TF01 3,Star Trek News 4,Edited by Tim Smith Hi, and welcome to another slice of Trek related news. Please remember that some of the items are based on rumours. Although I have treid to verify all items to the best of my ability, I hope that you will realise that some of these news items are not based on solid fact! Of course, many news items are, particularly the episodes guides and non-Trek projects. The news comes from a variety of sources including magazines, conversations with several people, and various other sources. Enjoy, and if you have any news yourself, don't hesitate to send it to me at the address below. Right, first off are the episode guides for The Next Generation's seventh season, and Deep Space Nine's second season covering the episodes transmitted in December onwards. Some plot points might be given away! The Next Generation ------------------- 06/12/93 "Parallels" Worf finds himself experiencing several different alternate realities. Guest stars: Wil Wheaton. 10/01/94 "The Pegasus" Riker's first Captain, now an Admiral, comes on board the Enterprise to lead them on a dangerous mission to recover his old ship, the Pegasus. Guest stars: Terry O'Quinn (The Rocketeer). 17/01/94 "Homeward" The Enterprise receives a distress call from Boral II from Worf's foster brother, Nikolai Rozhenko. Guest stars: Paul Sorvino (Law And Order, The Rocketeer). 31/01/94 "Sub Rosa" Beverly Crusher pays a visit to Caldos where her maternal grandmother has recently passed away. Guest stars: Duncan Regehr (V - the television series). 07/02/94 "Lower Decks" A dangerous mission is told from the viewpoint of junior officers who are awaiting possible promotion. Guest stars: Shannon Fill ("The First Duty"), Patti Yasutake. 14/02/94 "Thine Own Self" Troi takes her command exam whilst Data loses his memory on a solo away mission. Guest stars: Ronnie Clair Edwards, Michael Rothaar, Kimberly Cullum (The Waltons). 21/02/94 "Masks" Alien artifacts begin to appear on the Enterprise and Data is taken over by the personalities of the long dead race. 28/02/94 "Eye Of The Beholder" Troi and Worf investigate the mysterious suicide of a crewmember. Guest stars: Tim Lounibos, Johanna McCloy, Mark Rolston. 21/03/94 "Genesis" The crew begin to change into other forms of life. Guest stars: Dwight Schultz. 28/03/94 "Journey's End" The Enterprise is sent to remove a native American tribe from a planet now within Cardassian territory. This episode not only sees the return of Welsey, but the Traveler and Wesley's father as well. Guest stars: Wil Wheaton, Eric Menyuk, Doug Wert ("Family", Violations"), Tom Jackson, Ned Romero, Natalija Nogulich ("Descent Part 1"). 25/04/94 "First Born" A mysterious Klingon arrives to protect Worf and help train Alexander as a warrior. Guest stars: Brian Bonsall, Barbara March ("Redemption" Parts 1 and 2), Gwynyth Walsh ("Redemption" Parts 1 and 2). 02/5/94 "Blood Lines" Daimon Bok returns to have his revenge on Picard. Guest stars: Frank Corsentino. 09/05/94 "Emergence" The Enterprise becomes self-aware and manifests its thoughts on the holodeck. The crew must enter into the holodeck to discover what it is thinking. 16/05/94 "Preemptive Strike" Yaroo! Ensign Ro finally returns. This time she is a Lieutenant and on a dangerous undercover mission. Guest stars: Michelle Forbes. 23/05/94 "All Good Things..." The final Next Generation episode. It is 25 years on from the current Next Generation timeframe. Picard, now an old man and married to Crusher, is suffering from a wasting disease. Q appears and tells him that if he doesn't solve a problem, humanity will be wiped out. This sends him on an incredible journey through time. The viewer gets to see several new ships, past versions of Tasha Yar, Worf, Geordi, Data, Troi and O'Brien, an Old Worf, Admiral Riker, future versions of Geordi (sans VISOR), Data and Crusher. Guest stars: John de Lancie, Denise Crosby, Colm Meaney, Christian Slater. Deep Space Nine --------------- 06/12/93 "Second Sight" Sisko falls in love with a mysterious woman who keeps disappearing. Guest stars: Salli Elsie Richardson, Richard Kiley. 13/12/93 "Sanctuary" Refugees from the Gamma Quadrant arrive on DS9 and claim Bajor to be their home world. Guest stars: Deborah May, Andrew Koenig (Walter's son), Aaron Eisenberg, William Schallert ("The Trouble With Tribbles"). 03/01/94 "Rivals" Martus, a well-known con-man sets up a casino/bar to rival Quark's. Guest stars: Rosalind Chao, Chris Sarandon, Max Grodenchik, Barbara Bosson. 