David and Donner Down Under

Over the past few weeks, I've been swapping emails back and forth with a Canberra-based convention organiser, Onelia, who has two upcoming Sci-Nut conventions: one tomorrow in Canberra, and one next Sunday in Brisbane.

I suggested to her that if her guests were passing through Sydney after arriving at the airport, she might like to whisk them through some of the sights and sounds of the Harbour. My Star Trek Meet-up Group was already planning to picnic at McMahon's Point - although, of course, some bright spark decided that this weekend was the perfect time to renovate the McMahon's Point ferry wharf.

And so it was that Onelia invited a group of us to brunch with novelist David R George III and his wife, Karen - and Star Trek actor, Jack Donner - at a venue (suggested by me): Pancakes at the Rocks.


Tal the Romulan with
personal cloaking device activated

(Diane Duane would call this The Empty Chair of the Rihannsu, no doubt.)


A Romulan decloaks!


Jack Donner (Tal the Romulan from "Star Trek" and Vulcan Priest from "Enterprise") and Star Trek novelist David R. George III at Pancakes at the Rocks, Sydney, today. Straight off the plane but already greeting the local fans!


Jack, David and Karen were all confident, funny and charismatic guests - and hopefully we represented Australian star trek fandom well. Thanks so much Onelia! I'll see you all on 2nd September in Brissie!

Breakfast with the star(s)

Stay tuned to hear the true tale of the jet-lagged Star Trek novelist force-fed pancakes - at The Rocks - in good ol' downtown Sydney, Down Under.

Brunch is summoning. And - luckily for me - it's my weekly Junk Food Day!

Writers blogging

I just discovered that a writer/reviewer/editor friend, Judith Ridge, who works on the editorial staff of the long-running "School Magazine" (NSW Department of Education & Training), has a very slick and erudite webblog, The New Misrule Blog. Judith focuses on children's literature, of course, and her blog was recently reviewed in the latest issue of the professional journal, "Scan", my own old editorial stamping ground. A "Scan" reviewing colleague, Carol Thomas, praised Judith's work in the review, suggesting ways teachers might use it for both information, and as a weblog model of excellence. Carol also provided some pithy comments on blogging and the Internet in general; I absolutely love Carol's incisive observation that "the electronic world is choked with egocentric ramblings".

Egocentric ramblings? Mmmmm, sounds a lot like my blog?!

If you follow the link above to Judith's site, you'll see she links to blogs from other colleagues and contacts from my days at State Office, including former editor of "School Magazine", Jonathan Shaw, and the zany novelist, poet, globetrotter and film buff, Geoffrey McSkimming, creator of Cairo Jim!

Meet Ortees Sharad

Coming very soon from IDW Publishing:

Star Trek: Aliens Spotlight: Andorians is a one-issue comic written by Paul Storrie, with art by Leonard O'Grady, and four alternate covers (the above cover by Zach Howard and O'Grady).

"In the vast Star Trek universe, many diverse alien races abound, and now they finally get their due! Continuing a series of one-shots, each by a different creative team and featuring a different Star Trek alien race. Now, the spotlight shines on the Andorians." In this issue, "Andorian Ortees Sharad, a Commander in Starfleet Intelligence, returns to his homeworld while on leave and finds himself in the midst of mistrust and deception, and is captured by a renegade commander of the 'True Heirs of Andor'."

Sounds very, very cool! I think I've been waiting for this comic since... oh, about December 1979!

Captain's Log: Supplemental. Initial promotional material called the feature character of this comic "Ortees Shared".

A Tellarite never reveals what's under his kilt

I know you're dying to ask, but I'm not telling whether or not I decided to wear the official Paramount Pictures Tellarite fat-suit under the ambassadorial robes or not! (I'm actually convinced that the design of the outfit, the fabric, and the pattern are intended to accentuate bulges, to give the illusion of porcine dimensions - whereas the Andorian outfit made me feel quite buff!)


Ian tries on the Ambassador Gral's robe (and trousers).

The tailoring on these outfits is truly amazing. To think that so much work - often completely unnoticed in the episodes, such as to render it invisible, or at least not jarringly wrong - went into even minor Star Trek characters!


Ambassador Gral's matching topcoat is even more elaborate!
The elaborate design on the back (below) includes dark fabric sections to match the trousers.

When programs crash...

Success! For the last fortnight, I've been trying to think of sneaky ways to out-think an old, corrupted BB Edit Lite program, which is installed on my old iMac computer, because all the original files for my various fan web sites are stored on the iMac's hard drive and they need the program to open. (It didn't matter if I tried to open the file I needed to change - which used to open the program automatically - or, now, even clicking on the program itself, which used to work up until a few months ago.)

An old Internet contact had emailed a few weeks ago to ask me to remove their name from my website; their new job meant that they no longer wanted to be associated with fannish trivialities, and their name on my site was coming up as the top entry when theirr employees Googled the boss's name! Try as I might, I couldn't access the files to make the requested deletion. But I just now realised what to do: I simply duplicate and rename the .html file I need to change to a .txt file.

It worked! Now that I've come into BB Edit Lite via the back door, as it were, I can make the changes I need to make and upload the new version of my site to the Web. Be back soon!

Who needs a computer guru these days?

Note to self: "Ummmm, me?"

Fat free forever: Phase III

Why, oh why, did Dianne Barker call it "Fat Free Forever"? As a diet plan, it works perfectly. I'm now doing it for the third time. (There's an irony there.) Just over a year ago, on this very blog, I boasted that I was mere kilograms from my goal weight again. I was ecstatic! But, inevitably, Christmas rolled around - with all the parties, farewells, celebrations, retirements, and those lazy days of sitting around the house, playing on the Internet and watching DVDs - and I spent all of January too scared to hop on the scales, at least until I thought I'd gotten back to within reach of that goal weight. I also joked, based on my first dieting endeavours with the book from the 90s, that I could writing my own book called "Fat Free For Five Years". Mmmmm. "Fat Free For Five Months", perhaps.

Unfortunately, that day never came. I surprised myself that I could fit into the Andorian costume I won on eBay, and I think I may have relaxed too much (stupid, really, because the costume's made of stretch lycra, and it's designed to hide all the flabby bits!) Very soon after that, I was straining and breathless to tie my shoelaces again. Deja vu! I suddenly had an awful feeling that I'd crept right back up to my mass of about two years ago. (So, out came the scales, and you know, I had put back almost everything I'd so recently lost! Heartbreaking!)

Two Sundays ago, after a particularly unsatisfying takeaway pizza feast, I started all over again. You see, there's nothing wrong with Dianne's diet plan; if you stop putting fat in your mouth, and do lots of walking, then you won't add fat to your body. Easy! (Yeah, easy. Ha!)

Without a doubt, the hardest bit is being disciplined about how, and what, and when, you eat. "Fat Free Forever" urges you to keep your body running as you'd keep a car engine running: use the best fuel; keep the car topped up all the time (including morning and afternoon snacks); and don't let the car engine run dry. Makes perfect sense. And the body's metabolism definitely starts to run faster. (I definitely remember the day that my metabolism first slowed down. I reckon it was the day I turned 30, and so does my waistline. I also figure it slowed down again, quite noticeably, at age 40.)

Dianne recommends that, if you want to eat the five starchy carbohydrates (bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, cereals) then do it before the mid afternoon so your body is not tempted to store up the goodness for later on, when you'll just be sleeping anyway. (Wow, that's weird; there is an "expert" discussing carbohydrates on the radio as I type! Essentially, the speaker agrees with Dianne about their value, and busted some of the myths, suggesting that a dry sponge and a wet sponge look exactly the same, but one will have more mass. Similarly, your body needs to have a store of carbohydrates for the day, and you'll weigh more on the scales, but it doesn't mean that the body is carrying new fat. Cool!)

"Fat Free Forever" also recommends celebrating with a "Junk Food Day" meal. It's certainly something to strive towards! Once a week, with your metabolism running fast, having a meal of junk food sends your system into overdrive, and it actually works harder to process the greasy stuff. The problem with having junk food every day is that it slows down the metabolism. And eating fat regularly makes you crave fat. Of that I don't think anyone would disagree.

Regular exercise is certainly not a problem for me. I don't own a car, and I walk a lot. (And the dog has ways of making me feel guilty if I don't take him with me.) But... I often wonder how big I'd be if I did have a car. Obviously I don't walk enough for the food intake when not on the diet. Well, it's a diet plan for forever, of course, but I am constantly amazed by how much walking is supposedly needed to walk off a bag of hot french fries. I can promise myself to "walk it off" before eating the chips all I like, but the reality is that I probably won't end up doing it, and there lies the problem. If I don't put fat in my mouth, then I won't be adding fat to my body. Sigh.

