STV: Mike McMahan, author of TNG's Season 8 'WARPED'

So many great book ideas for Trek fans this holiday, and with the 50th just around the corner next year.

Here's a great fun read I hope you heard about—WARPED,

the Lost Eighth Season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the latest creation born wholly of a Twitter account!—and my chat with the tweeter/author (and TV comedy writer!) who accidentally stumbled across me at San Diego Comic-Con, Mike McMahan!  What I wasn't expecting was the, uh, iconic praise for the TNG Companion…



FYI: Portal 47 members got to view this video up to 72 hours early before it went public—one feature of their deep-dive Trekland access. 

When Tweetworlds collide: Star Trek and my Sooners

We've come so far.

As a kid and teen in Oklahoma, your fandoms of football and Trek were almost never even allowed to intersect, much less thought of as even on the same plane—and it wasn't from a mainstream culture-vs.-geek minority standpoint, either. Many litfans I know zealously guarded their anti-sports reputation (and in Oklahoma that might as well have been anti-football). IDIC, schmIDIC—you got it both ways if you were caught in the middle!

No longer. The subject comes up from time to time—and, with a growing relationship between Trekland and trek.fm, the podcast/online empire of Alabama native and fan Chris Jones, Thursday's Oklahoma-Bama meetup in the Sugar Bowl was an inevitable Tweeparama in the making.

First off, I had to share when this graphic flashed across the screen of the pre-game show—and I knew any Vegas Khaaaaan veteran of more than 3 years could have told ESPN Something was Wrong with their captions!

But then I was blindsided by this gem that Chris Photoshopped:

(Apologies to the Rikers and to Late Season 2)

But them, as my Sooner crimson outplayed the Crimson Tide and shocked not only the whole world but their own fans as well ...thanks to the sudden blossoming of young quarterback Trevor Knight!... I had this exchange of Tweets with Chris that hopefully you TOS'ers will appreciate:

Followed up by a great touche from my gracious-in-losing target:

Finally, after a goofy, salt-in-the-wound fumble off 'Bama for a late touchdown that OU unexpectedly added on:

What can I do when they just keep slapping me in the face?

And if you are wondering just what that 47 is doing in my temporary Twitter avatar this weekend, it has nothing to do with Trek or even that play. You're welcome.



So—do you notice sports and geekery colliding more these days? Or is it ALL just becoming one big pastiche of enriching distraction?

Well, here we are: at THAT Birthday

In a summer full of life distractions from our ever-busy Trekland, there's one moment at least that I simply must stop and celebrate.

I mean, it's September 8!  It's Star Trek's July 4th, or May the Fourth ... it's THE Anniversary. The date of first airing on NBC in 1966! We herald it every year, right? RIGHT? I mean, you DO  have your Star Trek Day presents all shopped and wrapped? The cake decorated? The Holodeck programmed?

But, hey—forget your 20th or 25th anniversary... or the 40th or 45th. Hey, forget the 50th coming up in 2016 (gulp).

Nope, if there's one Trek birthday year above all others, as unique as anything could be, it's THIS year: 2013.

Otherwise known as Star Trek's 47th anniversary!

Now... I'm sure some readers just blinked, and assumed that "47" was a typo.

Maybe you're one of them.

Well, it wasn't. It's not.

So let me take another opportunity to get one more fan educated on the best inside joke of them all: Yes, it's high time you found out about Star Trek's own Legend of the 47. Thanks to staff writer-producer Joe Menosky's influence on TNG and later Trek series, and all the writers and other designers around him, the infamous status of 47 as the universe's most common random number—you heard me right—was transplanted from his alma mater at Pomona College right into the heart of the Star Trek universe. With that seed Joe sowed from Pomona's "47 Society," the Trek franchise would never be the same again....at least, on an insidiously subversively subtle level.

The legion of "47" fans and perpetuators even extends to the alternate universe—writers and artists working in JJ's recent  films. Don't believe me? Then check out what area alt-Kirk rides his motorcycle into at the Riverside Shipyards in ST09.

We laugh and wink about the 47s— and yet, go back and see how often "47" pops up in TOS—long before, obviously, the mid-TNG years after Joe had a chance to soak it all up at Pomona and bring the 47 phenom to his place of work.

That pre-Joe time includes, incredibly, the name of TOS's *47th* episode.  Look it up! I kid you not: it's "Obsession." The names says it all, eh?

Of course, I always throw out the caveat that Sep. 8, 1966 is hardly the "birth" of Star Trek. There had been two pilot episodes already filmed, much less written, (much less several episodes of the series) long before then: You can go back to at least March 1964 and Gene's infamous and original Star Trek format pitch for CBS, then NBC.