10/01/94 "The Alternate" The professor who led the team that studied Odo leads him into the Gamma Quadrant in search of his origins. Guest stars: James Sloyan ("The Defector"). 31/01/94 "Armageddon Game" Bashir and O'Brien are apparently killed while trying to estroy a deadly bio-mechanical weapon. Guest stars: Rosalind Chao, Darlene Carr, Peter White. 07/02/94 "Whispers" O'Brien flees from DS9 in a runabout. He then makes out a log recalling the conspiracy he now believes has enveloped the space station. Guest stars: Rosalind Chao, Susan Bay (Leonard Nimoy's wife), Philip Le Strange. 14/02/94 "Paradise" Sisko and O'Brien find themselves unable to leave a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. Guest stars: Julia Nickson ("The Arsenal Of Freedom", Babylon 5), Gail Strickland, Steve Vinovich. 21/02/94 "Shadow Play" Odo and Dax investigate the mysterious disappearance of 22 people on a planet in the Gamma Quadrant. 28/02/94 "Playing God" A Trill initiate comes onto the station to be tutored by Jadzia Dax for prospective joining with a symbiont. Guest stars: Geoffrey Blake, Ron Taylor ("Melora"). 21/03/94 "Profit And Loss" A long lost love of Quark arrives on Deep Space Nine. She is also a Cardassian fugitive. Guest stars: Mary Crosby, Andrew Robinson. 28/03/94 "Blood Oath" 3 very old Klingons are on Deep Space and Jadzia Dax risks her Starfleet career to fulfill a blood oath with them. Guest stars: John Kolicos as Kor ("Errand Of Mercy"), Michael Ansara as Kang ("Day Of The Dove"), William Campbell as Koloth ("The Trouble With Tribbles"). 25/04/94 "The Marquis Part 1" Sisko uncovers a group of well-meaning renegades whose exploits could start a Federation/Cardassian war. 02/05/94 "The Marquis Part 2" This ties in with Star Trek: Voyage. 09/05/94 "The Wire" Bashir tries to save Garak who is addicted to a brain implant that is slowly kiling him. Guest stars: Andrew Robinson. 16/05/94 "Crossover" Bashir and Kira are thrown into an alternate reality where the Cardassians, the Bajorans and the Romulans have banded together to defeat the Federation. 23/05/94 "The Collaborator" Vedek Bareil is accused of being a Cardassian collaborator during the occupation. Guest stars: Philip Anglim. 13/06/94 "Tribunal" O'Brien is interrogated by the Cardassians. 20/06/94 "The Jem'Hadar" Sisko, Jake, Quark and Nog come face to face with The Dominion. This does not have a cliffhanger ending. Star Trek: Voyager ------------------ The pilot has now been through its first draft. Filming is due to start some time in August with a proposed January premiere. The series is co-created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor. The featured ship will be the USS Voyager, a Voyager class ship that has a crew compliment of about 200. There will be no families (but for a few exceptions) and the ship will be quite heavily armed. The tone of the show will be even further away from Gene Roddenberry's original vision of Star Trek and will break many of his rules for the show. Sean Connery is a name that hsa been mentioned as starring in the pilot, but I find this unlikely as he turned down the chance to play Sybok in Star Trek 5 to play Indiana Jones senior in The Last Crusade. The plot concerns the USS Voyager sent on a mission to find someone placed on a renegade ship that is crewed by well-meaning ex-Starfleet officers known as The Marquis (tied in from the two-part Deep Space Nine episode). The group has been fighting against Cardassian intrusions along the Federation/Cardassian border. The two ships come to an area of space known as the Badlands and are thrown by a strange phenomenon to the edge of the galaxy. The crew of the two ships join together to explore the new area of space and find a way home. The plot sounds like a cross between Battlestar Galactica and the second season of Buck Rogers. However, it is not only the plot that has problems. Many of the characters seem very derivative as you can see from the list below: The Captain A woman has been cast in the role. First Officer A native American from a tribe that left Earth almost 200 years prior to the episode. A middle-aged Shades of Spock! Vulcan Half-human, half-Klingon officer who resents her Klingon heritiage - does that remind you of K'ehleyr. A hologram character - shades of Quantum Leap, Time Trax and Seaquest DSV. A young male human officer who has been dishonourably discharged and brought back due to his knowledge of the renegades. Hmmm... Ensign Ro, where are you?! An Asian-American fresh out of the Academy. Two entirely new races native to the region of space that the ships are