A lot about Doug Beckett is, truly, Reversal spoilers. Avert your eyes if you haven’t read Reversal and want to maintain the mystery of the first couple of chapters.
Origins
For me, Doug was, in part, every guy who’s ever been romantic around me. This includes my husband. But he’s also a typical resident of the Mirror Universe. So that means that there’s violence in his past, and ambitions and twisted behaviors. But I wanted him to be a person who could, eventually and with help, rise above it.
Symbolism
Doug’s name was a particularly serendipitous find. Douglas means dark stranger, and that is precisely what he is. For Lili, who meets him in a pitch-black dream, he is the ultimate stranger. But he’s also what she needs. He shakes up her world.
His surname is changed when he comes to our side of the pond. Much like an immigrant, he wants to leave his old life behind him, and become the man that Lili wants and needs – the man she can see is lurking under the surface. The surname Beckett is a shout out to Quantum Leap.
Doug is also, in many ways, the opposite side of her coin. She’s somewhat distant with people. He is, too, but it’s not because he truly wants to be. It’s more that the Mirror has made him that way (see his origins story, Paving Stones Made From Good Intentions), due to its insistence that weakness be rooted out and punished or excised or, at least, well-hidden.
Doug is also action and movement – he is something of an air element. As Leonora is communication, Lili is fire, Malcolm is water and Melissa is the earth, Doug is the air.
Portrayal
Steven Culp
Because (eek, spoilers!) Doug is Major Jay Hayes‘s Mirror Universe counterpart, he is of course portrayed by Steven Culp. Culp is a consummate actor, perfect for the role. I have read a number of interviews with him, and he has said that he treated Hayes as almost a David Mamet character. That is, he was more action than talk. Notice, too, that in the series, Jay Hayes rarely smiles. Instead, he is all business.
The name Jay is not canon. Culp has said he thought the character was named Jay or Jeremiah. There are also trading cards showing the name as being Joss. I have used all three names, giving Jeremiah as the name of both Doug’s father and his first-born son (nicknamed Joss), with Jay as being the name of the canon character and Doug’s own middle name. Jay worked out perfectly in this way, as it works as both a first and a middle name in a way that Jeremiah would not have.
Personality
Much like canon character Jay Hayes, Doug is not much of a talker. In Reversal, he has few ways of complimenting Lili, mainly calling her beautiful rather than use synonyms that he is either uncomfortable with or, perhaps, doesn’t even know. That book has a ton of hesitation speech. Doug is nervous in the mirror, in particular around the Empress, although that’s to be expected. With Lili, he’s also nervous, because he’s a bit tongue-tied. And he wants, desperately, for her to like him. He often doesn’t know what to say, but he always seems to know what to do.
Once they are together in our universe, Doug’s demeanor softens considerably. He tries very hard to please Lili and make their life together as good as it can possibly be. Their early life together is in A Kind of Blue, Friday Visit, Pacing and The Gift.
When his relationship with Lili is tested in Together, Doug has few communications strategies at his disposal. When they argue, he very quickly hits below the belt. This, I feel, makes some sense, as Doug hasn’t really learned to be sensitive to others’ feelings. He knows that he loves her, and he wants for everything to work itself out, but he can’t really see the pathway to that.
Action and Maturity
In Temper, he even refers to himself as “the action guy”. Hence he is the one chosen for the mission by Daniels (also because of his twenty centimeter radiation band), for he will get things done. Malcolm has to stay behind because his place is to step in and lead.
By the time Fortune has come around, Doug has been hiding his past rather effectively. Lili knows some of it. She is well aware that he has committed some monstrous deeds in the Mirror Universe. But she wants to believe that he will never do such things again. She’s in some denial herself, in that she’d rather not hear about things. It isn’t until she pushes and asks about his crimes does Doug finally come clean. Furthermore, for Doug, who is inarticulate at best, having him handle a hostage situation by talking instead of shooting was, to me, a fitting full circle behavior. Life here is, after all, very different from the mirror.
Their later life together is documented in The Facts and his death and its aftermath is shown in Equinox.
Doug Beckett in the Mirror Universe
Since Doug is a counterpart character, his life begins in the Mirror. He is the only child of Jeremiah and Lena Hayes, and lives with them on Ganymede. Because of a late birth date (December third, same as Steven Culp’s), his parents force him into schooling at too young an age. Doug’s education is such that anyone in authority pushes him to become a bully and a fighter.
