Announcer: Here we are with Kathris, the creator of Zeitgeist: Symphony Of Dreams. He’s here to tell us about the upcoming spin-off to Zeitgeist, and where the franchise is headed.
Q: What can you tell us about the new series?
A: First of all, it’s a significant departure from the first series. This time we’re taking the franchise into space with an entirely new crew. Some characters you’ve seen before, but most of them are fresh.
Q: Into space… A starship?
A: Yes. We’ve developed the ACS Sentinel, a cruiser in the
Q: Reestablish control?
A: That’s correct. The second series starts twenty years
after the first, and the chronology works something like this. About five to
ten years after Kathris’s show ends, the
Q: Tell us about the cast.
A: Well, I wanted a vixen in the lead role this time, because I had liked Hali so much. So I thought Kathris would select a female fox for his protégé. And that was the idea behind the casting of the role of the captain.
Q: Why a female commander?
A: It was decided early on that for the spin-offs, we’d be alternating the gender of the series leads. We started with a male tiger, so then we moved on to a female fox.
Skylar: I play Captain Skylar Prescott, the vixen commander of the ACS Sentinel. My character is the show runner for this particular series, and I am more or less Kathris’s best student, hand picked and trained by him. Kathris and Hali are slated to make several guest appearances on the first season of our show, and I have to admit, I couldn’t be happier. It solidifies the two series together, and I think it gives our show a little more credibility.
Q: What else can you tell us about your character?
A: Skylar is a relatively young commander, this is her first official command. She has a husband and a son along with her on the journey, and you’ll meet them both in the pilot episode. From what I was told about the role, she enjoys collecting mementos of her missions, and keeps them in her ready room.
Kardis: I play Commander Kardis Brenner. I was told that the role required someone who could play the strong right arm, and the captain’s emotional barometer more or less. It’s an exciting prospect for a female squirrel actress like myself. I mean, I get to play the second lead in the new Zeitgeist series. I’ve also been told that my character more or less helped design the fighter craft that you’re going to see on the show, so she’ll probably have considerable involvement with the flight team.
Q: Who else will be manning the stations on this ship?
A: We cast an Iguana as the Chief Engineer, and his character’s name is Lieutenant Commander Kaiden Rennek. He helped modify some of the fighter craft, and at one point there was talk about making him claustrophobic to expand his character a little more, but that idea was abandoned.
We also have Lieutenant Alexander Archer, the ursine security chief. He’s an old friend of Skylar’s, and he and the captain have served together before. He introduced Skylar to her husband, and collects projectile weapons as a hobby.
Doctor Steven MacKenzie is an Esper medical officer. He was initially named Steven Miner, but I liked MacKenzie better. He’s definitely the comedy relief of the series, as he’s not that good with women, but he’s always trying. He doesn’t have a lot of social experience, and that shows to a degree.
Next, we cast Operations Officer Kristania Adelaide and Helmsman Miriah Griswald from the first series. They’d made some guest appearances in the run of that show during a few future episodes, so I assigned them to this crew to get some more dimension to the cast. Kristania is Pascal and Ellinia’s daughter, and Miriah is Summer and Rikan’s child.
Lieutenant Kahren Barrows is the science officer. She’s a human woman who doesn’t get along with technology, often cursing at it or kicking it. She considers the fighters to be deathtraps, and refuses to ever train in one.
Pilot Harken Maris is a griffin. We cast him because we
really wanted to use a griffin on one of the show, and this turned out to be as
good a chance as any. It was more or less the same reason why we cast the
equine Regina Darwin. Though
Finishing up the cast is Tigerfox Reinhardt.
Tigerfox: I play Kathris’s son, the tiger/fox hybrid from the first series. Here we get to see me in my own time, sort of coming out into my own. I get out from under dad’s shadow and get a reputation of my own, as well as growing older and more experienced. What’s interesting to me is that while I’m trying to be my own person, I’m also being mothered by Skylar, who more or less takes me under her wing, and she was trained by my father. I’ve been told my character is also the head of the fighter squadron, so I’ll get a chance to try some of those ships out.
A: I’d also like to note that I think Zeitgeist: Renaissance is the only series where the cast actually gets smaller by the time the show wraps rather than getting bigger.
Q: What alien races are we going to meet?
A: Well, you’ll meet the Zaconi, a mysterious race that wear masks to cover their appearance. You’ll see a race of alien bugs wandering around infesting a couple of the planets, and you’ll also meet a group of space pirates that are always on the lookout for technology they can rip apart and sell.
Q: Can you tell us anything else?
A: Not really. Most of my overview I want to save for the recap of season one at the end of the year. You’ll just have to watch the show to see what happens, and at the end of the year I’ll tell you what to expect the next time around.
Q: Thank you for taking the time to interview with the Anthro Sci Fi Network.
A: You’re welcome.