Without a doubt, my problem is discipline. Self-discipline. If I was more disciplined about my diet routines, I'd still be at my goal weight from the 90s. If I was more disciplined about my writing routines, I'd be a published novelist by now. If I was more disciplined about housework... (Ooooh, let's not go there.)

Well, this blog is doing it's bit. I hope. I'm doing a fairly good job of making myself write something every day, and certainly some anecdotes in this blog have given me great ideas for stories. It's funny looking back over a year of these little anecdotes from daily life; there are some gems in here, that would probably have been forgotten had I not written about them as they happened.

A surprising number of hits that show up on my site meter are from people Googling Dianne and her diet. There's certainly a lot of curiosity about it, and it does work! I'm very grateful to have heard her speak that day in the 90s, and for all the encouragement that book gives me every day I'm back on the plan. As I said, all I need is the discipline to stick with it. Forever this time.

Sunday's (no longer) mystery number: 94.6, yay!

Happiness is a new squeaky

I made Jack's furry little face light up today: an all-new, well-bound, supposedly-difficult-to-destroy squeak toy, in the shape of a large fabric donut.



At first he just carried it around the house - tail wagging - barely able to decide whether to play with it, hide it, be chased while running with it, or attempt to remove the several squeakers sewn inside.

Certainly, it has been a great hit, so far. I wonder how long it'll last?

Therindipity

I was asked yesterday, "Why do you like Andorians so much?

I dunno. I think I first read about them in Bjo Trimble's "Star Trek Concordance" and I related to her brief, yet tantalizing, description, based on DC Fontana's script notes from "Journey to Babel" (TOS). I guess I related to the mention of blue skin, antennae, a calm exterior hiding their warrior traits, and Shran having a slight lisp?



I didn't get into organised Star Trek fandom until seeing "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in December 1979 and, after seeing the film about three times, I made it my mission to find the two Andorian crewmen featured in publicity stills, and (when they finally invented video freeze frame for VCRs) the three Andorian extras playing ambassadorial staff in the San Francisco scenes.

The quest to see an Andorian in an actual episode of TOS was my next passionate mission. Star Trek wasn't screening on Aussie television at that time, but we did have a guy who ran Star Trek Marathons throughout the 80s, at ANZAC House - five monthly episodes on the big screen! It was there that I eventually saw "Gamesters of Triskelion" and "Whom Gods Destroy". The second marathon I attended was a costumed affair, so there was only one choice by that point (see my icon pic, which was my 1980 dress rehearsal shot before the big day):



I started reading all the Blish novelizations, and when I bought my "Mr. Spock's Time Trek" View-master reels, that was the day I realized I'd already seen "Yesteryear" (yay Thelin!), and the brief cameos of Andorians in "The Time Trap" (Filmation's Star Trek Animated series, aka TAS).

I put the screws on the marathon guy to screen "Journey to Babel", but he apologised that the only print he owned was badly damaged: green scratch lines down the middle of most footage, and huge bits missing from many scenes. (Every time Amanda went to speak the scene changed!) However he did run the twenty minutes,or so, that he did have, during the lunchbreak of one marathon - I'm sure that's the origin of the misremembered Bjo Trimble anecdote (about censorship of Star Trek Down Under) in the TOS DVDs bonus features. One of my first conversations with Bjo, when I met her in 1984, was telling her that I'd only just been able to see a badly-chopped 20-minute version of "Journey to Babel" back home!



(I also once joked I'd play a new Andorian at a ST convention: a "Bob Johnston print Andorian": complete with green stripes down the face!)

When news was breaking on the ST II film project, I decided that my perfect Andorian villain (or hero) for a ST movie would be... John Phillip Law (Pygar of "Barbarella"), but alas, Andorians weren't even glimpsed again until ST IV. And then all but ignored in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (TNG). "Deep Space Nine" (DS9) and "Voyager" (VOY) offered only a few stray references in dialogue.

You can imagine how pleased I was when "Enterprise" (ENT) announced "The Andorian Incident", which was to feature Jeffrey Combs, in what became a frequently recurring Andorian role. With moving antennae to boot!

Bordering on alienation?

I promise I had absolutely nothing to do with this photo cover of the 2007 Father's Day book catalogue! I walked past Borders book store in Sydney's CBD tonight, and was suddenly aware of multiple (huge) versions of this cover, as their window display, looking over my shoulder.



Inside the catalogue there are other photos of some stereotypical Dads, and the books and gifts they might like: Dad as Elvis; a detective; racing car driver; university student; and the (above) small inset of an Andorian.

It's not the first time I've been tempted to feature a Borders book catalogue in this blog. Last Christmas, the b/w cover photograph had Aussies making traditional American "snow angels", but on a beach on a hot day! If i hadn't run out of Flickr! space, it would be here, too.

Be here now

When I was a teen, a friend had "Be here now" written by hand on her school folder for several years, and I well remember the day Monica was daubing it in white paint, on a soon-to-be-demolished brick building at my high school, during the early hours of our Higher School Certificate year Muck-up Day in 1976.

No one really had to explain what "Be here now" meant, and no one even questioned where the phrase came from but, today, Google tells me it was the title of a 1971 book on spirituality by someone called Ram Dass.

Every now and then, that little phrase comes back to me, but because it's so intrinsically linked to the precise times when I first read - and pondered - it, not only can I be here now, but I am suddenly also there now, too.

Blessed events: a shaggy dog story

One of my (adult) volunteer library helpers reported today on the progress of her sick dog. Two weeks ago she was off to take her dog to the vet, and it had all seemed rather grim, but we didn't get the update until she returned to the library this morning.

The dog had been very listless, droopy-eared, moody, and sometimes agitated - and was putting on weight, even though the family had cut down on her doggie treats.

"I told the vet that something about the dog just wasn't right," she said.

Needless to say, the dog gave birth to puppies last Monday.

I mean, the answer seems so obvious in retrospect, but this kind of immaculate conception anecdote turns up so often. Vets must get really sick of it. Surely the guess-what-your-dog-is-pregnant tale rates right up there with taking one's female kitten to be desexed and having the vet point out its healthy set of testicles! Or the case of the pair of guaranteed female guinea pigs, which produce a litter a few months after purchase (and a second litter after the male breaks through the dividing wall of the hutch the morning of the first delivery)!

The more my helper insisted, "I told them that something just wasn't right", the more we all fell about in fits of giggles.

Congratulations, Grandma Carmel!

Brisbane Sci-Nut Convention: Sunday 2nd Sept!

On a whim, I've decided I'm going to the one-day Brisbane Sci-Nut Convention on Sunday 2nd September! (Mmmm. Happy Father's Day, Dad - but you can't have that bag of black jellybeans until I get to Perth in October.)

Guests include Jack Donner (Romulan Subcommander Tal, of the original "Star Trek" episode, "The Enterprise Incident" and the Vulcan Priest from several episodes of "Enterprise"), David R George III (Trek novelist, who wrote the recent "Crucible" trilogy and co-wrote "The 34th Rule"), Dragon Dronet (props & weapons) and Wanda Piety (costumes, modules and miniatures). Mr George is a last-minute switch for Susan Shwartz. For bookings, use the convention's online ticketing agent, Water Sprite Pty Ltd.


David R George III, author of "Crucible" is coming!
(Triptych cover art by John Picacio)

The same convention runs in Canberra the previous Sunday (26th August), the day after the Sydney Star Trek Meet-up has scheduled its first picnic - but I already have accommodation in Brisbane, visiting my friends Peter and Maria, and their new baby, Benjamin (who hopefully won't already be walking before I get there. Babies grow up too quickly these days!).

I hope to see some familiar Sydney faces there, plus the regular ConQuest crowd, since ConQuest itself isn't running until November this year!

Sunday's mystery number: 96.1, sighing with relief.

Trek days straight

Hey there Beckie (my niece)!

I just realised there's been almost a week of Star Trek-related posts! I've been scratching my head, trying to think of something else but I guess I'm just in a Star Trek frame of mind...

They mentioned at work this week that the students will be encouraged to wear multicultural costumes at an upcoming school event. Mmmmm. Should I wear the authentic Andorian robes, or the Tellarite jacket?

Faces in the crowd

I've wanted to do this for quite a while, as it's a frequently asked question: who in Star Trek fandom played the crew of the USS Enterprise in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979)?

