Mania Reviews 'Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang'
Christian (11:46 am CST)
AnotherUniverse.Com's Mania Magazine has just published Michelle Erica Green's review of DS9's 'Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.' Her synopsis and analysis of the episode are somewhat shorter than usual, but she was rather positive about the episode:

This was fun in the way that Specter of the Gun was fun, and it was considerably better-written than the Classic Trek episode. I liked the casual affection among the characters, the steadiness of the relationships between Sisko and Kasidy and Kira and Odo - there was little overt intimacy but lots of subtle contact and chemistry - and it's always a treat to see this crew out of uniform, especially in funny shots like the slo-mo parade down the Promenade. And we got to hear Avery Brooks sing! OK, so it was out of character; no more than when Vic's holographic Kira sang for Odo.

Vidiot Images Online
Christian (11:10 am CST)
Mr. Video Productions has just added the images to his previews of the Deep Space Nine episode 'Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges' and the Voyager episode 'Course:Oblivion'. Go check them out!

Starfleet Command News
Christian (11:08 am CST)
For some reason there's a huge amount of news today related to Interplay's upcoming strategy game, Starfleet Command. First of all, there's a new preview up at Computer Games Online, entitled 'Star Fleet Battles meets the Genesis Device.' A short quote from the beginning of the preview:

Something often happens when a board game gets translated to a computer; in many instances you'll see it go through some kind of transformation, something that changes it into a new thing that may, at one level, really resemble the original but, at another, is something new. This transformation is rather like that of a planet in Star Trek that gets hit by the Genesis Device—it gets made anew, but it's still a planet of the same size and base properties. Similarly, the hardcore Star Trek board game/miniatures system Star Fleet Battles has been hit by a Genesis device as it's moved to the computer, and the result is the similar—yet different—Star Trek: Starfleet Command, coming your way this Summer care of Interplay.

Thanks go out to Evil Avatar for the first news item, and YnrohKeeg at Star Trek Gaming Central for the last two.

New York Observer Trek Article
Christian (10:41 am CST)
The New York Observer has just put an article on its site about the conflict between Paramount and Samuel Ramer, author of 'The Joy of Trek: How to Enhance Your Relationship With a Star Trek Fan.' The article, which will apparently appear in the New York Observer of next monday, talks about the law suit Paramount initiated when they learned about the book:

Mr. Ramer wrote the 217-page guide, published in 1997 by Carol Publishing Group Inc., without permission of Paramount Pictures Corporation, a fact he points out in a cover disclaimer: "This book has not been authorized by any entity involved with the creation or production of Star Trek." Paramount soon sued, asking for $23 million in damages, $100,000 for each of 230 episode citations. In June 1998, Star Trek's copyright holders convinced a Federal judge in Manhattan that Mr. Ramer had lovingly included too many details from the franchise's television episodes, movies and spinoff books in chapters like "How Did Scotty Get So Old and Fat?" The judge ordered the book's distribution stopped. As they say in Klingon, net'oy!–that hurts! Mr. Ramer and his publisher appealed.

The appellate argument, scheduled for April, will focus on how much "fair use" a fan can make of his favorite show when writing about it for money. Beyond that, in an age of multilayered media empires, the case could fire up a feud between the executives at the top of synergy and the writers down below. "It cuts both ways," said Steven Schragis, the lawyer-owner of Carol. "The concept of what is and isn't fair use, in a world where there's so much branding and so much controlled by media outlets, would be welcome."

Today on TV
Christian (10:27 am CST)
-Today, the SciFi Channel is broadcasting the 2nd-season TOS episode 'Obsession.' The episode airs at 7:30pm Eastern Time, and repeats at 11:30pm.

-Today in the UK, Sky One is broadcasting the 1st-season Voyager episode 'Non Sequitur' at 5:00pm GMT, with a rerun at 11:30PM. Meanwhile, the BBC is broadcasting the 1st-season DS9 episode 'Babel,' one of my personal favourites. 'Babel' airs at 6:00pm.

-In Germany, Sat.1 is repeating 'Fähnrich Ro' (Ensign Ro) tomorrow morning at 01:45 CET. Later on, at 15:00, they're airing 'Das Recht auf Leben' (Silicon Avatar).

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (10:20 am CST)
Yesterday, we added 3 links to the database of TREKSEEK.COM, bringing us to a total of 776 sites. We intend to have 800 sites next weekend, so we'll probably start manually adding sites over the next few days again. Anyways, let's look at some of the new sites:

-The Randy Glass/Studio is one of the new sites in our Trek Art category, offering you the chance to buy high-quality, hand-drwan sketches of the actors comprising the entire original cast of Star Trek Voyager.
-A site which I personally recommend to everyone is Star Trek Episodes You'll Never See, the personal homepage of Ethan H. Calk. He is the man who wrote the stories for the DS9 episodes 'Visionary' and 'Children of Time,' and on this site he tells about his experiences writing the shows, his visit to the sets, and his rejected story ideas.

If you'd like to see the other sites that were included in Trekseek yesterday, you can do so by going here.

Hello World!
Christian (10:09 am CST)
Well, just a few minutes ago I posted the announcement about TrekToday to all the major newsgroups, so hopefully the number of hits should explode. If you're currently reading this, chances are this is your first visit to the site, so I'll repeat some of the things I said on monday, when the site opened.

Here at Trektoday, we'll be offering you a daily guide to literally everything that's happening in the world of Trek. We'll be covering things such as Trek games, novels, toys and, of course, the latest episode news, but we'll also bring you up to date on major things happening with all the other Trek sites out there. From now on, we'll be updating the site everyday at approximately 10:00 AM CST/17:00 CET, and I hope you'll be there with us!

Of course, updating the site takes time, so if you drop in and only see 'Hello World!', or just a few news items, it might be a good idea to check out a few hours later. It takes me approximately 90 minutes to do an update, so if you check back at 19:00 CET/12:00pm CST you should see the full update. I hope you enjoy the site, and I'd really appreciate it if you let me know what you think about it. I hope I'll see you again tomorrow!

Unreliable Rumours Department
Christian (11:37 am CST)
AL2000, the 'Paramount insider' of Section 31, has given another update on the supposed status of Trek Series V and Voyager's future:

"The execs are rumored to start discussing another telemovie next season. I do know that they are trying to keep voyager stable enough to stay on the air for a season or two. My guess is that they would probably release the new series when the Star Wars hype goes down. A large ad campaign is a "logical" prediction. This is the the new beginning or the end of trek as we know it...help save trek by at least turning on the TV when Voyager is on. If you can't bear to watch, just put it on mute and go about your business until it is over. This is the only chance you have to get through to the execs. More Later..."

Jeri Ryan Chat Transcript Available
Christian (11:32 am CST)
The people at TV Guide have just posted the transcript of Jeri Ryan's recent chat. In the chat, which took place just before 'Dark Frontier' aired, Jeri Ryan answered some questions asked by the fans. A few snippets:

Question: Do you have a favorite Voyager episode?

Ryan: Boy...This in not an intentional plug for the show, but Dark Frontier is my favorite. There are so many that I've loved...Drone is another great one from this season. The Killing Game 2-parter from last year. The Gift...I can just go on. I think most of those are Brannon Braga scripts. I think he's done an enormous amount for the show.

Dauphin_Kel: The padded Borg suit: Insult to women or sexy addition? Your feelings? *grin*

Ryan: I'm a little curious as to what the padding is referring to...I assume you mean my cat suit. I think it's fine. I have no problem with the physical presence of this character being overtly sexy because of the way she's written. She's too intelligent and too strong and too beautifully developed to be anything but a very positive example of a woman.

