No, it never truly 'ended': Happy 20th, 'All Good Things'

Well, here's a benchmark everyone is talking about feeling "old" over.

For those of you who didn't get your TNG through a Blu-ray or Netflix binge-watch, today marks the 20th anniversary of the week-long birthday of the airing of TNG's celebrated finale, "All Good Things...".*

Yep, TWENTY.


I could only cram in so much for this wonderful and complex show in the TNG Companion show notes... still available on Kindle or the occasional rare paperback that pops up... Which is why I love doing the Trekland: On Speaker CD series now. Funny how we chose "All Good Things..." for our Vol. 2, this year!

Enjoy updates with Ron D. Moore and Brannon Braga for AGT all over the web this year, but if you want to actually hear them... much less showrunner Michael Piller, or director Rick Kolbe, both of whom have passed now... you might check out our great disk of their voices ...from 1994 ... and the liner notes.

Time has been very kind to Ron and Brannon's career milestone, but it only took a year or so before everyone (including the writers) realized, ironically, that the rushed, 24/7 writing job they cranked out on this series-ender was a far more powerful piece than the Generations feature film they'd slaved over for more than a year... for various reasons.

Filming was still mostly secreted to little ol' me, recent;y arrived in LA to write the TNG Companion update, but in my two-month stay I got an awful lot of sneak-peeks, and a look at the script as well, to be able to ask about it in time. I remember standing outside Stage 8-9 the day they shot the "full crew" scene of Past Picard's arrival address to his "new" crew, and seeing buddy and Trek extra Guy Vardeman emerge among the mob after it wrapped—wearing his "Darien Wallace" command red uniform, noticing he was wearing lieutenant commander pips, and getting shushed before I opened my big mouth too loud. Such was the mood and vibe and the way of things, back in the day.

Lots of folks will be hauling it out to watch, today, I'll bet. Just don't forget: you can legally party on this topic for six more days.* Just sayin.'





*I say week-long because, as you should recall, TNG was syndicated, with various markets seeing it on various days of the week... and May 23 was merely the first available date in the week for aiting: a Monday, as the LA and many other affiliates had it. We at the time in Oklahoma City, of course, had to wait til Sunday night as usual... 10:30 p.m. On May 29.

'Weird Shit' in The Ready Room: Podcast is up!

Podcast month for me continues, apparently —I know, in this crazed month elsewhere, I have a backlog of blog topics besides me to get to!—but right now I have to tell you what Trekfm's  Christopher Jones and Greg Harbin are up to in their The Ready Room show:

TNG's "Schisms" and "Weird Shit" tales, circa the later TNG era, that's what. Hey, the term was right from exec producer Jeri Taylor—especially for the X-Files-like stories being turned out by newly minted staff writer Brannon Braga back in the day... like this one. At least, that was my contribution to the hour's discussion, along with "Group Clicking" and "Fish Monks."

Anyway, the fun and madness is now up here at their site. The first 57:15 is news'n'views, and then the "Schisms" start...

STV: It's...Manny Coto & "Brandon Brayga"!

They were at Vegas Trek to promote "24," that little project they have worked on the past few years ...but Manny Coto and Brannon Braga were also really there because of their Trek roots, natch, as former cohorts on Enterprise (Brannon, of course, having a season on his Threshold later, and previously all those "weird shit" TNG stories that morphed into being show-runner later on Voyager, too).

The guys were good enough to stop by my table for a quickie v-chat, but look who's promoting, and look who's getting his geek on for onetime Bond babe Caroline Munro ....?? (Maybe it's just because no one ever says his name right...)



(And a shout-out to my impromptu cameraman, Andrew Baumer, wherever you are, who gave me a rare chance to jump in the shot. But that's guerilla shooting, baby!)