To thank the fans who'd supported the ongoing call, throughout the 70s, to put pressure on Paramount Pictures to make a Star Trek reunion movie, Gene Roddenberry - knowing that Hollywood couldn't possibly supply the number of Screen Extras Guild card-carrying bodies the scene in the Rec Deck needed - asked that a now legendary "cattle call" be organised by fan extraordinaire, Bjo Trimble. There were strict height and costume size restrictions, and the males had to forfeit any elaborate sideburns or moustaches, unless they were to be hidden inside a latex alien head.

Special white outfits were made for four guest extras who were too tiny to make the height restriction: including Susan Sackett (on the upper deck); Bjo Trimble herself; a Star Trek office secretary named Michelle; and Leonard Nimoy's then-fan club president, Louise Stange. Everyone else had to be aged between 20 and 40, men from 5'8" to 6'2", sizes 40-42, and women from 5'6" to 5'8', sizes 8-10.

Over the years, several books, including Bjo's own "On the Good Ship Enterprise" (Donning, 1982) and Walter Koenig's "Chekov's Enterprise" (Pocket, 1980) have mentioned partial lists of the fans who made up the successful group of about 170 (of over 350 hopefuls). An early article by Dennis Fischer (a regular "Cinefantastique" reviewer) was called "Part of the magic: the experience of being a Star Trek extra", which appeared in issue # 7 of "Enterprise Incidents" (Nov 1979, pp 4-8), the slick pro zine of the day. Dennis's article was written only days after the filming of the scene, and before any official publicity material about the TMP aliens had been released. It has the best list of participants, with a lot of information on who's who, and where to find some of them. Susan Sackett's "Starlog" column on the making of ST: TMP also featured the casting call (in issue #20, p 22).

Other fan extras have made themselves known in recent years via Internet sources. I've added a scale along the bottom of the photo to make it easier to point out certain humans and aliens. If you know anyone I missed, or can identify someone in the cast pic, please do let me know!


Extras and Star Trek fans play the crew of the USS Enterprise in ST:TMP.


James Doohan's twin sons, Christopher Doohan and Montgomery Doohan, appeared as extras, as did Richard Arnold and Bill Hickey (I think located in third row at 6). Koenig's and Trimble's memoirs name "The Trouble With Tribbles" writer David Gerrold, Roddenberry's assistant, Susan Sackett, Millicent Wise (director Robert Wise's wife, front row at 7), TMP movie hairdresser Barbara Minster, TMP makeup artist Ve Neill, and fans JoAnn Christy, Cedric Taporco (a handsome guy who ended up in a purple Saurian head), John Watts, Rosanna Attias, Paula Crist, Denise Tathwell (now Denise Okuda!), Leigh Strother-Vien, Dennis Fischer, Kathleen Sky-Goldin, Verne Dietsche, Will Guest and Eileen Salamas. Susan mentioned Leah Livingston, daughter of TMP screenwriter Harold, as a participant in her 1980 book "The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (p. 38).

A summary of fan extras from Dennis Fischer's article:

Dennis Fischer himself - brown uniform, green epaulets, no rank, therefore considered himself an orderly or medical cadet. Placed at back of group because he was 6'4" (two inches taller than specified in the height restrictions!), and taller than the principal actors. He then describes several fans who were placed around him:

Leigh Strother-Vien, tall red-headed female of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society (LASFS), placed next to Fischer.

Don Fanning - "big headed alien" with "methane mask with light-up eyes" covering his face and the "back of head looked like someone's posterior" (we now know to be a Zaranite), to the right of Strother-Vien.

Katherine Kurtz, tall blonde author of the "Deryni" series, placed on other side of Fischer to Strother-Vien, and to the left of Don Fanning's Zaranite.

Bjo Trimble - white uniform, placed to Fisher's left behind two tall people. Many people expect to recognize Bjo on the Rec Deck but, as she explains in her book, she is quite short and was placed behind a hulking male Zaranite. Most assume that the petite woman in beige, in the front row at 7 near David Gerrold (at 8.5), is Bjo - but no, that's Mrs Robert Wise!

Kathleen Sky - red-haired Bantam ST novelist, behind Fischer. Ms Sky wrote "Vulcan!" and "Death's Angel", and was married to fellow Trek novelist Steven Goldin at the time.

Jay Smith - red-haired male, next to Kathleen Sky.

Walt Doty - described as "handsome, young" African American student, a co-president of ASTRA SF club, who had to shave off his moustache to be a TMP extra; placed near other African American.

John Watts - Andorian (third row at 15) - as mentioned in Trimble's book, "for three straight years" John played "one sort of blue-skinned character or other" at Equicon conventions. Coincidentally cast as an Andorian by Robert Wise, he walked bluely past Bjo saying, "How did they know?"

JoAnn Christy (now Nolan) - Vulcan female, in front row at 6. The shy JoAnn is also mentioned in a cute anecdote in the Trimble book, and is named as T'Hesh in Christopher L. Bennett's novel, "Ex Machina". (See more details below.) The article mistakenly calls her "Joanna" (sic).

FANS ON BALCONY:

Vincent (no surname given) - in purple, Gorn-like "lizard outfit" (we now know as a Saurian). (Fischer tells the same tongue-poking anecdote as Bjo did, so this may be Cedric Taporco.)

James T Kirk, the 70s ST fan who had infamously changed his name by deed poll.

Marlene Willauer - almost chosen over JoAnn Christy to be the front row Vulcan, but ended up (balcony at 7.5) "hobnobbing with Susan Sackett", to quote Fischer. (Bjo's book misidentifies Marlene as Denise Tathwell - the future Mrs Michael Okuda - in the closeup group photograph. Denise can be seen in the rec deck scene at 17.5, four rows back, in front of a Rhaandarite.)

Susan Sackett - white uniform (balcony at 8).

Louise Stange - white uniform (balcony at 5.5). Appeared in TMP by special request of Leonard Nimoy. As often happened, Louise's surname appears as "Strange" (sic) in the article. Later known as Louise Stange-Wahl.

Michelle - white uniform, a secretary from Roddenberry's office at Paramount. According to Fischer's article, Michelle supposedly "threatened to refile everything" in the Star Trek production office unless she got put into the film. (I'm wondering if this is Michele Ameen Billy, who was secretary to Harold Livingston, the film's screenwriter? Ms Billy was cast as a speaking character on the Epsilon IX space station, filmed after the rest of principal photography - but this would mean that one Michele watched the other, identical, Michele die on the viewscreen! Today, Michele Ameen Billy is better known as Mrs Jon Povill.)

Unclear if they "made it", but mentioned in the article:

Mike Hodel, radio announcer of "Hour 25" SF radio series (or was he just interviewing at the gate?)

Alan Frisbie - "an alternate" extra - Dennis Fischer reported that Frisbie only "has to kill 15 people" to get into the scene.

Other Starfleet alien descriptions, mentioned by Fischer's article, were "another purple alien that resembled the mutant from 'This Island Earth', but with a smaller cranium" (ie. Betelgeusian) and "bump-heads who resembled Frankenstein's monster with long, blond hair, and they looked like they were ready to do the 'Time Warp'" (we now know as being Rhaandarites, but they were Vegans on that day and "high-domed Vegans" in the shooting script. Memory Alpha discloses that one "Vegan" was played by fan Steven Lance, also known as Steven L Hersh, who did a lot of screen extra work at the time and was a science fiction convention organiser.

"On the Good Ship Enterprise" devotes a chapter to the cattle call and the big day of filming. A black and white casual, group photo in the book shows some fans in uniform surrounding Grace Lee Whitney. ("Enterprise Incidents" has a differently-cropped version of the same photo accompanying its Fischer article, which unfortunately leaves off the alien, Worene, on Bjo's right).

There's a whole chapter, in "On the Good Ship Enterprise", about Worene, the wolfish alien created for TMP by actress/stuntwoman Paula Crist (who later played Baby the brontosaurus in Disney's "Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend"). Ms Crist met Gene Roddenberry at several conventions in Los Angeles. Once she was dressed as Thorwor, a feral-looking male alien. Roddenberry invited her to test for Bridge Alien, doing her own makeup, which she modified as female, but the role was won by fellow pro actor Billy Van Zandt (front row at 2, who scored Fred Phillip's Rhaandarite makeup, and one line of dialogue that wasn't restored until the ABC TV premiere). Because Paula Crist (now know as Paula Crist-Pickett) was a Screen Actors Guild member, she did score herself a screen credit for playing Worene on the Rec Deck.