After his eventual graduation, he goes to Cambodia for basic training, and then to freighter defense and other small assignments, essentially acting as a mercenary. He spends time on Andoria, the Klingon home world and other locales, fighting and working as a soldier, molding himself from an untrained, arrogant lummox until, eventually, a disciplined fighting man.
He gets onto the ISS Enterprise by knifing Geming Sulu. His elevation to Lieutenant Commander, to replace the deceased Mirror Universe Malcolm Reed (called Ian Reed in my fanfiction), is part of Paving Stones. While on the Defiant, he meets Lili.
Relationships
His times with Lili and Melissa are the most important for him. However, prior to the crossing over, he did have some relationships. His first main girlfriend (if you can call her that) in the Mirror was Darareaksmey Preap. She was a Cambodian bar girl who he plied with gifts and false “I love yous” until he was able to lose his virginity to her.
Another Mirror relationship – if you could say that – was with Christine Chalmers. The name is a shout out to canon character Christine Chapel. Chalmers is a cheap girl who he, at the time, thought was very hot. One of the crimes that Doug commits was to be with her, and his guilt about that consumes him.
Getting More Serious
His first true relationship is with alcoholic schoolteacher Susan Cheshire. Susan is an important person to him, although he insists to Lili that he didn’t love her. But he’s certainly memorable to her – she recognizes him during Temper.
Doug also has an on-again, off-again thing with Shelby Pike who, in the Mirror, is a pilot who used to be a hooker. Once he knew Shelby, he would cheat on other girlfriends with her.
Doug’s final relationship in the Mirror, which ends after he’s known Lili for less than a week, is with Jennifer Crossman. Jenn is a poor choice for a girlfriend, mainly there for her looks rather than any sort of compatibility. While they’re breaking up, she claims that he can’t live alone. Doug refuses to admit it, but she’s right about that.
Music
Steven Culp as Douglas Jay Hayes/Doug Beckett (image is for educational purposes only)
Doug has various theme songs.
He begins with Robbie Williams’s Feel and then segues to Snow Patrol’s Shut Your Eyes, and shares John Legend’s Ordinary People with Lili and the Cure’s Let’s Go to Bed with Melissa.
For Temper, his music is Dog’s Eye View’s Everything Falls Apart.
His final music is Billy Joel’s Honesty.
Quote
There are all sorts of quotes I could place here. For a guy who’s not too terribly articulate, I suppose I’ve given him a lot of memorable things to say. Here’s one.
“I thought I could leave it all behind me. Achieve, maybe, some measure of forgiveness. But that’s not the main reason. I came here because of you.”
Upshot
Doug is one of my most complex and complete characters. I am immensely proud of this character.
[…] In canon, he only has a first initial, and not even a middle initial. I have gone with Jay (a suggestion by the actor who played him) and Douglas in order to dovetail with Doug Beckett. […]
[…] was originally just an ex-girlfriend of Doug‘s. She was meant to be mentioned quickly and then set aside. But she became interesting as I […]
[…] Doug Beckett is so named because Douglas means “dark stranger”, which is exactly what he is – a stranger from the Mirror Universe, first experienced in pitch darkness. […]
[…] up in Throwing Rocks at Looking Glass Houses). This is part of the chain of events that makes Doug Hayes‘s rise […]
[…] he never wants to leave her again, and that it means what she probably thinks it does, an echo of Doug telling Lili that he was committed to her. Essentially, he has proposed to her. Eleanor also has […]
[…] Together, Doug reveals that it’s a lot of work to bring down an elekai. For the one being eaten in that […]
[…] Reversal, I establish that the food in the Mirror Universe is, for the most part, pretty lousy. Doug even comments on it, and notes that he and his men will often go hunting if game animals are […]
[…] I didn’t want hunting to be too easy. Plus I wanted Doug to be more of a skilled hunter, and not just a blind shooter. Hence, when he hunts game (with or […]
[…] begins with Doug and Lili happy. It’s a direct sequel to Reversal, and they are living their dream. The first […]
[…] to show people not in typical starship settings. I seized upon the opportunity to show Lili and Doug first moving to Lafa II. This is the morning after the end of Reversal; Local Flavor is the very […]
[…] that Lili O’Day‘s favorite color is blue. Reversal also, happily, ends up with Doug and Lili more or less riding off into the […]
[…] mess with that. Hence, at the time of Reversal, the mirror universe Archer is long dead, and Doug and Tripp do not have to deal with him. Since he was poisoned by Hoshi, it’s entirely […]
