RIP Ron Thornton, CGI pioneer and fan media's hero too

I didn't know Ron Thornton that well, although he was certainly kind and generous and supportive of me in my writing and projects. I may not even have any pics with him, back from the time of no cameras-on-pagers known as The Nineties.

Following his passing Monday afternoon after a long illness, you can read much more by his Trekside colleagues Mike Okuda and Daren Dochterman here at the excellent remembrance startrek.com ran today... where I pilfered the above photo. There are many more reflections on Ron scattered around Facebook by both peers and proteges.

But with his far-too-soon passing on Monday, it brings to mind how much our world has changed, how much storytelling capability on television has changed.. and so much of it due to Ron. For all you kids raised on cheap n' easy CGI* you do on your own laptop... Ron was literally the one who brought the magic of new digital effects to weekly TV.

Ron was a hands-on visual effects guy, and has plenty of credits to prove it. But by the time he'd co-started Foundation Imaging and it bled over into Trek work where we needed to interact,  I saw him as head of his companies, mostly. But in that regard Ron was not only always glad to see and help me, but he made it possible for the CGI Trek journalism revolution as well. Beginning with the original UK Fact Files—and then our official Communicator mag and then the US Trek mag that Fact Files content became in the US—those digital ship shots were no longer a high-dollar wish-list item: Ron made it possible to supply us with the angles and 3/4 views of elusive CGI ships that Trek techheads were so hungry for, after mourning the phase-out of those beautiful, actual miniature ship models.

True, in the early years we used to talk about how all the Foundation effects on Babylon 5 were "so CG-ey"—that is, overly aliased, and obviously below the quality of shooting actual models. But the  evolution was speedy, for the important thing was that his breakthrough render farm concept allowed common PCs of that time to handle the high-data demands of CGI processing quickly as a networked unit. So speedy, in fact, that even the supervisors on state-of-the-art Star Trek, one by one--even, by DS9's last season, skeptic Gary Hutzel too—became convinced that CGI would be not just doable but respectable on TV limits... both in money AND time. Even for Star Trek.

It's ironic to me how today there's as much CGI digital work on TV now that has nothing to do with space battles—invasive viruses and infections illustrated with graphic motion on every procedural show, massive Earthly landscapes on global adventure shows, Earth-bound superheroics on all the superhero fad series... and it all kicked off with Ron finding a way to make it work on the small screen in the early 90s.

Excuse me. I know I must have a great shot with Ron here somewhere. I'm long overdue to dig it out.


*Just in case you need it: CGI is actually the acronym for "computer-generated imagery."

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.

STV: Mimi Craven tells tales of the Voyager Vaadwaur

After 18 years, you bet that a lot of faces have appeared across the "modern" Star Trek TV incarnation, not to mention the whole 50+ year saga. By now, even those with a one-off guest role, especially with a long credit list elsewhere behind it, get sought out by fans. It's all part of the sparkling Trek tapestry. 

One of those gems is Mimi Craven—she of many fan-favorite roles over the years even outside of Trek. At a recent signing show in Burbank, I chatted with her about her unusual turn on Voyager as the ill-fated female Vaadwaur, Jisa, in "Dragon's Teeth."

The Vaadwaur were designed to be a new culture with much backstory, intended to be a leading face in the last year of the show and launched with a two-parter—but those plans went for naught. 

Mimi wore it proudly, though, and has some great moments to share as she was the test case for the makeup, even before shooting her scenes. Find her at a con and she can add insider stories from the original Nightmare on Elm Street, and many more. Good stuff! 

One more for Voyager's 20th birthday: It's a SIGN!

Seen across the street from Paramount on a cloudy January day—exactly 20 years ago this week:

A goofy promo theme, and symptomatic of what would dog the two UPN shows as "marketing" for their entire lives.... as many of you will recall.

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!