Paula Crist told Dennis Fischer on the day of filming that she called Worene's makeup a Czintii. He assumes she did not intend any connection to Larry Niven's felinoid kzinti (of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" and Niven's "Known Space" science fiction universe). Fischer thought that Worene resembled a female Tellarite (TOS).

By the way, Worene's species is given as Aulacri in the more recent Star Trek novel, "Ex Machina" (2005), a sequel to TMP. (P-aula cri-st, get it?) The novel's author, Christopher L Bennett, has some great closeups of the Rec Deck characters, to whom he's given identities and personalities, in that novel. David Gerrold's character is named Gerry Auberson. Billy Van Zandt's is Vaylin Zaand. And one of the Rec Deck's Andorians is actually named for me in "Ex Machina": Shantherin th'Clane! Incredibly, this was the same Andorian played by fan John Watts; when I visited Bjo Trimble in January 1984, she thought John and I had lots in common, even beyond the blue skin and antennae. (John and I finally did get in touch via Facebook!)

The tall male Vulcan, whom Christopher Bennett calls Spanla, is easily recognisable in TMP: Scott Dweck, or perhaps spelt "Dwek", (three rows back at 9, in the above colour photo) is the son of Grace Lee Whitney. Scott and his brother had appeared uncredited in the episode "Miri" (TOS) as young children. Ms Whitney used to sell pics of her Vulcan son at conventions. If I recall correctly, Scott is the one who became the commercial pilot. His most exciting duty used to be to take actor Christopher Reeve for his annual pilot renewal test. In the 80s, Grace Lee Whitney used to boast that her son gave Superman his license to fly!


This pic joins together the two b/w photos mentioned above.

Front row, from left: Marlene Willauer, Scott Dweck (as a Vulcan), Paula Crist (as Worene), Bjo Trimble, Grace Lee Whitney (as Janice Rand), Susan Sackett and Louise Stange.
Next row, from left: Kathleen Sky, Leigh Strother-Vien and the very tall Dennis Fischer. David Gerrold is behind Grace Lee Whitney.


Captain's Log: Supplemental. The 2009 DVD release of TMP features a reunion between fan extras Fred Bronson (writer of "The Counter-clock Incident", TAS), Bjo Trimble, Christopher Doohan, David Gerrold and Jo Ann Nolan, chatting on the same soundstage used for the rec deck scene.

In August 2010, I was contacted by fan extra Don J Long, who explained that he could be seen "in the center at 8.5". His friend, Gordon Cardoza, "is on my right" (ie. to the left in the photo). Don's head is clearly visible in front of a African American man in a white costume (who is standing by the column in the center of the picture). Another fan extra known to Don was Randall Larson, from the Federation Outpost Star Trek store. Thanks Don!

More updates welcomed any time!

On the mark

Mark asks, "Re: your (Star Trek) costume purchases mentioned in the previous post - It sounds like there are notations on the costumes themselves, but do you get any other documentation about their history?"

Good question, Mark! Thank you!

The It's a Wrap! Star Trek costumes come with up to four pieces of identification.

Firstly, on the Star Trek clothing items themselves, many Paramount costumes have sewn-in, rectangular, cloth tags, usually identified with the official logo of the Star Trek television series or feature film for which they were made, or perhaps a generic "Western Costumes" tag (as in Gulf & Western/Paramount). These labels have lines for several wearers, and the name(s) of these actors, extra or stunt people, plus often an episode number, are hand-lettered with a laundry marker. It's unlikely there is any more extensive and official surviving documentation than this. (The Christie's 40th anniversary auction, last year, did sell off some albums of wardrobe continuity Polaroids, if I recall correctly.)

However, many of the costumes also have a thin cardboard "luggage" tag (below), which lists any individual items that go together to make one costume. This costume tag would have been originally attached to the hanger, and when the item gets sold off, it gets placed into the envelope with the Certificate of Authenticity. (In fact, I didn't think to look for the Andorian tag until my Tellarite costume arrived with one. I checked the bottom of the Andorian's envelope - and there was the tag!)


Costume tags accompanying my eBay wins

There's also the online eBay description, a paragraph (usually) listing the most important appearances of the costume. While it's obvious that the Paramount and It's a Wrap! staff have put considerable effort into researching the costumes, many of which have hung on racks since the mid 70s, they do make mistakes and hasty assumptions, and that's where fans like Jörg (who posts all manner of errors and corrections to the Star Trek Auctions, Props & Costumes bbs), come in handy!

I actually lucked out on my Andorian costume, as the eBay description seems to focus on the costumes first onscreen usage, as per the costume ("luggage") tag. Had they used the sewn-in tags, they'd have listed the actor who first wore the outfit in scenes later reshot with a different actor, and the major re-use of the costume - with an additional cape - by a named character in a later episode! Had there been more information online, the price would have gone much higher!

Similarly, as I noted in my Tellarite post, the fat-suit's sewn-in tag (below) reveals that it has a more extensive life than the outer costume, and a quick Google search on actors' names, and/or episode numbers, brings up some exciting research results! It even revealed an extra name I could add to Memory Alpha.


The sewn-in tag reveals its history!

Finally, there's a Certificate of Authenticity from It's a Wrap! This features the title of the item, exactly as it was listed on eBay, and a small photograph of the item.

I recall Richard Arnold, then-Star Trek Archivist at Paramount, once mentioning the fun he had during the lead-up to 20th anniversary of Star Trek in 1986. A huge display was being organised and, for the first time, a serious rummage was made through the surviving costumes and props of the original series, the failed "Phase II" and the early movies. Much of TOS was unlabeled, but even more had been lost to the winds of time (or rejigged for renting out to shows like "Mork and Mindy"). At one point, someone found a box of random scarves. Richard suddenly recognized the colours and patterns, and realised it was actually a skimpy outfit once worn by one of "Mudd's Women"!

Drawing a blank

I was all ready to post a rather elaborate blog entry tonight when the 'Net went down. Drat! By the time it came back up, I was feeling uninspired and tired. Oh well, back to the old drawing board.

The Tellarite vs Australian Customs

"Tellarites don't argue for reasons; they merely argue." (Sarek of Vulcan)

How ironic that I felt like arguing over a Tellarite costume! I took a leaf from Star Trek and quit while I was behind. It really wasn't worth trying to argue with Australian Customs, especially when I had no choice but to admit defeat. But today, I also have to come clean - and tell you about my latest eBay acquisitions.

A few weeks after winning a set of screen-used Andorian robes from It's a Wrap!, I placed bids on two other Star Trek items. ('Tis the season to be greedy?) I had found an amazingly detailed Tellarite ambassador's costume from the "Star Trek: Enterprise" episode, "Babel One" (as worn by actor Lee Arenberg, as Gral*), that wasn't garnering much interest.


Ambassador Gral of Tellar Prime


Ditto a casual grey Starfleet shirt from the doomed Epsilon IX Space Station of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture". While I fully expected to lose both auctions, I was rather startled to win both auctions - for very reasonable prices!

For the two weeks of my recent vacation, I watched the mail closely. My calculations had the parcel due sometime in that fortnight, but alas! In my haste to save on postage, I'd requested that both items travel Down Under in the same carton. Because the combined total cost nudged itself over the $AU 1000 mark, my latest haul was delayed... in Customs. Drat! Thus, I got hit with a hefty inspection fee, plus customs duty, and GST (sales tax). Drat and double drat.

The most frustrating aspect was that the box was to be held up for at least five days while I filled in the paperwork, calculated the separate amounts in Australian dollars (as per the day they were purchased) and faxed them back. After ten days I'd still heard nothing more, so I rang to inquire. Yes, there was a general delay. When I pressed for my details to be checked, customs said they'd never received my paperwork, even though the paperwork was sent in two different batches and the fax machine had printed out receipts confirming the correct fax number.

The faxes were re-sent, and suddenly there was another form - the payment invoice for the Customs charges - to fill in and fax back. (That was last Thursday, so it's been an agonizing few more days.)

Of course, the top secret box arrived this morning, while I was in the shower. My housemate answered the door to the postal delivery man - maybe he'd assume the box contained new Star Trek action figures - but his first question to me was, "What costumes have you bought now?" Drat and triple drat.

Having come clean on my latest eBay adventures, I had to wait until this afternoon, after work, to open up the box. The costumes are quite exciting! The TMP shirt looks like it was made for me! Perfect sleeve length; a beautiful, raw cotton, grey shirt, in beautiful condition, especially considering it's been in storage at Paramount Studios since 1978!



