20 years ago: When EXACTLY did Voyager premiere?

VGR Premiere Program

Well, that 's a misleading headline—of course, for most of the world, we all know that Voyager premiered with its pilot "Caretaker" on Monday, Jan. 16, 1995—as the ballyhooed flagship of the newly birthed United Paramount Network. As such, for the first time since the original series, as a "network show" its airdate would be on a uniform date and time, unlike the scattered "week of" airdates of syndicated TNG and DS9. (Mostly).

But six days earlier, Jan. 10, saw a special studio premiere at the on-lot Paramount Theater, complete with some press and a celebrity guest to kick off not only the first network Star Trek since TOS, but the first to be led by a woman.

In special remarks beforehand, co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller (at left) and Jeri Taylor all spoke about their feelings on the occasion of this newest Trek, as did star Kate Mulgrew—who then introduced an equally historic figure from the real space universe—Dr. Sally Ride, America's first female astronaut, who had flown twice on the shuttle during the 1980s, and who since has sadly passed away of pancreatic cancer far too soon, in 2012.

As a symbol of bonding between historic women of the real and fictional universe, Kate presented her that night with an actual Voyager combadge, making her an official member of Voyager's crew and with the hardware so that Ride could "beam up to the ship any time" she wished. We carried the event in Communicator #100.

And with those words, after a small press posing event, the Paramount Theater darkened while cast, crew, studio honchos, guest and press all saw "Caretaker" for the first time. Pilots and premiere episodes always hold such promise and hope, unaware how succeeding seasons just might unspool, or for how long... but everyone that night was a-marvel at, truth be told, how it was seemingly the best Star Trek pilot yet for character conflict, potential drama, scope and visual effects.

Reverse of VGR premiere program

On a personal note, we had barely been in L.A. for five months, and the prospect of present for a front-row seat to watch a new Trek series launch was exhilarating with its fresh-faced, fandom-naive cast (well, all but for boyhood Trek fan Tim Russ, who knew best of all exactly what he was getting into.) Thus you can imagine my chagrin when all my photography—taken on 35mm Kodachrome slides in the pre-digital age—was mostly ruined thanks to a new Burbank neighborhood photo lab that used old chemicals, and threw off the color of almost all my photos taken that night. (The top two are among the rare pics salvaged). I never did THAT again—but I've been heartbroken ever since that I did not have my shots to archive, from an event not exactly as mangy with photogs as you'd expect.

Along with those, enjoy the premiere program card I scanned here—and no, those are not printed signatures, and no, it is not going in the Trekland Trunk any time soon!

"The Captains" poster winners from EPIX and Trekland

We have our winners!

Thanks to the offer from EPIX, promoting the release of those five new half-hour Captains' Close-Up spin-offs from William Shatner's The Captains on the eve of JJTrek II, this poster of Starfleet's finest is now en route to these trivia hounds, who are also our newest and smartest "official" Treklanders! It's a very signable print, perfect for something new to be con-graphed.

Congrats go out all over the country to:

Julie Gray
Seattle, WA

Melodie Maynor
Box Elder, SD

Christian Burris
Winston-Salem, NC

Meg Fouty
Nitro WV

Bob Slade
Grain Valley MO

J.W. Grabiak
Las Vegas, NV

Andrew Voth
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Mike Frazier
Mount Holly NC

Karen Brown
Virginia Beach, VA 

Thanks again for jumping in to enter another Trekland event, guys.

(BTW: The correct answer to the trivia question...

 "All of Star Trek's five lead captains are fictitiously said to have been born in the onetime United States of America ... except who?"

...was of course "Picard.")

Don't forget: You can still check the EPIX listings for TV repeats of, or just catch any of this Shatnerpalooza online at the site as well if EPIX is not available on your local system.

Catch the captains' solo acts on EPIX tonight—and win a poster from Trekland, too!