Star Trek Bloopers Uncovered
Christian (11:21 am CST)
You can only love the people at The Den's Daily Sci-Fi". For years now, I have been looking for the infamous Star Trek blooper tape, but I never found it. The Daily Sci-Fi was apparently luckier:

Take what we're about to show you, for example. One of our ad execs was looking through a clearance bin of old videos, and found a tape that had original series Star Trek bloopers and outtakes on them. After viewing them a couple times, we decided we had to put these up. Not only are they funny, some of the stuff has Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Bones, Nurse Chapel, Uhura, and everybody else doing things that they'd rather forget. Check 'em out!

Cinescape Spoils DS9 episode
Christian (11:14 am CST)
As usual before a DS9 episode airs, Cinescape has published a spoiler preview of this week's new DS9 episode, 'Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.' The episode features the return of 'everybody's favorite holodeck performer, Vic Fontaine', and is completely spoiled in the preview by Michael Marek. Only read if you don't want to enjoy the episode :-).

'Dark Frontier' Rates At Nr. 86
Christian (11:08 am CST)
Thanks to Reuters, this Yahoo! News article lists the top 20 Prime Time TV programs from the past week. As usual, Voyager wasn't in the top-20, but it did perform relatively well as the top-rated UPN show at No. 86. In UPN terms this was amazing - 'Dark Frontier' was the best-rated UPN show in over a year.

Viacom To Shut Down Sites Again?
Christian (11:05 am CST)
Well, I certainly hope not - it'd be a real shame to have to close down TrekToday three days after its grand opening :-). Anyways, this article by Eric R. Quinones talks about Viacom's far-reaching plans with the Internet.

As part of the plan, Viacom announced Tuesday it will create a new division to run its online businesses and may eventually spin it off into a separate company, hoping to cash in on the Internet's growing popularity among consumers and investors.

[...]

Viacom would not say how much it is spending overall to expand its online business, but said it will pour $250 million over the next five years into promoting the sites on the cable networks. Viacom has already used similar cross-promotion strategies to create successful movies and books from the TV shows ``Star Trek'' and ``Rugrats.''

Interplay Reports Fourth Quarter Results
Christian (10:58 am CST)
Interplay Entertainment Corporation (NASDAQ: IPLY), the gaming company behind titles such as '25th Anniversary' and 'Starfleet Academy', and the upcoming 'New Worlds,' has just reported its results for the last quarter of 1998. Unfortunately, Interplay didn't do all that well:

For the fourth quarter, Interplay reported net revenues of $20.6 million, compared with $53.3 million in the same period a year earlier. Net loss for the fourth quarter was $16.6 million, or $0.91 per share, compared with a net profit of $6.5 million, or $0.54 per share (diluted), for the fourth quarter of 1997. Included in the fourth quarter loss was a provision to increase the valuation allowance related to the company's net deferred tax asset.

Today on TV
Christian (10:32 am CST)
-Tonight at 9.00 PM Eastern Time, UPN will be broadcasting a new Voyager episode, 'Disease,' in which Harry Kim falls in love with an alien woman, much to the dismay of captain Janeway. A short quote from the press release:

Without Starfleet medical clearance and in violation of interspecies protocol, Ensign Harry Kim has a passionate love affair with an exotic alien explorer, Derran Tal of the Varro species. But the escapade puts both the Voyager crew and the Varro species in Jeopardy when Kim and Tal become biochemically interdependent.

-In Germany, Sat.1 is repeating 'Darmok' tomorrow morning at 02:00 CET. Tomorrow afternoon, to be precise at 15:00 CET, they're showing 'Fähnrich Ro' (Ensign Ro).

New at Trekseek.com!
Christian (10:09 am CST)
Trekseek.com, the largest, most accessible Star Trek search engine, welcomed another few sites to its database of 774 Star Trek sites yesterday. Some of these new sites include:

-The D.S.S. Pegasus, a brand new site that is trying to bring you everything Star Trek at one site. I was the 6th visitor when I arrived at the site, so there's still plenty of room in their counter for more hits!
-TREKTODAY.COM, which is the first and only daily updated guide to all things.... what's that? You've already heard of the site? Oh, well, never mind then :-).

Naturally these aren't the only new sites that were added to Trekseek today - if you want to see the full listing, go here.

Hello World!
Christian (9:59 am CST)
Today I started submitting the site to some of the major search engines out there - of course TrekToday can already be found at our own Trekseek.com search engine, but over the next few days the site should appear in Treknews.com's Treksearch.com and the Star Trek Central search engine. Of course, I didn't forget Yahoo and Excite either, we should appear there as well within a few days/weeks, and I hope they will attract many visitors to the site.

But, of course, the search engines are not the most important way to get hits - links from other sites are. If you've got a Star Trek site, and you enjoy Trektoday, why not put up a link to us? In a few days we'll also be offering some lovely banners for your linking pleasure, and I'd really appreciate it if you linked to TrekToday.

Worf Joins the Cult
Christian (12:04 pm CST)
The March Issue (#42) of the Cult Times has as its main story, as you can see from the cover, a five-page interview with Michael Dorn (Worf). As usual, they have provided us with a short extract from the full interview, in which Dorn talks about the two most recent Trek movies:

Looking back, can Dorn pick a single favourite Trek experience? Yes, he can, actually. "I think Star Trek: First Contact was the culmination of Next Gen. That's been my favourite," he explains. "I'd totally enjoyed being on Next Gen for the seven years we did the show, and First Contact was truly the culmination because that was the first true TNG movie, where there was no inference to the past, there was no Kirk, no Scotty, and no Chekov. It was just us and we did incredibly well on our own."

As for more recent experiences, that brings us to Star Trek: Insurrection and the imminent end of Deep Space Nine. First, Dorn looks back on Insurrection, the latest Next Gen film adventure, which performed so-so at the box office following so-so reviews and so-so Trekker response... "When I saw the movie I thought it was OK. People seemed to like that it was romantic, light and funny. That's not my taste. I like the dark, edgy stuff. I can watch that all day."

Vidiot Previews 'Course: Oblivion
Christian (11:25 am CST)
Mr. Video Productions has added the MPEG-1 video preview of the upcoming Voyager episode 'Course: Oblivion,' which is sort of a follow-up to last year's 'Demon' episode.

One by one, members of the Voyager crew begin to deteriorate until they realize they are actually clones of themselves and must make a time capsule to re-find and save themselves.

Braga Responds to Dark Frontier Criticisms
Christian (11:14 am CST)
Courtesy of Star Trek News comes the news that Voyager Executive Producer Brannon Braga has made a post on AOL responding to criticisms of the recent telefilm 'Dark Frontier:'

Hello all. Brannon Braga posting. I've read the postings on our two-hour with great interest, and I wanted to respond to the issue of "nitpicking." First of all, we enjoy the way viewers analyze and dissect the episodes. It keeps us on our toes and shows a great deal of intelligence and attention to detail on the part of our audience. What more could we ask for? Secondly, it's important for you to know that we spend a great deal of time tracking continuity and figuring out the potential plot holes. Needless to say, when one of you points out a mistake, it drives us crazy. If only we could go back and fix them! But we NEVER ignore continuity, as it has been suggested by some of the more cynical people on this site. We take tremendous care in crafting these episodes. It is absurd to think that we are lazy or simply disregard the Trek time-line, as it were. "Dark Frontier" was a project of passion for us -- we tried to create the most exciting, detailed, emotional two hours that we could, considering the time contraints of television. We hope you enjoyed it. As for the "mistakes" -- what would you discuss here if there were none?