"A costume featured in 'Star Trek I: The Motion Picture' for wear by characters on board the 'Epsilon IX Station'. The costume is a gray colored shirt with an open neck and an affixed yellow backed 'Epsilon IX' assignment patch on the left breast. Item Number 3716."

The Tellarite costume is an elaborate, two-layered brown jacket, covered in brass buttons, cords and tassels, and metal trim. It comes with matching trousers - and a "fat suit". Now, part of my strategy was that buying a costume requiring a fat-suit would be ideal, since if it was too small for me, I could just omit the padded undershirt. (After yesterday's "diet" post, it was all quite ironic.) Amazingly, the costume, although worn by the petite Mr Arenberg on-screen, fits me perfectly, even in the sleeve length. And yeah, I don't need the fat suit. Hardy har.



"'Ambassador Gral' (Lee Arenberg) was a high-ranking Tellarite official featured in the 'Star Trek: Enterprise' episode 'Babel One'. Gral was transported by the U.S.S. Enterprise NX-01 with the rest of his delegation to discuss a trade dispute with the Andorian Empire on the planetoid Babel however he complained for the entire voyage. His costume includes a cropped sleeved padded undershirt with padding around the belly and shoulders to create the Tellarite appearance. The ornate coat is ribbed brown with many gold and black colored buttons over the surface. It zips up the front and there are also two metal fastening on the front. Worn over the coat is a cropped long sleeved coat with more buttons and impressive detail on the back. Black cord with metal accents and brown tassels add to the detail. Corresponding brown trousers complete the outfit. Costume comes complete with costume tag. Item Number 3780."

By the way, the sewn-in "Enterprise" tag in the fat-suit shows that this costume element has an interesting pedigree! It indicates that, after "Babel One" (and "United"), the same fat-suit was used by stuntman Tony Brubaker, in the Klingon-themed episode "Divergence"; extra Pablo Soriano in "In a Mirror Darkly, Part I" (as Terev, the Tellarite in the agony booth); and extra Trey Stokes, as one of the Tellarite ambassadorial aides in the "Demons"/"Terra Prime" two-parter.


Shran & Gral shooting "United". Thanks Frontier of TrekBBS!

I must stop looking on eBay on Saturdays...

* By the way, Lee Arenberg has played a Ferengi - also called Gral - in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode, "The Nagus"!

The midnight munchies

It's almost midnight and I have the munchies. I recommenced my diet today, having managed to put back in the first half of 2007 almost everything I'd lost by July 2006. Sigh. I've avoided stepping onto the scales ever since February, and half-hearted attempts to get back into the swing of the diet have failed miserably. (I did drag out the scales yesterday, hence the new resolve.)

I actually started the diet yesterday, but I had to call in to see two different elderly women. Stereotypically, the first one plied me with chocolate coated mini Wagon Wheels and fruit cake with morning tea, and the second fed me chocolate Mint Slices and jam tartlets for afternoon tea. "Please have another one. You've hardly eaten anything." That's not to mention the leftover pizza I reheated for dinner - or, now that I think about it, the low-fat "Lean Beef Burger" I bought from McDonald's for lunch! Sigh...

They say that when you get late-night munchies while on a diet, just go to bed. Well, there's no more "Big Brother Uplate" until next year, and going to bed should help me to get to my morning meeting on time... so I guess I should follow that advice.

The diet, Fat Free Forever works extremely well, and I've done it successfully - twice. It's the "forever" bit that's hard. The diet allows for a weekly Junk Food Day! Sadly, though, to keep the "forever' bit true, one must keep the metabolism running fast, and steadily, like a car engine. Meaning Junk Food Day really can happen only once a week, and for the one meal. Self control. Will power. Drat.

At least the refrigerator has been emptied of all those high fat leftovers now. (Yeah, I know, I ate them yesterday.) Burp!

A bitter little pill

I had a bit of a scare with the dog today. All seems well now but, yesterday, Jack had attended the vet with his usual Jack Russell confidence (march in, full of bravado, through the automatic doors, realise where we are, about-face - and run straight back out!) He was given something for every orifice, but emerged victorious and immunized for yet another year, having put a smile on the vets' and the receptionists' faces with his winning charm.

Today we visited an elderly friend, who always looks forward to Jack's enthusiastic visits. She asked if she could feed him, but I explained that she really didn't need to open a fresh pack of treats just for Jack. As she gave him a bowl of water, I noticed Jack crunching away on something he'd found in the corner. Then I noticed a long, white tablet lying on the floor, near the kitchen cupboards, and Jack about to devour it. Now, Jack is known to be impossible to get medication into - even chocolate flavoured ones! - but if he thinks it's a forgotten lolly, he'll suddenly treat it very differently.

While I was able to retrieve the stray pill just in time, I really had no idea if Jack had already consumed one. And if he had, there was no way to know which of my friend's many medications had gone down the hatch. I spent several worrisome hours, fully expecting Jack's heart rate to increase, or decrease, noticeably. Should I keep Jack quiet (Ha! Fat chance!), I asked myself, or should I try to run it out of his system? And did I really want to spend more at the vet in the one weekend?

Thankfully, it must have been a corner of dropped toast that Jack had found. Whew! And we were soon back to the important things in life, such as hunting for lizards and barking at cats.

Sunday's mystery number: 99, dammit.

Makin time for Number 96

I've just been interviewed about Aussie cult soap opera, "Number 96", and my website, by Paul Makin for his Saturday night radio program on 2UE (95.4 AM Sydney).

He asked me about how the home page came about, how I was banned from watching the show for its first 18 months, my favourite character, and my several pilgrimages to visit the actual building in Moncur Street, Woollahra, including the unforgettable night when I had dinner in what had doubled for Vera Collins' flat.



The interview goes to air tonight, along with several other "96" segments, between 6pm and midnight. Should be a lot of fun.

Saturday, 06:00 PM - 11:59 PM: Nostalgia
Paul Makin relives the news, music and personalities that helped shape the 60s, 70s and 80s using 2UE's extensive archives and record library.

Double dipping

The complaints have begun. CBS Consumer products has announced that the first season of the 1960s Star Trek on DVD, with the recently-enhanced special effects via CGI, will have a US recommended retail price of $218. Now, we all know no one will be selling them for that premium price, but that it will also be a dual high definition (HD)/regular release set, with new bonus features.

Many collectors already bought the first versions of the DVD season sets, with 60s effects made on 16mm film stock, run through multiple passes of a SPFX camera. There will be buyer resistance to the new DVDs, with fans are saying they'd prefer just the regular TV sets, but with new CGI FX, be available separately.

There'll also be resistance from people who won't want HD TV as well, but what happens the prices of HD TVs fall so low they can't resist buying one? Then they'll feel a need to buy the HD TOS sets to play on it, but they'll already have the regular version. They'll yell at CBS for "double dipping".

Don't want HD TV? Eventually, when everybody else has had one for a few years, the more stubborn viewers (or technology laggards) will start to notice that their expectations - of what an acceptable level of clarity is - have changed. When colour TV came to Australia in 1975, you know, my paternal grandmother used to say that colour TV hurt her eyes - until we bought her one of her own.

I really don't understand the anger towards companies who "double dip" their DVD releases. That only infers that the producers of all DVDs should make people wait much longer for any DVD to become available for sell-through, as the various studios scramble to make the first (and only) issue of each movie and TV show a once-only double-disk-multi-commentary-100-bonus-extras version, and then promise to never ever release a second version in our lifetimes.

When i hear the complaints, I find myself thinking: divide $218 by the number of episodes in the set, and then contemplate how amazing HD TV is. Deduct the cash you make selling your old set on eBay. Think about the wages of the SPFX guys who've been churning out the new CGI FX sequences for syndicated, repeated TOS episodes on a weekly basis for the past year. And, remembering back to the bad ol' early 80s, I remind them that a double episode of TV TOS on VHS (or Beta!) was over $70 each.

Passing through

Tonight, the Sydney Star Trek Meetup Group had its latest get-together. It was fun to meet Yvonne, a UK backpacker on her last few days in Sydney. I love how a common interest in Star Trek can result in instant rapport among strangers.

Just another book meme

Dayton Ward is "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", but...