But, while every series gets to celebrate its own premiere, or finale (or syndication week thereof, in the case of TNG and DS9), we pretty much rally around Sept. 8 to mark all things Trek across the franchise

So, yes: party long and hard today as you mark the grandest anniversary ever of your favorite futurist sci-fi morality fable and cool gadget generator. And reflect on what it all means—or Google it if you're unsure. Heck, you worship this thing the other 364 days of the year—a little research won't kill ya.

Maybe you could even put in 47 minutes of research. On my mark ...

STV: Star Trek Continues' premiere week: Sneaky peeks!

Ready for even MORE new Trek?

In honor of the world premiere of Star Trek Continues  Friday at Phoenix Comicon with a gala screening, cast panel and signing—and yes, I hope many of you can join us—I put together this little pastiche of faces and moments from my own lenses during our January shoot for "Pilgrim of Eternity." It got its own world premiere as an exclusive clip I showed at BlasterCon in L.A. a couple weekends ago.

You can catch Grant Imahara from Mythbusters, Chris Doohan looking like another Doohan in red, fearless leader Vic Mignogna as Kirk and director, with Todd Haberkorn the Wonder Spock ... and a lot of the cast and crew, including me in McCoy togs and our Kim Stinger as Uhura bein' tough. I'll save some moments with Michael "Apollo" Forrest for a later time.

In fact, you can catch those three npow that we have premiered the thing! And if you crave EVEN MORE, bop over to the STC Facebook page, "Like" it, and scroll back through the last few weeks—there's been fun video and stills a-plenty.

For now, enjoy this teaser—literally!

STV: Kirk and Spock, on-set cut-ups: Star Trek Continues' Vic Mignogna and Todd Haberkorn

Let me introduce you to two of the best voice actors and most popular guests on the anime convention circuit—as well as a couple of all-around performers, directors and even editors: Vic Mignogna and Todd Haberkorn.

With all that, you're catching them at Trekland because Vic is the driving force—as producer, director, co-writer and Captain James T. Kirk—behind Star Trek Continues, which as you know by now this week is the latest "fan film" to debut that looks like anything but amateur. Todd, always at his side—well, sometimes—is holding on to the Spock ears and inflamed stoicism with great aplomb. (Vic was also crazy enough to ask me to step in at the 11th hour to play Dr. McCoy when the prior actor could not make the January shoot.)

With the world debut of "Pilgrim of Eternity" coming at Phoenix Comicon in big Room 120, this chat during the shoot is the third of four videos I'm premiering this week in the countdown to Friday night's huge screening and cast Q&A/signing event. Don't forget you can see more of the shorts at the STC website,  and more clips and stills at the Facebook page, too—which of course is easily Liked.

Till the premiere gets online ASAP after PHXCC for all to see ... Enjoy this third pre-premiere glimpse:



PLUS:  GRANT "MYTHBUSTERS" IMAHARA AS SULU—JUST CONFIRMED AS WELL!

STV: Preview Week Part 2: CHRIS Doohan provides the DNA as Scotty for 'Star Trek Continues'

Of all the fan films and all their cast members—celebrity or not—I doubt there is a case quite like what you see with one role in Star Trek Continues, where DNA trumps all.

Yes, the real-life actor behind one of those iconic Star Trek characters—the late, great Jimmy Doohan, our beloved "Scotty" of course —is being represented in the recast role by none other than his own son, Chris Doohan. Not an actor, Chris has slipped into the role, worked on his "Doohan Scotch" accent, and the result is absolutely amazing—as you can see in this test short filmed last summer.

As you can see in our meetup, Chris is pretty non-plussed by all this—which, as for all of us in the cast, was both a lot of hard work and just having a hoot of a shoot ...

Star Trek Continues has its world premiere at 6 p.m. this Friday, May 24 at Phoenix Comicon's main room—a screening, cast Q&A, and a mass signing! Look for it online as soon as possible via the STC website and the Facebook page.

STV: It's Grant 'Mythbusters' Imahara as Sulu! Must be premiere week for Star Trek Continues

Great news!

As if having Grant "Mythbusters" Imahara as our Sulu in the indie online series "Star Trek Continues" wasn't enough... as you can see in our vidchat below the fold ...

We just heard that Grant confirmed the Mythbusters shoot schedule will indeed let him join us for the episode's world premiere hoopla this Friday night at Phoenix Comicon. I was honored to have been asked to play McCoy in this series for the January shoot, but I also made sure to record several of our folk on camera for everyone in TREKLAND —and thus this little gem.

Here's Grant below ... in uniform and out ... for the episode wrangled and helmed by voice actor/director Vic Mignogna as Kirk, his colleague and popular voice actor Todd Haberkorn as Spock, Chris Doohan playing his dad's role as Scotty ... and original TOS "Apollo" Michael Forrest reprising his role ... in a very savvy way. Kim Stinger is Uhura and Wyatt Lenhart is Chekov, too, and Michele Specht plays Lt. McKenna, another new key character, along with Steve Dengler's Security Chief Drake.