Production Designer Chat on Thursday
Christian (11:05 am CST)
This thursday, there's a chat coming up at The Continuum with Richard James, who is currently serving as production designer on Voyager, after also working in this capacity on The Next Generation. The chat begins at 06:30 PM PT, and instructions on how to participate can be found here. If you want to have your question answered, it might be a good idea to submit them now, which is the reason I'm posting this update.

New Trek Reviews
Christian (12:33 pm CST)
This is also going to be a regular feature at TrekToday, at least during the months that Trek is not on hiatus. In this section, I'll be informing you of the latest reviews to be written by the regular Trek reviewers (Tim Lynch, Jammer, Delta Blues, Cynic's Corner), including some highlights from their reviews and direct links to them.

On sunday, Jamahl Epsicokhan (Jammer) uploaded his long overdue Insurrection review, which isn't exactly filled with praise of the latest Trek movie:

The movie is entertaining in a superficial way. I sort of liked Insurrection. But I also felt kind of disappointed afterward. Considering TNG movies only happen once every two (or more, in the future) years, it seems to me that more should be done with a film than to make it a glorified episode where the ship glides in, solves the problem, and glides out--end of story. What's lacking are the lingering questions. A fountain of youth is something that would change the perception of the entire Federation. Isn't that worth examining? Having one admiral (who dies) as the sole Federation representative for eternal youth is simply not enough, and watching the Enterprise fly away from what could be the Greatest Discovery Ever seems a little simplistic.

Happy Birthday Majel Barrett
Christian (10:43 am CST)
Today's the 60th birthday of Majel Barret-Roddenberry, the wife of the late Gene Roddenberry. She also holds the honour of being the only actor that has worked on all incarnations of Trek, from her role as Number One in 'The Cage,' via Christine Chapel in TOS to her roles of Lwaxana Troi and the Computer voice in the TNG-era series. Currently she is also working as producer on the other Gene Roddenberry series currently in production, Earth: Final Conflict. We wish her a happy birthday!

Today on TV
Christian (10:37 am CST)
-Viewers of the SciFi Channel will be able to enjoy the TOS second-season episode 'Friday's Child' tonight at 7.30 PM Eastern Time. The episode repeats at 11.30 PM.

-In the UK, Sky One is broadcasting the first-season Voyager episode 'The 37s' at 5.00 PM GMT with a rerun at 11.30 PM. (Actually, the episode was shown as the second season opener in the US, but it was originally filmed for the 1st season) Thanks go out to the Television Observation Unit of the Star Trek Collective for this.

-As usual, Sat.1 is repeating the TNG episode they aired this afternoon tomorrow morning, at 02.05 CET. If you missed 'Der Kampf um das klingonische Reich, Teil 2' (Redemption, Part 2) this might be your chance to see it. Later tomorrow, at 15:00 CET, they're broadcasting the superb 'Darmok.'

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (10:27 am CST)
As usual, there wasn't much happening on monday for Trekseek, and we only had one new site added to our database. Today we also removed one site from our database - Starbase 99, the Starship Creator site that has been reigning at the top spot of the Trekseek Fan Favourites for the past month now. However, since the owner of Starbase 99, Captain Dan, has joined the people at Starabse Prometheus and closed down his site, we had no choice but to remove his site's listing as well. Thanks to everyone who voted for the site.
Anyways, the one site that was added to Trekseek yesterday was also a Starship Creator-related site, namely:

- Deep Space Alpha, which is a Starship Creator fan site where you'll be able to find extra ships for the game.

If you'd like to check out the other 18 sites that were added to our 772 sites large database over the past week, you can do so by going here.

Hello World!
Christian (10:17 am CST)
In the unlikely event that you visited here yesterday, you may have noticed that some of the items of yesterday's update didn't actually exist yet until today. The reason for this is that today I was tweaking the site a little and decided to also implement some graphics in the actual news updates - hence the Sev Trek cartoon and the Sky teletext capture. I'll probably do some more experimenting over the past few days (which is why we haven't announced TrekToday to any newsgroups or search engines yet), so stay tuned for some pleasant surprises!

Jeri Ryan Talks At Convention
Christian (1:04 pm CST)
Section 31 has posted a small convention report by Zaltek, talking about a convention appearance by Jeri Ryan, where she talked a bit about upcoming episodes:

Today I went to the star trek convention today in New Orleans, with guest Jeri Ryan, and she slipped some information to us. She said that in the upcoming voyager episode where she goes back in time, with the help of the future time traveling starfleet, to get rid of a bomb that is planted on voyager while the ship is in drydock,(showing the ship just before the series premiere) The 29 century starfleet hide her Borg technology so she looks fully human!! She then gets to dress up like an ensign in a starfleet uniform!!

In the upcoming episode where her and the doctor go on a date it is actually that the doctor is preparing seven for a future date in that episode where she will go out with some guest star. The doctor does "develop" feelings for seven. He is showing her how to make conversation that is interesting and that sort of stuff.

Unreliable Rumours Department
Christian (12:59 pm CST)
As you may know, the British television station Sky One also offers a teletext service. Page 192 is dedicated exclusively to Star Trek, showing several headlines each monday. The catch is that viewers can then call a special phone number at 50p per minute and hear the actual stories behind those headlines. Thanks to the Trekzone Network's own Saleel Majeed we'll be bringing you the latest headlines each and every week, but please do keep in mind that their news is not very reliable to say the least. This week's headlines include:

Once again, I wouldn't believe any of these headlines until they are confirmed elsewhere, but we decided to include them here for amusement value anyways.

Trekweb Chat Bonanza
Christian (12:48 pm CST)
TrekWeb.com, 'THE Source for Everything Trek', has got several cool chats with Trek celebrities coming up in March. Take a look at their schedule:

Armin Shimerman (Quark), David R. George III & Eric A. Stillwell - authors - Pocket Books' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #23 "The 34th Rule"

• Scheduled for Tuesday, March 2nd, 5 PM PST (8 PM EST)

Jay Chattaway - composer - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine & Voyager

• Scheduled for Tuesday, March 9th, time TBA
  

Bradley Thompson - writer - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

• Scheduled for Thursday, March 18th, 7 PM PST (10 PM EST)
  

Scarlett Pomers News
Christian (12:39 pm CST)
The Official Scarlett Pomers Homepage, dedicated to the actress playing young Naomi Wildman, has updated following last week's showing of 'Dark Frontier,' which marked Scarlett's fifth appearance. In their Star Trek: Voyager section, you can now find a synopsis of Scarlett's scenes , a screen grab image, plus two video clips of her performances in 'Dark Frontier' and 'Once Upon a Time.'

New Sev Trek Cartoon
Christian (12:27 pm CST)
As you may be aware of, Australian cartoonist John Cook creates a weekly Star Trek comic strip called Sev Trek. Every monday, we here at the Trekzone Network will be presenting you with the latest Sev Trek Comic in the following fashiom:

Mania Magazine Reviews Trek
Christian (12:18 pm CST)
Mania Magazine has posted its reviews of last week's new Trek episodes, namely DS9's 'Chimera' and Voyager's high-profile two-hour episode 'Dark Frontier.' As usual, reviewer Michelle Erica Green is very thorough, first giving a detailed synopis of the episode, and then analyzing it. She starts of rather positive in her 'Dark Frontier' review:

Visually and dramatically, this was a terrific episode, though it made mincemeat of all previous Borg history on Star Trek and even discarded most of what we learned about Seven of Nine's human parents in fourth-season episodes. I thought the first hour was better-directed than the second, particularly the dark shots on the Borg ship, but both halves of "Dark Frontier" were creepy and gripping, and the performances by Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, and Susanna Thompson were all first-rate even if Thompson didn't quite have the bite of First Contact's Alice Krige.