I'm The Poisonwood Bible!

by Barbara Kingsolver

Deeply rooted in a religious background, you have since become both
isolated and schizophrenic. You were naively sure that your actions would help people, but of course they were resistant to your message and ultimately disaster ensued. Since you can see so many sides of the same issue, you are both wise beyond your years and tied to worthless perspectives. If you were a type of waffle, it would be Belgian.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Now I'm curious. Much of the analysis is quirkily spot-on - isolated and schizophrenic?; just check out this blog - but I've never read "The Poisonwood Bible". Something to add to the pile!

Mmmmm. (Channeling Homer:) Belgian waffles.

Canon collision course?

William Shatner and Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens are writing about Kirk and Spock's Academy years in "Star Trek: Academy: Collision Course". Will it or won't it be overridden by the upcoming JJ Abrams "Star Trek" feature film now in pre-production?



Shatner and the Reeve-Stevens are free to create their own origins of Kirk and Spock meeting up, of course, since they are not contradicting any existing canonical Star Trek adventures, or even previous ST novels, except maybe a trilogy of "young adult" novels. This situation is no different to DC Fontana's "Vulcan's Glory", which specifically (and purposely) made the claim that Spock was the only son of Sarek in the lead-up to the release of "ST V: The Final Frontier", which was to feature Sybok.

The so-called "Shatnerverse", as written by Shatner and the Reeve-Stevens, already exists in its own continuity. Now nine books become ten. No problem.

If there's time, the ST authors can be requested to tweak their proposals and manuscripts to match changes brought about by impending/current canonical events. For example, Jeri Taylor had to revise "Pathways" to add Seven of Nine to the framing sequence, and to have Neelix channel the missing Kes's backstory. The Remans (of "Nemesis") had to be incorporated into the latter parts of the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy by Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz.

But both of those rewrites caused scheduling delays, IIRC. So we end up with cranky fans no matter whether future canon is anticipated or not.

Awaiting the next collision course...

Bye bye, BB

Australia's "Big Brother" television series has just wound up for 2007, with a 21-year old, bottle-blonde, country girl, Aleisha, triu(m)phant* - but only just - over 24-year old, bottle-blond, gay guy, Zach.


Zach, Aleisha and host Gretel Killeen.

The decision was very close, 51% vs 49%. In fact the four last housemates (all blonds) were all deserving possible winners (if you're into trash TV). With BB's past record of making the ocker everyman the winner, I don't think many people would have guessed that a country girl and a country gay would be the last two standing (or indeed sitting, on the couch.)

Yay! Now I can actually start getting some early nights. I've become very accustomed to playing on the Internet this past few months, and listening to "Big Brother Up Late" in the background, until waaaaay to early in the mornings.

The last few days of BB 07 had lots of not-so-unpredictable surprises. The public and media may slam the show as trash TV as much as they like, but BB Australia was off to a good start way back with its very first season (2001), and the show has managed to produce some proactive social commentary on a range of issues ever since. Most of the nation watched, amazed, as young, macho, country-raised, blinkered ocker, Blair (eventually of Neighbours' fame), cried openly when gay Johnny was evicted. He then spent the next few day wearing Johnny's T-shirt.

Well done Zach and Aleisha!

* Re: triu(m)phant - poor ol' housemate Joel will never live down that forgotten "m" in a Spelling Bee.

Lighten up?

A collector friend asked, re Hallmark light-up Christmas ornaments: "Would tampering with the original wiring be destructive to the collecting value?"

Do you intend to sell them?, I wondered aloud.

Anyone buying such rewired ornaments will have their own agenda and they'll only be satisfied they've been rewired if they still work and they plan to use them exactly the same way. for some people, you rewiring them would increase the collectability because they won't need to do it.

Anyone seeking MIMP (mint in mint packaging) collectibles won't want your ornaments. They'll look elsewhere. Anyone wanting something pristine won't even be happy knowing you've hung your ornaments every Christmas for a decade before selling them, if they can find sealed, MIMP ornaments elsewhere.

Collectibles are always worth only what someone else is willing to pay for them. Selling them at a good priced depends on waiting for the right buyer with the right cash at the right time. Sometimes the planets align and you make a fortune (and then someone else will brand you a scalper!). Sometimes you're stuck with something you can't even give away. Sometimes people DO give things away, to a charity shop, and then some canny collector buys it from there, puts it on eBay and HE makes the fortune.

Luck, skill, patience, intuition, research, advertising, reputation... And hundreds of other factors.

The heading Lighten up also applies to the latest "Harry Potter" film, "The Order of the Phoenix", which I caught today. While it was a visual feast, and the tone was darker, was there any need for the cinematography to also be dark? I swear, many scenes looked like they were filmed in monochrome. I realise that this movie is based on the instalment with the biggest word count but it did feel rather disjointed. Maybe this was a case where you needed to have read the book before seeing the film? (So far I've only read Books 1, 2 and 6.) It seemed a lot of second-tier character interaction had to be swept aside.

Howling at the moon

Jack and I went for a walk around the block just before dark this evening, and I happened to notice that the moon was already up, and almost full. (According to my calendar, Monday is the day it counts as "full".) I had to smile when several dogs from a nearby yard started up the most wonderful howl-a-thon. It made me wonder if they were howling at the moon, or if their master was just late home to open a few cans of dog food.

We were almost home when we approached the house where Tyson the Rottweiler used to live (at least, up until a few months ago.) Jack still loves to anticipate that Big Bad Tyson might be there, inside his gate, waiting to bark savagely at us. Today the familiar wrought iron gates were gaping wide open, and Jack did the most hilarious cartoon-like head turns, trying to work out if Tyson was on the loose!

Doggone!

Spock + Spock

Late-breaking news at Trek Today:



Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto (of "Heroes") are Spock of Vulcan
in JJ Abrams' "Star Trek", Christmas 2008!

"Director and executive producer JJ Abrams has announced that Zachary Quinto - one of the stars of 'Heroes' - will play Spock in his upcoming eleventh 'Star Trek' film, and confirmed that Leonard Nimoy will play the older Spock as well.

From Comic-Con in San Diego, Abrams "introduced Quinto as the new Spock and confirmed William Shatner's statements that Leonard Nimoy would appear in the film as Spock in later years. The writers still want Shatner to appear as well as the original Kirk, but have not yet worked out a way for to bring in the character as an older man."

Are you Sirius?: the novels of "V"

To celebrate the forthcoming hardcover novel sequel to "V", here's a complete booklist of what has come before:

V by AC Crispin (Pinnacle, May 1984).
The novelization of "V" and "V: The Final Battle".

East Coast Crisis by Howard Weinstein & AC Crispin (Pinnacle, Sep 1984).
A parallel novel to "V" and "V: The Final Battle", set mainly in New York.

The Pursuit of Diana by Allen Wold (Pinnacle, Dec 1984).
An original novel prelude to "V: The Series", a year before the episode "Liberation Day".

The Chicago Conversion by Geo. W Proctor (Pinnacle, Jan 1985).
After the events of "V", the Chicago resistance struggles to rebuild.

The Florida Project by Tim Sullivan (Pinnacle, Feb 1985).
Experiments with human/reptilian hybrids in the Everglades.

Prisoners and Pawns by Howard Weinstein (Pinnacle, Mar 1985).
Diana and Lydia ("V: The Series") clash in Los Angeles.

The Alien Swordmaster by Somtow Sucharitkul (Pinnacle, Apr 1985).
Set in Tokyo, Japan.

The Crivit Experiment by Allen Wold (Pinnacle, May 1985).
Alien sand creatures called crivits (from "V: The Series" episode, "Breakout") threaten North Carolina.

The New England Resistance by Tim Sullivan (Pinnacle, Jun 1985).
The friendly Visitor, Willie, aids humans in New England.

Death Tide by AC Crispin & Deborah A Marshall (Pinnacle, Jul 1985).
On the West Coast of USA, Diana tries to resolve her homeworld's water crisis.

The Texas Run by Geo. W Proctor (Pinnacle, Sep 1985).
The Dallas-Fort Worth resistance struggles to free Texans from the Visitors' cold storage.

V Annual 1986 (World International Publishing, 1985; copyright date 1984).
Includes the short stories, "The Day the Rains Didn't Come", "The Hero", "A Time to Fight", "The Three Brave Men", "Divided We Fall", "The Law in Prospect" and "Switch on to Fear", and the comic, "Nightmare".

V Storybook (World International Publishing, no date; copyright date 1984).
Includes the short stories, "Deadly Harvest", "Together We Stand", "Morning Glory", "Night of the Monster" and "Children of the War".

