Art department reunion: Now HERE'S one for the ages

What a great moment the Art Director's Guild put together last night with four eras of Star Trek art directors on a panel at the Egyptian Theatre: John Jefferies (brother of Matt), Joe Jennings, Herman Zimmerman and Scott Chambliss. A good time of storytelling was had by all. And kudos to Daren Doctorman's moderator role (though I still think he should have done his Gene R. voice) and to Mike and Denise O. for their clips and research. (John, at Columbia, did contract work for his brother of Trek—among the many stories his brother Richard wrote of in Matt's recent biography.)

You'll see panel pics of the quartet from this night of history all over, I'll wager, but here's one you might not otherwise see; I don't know when's the last time there's been this much of a DS9/Enterprise art reunion—at least, *I* know a Kodak moment when I see one. And was glad to wrangle this one!


(Left to right, that's Alan Kobayashi, John Eaves, Mike Okuda, Jim van Over, Denise Okuda, Fritz Zimmerman, and Herman Zimmerman.)

Mainstream Trekland: Football edition

It's fall and football season—Boomer Sooner!—but even if you are not of the pigskin persuasion, little things like this mention should make you realize just how pervasive Trek is among today's sportswriters. Yes, sports!

This from an online Fannation column by Hugh Falk affiliated with SI/CNN, addressing the age-old illogic of human football poll voting—and no, he doesn't play the Vulcan card at all, and yes, that was his link I pass along:

... Of course, if Oklahoma beats Miami in two weeks…that's another story and a whole new set of problems for voters. Follow this hypothetical scenario if you can: Oklahoma beats Miami who beat FSU who beat BYU who beat Oklahoma….and they all have one loss! I don't even want to guess what the voters would do. They might shut down like one of Harry Mudd's android women from the original Star Trek when faced with illogical data. Okay, that's a lot of "if"s. Miami, FSU and BYU all have to win next week, and then Oklahoma has to beat Miami. However, that is just the type of scenario that proponents of a playoff should hope to see at the end of the season. ...

STV: Marina Part 2: Eurofans, theatre, dog patrol...

As promised—Part 2 of our original chat with Marina from Italy while we found ourselves guesting at DeepCon there. Here she turns a bit more introspective, talking about what's great about Eurofans ... her one big unfulfilled wish (hint: it involves treading boards")... and our own local rescue patrol moment, when she showed her true colors about dogs.

For fans who recall all her years of Skillaggi stories, it's a poignant Yorkie coincidence.

Is it live, or is it matte painting?

Saturday, 7 p.m., downtown L.A. looking west: I would have thought this was a great matte painting or stage backdrop ... had I not seen it in real life with my own eyes. The camera did a good job capturing what I saw and sensed, though:






















It was en route to see Robert Beltran's play Solitude, so I guess that qualifies it for Trekland ...

DVD Trek Day: Tell me what you think

I realized it today when I got a few "congrats" emails, and woke up from a busy week:

Today's the big day for Paramount/CBS's Blu-Ray/DVD sets of the TNG movies, with the Blu-Ray disks adding on a CHUNK of new bonus stuff.

There's tons of Treklanders involved in commentary tracks and other guestings, including yours truly in a unique new feature called Roundtable: I was privileged to lead a panel for each movie of "professional fans" that included Anthony Pascale of trekmovie.com, Jeff Bond of Geek Monthly magazine, and Charlene Anderson of The Planetary Society (and, as we discovered, quite the literature expert!).

I don't know how widespread the feeling is, but I've seen in some quarters fans have not been keen on the mix of "fans" into the commentary pool, but there is something to be said about those very close--i.e., a front-row seats, such as media, authors or consultants-- who do have a professional insight and appreciation. Paramount was trying to expand the features list with ideas that were not only new but do-able, and this seemed like a good idea. Like the films themselves, sometimes it can be a hit or miss, or better with a Take 2 if allowed—but the idea itself is fresh.

As is also having pros comment on another movie not their own—if they too are true fans. And these sets contain the new practice of mixing unique names for some titles' commentary: David Carson with Manny Coto on Generations, for instance. I had a ball doing a new ST VI track with Ira Behr, who worked with so many of those guest stars on DS9 and has the TOS fan cred to boot. NOTE that the Blu-ray sets features contain all the DVD features plus unique features only available in the Blu-rays.

No personal residuals, no royalties here... but these Blu-Ray sets—which are joined today with the TOS movies' DVD set and TOS Season 2 Blu-Ray—feature the biggest load of bonus material ever offered. And JJ's Star Trek '09 is still to come Nov. 17...

Guess who called in Monday night?

Hey, the 2 hours-plus of our Blog Talk Radio's "NBD Show" from last night is now archived at their site, and we had a blast. Old stuff, new stuff, bad puns... yep, we solve all the world's problems.