Happy Birthday Jeri Ryan
Christian (12:34 pm CST)
Today is the birthday of Jeri Ryan, Borg drone extraordinaire, who turns 31. As you probably all know, Jeri Ryan is currently portraying Seven of Nine on Star Trek Voyager, and recently played an important role in the two hour television movie 'Dark Frontier.' Before getting the role on Voyager, Jeri Ryan also starred in the last seven episodes of 'Dark Skies,' and she has performed in guest roles on series such as 'Melrose Place' and 'The Sentinel.' More information on Jeri Ryan can be found at her official fan club, and we here at the Trekzone Network wish here a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Gary Lockwood
Christian (12:02 pm CST)
Yesterday was the 61st birthday of Gary Lockwood, who guest starred as Kirk's friend Gary Mitchell in the 2nd TOS pilot 'Where No Man Has Gone Before.' Even though Mitchell died in that episode, there are still various Trek novels in which he plays an important role, most recently the 'My Brother's Keeper' trilogy by Michael Jan Friedman. Gary Lockwood himself is probably the most famous for his 1968 starring role in the movie version of Arthur C. Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' but Trek fans may also be interested to know that he was also the main star of the short-lived Gene Roddenberry series 'The Lieutenant.'

Today on TV
Christian (11:58 am CST)
Don't you just hate it when you turn on the telly only to see the end credits rolling of that superb DS9 episode you had always wanted to see? Or when you put down everything, and get ready for an exciting new episode of Trek, only to get yet another re-run of 'Spock's Brain?' Well, here is the solution! From now on, we'll be informing which episodes are broadcasted on a particular day in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands. You'll never have to miss an episode again!

-Today, the SciFi Channel will broadcast the 2nd-season TOS episode 'Journey To Babel,' the episode which introduces Spock's parents. The episode airs at 7:30 PM Eastern Time, with a re-run at 11:30 PM.

-In the UK, Sky One will broadcast the first-season Voyager episode 'Twisted' at 5 PM GMT, with a re-run at 11:30 PM. Furthermore, at 8 PM GMT they're broadcasting a new DS9 episode from the sixth season, 'Inquisition.' Thanks go out to the Television Observation Unit at the Star Trek Collective for this.

- In Germany, Sat.1 is repeating 'Der Kamp um das klingonische Reich, Teil 1' (Redemption, Part1) at 00:15 CET tomorrow morning. Part 2 will air tomorrow afternoon at 15:00 CET.

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (11:01 am CST)
You probably have already heard about Trekseek.com, the "largest, most accessible Star Trek search engine on the net!" With more than 750 sites in its database, Trekseek is truly the best starting point for Trek fans on the Internet. In the 'New at Trekseek.com' section, we'll be describing some of the latest sites to be added to Trekseek over the past day, everyday!

Yesterday, 4 new sites were added to the Trekseek database, bringing us to a grand total of 772 sites. Take a look at some of those sites:

-800-Trekker is one of the the largest collectibiles online stores, selling merchandise from many different sci-fi shows. They've got a lot of Trek stuff, but you can also find merchandise from other SF series, such as Babylon 5, Star Wars or the X-Files.
-The Starfleet Command Football Club has to be seen to be believed. Here you can play 'fantasy football in the 24th century!'
-Lastly, the Nuketown Star Trek homepage is a review page for movies, books and web sites, and probably doesn't really fit in the Indices/Awards and Ratings category it's currently in. In the near future we'll probably create a special category for review sites, but for now you can already check out the site!

These were the sites which we deemed most worthy of mentioning here, but if you want to read the full list of new sites, you can find it here.

Hello World!
Christian (10:22 am CST)
Hi, and welcome to TrekToday! Starting today, we'll be offering you a daily guide to literally everything that's happening in the world of Trek. We'll be covering things such as Trek games, novels, toys and, of course, the latest episode news, but we'll also bring you up to date on major things happening with all the other Trek sites out there. From now on, we'll be updating the site everyday at approximately 10:00 AM CST/17:00 CET, and I hope you'll be there with us!

Of course, we're always interested in what you think of the site, and we'd love to hear some comments from you about the site's look and feel. We know that the current design is still lacking somewhat, especially the top of the page still needs some extra features, but we very much wanted to get the site open for everyone to see, so that'll come at a later date. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the site, and I hope to see you again tomorrow!

Please visit our sponsor
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Transwarp #58 Is Out
Christian (12:48 pm CST)
My mailbox just informs me that Transwarp issue 58 has appeared. Features this month include the usual listing of upcoming episodes, books and events, but also reprints interviews with Brent Spiner and Jeri Ryan. Furthermore, the newsletter reprints articles on DS9, fan campaigns, and several other news items that made their way to the net over the past few weeks.

Of course, this issue also includes the results of last week's poll question, 'Do you think that The Next Generation should continue its movies?'. Not surprisingly, 32 people voted yes on this, while only one person was against. The full newsletter was probably already delivered to your mailbox, but if it wasn't, you can always subscribe at the Official Transwarp Page.

New At The Continuum
Christian (12:34 pm CST)
A lot of things are happening at The Continuum today. First of all, as I mentioned yesterday, there's a chat coming up with Jeri Ryan this evening in the auditorium at 6:30 PM Pacific Time. (BTW, am I the only one who is surprised that this hasn't yet been mentioned on the Official Jeri Ryan Homepage, usually very thorough in the news department?)

In other news, the people at the Continuum have also posted their previews of next week's DS9 and Voyager episodes. The DS9 episode, 'Chimera', the preview of which can be found here, also includes a 30-second video and one photo.

Odo returns from a conference with an unexpected guest: a Changeling who tracked and boarded his Runabout. Odo recognizes him as one of "the hundred" shapeshifters who were, like himself, sent out as infants into the galaxy to learn about other species. Back at the station, Sisko warily releases the visitor to Odo's custody. The Changeling, known as Laas, queries Odo about their unique species -- with which Laas has made no contact since his infancy -- and "the Link," a Changeling ritual that allows shapeshifters to meld with one another and thereby form a single, sentient collective entity.

I'm not going to reprint anything from the Voyager preview, based on the fact that I doubt there is anyone left who *hasn't* heard about this episode yet. I'll just direct you to the preview, which includes no less than 3 videos and 3 photos.

Kate Mulgrew Interviewed
Christian (12:20 pm CST)
'Delivering the Goods' is the title of an interview with Kate Mulgrew which appears in the latest issue of TV Zone. Although the full article can only be found in the print mag, the web site does contain a short teaser article:

IT'S BEEN FIVE YEARS since the Starship Voyager was assigned on a rescue mission to the Badlands to investigate the disappearance of a Maquis ship. Hurled into the Delta Quadrant, far away from home, Captain Janeway was faced with a desperate situation: to maintain the morale of her crew while joining forces with the renegade terrorists. They've faced ruthless warriors, invaders, psychopaths and killers, and yet through it all Janeway has demonstrated her considerable leadership skills and humanity. She's the ship's matriarch - desperately attempting to keep together her eclectic 'family' against all odds, while leading them back home to the Alpha Quadrant - and Earth.

The teaser article goes on to talk a bit about her history with the show, but the thing we're all anxious to read about (her thoughts on leaving the series) can only be found in the actual article itself. I'd love it if someone who subscribes the magazine would fill me in on the news.

While we're on the subject, this issue of TV Zone also includes news on DS9's ending, an article with Robert Picardo (the Holodoc), Earth: Final Conflict news and some reviews. I'd tell you more about this, but unfortunately most of that can't be found on their web site. One other thing which *can* be found there is Tim Lynch's review of the new DS9 novel 'The 34th Rule':

Shimerman (along with co-author David R George III) manages to keep the reader interested in the characters while weaving a tale of plans within plans within schemes. In addition, those who are familiar with Shimerman's non-Quark characters inside Trek should keep an eye out for a few surprise guests. The 34th Rule is one of the richer DSN books to come along in a while; it's definitely worth a look.