TWENTY years ago? A pitch you can't 'Prophecy'

Well, THIS is a moment locked in time for me...and it was exactly 20 years ago today that we rehearsed for it:

This sale memo, from Voyager's Jeri Taylor and signed under fellow exec producer Michael Piller's
reply, was about our pitch called "Reflections," or "Descendants," or "Alliances Undone," or "Birds of a Feather"... whatever... that SOLD... then got bumped for 4 years, sank into the unused "sold" pile, but then finally got plucked out to produce (with update) seven years later as "Prophecy."

It's been an anniversary memory for me all week, exactly (gulp) two decades ago: The TNG Companion was two years old, our new home home in L.A./Burbank was into its fifth month, Janet's six-week Voyager temp job had just been made permanent, and the extended contact from all our new opportunities had won us an invitation to pitch stories.

Yes, Dec. 12  was the night we rehearsed our 3 or 4 pitches with script coordinator and buddy/boss Lolita Fatjo at Micelli's in Hollywood, and got her notes; the very next day, we met with Jeri in her Hart Building office to try them all for real. And it was all, of course, still six weeks or so until the world at large would even see Voyager and meet its denizens on TV.

I had heard all the TNG writers tell of their own pitch experiences—of the nerves and mistakes in both their own as writers, and of the hopefuls they heard ideas from—and thus Lolita's gentle reminder that "no one sells on their first pitch" had been well taken.

Which, of course, was all the more weird when we DID do just that—and with the one idea, of course, we thought the least of: our "token 'Klingon in the Delta Quadrant' story, to mess with B'Elanna's Klingon half" idea. Thank you, Jeri—and thank you for being gentle with the rookies. And you too, Michael, wherever you are—bedecked in Dodger blue, I'm sure).

It was hardly the last time we pitched to either show—back in the day of Michael's revolutionary but time-consuming open-door policy for non-agented writers and spec scripts—but it was the only time we ever sold. Of course. (The old maxim about "you never get to do the teleplay for your first story sale," however, came perfectly true.) I even found out later we weren't even the first ones to pitch a "Klingon generational ship" story for Voyager.

March 1995: A "bottle show" no longer...

We used to tell the full story at convention talks—the prep and pitch, the writer meetings, the directed enlarging and then shrinking of the bottle story scope as the show and staff evolved, its disappearance and then final-season resurrection—as a snapshot of the outside-writer process, and how wacky a "textbook case" of off-staff TV selling and writing can actually be, and over several years. I've told parts of the saga on a couple of podcast interviews, but any of you new fans want us to pipe up about it for a current con, just let me know. (For the right rum mixture, I'll even share all the better concepts we pitched on either "middle show" that didn't sell.)

But for young Okie kids getting a tad later start in the biz than usual, it was three fast days in a week I'll always remember.

New Bye Bye Robot 'Voyager' art: it's my bud, at last

It's taken 20-some years, but I finally feel I've done right by one of my oldest friends—or at least that's me personal reaction to Friday's news announcement at startrek.com of a new five-piece, four-artist original print offering from Bye Bye Robot.

Actually, here's the full frame:

I met art studio Bye Bye Robot founders Charity and Chris Wood in 2010, before they were BBR, and was happy to help how I could as they worked to get their official CBS license for Star Trek fine art prints and graphics in 2012. 

But even further back: Many of you know my logos for Trekland, The Con of Wrath, the Trekland Trunk, and most of all Mystar Media; some of you even remember the incredible black-and-white line art in my old, original annual "TNG" concordances.  THAT was all my bud Kevin Hopkins—met up the first week of sophomore college year as I hosted aTrek/sci-fi club organizer, then oft-roomates and mutual best men… and, since my days with pro Star Trek, my perennial candidate for breaking in to the licensed art world. 

Like many others whose Trek work you've seen before, he has a great style that includes portraits, heroic fantasy, and photorealistic biology/botany—in both "analog" pigment and now digitally.