Near the end we even had a call-in and a couple stories from veteran Treklander Marc Okrand, father of the Klingon language of course! It had been years since we got a chance a chance to say hi, and it was a great surprise when he dropped in. Thanks Marc!

I want to thank Roger and The Shadow for having me on. Give them a listen—they have tons of actors, authors, designers ... same link as above.

Razz me tonight on Blog Talk Radio

Well, this has been a busy week ...!!

Catch me LIVE and call in tonight with host Roger Noriega at Blog Talk Radio, 7-9 p.m. Pacific/10-12 Eastern. All things Trekland... and who knows what else?

Call-in number: (914) 338-0314

L.A. ALERT: Go see Jeff and Robert: 2 incredible shows

The stars must have aligned this week —no pun intended—for Treklanders in theatre, and us to be able to go see them! For anyone in SoCal now, lemme give you a two-fer entry about two must-sees the next few weeks that just floored us:

Jeff Combs' one-man play Nevermore as Edgar Allen Poe is incredibly wide-ranging and engaging for the one-man format—and just got extended again through October to Halloween! More with him later here ... but see details for now...

And then Saturday night I tweeted "great, unexpected, stylized show!" after seeing Robert Beltran waaaaay far from Chakotay in the world premiere of Solitude at Los Angeles Theatre Center downtown, with the playwright in the cast. It runs Thursdays thru Sundays til Oct. 4; check it out!

And check out this special "Solitude" shout-out to Trek fans from Robert ... in his own wry style ...

Grand Slam & cast reality: it's a movie world

Almost let this get by, but Creation's recent regretful announcement postponing of the Trek side of its planned new "Grand Slam" show move to November due to a lack of ST '09 cast coming aboard was ... well... too bad, but not totally unexpected.

Kudos for Creation for trying for an event that would make sense after a blockbuster June opening, of course.

But as we wondered aloud a year ago—a movie-only franchise cast is different than a TV franchise cast:

... For now, anyway, while you’ll see their beaming faces all over at promo time next May, I’m betting they’ll be absent from standard convention slots fans are so accustomed to. They will likely love this movie—and the next ones—and their fans, and what they do for their careers… But as film actors they will likely be out doing just that, trekking the studio/meeting circuit, rather than the con circuit.

I’m just sayin.’

Zack Quinto had a bit o' fan background, and had his Heroes genre experience going in; he's been a Vegas visitor more than once. Give the rest of 'em time. Meanwhile, Adam and Gary, we still think a fall L.A. media con is still a great idea, down the road.

New trailer for Marina's thriller is out

Marina Sirtis was very proud of the work she did in the global thriller 31 North, 62 East when we talked with her earlier this year—even though she laughs about mixing up the titles' coordinates!—and a trailer is now online:

STV / LA Alert! : See Chase THIS Sunday as next "Spirit" guest

Sorry for the short notice here but... SoCal'ers take note:

After four initial guests and a summer hiatus, "The Spirit of Star Trek" returns THIS Sunday, Sept. 20, with none other than Chase Masterson as the guest of co-hosts Curtis Webster and Mike Westmore. And per our custom, they were good enough to chat with us on camera about their "Spirit" plans (below).

"SOST" is the free, monthly screen-n-talk series that uses Trek's actors and its alien cultures as a lens unto our own ethics, morals and spirituality. Although held at Curtis' church, the tone and topic is anything but churchy—and a large media tech set-up makes it easy to screen an appropos Trek episode (this month, the title's a surprise). Chase will be joined by producer-director James Kerwin, her cohort for the wildly awarded indie film Yesterday Was a Lie, a real sci-fi noir event.

Here they are, talking about the 7-9 p.m. event THIS SUNDAY at First Presbyterian Church of Encino, 4963 Balboa Blvd—south of the 101, with lots of parking:

First "hardtop" exo-planet!: I'm guesing Class B or E, maybe N?

Love it when our infant science keeps taking its baby steps toward the optimistic, expansive worldview of Gene's Trekland science ...

So here comes word today of the next baby step in our extra-solar planetary science: we've had planets confirmed before, but until this week they were all known to to be Jupiter-like gas giants. So now--meet one you can take a "giant leap for mankind" on: CoRoT 7b, our first known hardshell planet beyond Sol's own four. (Cue: "Rocky" theme ... if you get it ...)

For the big-picture terminologists, its star is currently named TYC 4799-1733-1, about 500 LYs distant; the "CoRot" comes from the CoRoT French/ESA surveying satellite that made the discovery, "CoRoT 7" being its own mission name for the star and "b" being the system's second planet ID'd.... and "TYC 4799-1733-1 I" being just a bit on the clunky side.

(The art, BTW, is an artists's official rendition of "CoRoT 7b").

Whither Today's Trek?: More Trekland "Greatest Hits"

We all know Trekland is in a field of flux, but from how many different angles?