The full review (or at least, the part of it that can be found online) can be found here. Thanks to Warp 11 for reporting this.

DS9 Rates Again
Christian (12:09 pm CST)
The wonderful Star Trek Nielsen Ratings Information Database has updated once again, this time to present us with two reports on DS9's ratings performance. The first report looks at this week's re-run of 'Shadows and Symbols', which earned a 3.8 rating. Some good news (for DS9, at least) is that the competition is performing rather badly:

The news for Hercules, and to a larger extent Xena, is definately getting worse. This week, Xena was down an awful 41% from last year to a 3.9, finishing second. Hercules was marginally better, down 33% to a 4.0, ending up in first for the week. Xena has fallen from first-run syndication dominance to the point where a DS9 rerun nearly matched a Xena first-run. If Xena continues with these paltry showings, DS9 should have little trouble reclaiming its #1 spot crown.

Futhermore, the DS9 December-January Report has also been posted, taking a look at DS9's performance over the past two months:

This two-month period saw all three syndicated dramas emerge from their December/January breaks. Two, DS9 and Hercules, came out of hibernation unscathed. Xena, on the other hand, has experienced a complete collapse, falling to some of its worst ratings ever.

[...]

Coming through the December four-episode break, DS9 performed very well. Over the break, the show had a tiny drop-off, maintaining nearly all of its audience; both of the new January episodes also performed very near the season average of around a 4.4. Hopefully, the episodes performed strong enough to hold the audiences over until February. Especially considering the quieter nature of both these episodes, their performances are encouraging for the upcoming sweeps.

You can read the full report, which also includes comparisons with last year, by clicking here.

Jeri Ryan At Conan O'Brien
Christian (11:28 am CST)
Following yesterday's appearance by Jeri Lynn Ryan (Voyager, Seven of Nine) at the 'Late Night with Conan O'Brien' show, the people at the Official Jeri Lyn Ryan Homepage have already posted screen captures of the event. You can find 10 lovely images of Ms. Ryan (on 5 of which we actually also get to see the host, Conan O'Brien) by clicking here.

Mania Magazine Revies Trek
Christian (11:22 am CST)
As usual, Mania Magazine has posted reviews of the two most recent Trek episodes, namely Deep Space Nine's 'Field of Fire' and yesterday's Voyager episode 'Bliss'. Reviewer Michelle Erica Green didn't really like 'Fields of Fire', according to her review:

I don't have much else to say; the detective story had holes (experimental weapons just sitting around in lockers, deadly murder technology undetectable by ship's sensors), the five-second appearances by most of the regulars appeared to have been phoned in, the directing was acceptable but as bottle shows go, this one had nothing to recommend it. If I have to sit through one more episode where good old wonderful human emotion is celebrated in relief against nasty cold Vulcan calculated logic, I'll shut the TV.

However, her dislike of 'Fields of Fire' is nothing compared to her hatred of 'Bliss':

There's no way this episode could have struck any regular SF viewer as remotely interesting or original.

You can find the entire Voyager review by clicking here.

Jerry Goldsmith Is A Busy Man....
Christian (11:14 am CST)
..... as he's apparently agreed to provide the music for no less than 4 movies! According to this report at Cinescape, the composer is currently hard at work scoring the new Universal Pictures movie 'The Mummy.' Furthermore, Goldsmith is reportedly also providing the music for The 13th Warrior, The Hollow Man and The Haunting of Hill House. As you are probably aware of, Goldsmith is the man responsible for the 4 Trek soundtracks and the well-known TNG and Voyager themes.

New Worlds Game Previewed
Christian (11:08 am CST)
GA-Source has published a preview of Star Trek: New Worlds, the upcoming 3D real-time Strategy game by Interplay. This is how the (rather short) preview begins:

Star Trek: New Worlds, a 3D Real Time Strategy game, is set in 2292. In the Neutral Zone -- a quiet area of space situated equidistant between Federation, Romulan, and Klingon Territories -- where a spatial anomaly has created a clutch of fresh new worlds.

The preview then talks a bit about the game's story, gameplay and unique features of the game, but it's nothing we haven't heard before. If you want, you can find the article here. Thanks go out to VoodooExtreme, where I first saw this.

DS9 Game To Have 3DNow! Support
Christian (11:01 am CST)
A company press release from games company GT Interactive, which can be found here, talks about 3DNow! support in upcoming GT games. 3DNow!, a special technology built into AMD processors, significantly enhances 3D processing power, and is expected to be installed in 14 million systems by the end of this quarter. The good news for us is that one of the games that will feature 3DNow! support will be 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Milennium', currently in development by Collective Studios, using the Simon & Schuster Deep Space 9 license.

Trek Storyboard Artist Promoted
Christian (10:55 am CST)
Pacific Data Images has appointed John Bell as the Creative Director of the studio's 'Commercial and Feature Effects' division. John Bell has just finished working as Production Designer on the recent hit movie 'Antz', but before that he was active on movies such as 'Contact' and 'The Lost World'. Several years ago, he also worked as Storyboard Artist on 'Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home', which is the reason I'm mentioning this at all. I found this in this update at Yahoo! News.

Happy Birthday Philip Anglim
Christian (10:39 am CST)
Congratulations to Philip Anglim, who turn 46 today. Anglim is most famous to Trek fans for his role as Vedek Bareil on Star Trek : Deep Space Nine, a role which ended rather tragically when the creators decided to kill him off in the third-season episode 'Life Support.' A lot of fans didn't like this, as can be witnesses by the support site The Vedek's Assembly, who launched a protest again. Last year, these fans were greeted with the episode 'Resurrection', in which a mirror-universe Bareil was introduced to us. If you want to read more about Anglim, you can find his unofficial fan club here.

Today on TV
Christian (10:30 am CST)
- In the US, the SciFi Channel is broadcasting the second-season TOS episode 'The Changeling', which doesn't actually deal with Odo, in case you were wondering. The episode airs at 6:30 PM Central Time, with a rerun at 10:30 PM.

- In the UK, Sky One is broadcasting the first-season Voyager episode 'Ex Post Facto' at 5 PM GMT. An hour later, the BBC will continue with its rerun of DS9's first season - tonight they're showing 'Past Prologue' at 6.00 PM GMT. Thanks to the Television Observation Unit for this.

-Finally, Sat.1 in Germany is showing a rerun of the TNG-episode 'Die Reise ins Ungewisse'(The Nth Degree) at 01:45 CET tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon, at 15:00 CET they're showing 'Gefangen in der Vergangenheit'(Qpid).

New at Trekseek.com!
Christian (10:23 am CST)
We've been adding a few sites to our Fan Clubs section again, specifically to the new Americas section. This section contains all the fan clubs we're aware of that are located on the two American continents. So far we've got two sub-sections, the United States section and the Brazil section. Some of the sites we've been adding to those sections today include:

-The Aztlan Earth Station, which is the page of what is probably the first Star Trek fan club in Mexico. The club gets together every two weeks to watch the most recent shows, talk, gossip and generally have a good time.
-The Frota Estelar Brazil. From what I've been able to gather from the poor Babelfish translation of the site, this is a company organising events for Brazilian Trekkers. If someone who speaks Portugese would like to give me a better explanation of the Brazilian sites, I'd be very grateful to you.

These aren't actually the only sites to be added to our database of 738 Star Trek sites, but a full listing would be way too long for this news bulletin. However, you *can* find the listing here.

