Nov 17 | Originally hired as co-executive producer to help with the second half of the show's first season, Kevin Murphy has now taken the reins of Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel on Syfy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He now serves as an executive producer along with Ronald D. Moore, David Eick and Jane Espenson and oversees the day-to-day functions of the show.
Nov 12 | Star Trek star Zachary Quinto is loosely attached to star in the romantic dramedy Whirligig, reports Risky Business.Quinto would play the lead role in the independent Canadian film, which is aiming to shoot early next year. The movie centers on a man who, in a misguided attempt to woo an older woman, befriends the woman's adopted son.Chaz Thorne is directing the pic, based on a screenplay by Michael Amo, creator of the Canadian supernatural series "The Listener."
Nov 11 | The CNS Foundation, is hosting an on-line charity auction at www.charitybuzz.com. One of the items they are auctioning is a signed movie poster of the new Star Trek movie which has all the cast members and writers. The president of our organization is Carol Abrams, JJ's mother, and she arranged for the donation from Bad Robot Production Company. J.J. Abrams is also a major donor to their organization. The funds raised will go to help find a cure to neurological disorders in children. The auction link is here.
Nov 10 | Candice Bergen, Charles Lisanby, Don Pardo, Gene Roddenberry, Tom and Dick Smothers and Bob Stewart have been selected as the next inductees into the Television Academy's Hall of Fame. They will be honored at a Jan. 20 ceremony at the Beverly Hills Hotel. "This year's inductees have challenged and shaped popular culture, changed television for the better and entertained us royally while doing so," TV Academy Chairman-CEO John Shaffner said. More info at the Hollywood Reporter
Nov 08 | Unreality-SF.net has interviewed Star Trerk author James Swallow about some of his upcoming projects. He talks about Titan: Synthesis and Seven Deadly Sins: The Slow Knife, as well as some forthcoming Doctor Who and Stargate stories.
UPN held its summer press gathering earlier this week in Santa Monica to promote the new fall schedule and the event turned out some of the most open publicity for a new season of STAR TREK in recent memory. Attending the event were many of the cast and of course producers Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, and Manny Coto. The new show runner himself had no problem telling StarTrek.com a plethora of major story arcs in the works for season four.
"A lot of the stories that we're doing this season -- so far, the first half of the season -- are stories that I've come up with, or that Rick has come up with or that Brannon has pitched, and then we flesh them out in 'the room'," Coto says after explaining that he is in charge of the writer's room this season while Rick and Brannon take a supervisory role.
Coto revealed that the three-episode story arc involving Brent Spiner guest starring as the ancestor of 'Data's creator will involve the Eugenics Wars. Spiner will play a renegade named 'Arik Soong' who believes not in artificial intelligence, as his ancestor who would later create Data, but in perfecting humanity through genetic engineering.
"He has brought to life 20 embryos from the Eugenics era. So you have Soong who's leading a band of 'Khan Noonien Singh's, so to speak," Coto revealed. "He believes that genetic engineering was on the right track! He wants to improve humanity, and he believes that the Eugenics Wars were an aberration, that these individuals are the future of humanity. Of course he's wrong " they get away from him. They get out of control, and it becomes this three-episode saga that's kind of like 'Apocalypse Now' " Enterprise becomes kind of like a ship going up river, trying to find these individuals, with Soong on board."
Coto says that the episode will tie into other parts of the prequel universe, as Arik's renegade supermen threaten to start a war with the Klingons. Coto says the story will take the show to a region known as the "Borderland" where we'll have our first encounter with the Orions and the famous green Orion slave girls.
"What I really wanted to do this season is make the episodes that I as a STAR TREK fan would have to see," Coto told the site. "You know, as a fan of the original series, if I heard that they were doing the Orion slavers and the Eugenics Wars, I would have to be in front of that TV."
On the issue of the Eugenics Wars timeframe, Coto freely admits that ENTERPRISE has played a little fast and loose with their supposed date. He says the new stories operate on the assumption that they occurred not in the 1990s -- as "Space Seed" established.
