Red Shirt Diaries: Ashley, Jason—and who's Bones?!

The truth HAS been out there for some time, but it hit home today: The Red Shirt Diaries is the cutest, bestest and yet heart-felt little Trek parody webseries out there: The fans are flocking, even before last year's "Season 2" Indiegogo that upped the bar this year … the buzz is growing… and now—yes, I got to don McCoy's dark hair and blue tunic once again!

THANK YOU, ASHLEY AND JASON.

That's Ashley V. Robinson and Jason Inman, of course, who not only announced their engagement recently but also have quite an up-and-coming profile—doing RSD as well as their awesome Geek History Lesson podcast/ YouTube, Jason's  DC All Access webshow co-hosting, and Ashley's burgeoning acting career (listen to this clip!). And of course, they first came on Trekland's STV radar a year ago during that Indiegogo drive (and yes, I still need to post the rest of the vidchat). 

This nighttime fun on Hollywood Boulevard came last Sept. 11 as they held a mini-season premiere screening at IO Club and Theatre for crew, cast and local backers, but I held off the posting until our McCoy spoiler was closer…which, of course, with "Operation: Annihilate!" meant late in the "season." Never fear—you can catch their "finale", RSD's angle on "Amok Time," on Monday next—and of course gotta catch 'em all on YouTube or via the RSD site. (At 5 minutes each, tisn't difficult).

Quite aside from moi's return to solid/dotted-rank, this is quite a landmark episode for Ashley's Ensign, er, Lieutenant Williams as well—and remarkably a big dose of pathos in what is admittedly a winky fun vibe of a series. And how many past World of Williams references can you catch? 

WILL there be a Season 3? WILL their Mirror Universe dream come true? Will Ashley's crack about Commodore Decker bear fruit? It's up to you guys and what they call "online analytics," of course—so, and she says, "SHARE AND LIKE! SHARE AND LIKE!"

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!

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)...