SCIFI AND TV TALK: Captain Starship's Ivon Bartok
By Steve Eramo
05/10/2011
What 12-year-old Sci-Fi fan would not love to have a friend or family member who actually stars in his or her own TV series. Kevin Sullivan is one such kid. His uncle is, in fact, Pauly Sullivan, who plays Captain Frank Lucas on Captain Starship. When the preteen’s rock star “groupie,” mom takes off to follow yet another band, Kevin moves in with his uncle. Having such a level-headed kid as Kevin around turns out to be a real wake-up call for Pauly, whose newfound TV success has caused him to lose sight of what is really important in life.
Paul McGillion (Dr. Carson Beckett of Stargate Atlantis fame) stars as Pauly Sullivan/Captain Frank Lucas in Captain Starship, a pilot for a potential TV series. One of its executive producers is Ivon Bartok, who, for the past 13 years as worked for the successful Stargate franchise. He and McGillion recently came together with actor/writer Michael Northey and writer/producer/director Jesse Miller with the hope of bringing Captain Starship to the small screen...
... “Michael Northey, who plays one of the characters [Dropkick] in Captain Starship, is a really good friend of Paul McGillion’s and he came up with the idea for the show,” says Bartok. “It’s a half-hour comedy where Paul’s character of Pauly Sullivan just happens to be the lead in of this low-budget Sci-Fi show, but the real story of Captain Starship is about his life outside of work and dealing with his friends and family. In the pilot, Pauly is forced to make some changes in his life when his nephew Kevin [Quinn Lord] comes to live with him. Michael wrote the pilot script a while back and when we read it we loved it and thought it was really funny. A year or so ago, Michael, Paul, Jesse and I met for lunch and decided, ‘OK, what do we have to do to make this happen,’ and that’s where it all began.
“We wanted to create something we would have fun with. When you’re trying to tell a story, be it a movie, a short film or a TV show, it’s a great deal of work, so we wanted to make sure that we enjoyed ourselves while we were doing it. Paul, Michael, Jesse and I are fortunate enough to know a number of very talented actors here in Vancouver and everyone in Captain Starship are our friends. I mean, bringing someone like Michael Shanks [Dr. Daniel Jackson in Stargate SG-1], who plays Paul’s nemesis, Brock Hunter, was a real coup. Then there’s Erin Karpluk, who is in a very popular Canadian TV show called Being Erica, She plays Paul’s girlfriend [Candace Cooper]. Michael Northey is in Being Erica as well and gave Erin a copy of the Captain Starship script to read. She loved it, too, and said, ‘Yes, I want to come onboard and play that character...’
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