There's a screening, panel and signing for the pilot "Pilgrim of Eternity," all starting Friday at 6 p.m. in the con's huge main room. The show will be online soon after, I'll be there all weekend... and I'll be rolling out more vidchats this week prior to the hoopla Friday. You could also check the website (with three short vignettes, from before my casting) and go LIKE the Facebook page, which has a ton more videos and behind-the-scenes photos. Caption contests, anyone?

Meanwhile, whaddya think about how well Grant channels his forebear? Yes, we go there, too:

NO April Fools—this actually existed...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Okay, who wants to guess the approximate timing and occasion?
(I mean, there's no prize or anything, but ...)

Obama at the Gridiron: Revenge of the Vulcan?

For a guy who gave away the secret of his Trek cred even before this famous pose, President Obama sure took a lot of heat for his Trek/Wars mixup of a "Vulcan mind trick" last week. Trouble is, it came from supposedly serious pundits, not just the late-night laffmeisters. And we already know he knows full well the difference.

So now the president gets his revenge, or a chance to explain, courtesy of Saturday night's annual Gridiron Dinner roast of and by journalists in D.C. It's never televised, though some transcripts of the evening have nonetheless surfaced :

"I’ve been trying to explain this situation to the American people, but clearly I am not perfect," Obama says at one point in his monologue. "After a very public mix-up last week, my communications team has provided me with an easy way to distinguish between Star Trek and Star Wars." (Laughter.) "Spock is what Maureen Dowd calls me.  Darth Vader is what [GOP Speaker] John Boehner calls me."

And then to close—reclaiming by mocking his inner Trekkie, in public, once again:

"I want to thank everybody for just a wonderful evening … And in the words of one of my favorite Star Trek characters, Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise: ‘May the force be with you.’ ”

Don't forget—we can thank John Hodgman for a lot of this initial investigative D.C. Trek work on camera:

My stardate birthdate: Have I always been doomed?

While hip-deep in the Secret Star Trek Non-Fiction Project TBA —you know, the thing that's been keeping me from posting video and blog pieces the last two months — I'm having to grab some stardates matched to actual calendar days of the year.

And naturally, my original Mike Okuda stardate memo for the VGR/DS9 writers came in handy once again. You know, the one that simply divides the 1000-unit stardate "year" by 365 (or 366) to get a three-digit range for each "real" day of a Gregorian "Earth" calendar. (And, in this case, gave the writers a usable stardate range to each of the 26 episodes of the season.) You simply paste the three-digit "day" after the two-digit "year"—where 41xxx of TNG-1 was 2364, and so on.

Just for kicks, I thought I'd look up the three digits for my birthday—which all you online stalkers know is Jan. 18. And ...

It was at that point I dropped my jaw a couple times.

And realized that my life's path, like it or not, must have always been destined to meander through Trekland.

Or at least Pomona College:

Trek Props on Coins, Pt. 47: Who knew the Cardies got St. Paul?

Twitter Twekland seemed to get a kick out of this last night, so why not add pictures?

Spying a charity coin-donation card while checking out at a favorite eatery, I noted this sight peeking out at me from a cardboard slot:

Now, doesn't that look like a Cardassian disruptor rifle? Maybe with its rear handgrip  broken off?

But.... reality is tough.

Turns out it was just a loon ... upside down ... on the Minnesota state quarter:

Geek filter strikes again.

Okay, kids—now let's see how many Trek props YOU can spot on coinage of the world!

And Bob, you've won.. A NEW CAR!

A "fix" it was not:

Our own Bob "The Doctor" Picardo was on hand for appearances at Comic*Con and, lo and behold, got entered in NBC's daily Heroes tie-in car giveaway... and won the Friday drawing!

This week Bob tells me: "See? Work for free and God finds a way ... See you in Vegas." No plans yet for the car, he says—but stay tuned.

And thanks to Highlander Films' producer Len MacLeod for the head's-up on-site...and for entering Bob in the first place!

Bob's 3rd annual charity auction/dinner for Habitat for Humanity that climax the weekend of the Creation Vegas bash is on again for Aug. 9.

Prime importance

Base! Dibs! I’m gettin’ this on the record first!

Actually, it’s a good thing I’m not a cynic, or else I’d already be out there making the point that Leonard’s role in ST ’09 was specifically called “Spock PRIME” … meaning that he existed in the Prime Timeline … or perhaps, more exactly, the “Primetime Line.” Meaning… anything else was not ready for Prime Time?

Or implying, by process of deduction, that anything else actually comes from the Sub-Prime Timeline?

Well, we all know just how much trouble the Sub-Primes have caused lately …

(Baddump-bump)