[…] story in the same way that Reversal is Lili‘s story, Together is Melissa‘s, Temper is Doug‘s and Fortune is Leonora‘s, but it’s also very much Pamela’s story. Plus […]
[…] a vague idea I had for a time travel series. And two, I wanted to not only continue the story of Doug, Lili, Malcolm, Melissa and Leonora, but I wanted the kids to be older without aging Lili and Doug […]
[…] is explained by Doug in Reversal, the Empress committed genocide on the Xindi, so there are few left of any species. […]
[…] Dutiful and loyal to a fault, Josh is almost like Malcolm in that he will do nearly anything for the people he works for. In the prime universe and prime timeline, he is pleasant and funny. In the E2 stories, he is a romantic guy but also is truly perplexed as to how to fix the problems that his marriage has created, and the wedge it has forced between him and his friend, Ethan. And in the Mirror Universe, in both the Temper first alternate timeline and in the prime timeline, he shows a loyalty and devotion to his mother that no other Mirror Universe denizen shows except, perhaps, for Doug Beckett. […]
[…] During Together, I wanted to make Jenny Crossman and Frank Ramirez‘s first dance an occasion for people to feel some true melancholy. As a result, Malcolm blows his nose to hide the fact that he’s weeping a bit, Lili much more openly cries and is given Malcolm’s handkerchief by Pamela Hudson, Travis and Tripp complain of headaches, Hoshi cries, and Deborah watches Jonathan from afar. Melissa is not there (she isn’t invited to the reception, so she’s with Norri). But what about Doug? […]
[…] ← Previous Next → […]
[…] it had to be before Doug became a Lieutenant Commander, running Tactical (after defeating Chip Masterson and Aidan MacKenzie […]
[…] is another distant descendant of Doug and Melissa, and is a very distant cousin of Kevin O’Connor and Rick […]
[…] is a little bustling as Doug arrives with groceries. The kids go out to help (after Lili tells them to), but she holds back Joss […]
[…] Morgan, Andrew Miller, José Torres and Brian Delacroix join her current followers, who include Doug Hayes, Chip Masterson and Aidan MacKenzie, along with her lover, Travis […]
[…] readers should spot that Carlos is a prime universe counterpart to one of the men killed by Doug Beckett, as is outlined in […]
[…] and is under a Major Ian Landry. Savvy fanfiction readers will recognize Landry as being one of Doug‘s kills, in the Mirror Universe, as described in […]
[…] Reversal, when he’s unsure whether he’ll be separated from Lili, Doug investigates Lili’s Mirror Universe […]
[…] characters only (at the time, Pamela Hudson was still not considered to be a main character), e. g. Doug Beckett, Leonora Digiorno, Melissa Madden, Lili O’Day and Malcolm Reed. Four of the characters had […]
[…] I wrote Reversal, one of the things I had Doug describe was his early childhood and how he was sent off to boarding school. But I didn’t go […]
[…] Hunter in that role. I’ve tried to reconcile the two timelines, at least in part. Melissa and Doug‘s middle son, Tommy, dies in the service of his captain, George Kirk, on the Kelvin, a direct […]
[…] the MU, everyone is keenly aware of what they owe others, and Tripp is no exception. Since he owes Doug something, he recognizes the debt, and repays […]
[…] was born as a foil for Doug, but also to be a friend to […]
[…] Doug Beckett, his music, too, evolves, from Robbie Williams’s Feel to Snow Patrol’s Shut Your Eyes […]
[…] relationship with Doug is strained at best. For her, it’s a power move to be associated with the fourth in command. […]
[…] Reversal, the Empress’s power is well-established and has been consolidated. Doug offhandedly tells Lili that the Empress took about a year or so to get it all together and, in the […]
[…] Reversal, he’s sympathetic and is willing to give Doug a chance. He also has his fun, particularly in Intolerance, as it is initially his idea to compete […]
[…] the end of Reversal, Doug tells Lili that Jay had a sister. In order to keep that sister, Laura, from just stumbling across a […]
[…] originated in Together, as a sweet toddler, very Mommy-centric and very, very bereft when Lili and Doug are kidnapped. For Temper, I saw him as a teenager and then, in Fortune, and in some of the HG […]
[…] with a kicking machine of a child. Everybody thinks she’s having a boy, and she and Doug have selected the name Peter Matthew. Lili refers to the baby as […]
[…] Mostly human, but part-Gorn on his mother’s side, Kevin weighs about a quarter of a metric ton, but is the most likely, of all of the characters I have ever created, to rescue a baby robin that has fallen out of its nest, and nurse it back to health. Kevin, always, is one of the good guys. He is a remote descendant of Melissa and Doug. […]