"Clearly, we're in 2004, and there haven't been any Eugenics Wars that I know about! So, simply, the Eugenics Wars 'happened' " they happened in the past [relative to the current show]. I don't know how else to do it."
Another important arc Coto described intends to go a long way to explaining what many viewers have observed in the show's first three seasons: the Vulcans sure are a lot different.
"Our Vulcans lie, our Vulcans are monolithic, our Vulcans are not pacifistic," Coto admits. "What we've done is develop an idea: What if an individual appears on Vulcan who is saying to the populace that we have strayed from the teachings of Surak? This individual is like a Martin Luther. And he spawns a Vulcan civil war."
Coto likens the conflict to the Reformation that occurred with the Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of the Protestant Church. He says this new visionary also believes that he "is" the famous philosopher 'Surak', adding more instability to the Vulcan rift.
"It's gonna be a blast. I'm picturing the scene where two Vulcan armies are poised on the desert -- what's gonna happen, will they or will they not fight?"
Coto says the Andorians may try to take advantage of the situation, leaving Enterprise in the middle. Can the show accomplish all this with the reported reduced license fee and, one would assume, budget?
"We're not slaving under a horrible miniscule budget at all. You're not going to notice," Coto promises.
Braga also put in a few tidbits, reiterating recent comments from himself and Berman that the three-year Temporal Cold War will be put to rest early on.
"It lingered for three seasons, and we would like to finish it off in grandiose fashion, and move on to new territory," Braga says. "So, with these episodes, it will be the last of Daniels, and the last of all of those elements."
Braga says the storyline could end with or without revealing one key element.
"We haven't settled on any one identity yet. It's still a question mark. The Temporal Cold War may resolve without Future Guy's identity being revealed."
As to the possibility of a William Shatner guest appearance? Braga is hopeful, to say the least.
"We so badly want it to happen, but it's so early that I don't really have much to say about it," he says. "There's interest on both ends, but Bill is on a different series [BOSTON LEGAL], and we're just starting our season, and so much has to be done before it actually happens. We all have our fingers crossed."
Meanwhile, UPN brass say they're optimistic for ENTERPRISE's prospects on Friday nights. President Dawn Ostroff hopes casting (such as Spiner and perhaps Shatner) will draw more viewers this year.
"We're very aggressive in 'stunt casting' this year, which I think will also bring in some viewers," she says.
CBS and UPN chief Leslie Moonves admits that ENTERPRISE was saved by a lower license fee. But he says although UPN's success is a top priority, he'd like to see ENTERPRISE continue beyond season four.
"[Moving to Friday] is a much better strategy. I think we'll do a much better number there with that show, and perhaps it can live for a number of years. We hope so."
The STAR TREK world continues to turn, perhaps more quickly than usual. Read more quotes in the full report here.
ENTERPRISE Mission Schedule | Logs by Season: 1234
Quote: I think Coto specifically says he isn't going to mention a date at all because it seems incongrous.
The problem with a date like 1996 is that only a small portion of the Trekkies are going to freak out about the Eugenics war taking place in that time. It would get wierd for the rest of the Trekkies and indeed the non-Trekkie viewership if the timelines began to diverge like that... so, that's not really a safe thing to do...
besides, it ruins one of the "illusions" of Star Trek that has been around since Roddenberry's time; it makes it no longer a tangible future one that you and I might experience...
I think that would be a far bigger crime to the franchise, personally... :)
It would be the same deal if they ever wanted to explore something like V'Ger a little further. In which case, Voyager 6 supposedly was launched by now according to Star Trek facts. The only established date for the launch was when Decker said it was launched almost 200 hundred years before TMP. Then the Chronology books made a guess by saying it was launched by 1999, which is 5 years ago. They could always remedy something like that by clarifying that it was launched much later than Decker had believed.
Frankly I always loved the V'Ger story. Even if the movie was long and drawn out, V'Ger was still a neat idea. I liked it because it was pure sci-fi and very scientific. Would be cool to see more coverage on that, even if it's not on Enterprise. Would be cool to meet the race that built V'Ger, but according to established Trek, they're too far on the other side of the galaxy for Enterprise. Anyway, that's just pure wishful thinking. I doubt it will ever happen.
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