Burton, Trinneer, McNeill, Wang Talk In Las Vegas

While visiting the Creation convention in Las Vegas last week, Voyager star Robert Duncan McNeill (Paris) revealed his wish to be involved with the new Battlestar Galactica and Enterprise's Connor Trinneer (Tucker) revealed that he would appear on Stargate: Atlantis.

The two were among the many guest stars at the official convention, where four of the five captains appeared as well as many principal and supporting cast members. StarTrek.com provided coverage of the event, at which The Next Generation's LeVar Burton (LaForge) discussed a project with Stan Lee and Voyager's Garrett Wang (Kim) talked about appearing in Into the West.

Burton, who is now a grandfather, said that he was beginning his 22nd season of Reading Rainbow, which "absolutely positively refuse[s] to go away." He will also be directing The Golden Leopard, one of a series of new superhero films, in this case featuring a 17-year-old black female superhero, "and to have the opportunity to create some new superheroes for a new generation is wildly exciting to me." He said that for many years he had shunned acting gigs so that he would be perceived as a director, but now he is interested in resuming his acting career.

Burton said that it distressed him greatly that there was no more Star Trek on television, a sentiment echoed by Trinneer, who said he was upset that Enterprise had been cancelled prematurely. "I know that historically the shows have taken awhile to get their sea legs, and I thought that we did, and by the time we were going on all cylinders, they just pulled out the drivetrain," he protested. However, he was looking forward to appearing on Stargate and to the birth of his baby, expected in early October.

McNeill, who had directed Trinneer in several episodes of Enterprise, joined him onstage and the two agreed that they should appear in a play together before Trinneer departed, leaving McNeill to discuss his busy directing schedule. This week he is working on an episode of Desperate Housewives, of which he said, "The drama behind the scenes makes the show look dull and boring, I'm telling you." He said he was very sorry to have been booked when he received a call from Ron Moore's Galactica, noting that he loves the show and is determined to work on it, as an actor if not a director.

McNeill's former co-star Wang said that he appreciated his role in the Steven Spielberg miniseries Into the West, portraying the difficulties that Chinese immigrants faced while building American railriads. To his surprise, a casting director mistakenly assumed that he was Native-American and tried to bring him into the series as an extra; he had to have a fellow actor convince her that he was really playing a lead Asian role on the series. Wang received enthusiastic fan support when he said he thought Voyager should have ended with a theatrical film.

StarTrek.com's coverage of these appearances is here.

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