Hello World!
Christian (10:13 am CST)
Wow! I just realized that I've been doing this for a week now! And all that without any visitors besides Saleel and me... I must be mad. However, this is also the last update from me until I get back from a short holiday to Spain, and until the site actually opens. My current plan is that we open the site on sunday evening, when I've been back for a day and after my first update to the site. Then I'll start updating the site for a few days, and near the end of the week we'll launch a promotional campaign to attract visitors to the site (newsgroup announcements, search engine submissions, maybe the odd spamming service or two :-) ).

In other news today, you may have noticed that the site is loading a *lot* faster today. The reason for that is that we discovered we'd forgotten to compress all the images before putting them on the site (shame, blush). We managed to compress images such as the TrekToday logo from 37 KB to just 13 KB, which should definately help loading times. In any case, I'll see you in a week!

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Wednesday February 10, 1999

Unreliable Rumours Department
Christian (1:07 pm CST)
As you may know, Star Trek web site Section 31 claims to have contacts with a Paramount insider named 'AL2000'. Today, Section 31 has reports on both Trek Series V and Star Trek X from this 'insider'. The report begins with a concept which is supposedly being considered for the next Trek movie:

Andromeda subject (which is still the leading Trek X storyboard)- from what I hear I believe it involves three ships (Enterprise E of course and another two which I have absulotely no clue about). Somehow they end up in the Andromeda Galaxy (sort of like an original series episode). They find these horrible bad guys (a bunch of new species). Talk is down now, it has sort of been shelved. They are too busy with Voyager and the new series.

The 'insider' goes on to report on Series V, in a new section at Section 31 entitled New Series. According to 'AL2000' the following concepts are currently being considered by Paramount:

Riker & New Crew-

A Riker and crew idea is also a leading concept. It would involve Riker on another ship (not the Enterprise E, for it still exists).

Prequel Series (pre Enterprise)-

The prequel type series is a definite false rumor. Paramount doesn't want to mimic the Star Wars franchise.

Another apparent rumour is a series set in the even more distant future, aboard the Enterprise-G. I would like to remind you of the news post on PlanetRiker yesterday, which declared both of these concepts to be completely untrue - something which I believe in, too. Please, do go ahead and check out the news at Section 31, but remember not to take it too serious.

Gravity National Ratings Online
Christian (12:55 pm CST)
The Star Trek Nielsen Ratings Information Database has posted the national ratings for Voyager's 'Gravity', which aired a week ago. Some good Voyager ratings news is included:

I was worried about this episode's rating coming from the Overnight ratings, but this turned out quite well. A 4.0 to kick off February is a very, very good start to lead into a sweeps that began last year with one of the lowest-rated episodes of the series. If Voyager continues on course, it will easily crack last year's sweeps mark -- a post-TNG first. "Bliss" marks the first episode airing during the technical sweeps period, followed by "Dark Frontier."

Read the full report for more. The Insurrection Box Office Report has also been updated, it now includes information on the premiere here in the Netherlands. Also, it's interesting to note that the movie's current worldwide grosses place the film at the 5th place of all Trek films, just below 'The Voyage Home', 'Generations', 'First Contact' and 'The Motion Picture.'

Ordover On Media Tie-Ins
Christian (11:28 am CST)
There's a letter exchange currently going on at the Locus Online, which is like the Daily Variety, but then for the SF book community (or so I'm told.) In any case, the January and February editions of their 'letters' section includes two letters from John Ordover, editor at Pocket Books. In his letters, he talks on the subject of media tie-ins, a discussion which was ignited by an article by Steve Perry talking about media tie-ins in the SF world:

Printed science fiction will be dead in another generation, and it's the media-tie ins, shared-universes, and novelizations that will kill it off.

I've been hearing garbage like this for most of the forty-odd years I've been reading, and more in the twenty-odd years I've been writing, and after considered thought, here is my response - as precise as I can make it:

Bullshit.

In his first letter, dated the 4th of January, John Ordover responded to the commentary in this letter, in which he poses another question on media tie-ins:

Dear Locus,
Since I edit the Star Trek novels, and am clearly biased, I'm not going to comment directly on Steve's essay, but instead pose another question.
Why is it that the science fiction genre is vulnerable to the intrusion of media tie in novels to an extent that no other genre is?

Of course, John Ordover wasn't the only one responding to the article, Douglas McKinney did so as well:

If I had to blame anyone for the continued proliferation of tie-ins and other sub-par books throughout the genre, it would be the fans who are too lazy to try something different.

Of course, this was oil on John Ordover's fire, so a month later he responded again, fiercely defending media tie-ins:

First off, reader bashing won't sell even one more copy of a straight SF book. Far as I can tell, it amounts to saying "Kids today! How can they waste their time on that crap? They should be expanding their minds reading good books!"
That last sound familiar?
Readers of SF media tie-ins aren't lazy. They aren't unwilling to try something different. They've sampled straight SF and found it not to their liking. Why? Bottom line, the majority of potential SF readers today want certain tropes in a certain context.

You can find out what precisely these tropes are in the full letter, but be sure to check out all the other letters as well.
Thanks go out to Kevin Lauderdale for posting news of this to the Star Trek Book Board.

'Bliss' Teaser Online
Christian (11:00 am CST)
The people at the Daily Sci-Fi have posted a teaser for tonight's new Voyager episode, 'Bliss.' The preview starts as follows:

Voyager gets munched on by a hungry space beast

We made a booboo. The two-hour Voyager movie, "Dark Frontier" isn't airing this week. It's next week. Instead, this week, it's all about "Bliss," an hour of outlandish gastronomic proportions.

Voyager discovers what seems to be a wormhole leading all the way back to the Alpha Quadrant. So, naturally, they decide to make that fateful trip, and it looks like the season's over. Or is it?

The full preview can be found by clicking here.

Trek Chat Tomorrow
Christian (10:55 am CST)
Tomorrow at The Continuum there'll be a live chat with Jeri Ryan, starting at 6:30 PM Pacific Time:

Jeri Ryan plays "Seven of Nine" on Star Trek: Voyager. She will be chatting about her experiences on Star Trek: Voyager including the special two-hour telefilm "Dark Frontier" airing February 17th.

If you wish, you can already submit advance questions here, this might give your question a better chance of being asked.

Birth Of The Federation Postponed
Christian (10:49 am CST)
Bad news for all you strategy fans out there - it seems as if Microprose won't be able to make their target release month of March. The following response from Microprose was posted to the FedCom message board a few days ago:

Yes unfortuantely First Contact was cancelled. BOF is still on track with a release dat of April 15.

[...]

Sincerely,
Adam Microprose
Customer Support

Paul Weaver, the FedCom webmaster, later sent out an update confirming this, stating he had received confirmation from three separate sources.

X-Men Movie In Pre-Production
Christian (10:39 am CST)
Cinescape Online has a report on the upcoming X-Men movie from 20th Century Fox. Apparently Fox was in danger of losing the license due to Marvel's recent re-organization due to bankruptcy. A press release from Fox, which I found at Yahoo!, gives some more info on the film. The interesting part in that press release, and the reason I'm talking about it here, is the news that Ralph Winter, who also worked on 'The Voyage Home', will be serving as executive producer for the feature. Furthermore, there have been some rumours floating around that Patrick Stewart will co-star in the movie, so that'll give us an extra chance to see him in action!

Voyager Top-Rated UPN Program
Christian (10:15 am CST)
Courtesy of Yahoo!, Reuters and Nielsen Media Research, the top 20 prime time TV programs for the week beginning the 1st of February have been published. As usual, Voyager wasn't in the top 20, but it *was* the top-rated UPN show, at No. 89, which is also not unusual.

