times I’ve come away from these interviews like with Michael Westmore and just pinch myself at the history that you’re hearing. Both Connor and I had big dreams when we came to this town and some of it worked out and some of it didn’t. But to sit down with these guys that really hit for the punch and really hit the home runs. It’s been really fantastic.
TREKCORE: And on The Shuttlepod Show you did a great run of episodes with behind the scenes talent from Star Trek. Would you be looking to do more of that on D-Con Chamber?
TRINNEER: It’s a goal of ours. We’ve been very, very fortunate that we’ve gotten the guests that we’ve gotten. Our goal for the show itself is to incorporate astronauts, physicists. And I think that’s a seed that we’ve planted.
KEATING: We’re looking forward to that. And I just hope the audience comes with us because we have to get the big banner names to get the viewer and listener numbers up to. So please join us on Patreon; it’s very important. I can’t stress that enough. We’re not paying these guests, and we’re barely paying ourselves.
TRINNEER: We rent a location, a studio, we have Jonathan West running our camera, we have an editor. The way that we do it requires so much more than just hitting record on a Zoom, and I mean this literally, we can’t do it on our own to keep the lights on.
KEATING: Keeping this show going takes support and so if you like it, please step up to the plate and help us out. A little bit goes a long way.
TREKCORE: And as you conduct these interviews, this is also a big opportunity for you to develop a deeper relationship with your audience and for them to get to know you better and vice versa. How does that feel?
TRINNEER: I think that it makes our show unique. I think that, if Dom and I have a gift, it’s our ability to listen, ask questions, and share in a way that makes a through line for someone to open up.
KEATING: And we hope we’re interesting too. We want to put the spotlight on the guest for the most part because that’s who people are tuning in to listen to. But we hope that, the secret sauce, as I’ve said, is our friendship and our chemistry, and that we’ve managed to sort of walk that fine line of listening, asking and then enjoying the camaraderie with our guests themselves. And I think they enjoy it. And so I think that’s as part of the show as anything else.
TRINNEER: And not to trumpet ourselves, but we’ve had many guests leave and say this is the best podcast I’ve ever been on. And really what it comes down to is when you have an opportunity, your preparation guides that opportunity. If you haven’t prepared enough, then it’s going to be different. We do, and we’re able to go anywhere. We know and like these people and spend time with them and at conventions mostly.
KEATING: And you’ll note that we don’t carry cards. You have to listen. And it’s an art. I mean, I gotta say, I didn’t know that we were going to become chat show hosts, but and they’re not 10 minute chats either. They’re extensive chats and you’ve got to go where the line takes you where they’re taking you and you might have to circle back to something that you go.
TREKCORE: And in terms of that preparation piece, one of the things you both talked about on the show has been how much Star Trek you both have been watching. What’s it like watching your show, watching the other shows, and reflecting on your association with the franchise as this giant nearly 60 year piece of television history?
TRINNEER: So when I got the job on Enterprise, I’d watched the Original Series, The Next Generation had been on, but I was not what you would call “a Star Trek fan.” I loved the job, loved our show, loved my role, and then left it at that. And then when we got involved in doing this podcast, and the investigation into the breadth of the franchise that it has afforded me, I gotta tell you, I became a bigger fan than I was before.
At conventions fans come up and talk about how it affected their lives. And previously, I would be like, oh, that’s great. And then over the course of time doing this podcast, I have begun to understand this is 60 years of a message. And this is 60 years of an idea that we can be better. And I don’t think there’s anything else in the canon of television that provides that. And it took me a little bit to dip my toe in and then dive all the way in. And now that I’ve done that, I’m just so impressed and proud of the fact and honored that I was able to be a part of this.
KEATING: Yeah, likewise. I mean, the older we get and as the years fly by, it becomes so much more apparent just how grateful we are to have landed ourselves on this incredible opportunity and this extraordinary fandom that just supports and keeps on supporting and cares and does charity work. And it’s such a big positive movement that has gone on for so long that I’m just blessed to be a part of it.
It’s humbling. And we’re very fortunate. I have a deep appreciation for all the other actors that literally work their tits off to bring the best show they could bring. I mean, there’s no cast out there that didn’t bring it. We just had an extraordinary opening season chat with Nana Visitor and her book about the women of Star Trek. And it really is an important discussion and we’re very proud to have her back.
But, you know, the modern Star Trek shows are addressing issues and are really putting up on the screen the inclusivity and diversity of the modern world. And the fact that these shows have got the, frankly, the balls, I can use that terminology to put that front and center is, it’s truly commendable.
TREKCORE: Having had a Star Trek podcast for a few years now beginning with The Shuttlepod Show and extending now to The D-Con Chamber, if you have the opportunity to go back to right before your first interview and give yourselves both advice about going into that interview, what would you tell yourselves now that you didn’t know then?
TRINNEER & KEATING: No whiskey!
KEATING: We didn’t do too badly. I guess that I’d have to go look at those early episodes and see how “chat show-y” we were. I’m sure we were a bit!
TRINNEER: I think that The D-Con Chamber is a more grown up version of what The Shuttlepod Show was. I think that that this iteration of our podcast is a bit more grown up. Maybe we’ll throw some more fun in. We have a couple of ideas to toss in the basket and see how it goes.
KEATING: I still get butterflies before the show. And I think that’s a good thing. But I suppose maybe I do trust more in the fact that we’ve done this and I don’t think there’s been a clunker yet. God bless. And trusting in the guests too, that they don’t want this to be boring.
TREKCORE: Anything you can tease about the next season of The D-Con Chamber?
KEATING: We’ve shot one other day at the studio in addition to the episode with Nana Visitor. We had two guests; Michael Dorn and Michelle Hurd on, and they were a lovely duet, talking about their time on Star Trek: Picard in the third season as Raffi and Mr. Worf.
And we’ve also got Armin Shimmerman and his wife Kitty Swink coming on with Jonathan Frakes. We have the Star Trek Rat Pack, the convention group comprising Max Grodenchik, Vaughn Armstrong, Jeffrey Combs, and Casey Biggs. And we’ve got a few I can’t spoil yet!
TREKCORE: How can fans who enjoy The D-Con Chamber support it?
TRINNEER: If you like our show, like it and subscribe to it. And if you feel that you want to donate the price of a cup of coffee a month, or up to whatever you wish, if you want to keep this around, because it really is up to our audience. That’s the only way that we survive, is with the drive from our audience and gaining more and more people. And that’s our goal. We love doing this work.
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