From my perch, I’ve been moved to muse about a lot more than whether or not Canon Point "A" exists in Timeline "B"— or whether JJ or "ZZ" is in charge. You try to get beyond the day-to-day newsflash and red-carpet quote machine ...and the big questions marks still remain. Maybe not *if* so much, as *how*. Or even *when*.

With so many new folks checking out Trekland here now that our website and Facebook page are running live ... and with so much headline candy out there taking up your brain space ... I thought this would be a good time to revisit some of my past ponderings where we talked about the "big picture" for Trek, the fandom and the biz alike. Maybe they'll be new to you.

Hindsight means you can even see how my predictions came out!

So, here's where I’m coming from—take a second for some talkback, too, and let all of us know where you are coming from.

8/5/08: We’ve Never Gone This Way Before

1/19/09 TV vs. Movie: Think about this

4/19/09 Trek’s Future: The Big Question


Also:

“Déjà vu All Over Again”: one of my 2006 Endgame columns for the Titan UK Trek magazine

STV: Aren't you a little short to be a parody?

All these years on the pro side of Trekland can easily leave one jaded, but every once in a while life still has its geek moments. Sometimes they even pop up from another franchise! *gasp*

With TREKLAND truly alive now, I dusted off another "Switching to Video" long waiting in the wings... and so it was that, while in Dallas a year ago, I had a memory timewarp back to the days when just about the only things fans put on frames of celluloid were parodies and satires, not whole-cloth new fan-made episodes. And while FedCon USA may have been a bust, this moment was not. In short:

I GOT TO MEET PRINCESS ANNE-DROID!

(Or Cindy Freeling (nee Furgatch).

Those of you wondering what the hell... I'll say nada but refer your Googlefingers to a little cult classic called Hardware Wars. Nuff said.

“Switching to Visual”: Greatest Vid Hits (So Far)

Hey—For everyone just tuning in to Trekland:

The website may have just gone live, but Trekland has been in active stealth mode for MONTHS!

We call our video offerings “Switching to Visual” — and you can easily scan back to see past STVs since March 2008 and comment away at will—including comments below. Meanwhile, with more on the way, may we suggest these favorites from the menu?

Jonathan Frakes



Manny Coto and Brannon Braga



Bob Picardo



Michael Westmore



Ethan Phillips



Robbie McNeill at CHUCK



J.G. Hertzler as Martok!



John Billingsley and Bonita Friederichy



But keep scoping—there’s lots more STV videos among the posts …

...including Marina, just below...!

Launch Week special: STV Video chat with Marina, Part I

Always a treat to speak with the lovely and busy Marina Sirtis! So when we had the chance to catch up while guesting at DeepCon in Fiuggi, Italy, this year, she was gracious enough to v-chat for all our Treklanders. I wanted to share it all, so be looking for Part 2 coming up very soon ...

Sharing time with Gene—on the BBC!

For those who missed it, BBC Radio 5's Up All Night saw fit to mark Star Trek's 43rd birthday Monday night with a live show that featured moi and some audio clips of Gene talking at the *1968* WorldCon--i.e., just as the massive mail campaign engineered by Bjo Trimble saved TOS for a third season, and guarranteed enough eps to eventually syndicate it in the 1970s and lead to The-Rest-Is-History-land.

Our bit was hardly Shakespeare, but a lot of fun; the other guest, Devin Faraci of chud.com, and I held our ground against a couple of sympathetic Brit rowdies!

The 25-ish minute segment will still be online for 6 more days here — check there for the 08 September shows, but go to time index 0238 (2:38) out of the four-hour program.

Pacifica Radio in the U.S. also partners and runs it as part of their From the Vault series—check here for your local times and stations for this week.

Sept. 8, Part II: What did YOU do when you turned 21?

Happy birthday, Star Trek! It's Sept. 8 and that means another year has rolled around since 9/8/66—43 of them to be exact.

We make such a big deal out of even the "off-year" birthdays now that it makes you wonder what Star Trek did on its "Big 21"? Go out and get drunk? Prove that it was a grownup now?

Let's see, that would have been 1987 ... Hmm, oh yeah. Star Trek went out and pulled a party that lasted seven years—it premiered The Next Generation the week of Sept. 27, and showed the world how to do it again. Way to grow up, Gene's baby.

H/t to squiddo.com for the Trek cake photo!

TNG/Reading Rainbow Trivia, Round 2

Thanks to MikeZ83 for popping right up with the answer to that poser about Le Var's Reading Rainbow show on TNG: the episode was indeed "Symbiosis," the director was Win Phelps.

But no one ever bit on my "bonus round" puzzle. The sciences bridge stand-in in question (at 1:53 of Part I) was--drum roll please!--

Lorinne Mendell, stand-in for Gates McFadden and often a background crewmember for all 7 years of the show plus Generations... most famously when she got her character name, at least by door plaque: "Lt. Diana Giddings," one of Okona's outrageous new lady friends.

Maybe we'll do another one of these sometime ...