thrown to. The female character will have a life span of 8 to 9 years, and thus an entirely different outlook on life. Time will tell about Voyager. Personally I have deep misgivings about it. Not only are the basic premise, the actual plot and the characters more than reminiscent of other shows, but the public vow that the show will break many of Gene's rules, for the show is like trying to contruct a building without the cornerstone. Hopefullly things will improve but I don't hold out much hope for it. Star Trek: Generations ---------------------- Yes folks, that is the title of the new Star Trek film that most of us are referring to as Star Trek VII. Like Voyager, there have been many doubts expressed about the film, not least by the actual cast. Patrick Stewart allegedly called it little more than an expanded television episode and several of the cast wished that "All Good Things..." (the 90 minute episode) was the movie instead. Indeed the only cast member I know of who has been positive about the film is William Shatner, which isn't surprising when you consider he is reportedly being paid $1 million for approximately 15-20 minutes screen time. The script is written by Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore. David Carson, who has been Star Trek for about 4 years, will make his feature film debut, while special effects veterans ILM will provide the special effects. Dennis McCarthy has signed to provide the music score and the new uniforms will also be used in the new Trek television series Voyager. Paramount have put a lot of money into the production of this movie. It is being shot in cinemascope with the same digital sound system that Jurassic Park used. There now follows a complete plot synopsis of the movie. I have reason to believe that this may be fairly accurate, so if you don't want to know the story, please skip the next bit. The film opens with Scotty, Chekov and Kirk on board the Enterprise NCC 1701-B to celebrate its commission. They receive a distress signal from a ship caught in a destructive energy ribbon and go to help. During the rescue of the refugees (who include Guinan and a Vulcan scientist called Soran) Kirk is lost, presumed dead. After the credits roll, the action shifts forward 78 years. The Romulans are attacking an observatory run by Soran as they believe that he is constructing a weapon powerful enough to destroy an entire world. The Enterprise D arrives and manages to drive the Romulans off. Picard is subdued due to his brothers unexpected death in France. However, Soran has made a deal with Lursa and B'Etor to use his knowledge of the weapon he is building to help them overthrow the Klingon Empire. Guinan tells Picard of his past and that he wants to re-create the energy ribbon to return himself to a place called the Nexus, where time stands still and people do not age. To do this, he intends to use his weapon to destroy a planet. Picard attempts to stop Soran and a battle between the Enterprise and the Klingon ship erupts. Both ships are severly damaged and the two crews are forced to evacuate to the planet. Whilst Picard goes in pursuit of Soran, the rest of the Enterprise crew seek ways of saving the planets inhabitants. Worf remarks that Klingon women are aroused by danger and could be distracted. Data, who has fitted his emotional chip, goes to do this as the others fix shuttlecraft. Picard struggles with Soran but fails to stop him setting the weapon off with the result that both Soran and himself are thrown into the Nexus. There he meets Captain Kirk who has been in the Nexus for 78 years. Together they discover that they can travel through time merely by thinking about and and go back to stop Soran using the weapon. Picard stops Soran, but not before Soran shoots Kirk. Kirk dies in Picard's arms, saying, "It's been fun.". Picard buries him and puts a marker on his grave. Other Bits and Pieces --------------------- William Shatner is a busy guy. Although there have been numerous complaints from people such as Jimmy Doohan, the Trimbles and Majel Barrett (who challenged him to debate his book on US television) that his memories are somewhat inaccurate, that hasn't stopped him signing a seven figure sum for a follow-up, Star Trek Movie Memories, due out in time for Christmas. The series of Tek War television movies based on the best selling books have been well received by both critics and viewers alike. In fact they have been so well received that there are plans afoot to turn it into a full 1 hour drama series. Greg Evigan plays the