Charity tells me she's excited for this set, each one repping a different series, and to work with two new artists among the four—Thomas Ziffer, who's been involved with the gallery, as well as Kevin.

"Kevin has been on our radar for a long time," Charity says, when I asked her for some thoughts for TREKLAND. "I first met him while he was accompanying Larry at the Dallas Comic Con, back in 2010. We chatted about his penchant for fossil digs, and then I found out about his art career and talent. Well, it took us nearly four years to capture one of his paintings, but we’ve finally done it. Now (besides more awesome artwork) all that’s left is to weasel my way onto one of his paleontological digs so I can fulfill my dream of finding my very own fossilized megalodon tooth!"

My getting Kevin and Charity introduced was a happy serendipity that finally led to this "official Trek" opportunity: but instead of Kevin's faces of actors, it's ships—as in, the fourth print just released by BBR and their first-ever Voyager subject. Take a close gander, up top—and I'm proud to say I lent a couple eyeballs and notes for it, too. 

"Being able to work on this Voyager poster project and doing the art for "The Long Way Home"  is a very special thing for me because it lets me give back a little bit to an idea and a an ongoing project that has given me so much," Kevin says. "And doing an officially licensed piece of Star Trek related art (for Bye Bye Robot) is a special milestone in my career."

Kevin reminded me that he grew up in an even more rural area of Oklahoma than I did, where the sparse TV offerings like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Lost in Space, and "the annual Saturday afternoon showing of This Island Earth " was enough to tease but not satisfy the sci-fi craving they awakened. 

"There was a bookmobile that stopped in the community sporadically, and one summer I managed to read the entire science and science fiction sections that it contained," he says. "I would save up for visits to larger towns where I could find cheap science fiction paperbacks.  Still, the scifi sections were small in even the best of book stores.  I still remember the first year that science fiction novels outsold westerns nationally."

And that was about the time Star Trek hit, Kevin recalls: "The first season of the original airing was like a breath of fresh air for me—it supplied something that my mind was aching for; it allowed me to see that world as something larger and more diverse than the little town where I lived. My affinity for Star Trek continues on through the present; it has brought me friends, experiences and life lessons I would never have encountered otherwise, and I am very grateful for them all."

And me…I'm just grateful to have finally helped play a part in getting that talent out to the "official" Star Trek world. Yay, Charity… and yay, Kevin.

Voyager/BSG's Michael Taylor talks SyFy's DEFIANCE debut tonight—Pt. 1

Writer-producer Michael Taylor, who I've known since the later Voyager days, sat down with me last summer for an EXCLUSIVE early chat about the unique and potentially historic TV/game crossover project called DEFIANCE—whose TV incarnation on SyFy debuts tonight at 9 ET/PT.

Here's just Part I of our chat—where we're just getting started on the idea... and how the heck a busy TV staff can interface enough with a game staff to make the revolutionary concept work. Coming in future TREKLAND segments: details on the development of the characters and setting—a future Earth where eco-damage from an aliens/human war on Earth has repaired by terraforming where they all must now work together.

Mike, of course, also wrote some great episodes on Ron Moore's Battlestar Galactica and was involved with both Caprica and Blood and Chrome (as well as the late Michael Piller's breakout Dead Zone on USA). Later on, we'll reminisce about those years as well—and there's more below the video fold here, too:


Yes, there's more—like this FYI: In case any of you are out there grousing about getting invested in an expensive and risky genre series only to see it cancelled after one year—apparently, series exec producer Kevin Murphy is letting on that the series' second season is already into production. We'll try to update with Mike on that as well.

Meanwhile, in case you haven't seen it, here's the extended trailer for the TV series:



AND the first 14 minutes of Monday's pilot (sorry for the embedded ad)...

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 ...)

STV: Tim "Tuvok" Russ is back for indie "Renegades"

So many great Kickstarter projects out there, as you know ... but STAR TREK: RENEGADES is not only an all-star follow-up to Tim Russ and Sky Conway's OF GODS AND MEN epic that you know, but it's on funding deadline and just went over bigtime.