[…] of Doug‘s old girlfriends, Christine taunts him until he kills Ehigha Ejoigu, thereby committing his […]
[…] then he gets a call from Leonora Digiorno, and learns that Doug Beckett has died in the forests of the southern continent of Lafa II, a scene from […]
[…] has to be mentioned, as it is not only the love of the dark stranger for the light, but it’s also an amazing kick-off story. A ton of roads lead straight to […]
[…] Temporal Museum is eventually built here, and the Museum also owns land, which includes Doug and Lili‘s original […]
[…] an olowa tree in order to escape a herd of charging perrazin. To distract them from going after Doug, she plucks an olowa and throws it as far away from him as possible, and a few of the animals run […]
[…] between the two smallest stars in the Lafa System, Fep and Ub. All of this, acting together, brings Doug from there to here, over the course of several hours. The Mirror High Priestess, Yimar (a teenaged […]
[…] the children of Doug and Lili and Doug and Melissa have a twenty and one-half centimeter band, reflecting his twenty […]
[…] Reversal, Lili asks Doug if there’s baseball on his side of the pond. He replies, “Five bases, twelve guys on a […]
[…] in all sorts of places. In Together, the paper book is given as a belated wedding gift to Lili and Doug, by Hoshi and Chip. The book even has an inscription – “One good love story deserves […]
[…] starts to get interesting, and her subconscious fears are allayed by dreams of the not yet born Doug Beckett. Even more disturbing scenes pepper this story, and a reference in Multiverse II will be made a bit […]
[…] create nonsentient food animals for the Calafans. Furthermore, I had already established that both Doug and Melissa enjoy hunting, partly for sport, but mainly for food. In Together, I briefly mention […]
[…] the day right after Lili and Doug first make contact, Chef Slocum insists on a day’s menu with every single food item including […]
[…] Miva is Lili‘s obstetrician in Together and Fortune. It is she who tells Lili that sex with Doug during pregnancy is not advisable, and it is Miva who performs the O’Day Reversal again after […]
[…] sometimes some silliness as well. In A Kind of Blue, Lili‘s unexpected pregnancy means that Doug drops to one knee when he drops the testing stick – and then he pops the question. In Truth, Bron […]
[…] there is an earlier Ethan, an older relative, who is likely the person who Erin was named for. Doug reveals to Lili, in Reversal, that that is the name of the second man he’s killed. […]
[…] meets Doug as a part of shared dreaming with the Mirror Universe, as is shown in Reversal. Her relationship […]
[…] Hoshi’s children, he cannot have a Prime Universe counterpart. However, he has an analogue in Doug and Melissa‘s part of the big arrangement – Neil Digiorno-Madden, who also has a head for […]
[…] counterpart although, like the other Sato offspring, he does have an analogue in the Beckett-O’Day-Madden-Digiorno-Reed family. That person is Tommy Digiorno-Madden, as they are both […]
[…] in the mirror, I feel, would be like Doug – one of the few people to really have a conscience and a […]
[…] With Lili, the relationship is considerably stronger and more loving. Malcolm finds that he can be a lot freer with her than he has ever been with anyone before, even Pamela. He fulfills the destiny that was denied him in the original, canon E2 episode, and becomes a family man when Lili gives birth to Declan (Temper, Fortune). Initially, in Reversal, Lili is denied him, as she goes with Doug. […]
[…] On Malcolm and Lili’s side of things, Stuart and Mary Reed express their concerns that the commitment between Lili and Malcolm is an illusory one, as Lili is married and her relationship with Malcolm is a part of her open marriage with Doug. […]
[…] day after the day of all-orange food. Lili is not sleeping well, because she’s dreaming about Doug. Jennifer is even teasing her a bit about […]
[…] or something. Confidentially, I think she thinks he’s too young to be driving but our Dad, Doug, he seems to be okay with it but he goes off with his military unit and he doesn’t have to […]
[…] I began to put together Doug and Lili‘s life after Reversal, the question began to arise, namely, where would they […]
[…] a Star Trek fanfiction follow up to Pacing, I wanted Doug‘s second Christmas gift to Lili to be a huge surprise (as of the writing of this blog post, I […]
[…] wanted a character who would be loyal and loving, and would leap into the Beckett-Madden-Digiorno-O’Day-Reed family without even […]
[…] he be able to? It’s hard to say. He might just end up as even more of a ruthless killer than Doug is in his early years, as a cover up for his inner life which, in the Mirror, would be a definite […]
