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Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Kim Darby in Miri

Oh these kids today!  Oh those grownups!  Oh those grups!


Actress Kim Darby (True Grit) played the girl smitten with William Shatner's Captain Kirk in the original series episode, Miri.  She may have appeared as if she was just barely escaping the torturous throws of puberty, but Miri came from a race of folk who tinkered with their DNA. In truth, she was many hundreds of years old, and since the genetic tampering incurs madness and finally death, she and her fellow ancient children were running out of time.

Monday, December 21, 2015

Friday, December 18, 2015

Flashback Fun - Interview With Keith R. A. DeCandido, Science Fiction Novelist

Since everyone is talking Star Wars and J.J. Abrams, I thought it'd be fun to flashback to an interview I did with Keith DeCandido, where he talks Abrams doing the first Star Trek feature.  

This interview was originally published online in 2009.


Keith DeCandido is a prolific writer of media-tie in novels. He's written novels for Star Trek & the hugely popular video games, World of Warcraft & Starcraft.  Here, he talks about how he got his big break, the upcoming Star Trek film and more.

The joy of fandom holds a multitude of ways to reward the faithful.  A popular, profitable and stimulating course to help one further ingest more favored things is reading novels based around hit TV shows, movies and video games. Writers recruited for this media-tie work are a special class indeed.  Not only are they top notch scribes with original titles to their credit, but their knowledge and expertise must run the length of a world as complex as the Star Trek universe or a complicated comic book superhero like Spiderman.  

If you're a devoted reader of Star Trek, StarCraft, World Of Warcraft or Marvel Superhero novels, it's a sure bet you know of Keith R. A. DeCandido. His versatile work spans generations, timelines and multiverses to encompass Starship crews from Captain Kirk's era over to the dark delights of station Deep Space Nine right on up to currently popular genre fiction such as his novels based on the hit TV series Supernatural.  Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Keith to chat about his formidable contribution to the legendary Star Trek mythos and much more.

DeCandido's unbridled enthusiasm on his work and his approach to it is clear.  How he came by it all, however, was basically unplanned. "It was something unique to the circumstance I was in. John Betancourt and I both worked for Byron Preiss, who had just picked up the license to do books based on Marvel Superheroes. The first two books John and I edited together. When he left the company, I was promoted and took over. I was associate editor for Science Fiction, and worked on original stuff, but also licensed, like Isaac Assimov's work and Ray Bradbury.  Anyway, something that nearly took over my life were Marvel novels. We were ridiculously rushed; we wanted the books out by fall.  Marvel had trashed all our proposals.  At this point, we were past the 11th hour and Jose R. Nieto and I ended up writing it.  After tons of rewriting back and forth, I ended up with my first sale. It was a most bizarre set of circumstances."

As a prolific Star Trek novelist and also editor of its eBook Line (now since cancelled), DeCandido jokes he's been a Star Trek fan all his life - or earlier if his Mom can be believed.  "As a kid I fantasized about being a Trek novel author, so I took the opportunity and ran with it, both as a writer and editor.  I'm proud of the Star Trek work I've been given and managed to accomplish on those fronts."

Today the digital domain of video games both compliments and competes with TV and movies for fans.  For DeCandido, obsessive gamers who rally around Blizzard's StarCraft and World of Warcraft are now fans of novels he's written based on the properties. "I'm doing the StarCraft manual. That came about because of my relationship with Blizzard. I did a World of Warcraft book, Blizzard was very happy with my work. With StarCraft I'm excited by the challenge because there's more room to play with in that world, as it's not as highly developed as World Of Warcraft. Blizzard specifically requested I be approached for the job."

DeCandido is highly anticipating the new Star Trek movie from director J.J. Abrams (TV's LOST) coming in May 2009, which tells the tale of a young Captain Kirk and Spock having a first adventure together. "It's probably not a great idea to go backwards to do a remake or prequel, but having said that, you don't know what a movie will be like until you sit in a theater and see it. Examples of that which I experienced: Two scripts I saw in early stages were for Men In Black and the first X-Men.  Based solely on those early draft scripts, I thought both movies would suck hard. As we know, it didn't turn out that way."

Looking past the forthcoming Star Trek feature film, DeCandido muses whimsically on the sort of television show he'd produce if he were chosen to create a new Star Trek TV series, "I'd do a TV series centered around the Starfleet Corps. Of Engineers.  It would be high adventure problem solving stories involving the SCE, which has a great group of characters at its core.  Great ensembles are at the heart of great TV shows, and TV shows do character development so well.  I hope to see Star Trek as a television series again."