"I am excited to see the fans of Trek pitching in to help us get this project off the ground," director/actor Tim told me today after the $200,000 goal was topped by $20,000 (congrats!). "We will do our best to deliver an exciting film."

I initially caught Tim for a vidchat (below) on the day he and Walter Koenig shot the trailer you can now see at the Kickstarter site ... where the toteboard as of this posting now shows three days left to get the new extra bonus goal of $250,000—by 7 A.M. Monday, Nov. 27. The extra raised will  be spent on boosting visual effects, sets, locations, or anything that had to be trimmed initially to make a do-able campaign budget.

In recent days, J.G. "Martok" Hertzler himself has signed aboard to play the main villain of the piece, and so many cast and crew veterans from "Of Gods and Men" are back, too. But wait—let's let Tim talk about it as you watch his Vulcanness dissolve right before your eyes ...

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.

"Klingon love machine god"? We're on The Ready Room

The log line should say:
 "For the first time in years, Larry Nemecek talks about his experience in selling, developing, mourning, and then watching the resurrection of their Season 1 Voyager story idea that finally became Season 7's 'Prophecy'."

But a chunk of this "The Ready Room" Episode 52 on Trek.fm is, um, wacky as well, with Chris and Greg. I've been tardy to tell of it here, delayed by SoonerCon & Sooner State travels.

I wonder if THAT qualifies as The Other Side of the Room? (Oh, you have to listen...The TRR News is great, then we come on at the 53:23 mark—if you don't do chapters via an iTunes download.)

Space elevators? Not just for the Nezu anymore

It was hardly the origin of the idea in either sci-fi or sci-fact, but Trekland got its take on the long-time "orbital elevator" concept as the plot device behind Voyager's third-season "Rise!" The script was an ambitious if not overtly satisfying Tuvok/Neelix pairer aboard a sabotaged mag-lev "tether carriage" rising (get it?) into the clouds about a disputed Nezu colony.

That was the fiction. Now, a Japanese company says it wants to do the same, basically .. and can likely do it.

By 2050 ...

Space Elevator Plans Unveiled by Japanese Company

... According to the proposal, 30 passengers at a time would depart from the equator and travel in an enclosure guided by a 60,000 mile (96,000 km) cable that stretches a quarter of the way to the moon. The final destination would be a spaceport that contains laboratories and living quarters 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above the Earth's surface. ...

Don't miss! Saturday's online Trek auction—with “visual technobabble”?

After all the big pioneering Trek auctions of recent years, let’s hope new bid-fests have not become passé.

Especially one THIS Saturday—tomorrow—that may have somehow flown low under your radar! It deserves better, because there’s a whole class of cool collectible that’s never really been out in public before. And if you are new to Trek auctions, you have to check this out.

Propworx, partnering now with LiveAuctioneers.com for the online mechanics, is offering a huge new catalog of 257 various Trek goodies in an online-only, 21-hour auction opening at 1 pm ET/10 am PT (links below). My buddy Alec Peters, collectors’ guru blogger and founder of Propworx, points out there’s a raft of reasonable items in the $100-$200 range—all the way up to, amazingly, an actual original Star Trek series matte painting—on glass!—of Starbase 11 from “The Menagerie.”

But what caught my eye are a few bid items that should appeal to both art lovers as well as the graphics techheads—we know who we are!—and anyone who appreciates true Trek history.

Most of all— I bet you’ve never seen anything quite like them in a major auction before! Don't let them get away.

I’m talking about the original artboard paste-ups for what we lovingly call “Okudagrams,” after Mike O. himself—not just sketches, and not the final colorful translight controls and readouts as used on-set, but the ROOT of what made them: original paper black-and-white paste-ups on heavy stock, used to shoot film that was then gelled with cut-to-fit colored plastic sheet.