Path to Conquest by Howard Weinstein (Tor, Sep 1987).
Surviving the axing of "V: The Series" and the original novels moving to Tor, Diana and Lydia attempt to change Earth's weather patterns.

To Conquer the Throne by Tim Sullivan (Tor, Nov 1987).
The Great Britain resistance attempts to thwart the Visitors' latest plot.

The Oregon Invasion by Jayne Tannehill (Tor, Jan 1988).
The Pacific Northwest of USA is the next area threatened by the Visitors.

Below the Threshold by Allen Wold (Tor, Mar 1988).
The Northampton and Freeport areas are under threat.

Symphony of Terror by Somtow Sucharitkul (Tor, May 1988).
A Ninja lends assistance to American resistance cells.

V: The Second Generation by Kenneth Johnson (Tor, Feb 2008).
The creator's long-awaited sequel! Follows up the events and characters of the original television mini-series, twenty years on, but ignores everything else.

V: The Original Miniseries by Kenneth Johnson & AC Crispin (Tor, Nov 2008).
A re-presentation of Crispin's novelization of "V", with an all-new epilogue by Johnson, which ignores "V: The Final Battle" and sets up new characters and events for "V: The Second Generation".

V: UK Visitation, Volume 1 by Jonathan Morris, based on "V" by Kenneth Johnson (Big Finish, Nov 2025; 180 mins on 3 discs).
A full-cast audio drama which reimagines the original TV mini-series' plot, with the modern-day setting of the United Kingdom in the 2020s. Three one-hour episodes.

List last updated: February 2025.

Just visiting

I just found out that Kenneth Johnson's long-mooted revival of "V" (the two television mini-series and its subsequent short-lived TV series) is imminent, firstly as a hardcover novel called "V: The Second Generation". It's due for release on October 2, 2007. Yay! It's been too long between novels, too.


Break out the mousies and celebrate!

Captain's Log: Supplemental
Drat. It's delayed until January 2008.

A new era in fanzines

I received a great email the other day from Jim Caswell: he and his collective of Star Trek fans are writing and producing their own audio presentations used my Efrosian essay as research for one of their ongoing characters' backgrounds, and wrote to thank me.

Star Trek Eras: The Audio Series

The episode in question (about an Efrosian character by the name of Ra-tevnarem, a communications officer on the USS Potemkin) is going to be for their second season. Currently they are working on editing the third episode in their first season, so it's going to be a while before this episode is actually recorded and made available.

"It wasn't until after we had created the character that we realized that there was a bit of confusion about the race," says Jim - coincidentally yet another fellow Star Trekking librarian. "Using your article as a base, I've come up with some strong ideas that should go a long way toward... a comprehensive answer. I just wanted to say thanks and let you know that your work is proving to be quite valuable."

In the meantime, there are other episodes already available for download. The "new era" of Star Trek fanzines is online.

Return of the bird

Yesterday, I mentioned the bird that entered the school library, seeking the spider I'd caught during my lesson. Today the bird was back! I glanced at the clock and it was exactly 24 hours since his previous visit. Good timing!

I was going to suggest that he came in to hear the next chapter of the book I was reading but, last week, my story sent one of the students into a sound sleep, so maybe I'm reading way too much into these events!

Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying seeing vacant floorspace in the living areas of the house. Last January, I pulled lots of stuff out of one room, intending to rearrange and consolidate all the stuff and store it more efficiently. Admittedly, I did end up shoving things back into the other room as visitors were imminent on Saturday for Midwinter Christmas, but still the cosmetic effect is great!



The event was successful. There were nine of us, a good number for catering purposes. Just for fun, we had a cupcake decoration contest, a full-sized artificial snowman, and enjoyed watching one friend's well-edited DVD of a vacation in Japan, and another friend's professionally edited DVD of her son's Malaysian wedding. Bluey was on display for the evening; the guests reckoned than only I would be so determined to have the world's biggest Star Trek action figure in my dining room!

Eight legs, no prizes

Last week, on "Big Brother", the housemates had a task whereby they had to enter a "spider chamber" and collect a specified number of huntsman spiders.

Today, in the middle of a library lesson with a class of six- and seven-year olds, a large, huntsman wandered into the library, closely followed by a very cheeky bird. just what you need to through classroom management skills into disarray.

Taking my lead from the housemates, I calmly walked over, shooed the bird out the door, and placed a plastic container over the spider so the lesson could continue.

After the students had returned to their classroom, I was able to remove the spider to the garden. Okay, Big Brother, do I get a few nights in the Rewards Room now?

Redefining a collection

Over at The Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Blog, Alec Peters discusses his ever-expanding Star Trek collection of costumes and props from Paramount Studios, as sold by It's A Wrap!, and attempts to redefine his hobby.

While my collection of screen-used props is minute by comparison, Alec's analysis was well-timed. I've just spent about three weeks trying to re-hide the most bizarrely random piles of collectibles that literally exploded out of my so-called "Star Trek Shrine", a room dedicated to housing my Star Trek collection but usually also the room into which my aforementioned bizarrely random piles of collectibles get shoved, unceremoniously, as the dinner guests start arriving.

Collecting is an addiction, for sure. It comes with all the same intense highs, intense lows, withdrawal symptoms, and a chronic habit for diverting funds needed to buy food or household bills into buying more stuff, as an addiction to other substances! There is also the overwhelming challenge to "own everything", seek out "first editions" or "lowest numbers" of "limited editions", display it well, and the conundrum of whether to keep things in "mint in mint packaging" condition or just open and play with the items.

Alec says that there are "a few good questions you should ask yourself as you continue to build your collection".

What is your theme or themes?
Do you have one? Do you just buy random stuff you like, or do you have specific collecting interests?

Mmmm. Well, there are the collectible, nostalgic items from my childhood - things that were not considered to be collectibles when they were bought as gifts - such as my game of "Green Ghost", an original "Mousetrap" game, a model of the Dastardly & Muttley's Mean Machine from "Wacky Races", a hand-knitted gonk (the coveted Christmas gift of 1965!) and a glow-in-the-dark "Kooky Spooky", the current eBay prices of which always shock me.

There are also the items I remember allowing to slip from my grasp, in particular my full set of "Batman" gum cards, based on the 60s feature film of the TV series. Sigh.

And the ones that nearly got away: how well I remember the lone radio advertisement... "'Number 96' paperbacks just ten cents each" at a huge Grace Bros. book sale in 1978!

Thus, my "Number 96" memorabilia consists of eight very trashy novelisations, the original novel I had no idea even existed until the night of the "Tonight Live" reunion show in 1993 (when they had it on display, sending me off on the ultimate challenge to find it), several copies of the "'Number 96' Cookbook", with the bound-in iron-on logo still intact, a script in the book "Zoom In", several actual scripts from the set, and my recent purchase of Abigail's 1973 autobiography. I also own Giovanni Lenzi's green deli jacket, bought from the 1977 auction at Channel Ten.

Not long after that, I found myself collecting "View-Master" stereo picture reels, and this interest in 3D led to buying a Nimslo 3D camera, which accompanied me on my 1983/84 US trip.

And, of course, there are my Star Trek collections: (first edition) novels, novelisations, cards, model kits (some never assembled), LP soundtracks (most now duplicated as CDs), action figures (almost all are set free from their packaging) and customised action figures.

And my Star Trek comics led me to an appreciation of other comic titles: "Teen Titans"/"New Titans", "Fantastic Four", "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Dreadstar" to name a few.

What is your collecting philosophy?

Probably it has to do with collecting what you like. So many people collect as an investment, but that is so hit and miss. The most unlikely things end up being worth the most.

I'd also maintain that if you stop collecting, you'll definitely lose interest. I'm heard of so many people draw a line in the sand to stop themselves splurging, and they always end up selling, or simply giving away, all that wonderful stuff.

Love me like the world is ending

The power of television - and Youtube!

Aussie singer Ben Lee appeared on the "Rove in New York" special a few minutes ago, mentioning an incident concerning three naked skateboarders, which ended up getting his permit to shoot a music video in the Big Apple revoked! The premise for the clip was: if the world was about to end, what risky behaviour would people try? Ben Lee announced that the clip for the new song, "Love Me Like the World is Ending", was now available on Youtube, so I figured I'd see just how many people had raced to their computers. It sounded like the kind of stunt that would appeal to the "Rove" demographic.



By the time the site had finished loading, the clip had been viewed an amazing number of times (the counter seems stuck on 222), and had 50 comments, all made within the previous minute (and most mentioning that poor ol' Ben only seems to have traveled to the USA with one set of clothes! Perhaps that's why the skateboarders were nude?) A few seconds later, there were 81 comments and, by the time I'd saved the code for the clip, there were over 250. (Update: I've just finished editing this entry and it's up to 266.)