Today on TV
Christian (10:09 am CST)
- In the US, UPN viewers will be able to enjoy a new Voyager episode, as tonight at 9.00 PM Eastern Time, UPN will broadcast 'Bliss'. Take a look at (a piece of) the press release:

Finally, after five long years, an exhilarated crew of the U.S.S. Voyager finds a wormhole that will bring them back to the Alpha Quadrant. As the happy crew prepares to return to Earth, a skeptical Seven of Nine violates captain's orders and enlists The Doctor, little Naomi Wildman and an alien pilot, Qatai, to help her stop the ship from entering the wormhole.

-Before that, to be precise at 6:30 PM Central Time, the SciFi Channel will broadcast the TOS episode 'Who Mourns For Adonais'. If you miss it, they're also airing a rerun at 10:30 PM Central Time.

-In the UK, the BBC is broadcasting the superb fifth-season TNG episode 'Cause and Effect' at 6.00 PM GMT. Furthermore, Sky One will broadcast the first-season Voyager episode 'Eye of the Needle' at 5.00 PM GMT, which is also repeated at 11.30 PM GMT. Thanks to the Television Observation Unit for making my life a lot easier with this.

-Lastly, the German station Sat.1 is repeating yesterday's 'Der Unbekannte Schatten'(Identy Crisis) tonight at 2.05 CET. Tomorrow at 15:00 CET they're also broadcasting TNG's 'Die Reise ins Ungewisse'(The Nth Degree).

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (9:53 am CST)
Today at Trekseek.com, we welcomed another new site to our 734 sites large database. This new site, which has actually got its own domain name, is:

-Maximum Defiant, which is 'the most inclusive USS Defiant website on the net.' Further inspection of the site reveals that the site is actually the winner of the Yahoo! Internet Life award for being the best Deep Space Nine site on the Internet. Go check it out!

Hello World!
Christian (9:48 am CST)
Brrrr! It's been snowing for three days straight now, and I hate it. First, in the morning, it starts to snow, so I look like the Giant Snowman when I leave the house. Then, during the day, it starts to rain. In the afternoon, it starts to snow again, so once more it's Yati-time for me. Lastly, during the night this layer of snow/rain/blubber becomes solid as it starts to freeze, so the day afterwards I look like the Giant Snowmand *and* I break my neck. Why isn't it summer already?

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Tuesday February 9, 1999

No Robert April Series
Christian (12:48 pm CST)
Following friday's news of the speculations going on over at the Daily Sci-Fi, there is a report up at PlanetRiker stating that a Captain Riker series has been considered, but a Robert April series was never ever in the running:

Paramount sources have read the story below (4 February) and agree that the Riker series has at least been considered, but that idea of a series based around Captain Robert April hasn't even been pitched to anyone at Paramount - so it's not in the running.

PlanetRiker then continues with some comments I fully agree with, so I decided to reprint them here:

Planet Riker says: Anyone who thinks that Paramount will start a new Trek series this year should consider that after Deep Space Nine finishes Paramount will still have a Trek series running (it's called Voyager, for those of you who might have forgotten). The priorities for Paramount right now are:

1. Give DS9 a fitting send-off
2. Give Voyager a higher profile

Final Insurrection Box Office Reports
Christian (12:40 pm CST)
The Star Trek Nielsen Ratings Information Database has updated its Insurrection Box Office Report, probably for the last time. The movie is also coming to an end in the UK and Germany, so the cumulative box office figures are beginning to approach their final volumes:

Added the numbers for the UK and Germany over the January 29-31 weekend. The movie is winding down its run in both areas, so some comparisons can be drawn to "First Contact"'s run. In the UK, "Insurrection" opened stronger than "First Contact," but fell off faster, and will most likely finish below "First Contact"'s mark there. In Germany, the story was exactly reversed. There, "Insurrection" opened off from "First Contact," but made it up in the later weeks and will just defeat "First Contact" for #1 Trek movie in Germany honors. Domestic figures put the movie just under $68 million. It should cross the $68 million mark next week. The movie is yet to begin its run in the cheap theaters; with those grosses, the movie should finish between $69 and $70 million.

One of the few countries in which Insurrection is still going strong is the Netherlands, but then again the movie premiered here on thursday. I myself am (finally) going to see it this friday! Woohoo! In any case, the full report can be found here, including a huge set of information tables.

Communicator Needs You
Christian (12:26 pm CST)
A freelance journalist for the Star Trek Communicator magazine posted an announcement to the rec.arts.startrek.current newsgroup a few hours ago. She's currently working on a few articles, and she needs help. She'd like to hear from you if:

You are in a profession that noone would associate with being a Trekker as well i.e - doctor, lawyer, accountant etc etc. I need to know all about your job and how it relates, if at all, to Trek, as well as what you do that's Trek related - clubs, conventions, etc.

Or did you meet your partner at a Trek club or convention? I want to hear from those who found romance through Trek, so tell me your story.

Or has Star Trek inspired you to be an engineer, docotor etc? Was Bones the most profound influence on your life.

If any of these descriptions fit you, and you want to talk to her, you can reach the journalist ('Johhanne') by e-mailing her.

Be My Manic Valentine
Christian (12:19 pm CST)
Well, not mine, actually, but 'Be My Manic Valentine' is the title of a new article at AnotherUniverse.com's Mania Magazine. The article looks at 'Genre Gifts For Your Sweetie This Season', and, obviously, Star Trek gifts couldn't be overlooked:

Guys, if your girlfriends put up with Seven of Nine, the least you can do is return the favor and get us all Star Trek Insurrection 12" Riker figures. He's wearing the new dress uniform which looks like a Love Boat castoff, and he looks more like Jonathan Frakes than the 9" action figure, plus he comes with those essential masculine accessories,the computer padd and laser rifle. If you would prefer to bond with your loved one on Valentine's Day, try the Trek blooper video or one of the Trek novels. They're not as sexy as reading Exit To Eden aloud (The X-Files' Gillian Anderson recorded the audiobook of that, by the way), but if you do a good Sisko imitation, it might come close.

There's more to be found in full article, including advice for ladies (Seven of Nine t-shirts seem to be the hot gift this year), and a paragraph on the lovely Star Trek Alien Beanies. Be warned, though, some of the links in the article weren't working for me, and some of the items (such as the very romantic Trek blooper video) were unavailable.

No Oscars For Insurrection
Christian (11:37 am CST)
Cinescape On-line just reported that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have announced the Oscar nominees (I'm sure other sources reported it as well, but Cinescape is where I saw it.) Naturally, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan got a lot of nominations, 11 in total, but unfortunately Insurrection wasn't nonimated for any award at all - not even the Visual Effects award. Sniff.

New Save Trek Newsletter Appears
Christian (11:26 am CST)
Save Trek HQ have posted the January/February edition of their 'Quality in Star Trek' Newsletter, which has now reached issue 25. Some of the features include:

-The Fall of Legends, by Tigerclaw, which looks at the current state of the Trek franchise.

-The Continued Voyages, which looks at a future for Voyager without many of the main cast members.

-'Insurrection Reviews', some good, some very bad.

The full issue can be found here.

Today on TV
Christian (11:10 am CST)
- In the US and some other countries, the SciFi Channel is broadcasting the 2nd-season episode 'Amok Time', which was the season opener when it was first aired back in 1967. Thos Vulcan-based tale will air at 6:30 PM CST, with a rerun at 10:30 PM.

-The Television Observation Unit is able to report to us that Sky One will broadcast the first-season Voyager episode 'The Cloud' at 5 PM GMT.

-Lastly, the Germans will be able to enjoy a rerun of the great TNG episode 'Augen in der Dunkelheit' (Night Terrors) at 2:10 CET tomorrow morning at Sat 1. Also tomorrow, but then at 15:00 CET, SAT 1 will broadcast 'Der unbekannte Schatten' (Identy Crisis).