Eventually, about midway through DS9, tech finally evolved to allow a direct output from the art department’s Macs to a large, continuous-sheet renderer—ending the time-consuming paper paste-up, film shoot, and then cookie-cutter gelling of clear film. As with fully-formed filming miniatures, it was yet another hands-on analog process made outmoded by the CGI and digital tech evolution revolution.

But those artboard paste-ups—with a lot of fine type and in-jokes galore, for you eagle-eyed out there—actually are original works of art, too, when you think about it, and deserve to be framed and treated as such. Some of them are truly iconic and one-timers—like the Kirk and Spock personal log and daily schedules text panels from their quarters in Star Trek VI (above—apologies for the low-res image), or the animation board for the Klingon's sighting in to shoot Voyager 1. Others are like the oft-seen DS9 station cutaway chart with IDs, used everywhere—but this is the original! … or even the periodic table of the "elements" from TNG and DS9, or the DS9 Replimat menu and greeting signs, chock-full of a zillion small-type in-jokes.

What’s more, most of them even come with their own “certificate of authenticity” by way of scrawled handwritten notes to the camera operator, like “Please Shoot 150%."

Can you tell I love these things?  I have several, and they are a techheads' dream. Talk about touching the real thing... ! And being able to READ it, finally? C'mon, you text geeks—you know who you are.

All you need to do for bidding is to register on Live Auctioneers here—and you can also download the full color 158-page catalog for free at Propworx' site; it's as easy as Ebay to bid, and will stay open 21 hours. Alec's premiere Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction blog has been going since the Christie's auction in 2006 at startrekprops.com.

Saturday’s auction has tons of high- (and low-) profile costumes, props and paper goods like scripts and call sheets, too—and this session even has “rainbow pages” final scripts with the companion first-draft versions, itself a rare offering for those who love script evolution (but not well illustrated in the photos).

But wow—just don’t let the simple, underrated descriptions of the “artboard” artwork pass you by.

It’s like owning your own real piece of visual technobabble—suitable for framing!

STV: Finally, we let Ethan finish

We chatted with Ethan "Neelix" Phillips earlier this year at home about his then-play Wirehead about to open...

...but couldn't pass up the opportunity for a few nods to Voyager's 15th premiere anniversary and his own dip into fandom... Or was that really his first? "Eight years since the butthead," in any case.

The "extra" was promised soon, and a breathless world has been patient. Take a look... are remember that any yak with Ethan takes you places you hardly expected ...

LA ALERT!: Ethan Phillips in world premiere "WIREHEAD", closes March 14

Hey, our own Ethan "Neelix" Phillips is currently in the world premiere of Echo Theatre's "Wirehead," running at Stage 52 (5299 W. Washington Blvd. in LA, 90016) and the reviews are raving. Ethan sat down to talk before the premiere about this rarest of plays, a sci-fi story, and his "shock jock" role as Rip—plus lots more work... so much so that here's just Part I:



We want to thank Ethan and Stage 52's Chris Fields for having us in for "Wirehead" on opening night: it's funny but edgy, with some barebones but clever staging and effects. Stop me if you've heard this before, Treksters, but the play follows two work buddies and their women forced to ponder how we hang on to our humanity in the midst of rampant technology and change? And is too much a danger—especially if it "improves the species"?

But let Ethan tell you all about it, and then hurry for tickets: with perfs on Fridays, Saturday and Sundays, this "comedy thriller" has just six shows left until its scheduled closing on Sunday, March 14. A great way to spend some weekend hours in gutsy live theatre with a rare sci-fi core.

And stay tuned for Part 2 with Ethan, and his thoughts on Trek then and now.