If you bought your tickets for Into Darkness for opening day Friday and then they moved the
debut up on you to today, don't despair: You can still celebrate "STID Eve" in your universe in a very Trekkish way AND do it for free. AND even win a poster from TREKLAND!

Or, go crash a screening any time—you've got two weeks on this deal:

From EPIX and the team that brought you William Shatner's Get a Life and The Captains documentaries, you can catch five new BONUS specials on the net: a special one-hour solo spotlight on each of Trek's five center-seaters starting at 8 p.m. ET tonight....and online for those unable to see EPIX.

The exclusive EPIX "The Captains Close-Up" series features more of those interviews conducted by Shatner with his Starfleet colleagues Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Patrick Stewart, and Scott Bakula. And the special series kicks off with a close-up interview with Shatner himself.

You can even get a free limited-edition full-size poster from The Captains (above), perfect for autographing at the next big con or two (or three) you make it to. EPIX is supplying me with 10 of these lovelies to give away to the first TEN Treklanders in the U.S. who sign up at larrynemecek.com and answer this trivia question correctly:

All of Star Trek's five lead captains are fictitiously said to have been born in the onetime United States of America ... except who?

Just hit the newsletter signup link, fill it out for name and email—but add your trivia guess (a lead captain's last name) and your full mail address after your first name in that "first name " text field. Do it quick! The first 10 correct U.S. answers win their sender a poster shipped directly from EPIX; lack of a mail address prohibits receipt of your prize. In any case, the quiz offer closes at 9 P.M. PDT / 12 AM EDT on TUESDAY, May 21. Good luck!

Meanwhile, if you can't access EPIX on your cable or dish system, all the new "solo" films are available on EpixHD.com and can be watched via a limited free trial link.

After accessing that link, here's the direct page for each captain's spotlight:


The Captains Close Up: William Shatner

The Captains Close Up: Avery Brooks

The Captains Close Up: Kate Mulgrew

The Captains Close Up: Patrick Stewart

The Captains Close Up: Scott Bakula


At any time, the entire original The Captains as produced and directed by Shatner remains on view at EpixHD.com with no limits. It is not part of tonight's special lineup, though.

RIP Sally Ride—but do you know her big Star Trek Moment?

It was January 10, 1995, and Star Trek: Voyager was just days away from becoming not only Star Trek's first true network series since the orignal... but also the first in the franchise to feature another groundbreaking casting choice: a female captain, Kathryn Janeway.

For the highly anticipated cast and crew premiere screening at Paramount, the UPN honchos and Voyager co-creators Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor (in background) joined new lead Kate Mulgrew—whose Janeway role had been the brainchild of Taylor—and made sure to make a little history that night as well.

Who else to honor on such an auspicious night for the world's biggest space adventure and its first female regular captain .... than America's first female astronaut and high-flying gender pioneer, Dr. Sally K. Ride?

(I was there that night in the front press row, a recent arrival in LA myself, and I'm danged if I can locate my good original photos this second. Instead, here's the studio photog's image we ran in Communicator/Issue 101—so apologies for the print-screen.)

Ride passed away today of pancreatic cancer at 61, having made her mark at age 31 in 1983 as American's first woman in space, and then-youngest ever, at age 32. She left NASA in 1987 after nine years and one more mission, with a third mission postponed by the Challenger disaster and her sitting on the accident's review commission. She resigned to work at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control, as her spot in history will always be assured.

But back on the Paramount Pictures main theater stage in 1995, after honoring Ride for such contributions to space exploration, Mulgrew presented her with a plaque and combadge from the show's sets so Ride "could beam up whenever she felt the need to." In line with the historic mutual love affair overall between Star Trek and NASA—America's fictional and real-life space heroes—Ride's remarks that night revealed she was suitably touched and honored to be a part of another landmark for women in culture.

Ride even had a second and earlier link to the franchise, of course, in that she was in the group of new astronauts chosen from among women and minorities recruited by the NASA program Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols headed in the 1970s-80s.