[…] a child who would not survive a month. This would, in many ways, be a direct statement about Doug and his origins in the Mirror Universe, where he was forced to memorize the Five Signs of Weakness, […]
[…] readers will recall that Ejiogu and Fong are, in the Mirror Universe, two of Doug‘s […]
[…] a look at Doug and Lili‘s early married life, from even before Joss, I went with what was essentially a […]
[…] Doug and Lili are new residents of Lafa II, and Joss is still an infant. This is before the arrangement starts and it’s even before Marie Patrice is conceived. It’s Election Day! […]
[…] confides that it is all for show, and he is taking care of her as a friend (and as a part of the Doug/Lili open marriage arrangement), but he does not have romantic feelings for […]
[…] Doug‘s confession to Lili (in the Star Trek fan fiction book, Fortune) to be at all credible, […]
[…] he is staying with Neil, Melissa, and Norri, as their apartment in Fep City is being renovated. Doug and Lili have a full house. Lili is at Reversal and Doug is drilling with his troops. The only […]
[…] the end of Together, Doug, Lili, Malcolm, Melissa, and Leonora are ready to start the arrangement and live their lives in […]
[…] had wanted to touch upon Laura Hayes‘s life, somewhat independent of Doug and […]
[…] I decided to bring in someone who would be on the asexuality end of things. When I first wrote Doug, there was an early victim named Harris. Plus I needed an extra pilot for the E2 timeline, as […]
[…] who is born on Halloween, lives on Lafa II with his mother and her husband, Doug Beckett. But Doug is generous (it is an open marriage) and so Malcolm, when he is on three years of […]
[…] there was the question of how well he and Doug would fit in together. After all, to raise the child your wife has had with another man, well, […]
[…] is later in everyone’s life. The kids are nearly all grown. Doug and Lili have settled into comfortable married life. Malcolm is busy fighting a cold war, but […]
[…] wanted Doug‘s first kill in the Mirror Universe to be kind of a lark, just to see if he could do it. […]
[…] Doug needed one last kill in order to get on board the ISS Enterprise and, eventually, the ISS Defiant. I decided that, as in canon, he would kill his superior officer in order to get there (this is, after all, the Mirror Universe where he and Geming are first seen). And so, he knifes Geming in the gut, as Geming is slated to be the MACO CO and Doug is not. Blood on his hands, Doug gets what he wants. […]
[…] bit of fun I had was, in the Barnstorming series, to find a place for Geordi in the Hayes–Beckett–O’Day–Reed–Madden–Digiorno family. His place is as secure as Richard […]
[…] because he makes a dandy human shield for her. Hoshi gets a measure of safety because people like Doug and Tripp realize Travis would be […]
[…] to add a little more IDIC, I posted The Way to a Man’s Heart. To add to In Between Days post-Doug, I added Finnan Haddie. Flip was a response to a prompt about food (and the title is a play on […]
[…] wanted to present an alternate point of view regarding the acceptance – or not – of Lili and Doug‘s open […]
[…] Calafan recruit drills directly under Doug and, in the Mirror, in one of the alternate timelines, assassinates the Empress Hoshi Sato during […]
[…] in the initial chapter, and he mentions her descent into Irumodic Syndrome dementia, he mentions Doug Beckett, too. While he recognizes that his half-brother, Joss, looks the most like Doug, it is he, Tommy, […]
[…] is around). Melissa and Norri are on Earth for an occasion, and so Tommy and Neil are staying over. Doug is working with his recruits. Of course Doug and Lili’s two children together, Joss and Marie […]
[…] and Doug Hayes both needed a […]
[…] food on the ISS Defiant. In 2158, a very pregnant Lili, along with Naurr, is cooking at Reversal. Doug tells her to take it easy, and some of the interplay between them foreshadows later issues in […]
[…] May fifth of 2160, Lili and Doug arrive on Ceres for Tommy’s birth, on May […]
[…] only Ines will be there. He is rather pleasantly surprised when the entire remaining family (Lili, Doug, and Malcolm are all dead by this point in time) is there to greet him. Ines and Yinora even give […]
[…] of this because (a) it was a difficult group of entries and (b) it features my original character, Doug, at an early stage of his life. The story works as a prequel to […]
[…] it possible for Lili to return to work as the chef at Reversal. This also makes it possible for Doug to have a career again. Yimar is particularly helpful during the events of […]
[…] after the curtain comes down. What comes after ‘happily ever after’? So much like in Doug and Lili‘s marriage, my main idea was to give the characters spice well into their forties […]