I guess "Rove" is rating well enough...

Hanging out for Year Four!

Arex and M'Ress (of Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series") really do cameo, as promised, in IDW Publishing's upcoming "Star Trek: Year Four" comic mini-series!

Check out the review at TrekMovie.com, which has links to online preview pages from IDW. It's actually quite a positive review, apart from the mention of the (same) writer's now familiar, sparse style.

I quite enjoyed "The Next Generation: The Space Between". (I guess it was only David Tischman's seeming reluctance to draw the threads together in the final TNG issue that left me cold.)

Avoidance behaviour

What am I doing online? I have a Midwinter Christmas here in a few hours, and still some last-minute boxes of junk to put out of sight.

I think I fear that if I do seal up the huge plastic tubs and stack them away, they'll join the ones I hid a few years ago - and never get looked in again.

Sigh. What can I say? I'm a hoarder.

A dream Star Trek collectible

Today, the action figure collecting listserv to which I belong, Playtrek, was asked to describe our dream Star Trek collectible.

Now, if it is to be an action figure, then let's be practical. That is how I came up with the "Captain Kathryn Janeway as seen in 'Flashback'" ("Voyager") figure all those years ago (1999), when a mail order firm, NewForce, commissioned an exclusive Playmates figure.


"Flashback" Janeway

An exclusive collectible action figure needs to make use of some existing Star Trek figure parts, where possible, to be cost-effective, or be so highly-coveted by a group way beyond the usual core of action figure collectibles. The Official Star Trek Fan Club 4.5" Captain Mackenzie Calhoun was the star of the Peter David "New Frontier" original novels, at the time (and still?) Pocket Books' biggest-selling ST author and series. The Official Star Trek Fan Club 12" Romulan Kirk figure was a bigger risk, with its all-new head sculpt and tailored cloth clothing, but a very impressive Kirk figure. Janeway was a captain and very difficult to find at retail and, while all other TV captain had multiple figures, there'd only been one previous 5" Janeway - so a "Flashback" Janeway using TOS movie body parts (indeed the female ST II-style uniform, which had only ever been used on the hard-to-find Saavik) was sufficiently collectible.

When Art Asylum took over the license, the New Force Charles "Trip" Tucker in Starfleet uniform figure was also a no-brainer headswap for a popular character that extended the "Star Trek: Enterprise" range. However, the dismal ratings of "Star Trek: Enterprise" - and Travis Mayweather's dismal, tiny part in the series, would see the rejection of a planned Mayweather w/ console following a lack of retailer support.

The upcoming buzz is that the next Star Trek movie is a Kirk & Spock movie. Spock/Nimoy would be THE most popular character to the wider ST community. ST fans who weren't into collecting ALL ST figures might buy a single Spock figure if it's sufficiently cool.

So... assuming a current-style Art Asylum-created action figure, and using an existing head sculpt, what about barefooted Genesis-resurrected Spock in cloth burial robe, as seen in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", or add optional black trousers and boots and you have Spock in meditation robes from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", or or add grey, pleated trousers and boots and you have Spock in traveling robes from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"? Or give him a cloth white hooded robe and headband you have resurrected Spock from "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". Anyway, that'd be my pick.

Speaking of resurrections: The Official Star Trek Fan Club's biggest resurrection hurdle won't be an exclusive for members to be tempted into buying, it'll be winning back the confidence of a lot of its members after Decipher's mishandling of the magazine "The Star Trek Communicator", and the lengthy delay that's allowed Titan's "Star Trek Magazine" to fill the void.

Big Blank

On the way home this afternoon, I had a wonderful thought about a funny, heartwarming topic for a blog entry. I couldn't wait to get started...

Right now? I have no idea what that story may have been. Let's retrace my steps... I went to the post office, continued on down the main street to Penrith Plaza; picked up the eagerly-awaited (by me), just-released DVD of "Hollywoodland", the story of the death of George Reeves, the television "Superman" of the 1950s; bought dinner; and trudged home.

Mmmmmmmmmm.

Ah! Now I know!

The post office had a new stamp series on display - and even stamped, collectible postcards - dedicated to Australia's bizarre "Big Things" tourist attractions. The recently-renovated Big Banana, the recently-moved Big Merino of Goulburn, the recently cash-strapped Big Pineapple of Nambour, plus the Big Golden Guitar of Tamworth and the Big Lobster of Kingston South East, were all represented!

Of course, I just noticed that the anecdote I was planning to tell was already my topic on Sunday, May 27, 2007. Maybe this is like a non-ratings period and I can start repeating the best of my earlier stories? Big deal, eh?

Meet Xanthi

Xanthi was my favourite character in the "Who is Donna Troy?" mini-series in the "New Titans" comics from DC (#51; US winter of 1988). Wonder Girl (soon to be known as Troia), plus Xanthi and ten other aliens were brought to New Chronus in order to be trained along as replacements for the waning Titans of Myth.

Some friends of mine were deeply entrenched making teddy bears at the time. I happened to mention how much one, unfinished, ear-less, bear resembled Xanthi - and... they made the above stuffed Xanthi as a surprise gift.

Waiting for Santa

"Found him, Dad!

Bluey gets dressed

Finally, I'd done enough housework this weekend to waste a little time dressing "Bluey" the mannequin in his Andorian ambassadorial robes.



The mannequin - I kid you not, he was already blue! - came from the supplier complete with a spray can of touch-up paint, in "Aqua" of course, so I gave the amazingly-realistic hands a light sanding, a layer of white primer, and then a new coat of aqua paint. I also decided to give my old Captain Therin antennae a matching coat of paint. (Since 1980, the transparent matt varnish over the blue paint had darkened them somewhat, so repainting them today with the lighter aqua colour made them match the rest of the mannequin perfectly.) I don't know what's in the paint, but the hands were completely dry within about twenty minutes. I gave it a few hours before attaching the hands - and it was Photo Time!

It's fairly imposing to suddenly have a life-sized Andorian standing to attention in the corner of the dining room, but I'm sure I'll get used to it. I can't leave him in this position for too long, since he's directly beneath a skylight, but it's winter so he can stay there - at least until Midwinter Christmas next weekend, when he might have a Santa hat poised over one antenna. Ho ho ho.

Hailing frequencies open: Christmas (ornaments) in July

Here in Australia, as I clean up the house in preparation for my annual Midwinter Christmas celebration, my penpals in the USA are scrabbling to find an exclusive Lieutenant Uhura (from Star Trek, of course) Hallmark Christmas ornament! Yesterday, the Hallmark stores were officially allowed to start selling the items in their 2007 Christmas catalogue.



Down Under, our Hallmark ornaments are stocked by Target Australia, but not until about September. Target is not permitted to import the light-up starship ornaments due to the different wiring, but when I got a Spock/Nimoy "holiday greeting" Galileo shuttlecraft via a comic shop, I tried changing the bulb plug on a locally-available light string (ie. unbend the metal leads in the ornament, remove the plastic base, pull a bulb from the Christmas light set and do the same thing; then take the base from the light set and thread it onto the metal leads from the Trek ornament; bend the leads back up and "Let there be light!" And sound, sometimes!).

It worked fine for about ten years. Sadly, a few years ago, the voice chip stopped working, but the ship still lights. These days, the Hallmark light-ups are independent of a light string. Alas, no Star Trek stuff, though.

I did make a point of getting the figural Star Trek ornaments for my collection, and they are in a glass cabinet, on permanent display, alongside similar-sized Trek character ornaments that were sold by "Star Trek: The Experience" in Las Vegas. However, after the great Hallmark Janeway figure - and coinciding with a move towards less-elaborate Star Trek ornaments - Target Australia stopped ordering in any new Star Trek figurals (maybe Janeway didn't sell?), so I've had to rely on US penpals to find me each new annual Trek ornament ever since.

This year the Uhura figural ornament is sculpted seated, and at her console, which is great to see, but she's extremely limited and I've been reading reports from several penpals on the misadventures they had yesterday trying to get more than one Uhura figure out of various shops. (Some places only received two figures in the first place. Other had about fifteen, but all pre-sold. One store insisted that an Uhura was only available with each $50 purchase of other Hallmark merchandise!) It looks like I do have one, but should it be such a chore?

PS. eBay prices for Uhura are going through the roof!

'Tis the season to be greedy.