STV: Happy 50th from Star Trek crews past

YES! Finally, new Trekland video—and a brand-new intro! But the 50th celebration has only just begun ... for a whole year, yes?
 
So here's some faces and voices I've been holding back for the Happy 50th party—just the kind of behind-the-scenes insight that I love recording and revealing... from the TNG Companion where I met many of them, to our deep-diving Portal 47 today. Some you know; most you will not. (A few have been P47 guests; many others will be, too.)

For all or part of 18+ years, various teams of skilled show-biz folk brought us 737 hours of TV and films from Gene Roddenberry's universe...and could not help but form their own bonds of workaday friendship as well as professional pride.

With social media to help, the group held its third reunion in six years on May 22 in LA's Griffin Park—and it seemed natural to record for posterity some shoutouts for the 50th. I only regret that this was the smallest turnout of the three, and I did not get more folks on camera—to represent even more of the older series, or more of the various departments that go into getting an episode made.

Of course they have all gone on to other shows, other projects or even other careers now... but you can tell how most would agree that their working Star Trek years were something special, if not the highlights of their resume.

And that they are all fans, too.

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.

TONIGHT: See the show, share your pics!

I hope you can join us and our five TREKLAND ticket winners, and thousands more across  the country (Sorry, Rest of World), at the big Next Generation Blu-ray HD "Celebration of Season 2" tonight at a theater near you, produced by Fathom Events. Tickets still available at the dozens of theaters nationwide!

As with the Fathom screening event last July, Thursday night is all to preview the next release of a season of TNG on the remeastered Blu-ray level—Season 2 of course—next Tuesday—though you can pre-order now.  On the menu tonight: "The Measure of The Man" with RESTORED deleted scenes cut for time, the Borg debut in "Q Who!", and 20 minutes of the brand-new running TNG documentary commissioned for the Blu-ray remastered project.

And just like last July, I'm asking everyone who intends to party tonight the Starfleet way (or Klingon, or Borg, or whatever flies your shuttle)  to send us your pics from tonight to share with everyone in Trekland!  Whether it;s just your group, or  the whole theatre.... Just email to larry@larrynemecek.com, and I'll make sure my peeps get them to me.

For you locals in SoCal, I'll be screening TNGS2 at the big Burbank AMC downtown along with longtime Star Trek stand-in, on-camera extra, and startrek.com pioneer Guy Vardaman —if you are around, let's try for a group pic around 6:30?  Mike & Denise Okuda, who again worked on this remastered project, have tweeted to join them over at the Century City (LA); rumor has it that doc producer RObert KMeyter Burnett will be there too.

I still can't believe that Fathom and CBS Home Entertainment have launched a theater event for the second season release, so get out and make an impact tonight! You do want to see "Yesterday's Enterprise," "Sins of the Father," "The Offspring" or of course "The Best of Both Worlds" as incfredible Season 3 explodes for TNG all back on big-screen too, right?