STV: Bob Picardo is Oct. 11's free L.A. "Spirit of Trek" guest

If you're in SoCal and haven't seen a Treklander at one of the "Spirit of Star Trek" nights, what's your excuse? As an FYI:
(a) they are FREE
(b) you see names like Shimerman, Grodenchik, Phillips, Masterson, Roddenberry, O'Reilly,
(c) it's NOTHING like a typical glib con appearance, and
(d) forget being freaked by the church site thing. You get a relevant episode on big screen, then a discussion/Q&A with co-hosts Michael "Mr. Makeup" Westmore and Curtis Webster that's both funny and thoughtful: behind-the-scenes banter and some deeper thoughts on morals, ethics, and philosophy as seen in Star Trek, through its aliens' eyes.

Next up Sunday, Oct. 11: None other than Bob Picardo:

That's 7-9 p.m., First Presbyterian of Encino, 4963 Balboa Blvd., 91316— south of the 101 ... 818-788-1147 to RSVP, please!

And it's a double-doctor autumn: mark calendars now for Nov. 8 and John "Dr. Phlox" Billingsley!

It was 400 years ago today: the lenses that shook the world

As we await the hoped-for launch of Discovery this week through another delay ...

Thanks to my old buddy Kevin for reminding me—he was far more than a shuttlecraft namesake:

400 Years Ago Today, Galileo Invented Astronomy and Modern Science

A wonderful "down to earth" essay from Astronomy Today, short of any pretentiousness puffery:

... Being a professor, he really just wanted to make some extra cash, and the telescope was marvelously useful to sailors, soldiers, and craftsmen alike.

Sound like a certain warp pioneer to you?

Seriously, take a read—and let's renew again the power of observational and empirical science over hearsay and myth. It's where Gene came from.

STV/Trek2Chuck III: Touring BuyMore with David Trotti

The Chuck season is winding down, but our Trek2Chuck link is still very much alive. And with the Scott Bakula (and Chevy Chase) trilogy closing out the season with a bang the next two Mondays, March 20 and 27 (8 p.m./NBC!) I'm posting this tour of the BuyMore set with David Trotti, a colleague and longtime assistant director (from trainee to 2nd to 1st) through the Trek series from later TNG to ST VI to Voyager and then Enterprise...and true to form, he drops some Trek behind-the-scenes info even here.

Once again, David's just one of many Treklanders working on this fun dramedy: a nerdy but promising hero biding time in low-level retail until his brain is accidentally jammed with the nation's classified secrets. If you missed our prior vlogs, check out Robbie McNeill as producer/director, and Bob Picardo as guest star; fan fave Adam Baldwin of Firefly fame is here too, as is Bonnie Friedericy, John Billingsley's wife.

Hopefully, if you give it a try and sound off by petition or Facebook, and the numbers stay good, Chuck will be back for Season 3 next fall—along with our Trek2Chuck visits...

STV: Ethan Phillips: Next up for "Spirit of Star Trek"

Ethan "Neelix" Phillips is the next to jump into the screen-n-talk series "Spirit of Star Trek" —an evening of fun and thoughtful talk on philosophy, ethics, and spirituality through Star Trek's varied alien lenses ... an event like none other you get at even the biggest convention. If in SoCal, save March 29 for 7-9 p.m.—a screening of Neelix's standout show about shaken beliefs, "Mortal Coil," and then the Q&A, with a short reception afterward.

Here's a sneak peek with Ethan and host Curtis Webster, pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Encino that is home to the series, at 4963 Balboa just south of the 101. If the churchy thing seems a little scary, relax ... as you'll see it's a wide-open discussion—with even some Neelix insights ...

Curtis, of course, will again be joined by Star Trek's makeup guru Michael Westmore as co-host. The opener with Armin Shimerman, Max Grodenchik and "Prophet Motive" was a hit—and if you've ever seen Ethan at conventions you know he is always "on." Coming up: Robert O'Reilly and "Rightful Heir," April 26; Robert Picardo and "Latent Image," May 17; and Rod Roddenberry with a title TBA, June 28 ... with more to come in the fall.

To reserve a seat, they appreciate an RSVP; call Amber at 818-788-1147.

(Oh, and watch for Ethan's "protest shirt"....!)