Tomorrow night’s episode of Leverage, “The Juror #6 Job”, was directed by TV veteran Jonathan Frakes and reunites him with Star Trek alums Brent Spiner, Armin Shimerman, and Kitty Swink. I had a chance to talk with Frakes about his experience on this episode and with the Leverage team in general (he’s directed two episodes so far.) We also talked a bit about the present and future of television.

Your first directing job was a Star Trek episode, but when did you know that was something you wanted to do? Was the first time a lark, you wanted to try it out, or did you already know you were interested?

No, it took me years to get my friend Rick Berman to actually give me an episode to direct. No, I knew from early on in the series that there was an opportunity there just by virtue of being on the set every day with a television series to learn from some of the wonderful TV directors that we had and to shadow them and trail them and then I was lucky enough to get time in the editing room to figure out what that part of it was about. Eventually, after it being clear to Rick that I wasn’t going to stop pursuing it, he relented.

Well, it’s good that you kept pursuing that. Do you have a preference between being in front of the camera or behind the camera?

I don’t have a preference, but I’ve certainly been busier behind the camera lately. I think Star Trek has been a double-edged sword for actors in terms of recognizability. Some places it’s helpful to have been the guy from Star Trek and some places it’s just the opposite. So I’m very thankful to have another craft that I can do.

What was it like when you took on your first non-Star Trek directing job? How were the pressures different for you?

Well you lose some of the shorthand that you have with a cast when you go to a new show. I mean, eventually you gain it because actors, I think, respond well to directors who are also  actors. I think there’s a certain shorthand that we know what it feels like. But the privilege of doing…I mean we did 182 episodes and four movies together as the Next Generation cast, so that provides for real shorthand. So you try to create some version of that wherever you go.

I must say the Leverage company functions not unlike Next Generation. They work as a team and as a family and I could see it turning into…I mean it’s a great place to work for that very reason.

On his blog, John Rogers has talked a lot about how Electric Entertainment is a very different entity too. The consolidated production, in-house FX, everything. How is that from your perspective?

That’s Dean [Devlin]. Dean is a visionary who also happens to have real balls. He’s put his money where his mouth is, he’s bought this incredible facility which was an Art Deco animal hospital in Hollywood where I’m sitting at the moment and he has created a mini-studio. I just saw the writers when I came in, I’m sitting in one of the editing suites, the visual FX guys I passed on the way upstairs. Dean and the other offices are up in the other wing. I’m in the large animal wing; they’re over in the dog and cat wing.

I think it’s the future. He’s eliminating the middleman. He owns a lot of his own equipment, he keeps a visual effects house going, he’s a very, very smart producer, Dean.

You’ve worked with Dean quite a bit before. How did that relationship start?

Years ago we were trying to develop a project together, a movie that never got off the ground for writer reasons. And I actually guested on a television series that Dean was a regular on called Hard Copy many years ago, so I’ve known Dean for a long, long time. And we have very similar sensibilities in the types of movies we like and the types of shows we want to make, and we work similarly, so it’s a good team.

I want to get back a little to Dean, and his vision being the future of television. What do you think about the changes that the Internet is bringing about? Do you think that ordinary people producing content is a good thing, a bad thing? Do you think that’s going to start to take off and gain some following?

I think it already has. Certainly you look at the hits that both good and bad things on YouTube get. But I think the well produced, clever, intelligently written, well acted television show is not going to be threatened by an amateur. Not that some of these streaming videos aren’t entertaining, but the legs that a show like Leverage now has – with the pickup and the future – I think it’s really apples and oranges to be frank. I think the Internet is a great tool for selling good television. I don’t see at least this year and next year, shows made directly for the Internet as a particular threat to shows as well produced as the TNT shows.

Do you have any plans to direct any episodes next season?

Yeah. I hope to be back for quite a few next year.

If you’re coming back behind the camera, do you have any interest in going in front of the camera on the show? Other than your little cameo there a couple of weeks back? ((If you missed it, go back and rewatch “The Snow Job”. Frakes is the man looking oddly at Nate while he talks on his comms.))

Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if something like that happens.

Here’s where I got a little silly. Forgive my indulgence, but hey, I got Number 1 to laugh. That’s something.

I have this great idea. I think the team needs to lose one. I think maybe a charming pair of con artists come in. A tall guy with a beard, maybe his lovely blond wife, they rip the team off.

I like it. I may go downstairs and pitch it when I get off the phone!

I think you might even know a good blond to play that role.

I certainly do! ((If you, like me, grew up in the era of Luke and Laura, you should know damn well who Jonathan Frakes and I are discussing here. His lovely, talented wife, Genie Francis.))

Getting to the aspects of directing this particular episode, what was the most rewarding moment for you?

It was great to be back to work with Brent [Spiner] and Armin [Shimerman] and Kitty [Swink] and having them in the same room and nobody had on any prosthetics, nobody was wearing goldflake makeup. That alone was worth the price of admission!

I think my favorite slick moment of the episode is the phone lift. How tough was the setup on that? ((Seriously guys, watch this close. It is one of the best lifts in the show’s short history.))

Well that’s again a perfect example of good planning. You have the visual effects guys, and I said to them, can’t we just throw nothing and you put the phone in? Because the idea of trying to do that practically, we’d still be shooting it. It’s a CG phone that goes through the air.

That’s Dean’s team. That’s the visual effects house that works down here at Electric. We threw the phone, then we threw nothing. Then she caught a phone, or she had a phone and pulled it down, then she caught nothing. And then we sew the pieces together, comp the pieces together, and the shot works and people buy that it actually happened.

Don’t forget to watch Tuesday’s episode of Leverage. Parker has to interact with *regular* people.