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

The Cougar Of The Galaxy

Lwaxana Troi, played by Majel Barrett Roddenberry, was never shy about expressing her romantic interests.  On Captain Picard's Enterprise, she always saved some romance suggestions for her beloved, Jean-Luc!

Lwaxana put the roar in Cougar before it was a thing.


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Counselor Troi's Romance

Captain Picard's Enterprise D may not have been staffed with as randy a crew as Captain Kirks, but those Next Generation Starfleet officers still found some time for singular pleasures.


Counselor Troi - played by Marina Sirtis - listened to the romantic problems of many.  When it came to her own romance issues, however, I guess Troi only confided in her friend Dr. Crusher on the ups and downs of her on again/off again romance with Commander Riker, or her Imzadi, the Betazed word for beloved one.  In the episode, The Price, Troi is swept off her feet - in all possible ways - by a suave, telepathic negotiator, Devinoni Ral - played by Matt McCoy.

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Kirk's Orion Girl

In Star Trek 2009, we saw the return of a familiar face - well at least race.  Actress Susan Oliver had portrayed the first Orion Slave girl back in Star Trek's pilot, The Cage, opposite Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike. In JJ Abram's first big screen Trek, Chris Pine's Kirk bedded down with a green gal.


Friday, December 11, 2015

Starship Of Legend

When you are the legendary starship Enterprise, where do you go to hang out and have people admire you?  Why you dock yourself at The Smithsonian Institute, of course.



Paramount Pictures donated the filming model of Captain Kirk's majestic starship in 1974.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Captain Kirk Becomes A Romulan

Being a starship Captain isn't easy, and it's a simple fact that a Starfleet officer's duty is never truly done.  It's especially hard when you have to change your race and even species.


In the classic episode, The Enterprise Incident, Kirk and Spock must become intergalactic spies to obtain the famed cloaking device technology.  Kirk may not have really enjoyed the surgical procedure which gives him his new alien look, but he doesn't look half bad as a Romulan - a member of Spock's offshoot, or cousin race.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Actress Susan Oliver Before She Was Green

Before actress Susan Oliver originated the iconic green skinned girl that every Star Trek fan knows and loves, she appeared in Rod Serling's classic show, The Twilight Zone, in the episode, People Are Alike All Over - co-starring Roddy McDowall.


Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Here's Khan Before All That Wrath

Some casual Trek fans may never have seen Khan outside of the blockbuster motion picture Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.  Played with memorable gusto by Ricardo Montalban, the villainous, though charismatic Khan was introduced in the classic, original series, Space Seed.  

After nearly killing him and commandeering his starship, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) regrets releasing the Earth despot from his deep hibernation on the cryogenic ship - the SS Botany Bay.

Hey, shit happens. 


Monday, December 7, 2015

It's Janeway or The Highway

During Voyager's time in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Janeway was a Starfleet pro - through and through.  She ran a tight Starship, and one thing she rarely did was dress casually. Kathryn Janeway never wore this t-shirt - she didn't have to the way she ran things.




Andrea The Android

There are Androids.....

And then there's Andrea The Android from classic Trek, What Are Little Girls Made Of?

 Any questions?

Hallmark Christmas Ornament - Spock's Death

It may not be everyone's idea of an acceptable festive tree ornament, because hey, it's a death scene, but every Trekkie or Trekker would put this on their Christmas tree.  

Live Long And Prosper.


Friday, December 4, 2015

Scotty, Beam Up My Drinks!

Scotty would be proud to help you bream up your drinks.  Wouldn't he? If you had this nifty Star Trek drink coaster, you could do it all by yourself.  Well, sorta....  Click the drink for more beverage dazzling info.



Tuesday, December 1, 2015

That OTHER Kiss

Much is made of Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura's kiss in the classic episode, Plato's Stepchildren.  The alien enforced liplock was the first interracial kiss on television.  Despite a recent revelation that an obscure British live drama snagged the title a few years prior, the great cultural interest in Star Trek makes the William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols scene still the one most talked about.

But there was another kiss.







In the same episode, Spock and Nurse Chapel - Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett Roddenberry - were also forced into romantic play by the sadistic Platonians.  Because of Chapel's pining lust for the stoic Vulcan, and Spock's romantic resistance to her, their embrace and smooch is, in many ways, even more dramatic.