Jake Cardigan character and Shatner portrays his boss, Bascom. Shatner also found time to make a guest appearance on Seaquest DSV as an exiled dictator. However, his episode was well beated in the ratings by Murder She Wrote and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman. On a sad note, Shatner and his wife have filed for divorce after 20 years of married life. As for the other Captain, he hasn't been idle either. Patrick Stewart appeared on Saturday Night Live at the beginning of February. He started with a monlogue during which he claimed to be an expert on Classic Trek and followed it with several sketches, the most interest of which to Trekkers would be a Star Trek version of Love Boat. His one man version of A Christmas Carol was a huge success in London, garnering two nominations from the Society Of West End Theatre Awards - Best Actor and Best Production. It also won the 1994 Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment. He also found time to make a cameo appearance in the comedy film Robin Hood: Men In Tights. Has bought a house in Yorkshire where he hopes to settle and may return to the West End to do a musical. Leonard Nimoy refused to either direct or appear in Star Trek: Generations unless certain script changes were made. They weren't so he didn't. He hasn't ruled out the possibility of appearing in the next movie (if there is one), or even turning up on Deep Space Nine. To keep himself busy he has directed Patricia Arquette in Holy Matrimony and has been slated to direct the new Lumiere production of Doctor Who (i.e. not the Spielberg production), possibly starring Alan Rickman. Nothing has been finalised though and it is unlikely to hit the cinemas until 1996 at the earliest. As for the original cast members Nichols, Doohan, and Takei are all working on books, whilst Walter Koenig has fully recovered from his heart attack and has appeared in Babylon 5. It is possible that his character may return later on in the season. Majel Barrett has decided not to write a book. Indeed she is none to pleased with all the kiss and tell tomes either already produced or on their way. She believes that Gene ought to be left to rest in peace. A sentiment that I whole heartedly agree with. The Next Generation cast are all beginning to plan their next steps after completion of the movie. Jonathan Frakes may produce low budget film projects to furher his interest in direction. Michael Dorn and Marina Sirtis may tour with a version of Othello and a recent rumour is that they might be involved in Star Trek: Voyager in some capacity. Whoopi Goldberg has not only got engaged (she's just copying Sven) but also completed 3 motion pictures. After the dismal failure of Sister Act 2, maybe one of these might be a hit for her. Corrina Corrina, a romantic comedy with Ray Liota, The Lion King, Disney's next cinematic masterpiece (it is meant to be stunning) and Boys On The Side with Mary Louise Parker and Drew Barrymore. The DS9 cast seem to be quite apart from Mr and Mrs O'Brien. Rosalind Chao completed a mini series (Intruder) and a film (The Joy Luck Club). Colm Meaney has been filming Scarlet (the television mini- series sequel to Gone With The Wind), David Putnam's new film War OF The Buttons, Alan Parker's new film The Road To Wellville and I believe he managed to fit in Widow's Peak as well. Finally, John de Lancie can be seen in the rental video release Arcade and the Jeff Bridges film Fearless (although his role is rather short). As the shows themselves, well British television finally sees the return of the Next Generation to 6.00pm on BBC2 on Wedensdays. Well I suppose we shoudn't be surprised it's still there although I was rather hoping that Alan Yentob might take it with him to BBC1. Several episodes will be cut due to the time slot with the seventh episode either being shown with 14 minutes worth of editing or not at all. Come to think of it that's no loss. In the states Next Gen and Deep Sapce Nine are number one and number two syndicated 1 hour drama shows (with Next Gen's viewing figures roughly 25% higher than DS9's) and the third and fourth most watched syndicated shows overall. Here's a little thought to leave you with. Paramount has just been bought by Viacom for $10.1 billion! Last year Star Trek made Paramount $55 million. Well, that's all for this issue. I hope you've enjoyed it and please remember to send whatever news items you can get your grubbly little mits on. Send them to: Tim Smith 159 Metchlety Lane Harborne Birmingham B17 0JL ENGLAND Tel. 021 426 2490