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (11:03 am CST)
As usual in the beginning of the week, it's a rather quiet day at Trekseek.com today. As a matter of fact, the only new site was submitted late yesterday evening, namely:

- The Starfleet Rangers Headquarters, which is 'A fan page for one branch of the law enforcement of the Federation, known as the Starfleet Rangers'. At the moment there isn't that much to see yet on the page, 'due to a sneak attack by the Jem'Hadar', but I'm sure there'll be more coming up within a few weeks.

If you really are aching for more new sites, I suggest you check out thelisting of new sites from the past week, a collection of 38 new sites to our 733 sites large main database.

Hello World!
Christian (10:59 am CST)
Long live the Dutch Railway Company. At the moment, the Netherlands are slowly being hidden from sight by a huge amount of snow. Of course, this affects our public transportation system as well, and I can understand that. However, this morning I experienced something which sent me fuming with rage.

In the morning, I run onto the platform from which my train has probably left two minutes ago. Fortunately, I see the train is still waiting, so I jump in and get seated. Strangely enough, the train still doesn't depart. Then, five minutes later, another train arrives at the opposite side of the platform, headed for the same destination. However, I reason that since my train is an intercity, it'll probably arrive earlier than the other train. So I wait another five minutes, and then the other train leaves! Precisely at that moment, we are informed that this train won't continue anymore, as it has broken down. I sigh, and get ready for a long, long wait....

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Monday February 8, 1999

'The Emperor's New Cloak' credits and review
Christian (12:35 pm CST)
David Henderson at Psi Phi has updated his site to include the credits and the Tim Lynch review of 'The Emperor's New Cloak', which of course also has an own page at Psi Phi.

New Sev Trek Cartoon On-line
Christian (12:27 pm CST)

Jeri Ryan Radio
Christian (12:11 pm CST)
The Jeri Lynn Ryan fan club, one of the most active clubs on the web, has two reports about upcoming radio appearances by Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine):

The syndicated Mancow radio program is advertising that Ms. Ryan will be on the show sometime this week (February 8-12). If anyone out there is aware of the exact date and time, please e-mail us (The fan club, not Trektoday :-)). Click here for a list of radio stations that run the Mancow program.

The second announcement is also interesting for listeners in the rest of the world, assuming you are able to listen to radio on the web:

The KATT (100.5 FM, Oklahoma City) will be talking to Jeri tomorrow during the Rick and Brad morning show, 6:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. CST. You can listen to the KATT on the Web at Broadcast.com.

Shatner Rides Again
Christian (12:04 pm CST)
Courtesy of The William Shatner Connection comes the news that William Shatner is taping a voice over for a new documentary today:

William Shatner is taping a voice over for "No Ordinary Cowboy"... The fascinating story of John Wickman, a man who did some work for NASA, and then went on to seek his own dreams, his own path, regardless of seemingly impossible odds.

Cinescape Spoils 'Fields of Fire'
Christian (11:37 am CST)
Cinescape On-line has once again published massive spoilers for an upcoming DS9 episode, this time for 'Fields of Fire.' The initial article, which can be found here, reads as follows:

Mike Marek returns with his full-tilt spoilers for next week's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode titled "Field of Fire." As usual, Mike doesn't hold back filling his episode description with virtually every major plot point. Read what he has to say by clicking here. On the other hand, if you're the type of person who would rather wait until the show is on, move on to the next story by using the link below.

If you decide you do want to be spoiled, you can then continue to this article, but, once again, article is a detailed plot summary and it might detract from your enjoyment of the episode.

Ponn Farr In Las Vegas
Christian (10:53 am CST)
'Live Long and Prosper' is the theme for Star Trek Romantics is the title of a press release from Paramount Parks, talking about the new opportunity to be married in the Star Trek Experience in Vegas. On Valentine's Day, 4 couples will be wed on the bridge of the mock-up U.S.S. Enterprise aboard the Star Trek Experience.

The Valentine's Day nuptials will officially introduce STAR TREK: The Experience's 24th Century wedding packages for couples who wish to exchange their vows in the incredible world of Klingons, Romulans and Ferengi. The Captain and Admiral Packages begin at $2,000 which include complete arrangement of wedding services, rehearsal and ceremony time on the Bridge of the USS Enterprise. Topping off the official star-studded ceremony is a gala reception in Quark's Bar & Restaurant.

[...]

Commanders of STAR TREK: The Experience have received nearly 50 requests for intergalactic marriages this past year and have decided to introduce Star Trek weddings with these four lucky couples who will be joined together like no other couples have been joined together before. ''To be able to provide the venue for these Valentine sweethearts to marry is an exciting opportunity for us,'' says Tom Rapone, general manager of STAR TREK: The Experience. ''The love they share for each other will be solidified through the love that they share for Star Trek.''

The full article goes on to provide some information about the Experience itself, but it also mentions that Tim Russ (Tuvok) will be amongst the musicians that will lighten up the event.

Couples exchanging vows for the first time in the 24th Century ceremonies include Patti Cookson and Lonnie Lee Smith of El Sobrante, Calif; Nicole Lasagna and Robert Hall of Rodeo, Calif; and Marshal Rosenthal and Joanne Modlin of Los Angeles, Calif. Celebrating their fifth anniversary and renewing their wedding vows in the intergalactic setting are Mikel and Craig Salsgiver of Plano, Texas.

''Growing up with two Captains (Kirk and Picard) one destiny (To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before) and a passion for the New Frontier, you can imagine how excited we were when we learned about STAR TREK: The Experience,'' says Patti Cookson and her fiancee Lonnie Lee Smith. ''We needed someone to 'Make It So'....'' STAR TREK: The Experience has done just that.''

Today on TV
Christian (11:56 am CST)
- The SciFi Channel will broadcast the last TOS episode of the first season, 'Operation: Annihilat!'. The episode airs at 6:30 PM Central Time, with a rerun at 10:30 PM.

-Today in the UK, Sky one is broadcasting not one, not two, but three episodes of Trek! Admittedly, one is a re-run, but still. At 5 PM GMT the first-season Voyager episode 'Phage' is broadcasted, while at 8 PM GMT viewers will be able to enjoy a new DS9 episode, namely the sixth-season episode 'Change of Heart'. Lastly, 'Phage' will be repeated at 11.30 PM. Thanks go out to the Television Observation Unit for this.

- In Germany, Sat 1 is broadcasting a rerun of TNG's 'Die Begegnung im Weltraum' at 01.05 CET, in the middle of the night. Tomorrow, at 15:00 CET, they're broadcasting the TNG episode 'Augen in der Dunkelheit', a personal favourite of mine.

Happy Birthday Ethan Phillips
Christian (11:59 am CST)
Today's the birthday of Ethan Phillips, who's been playing the role of Neelix for the past five years on Voyager. In those years, he's gained a pretty strong support amongst Star Trek fans - he's a regular guest at conventions, and just a few days ago he participated in a chat at The Continuum. In case you're interested, you can find his official fanclub, the EPIC (Ethan Phillips Internation (fan) Club) right here.

Hello World!
Christian (10:14 am CST)
Sorry for the slow start, everyone. I don't think this news update will go as fast as usual - I'm currently doubletasking between this news update and a live chat with wonderful pop group Roxette. From 5 PM to 7 PM CET they're chatting at the Official 'Have a nice day!' site ('Have a Nice Day!' being the title of their new brilliant album). I'll try to at least get some news out, but I'm not making any promises :-).

Sunday February 7, 1999

New at Trekzone.net
Christian (10:06 am CST)
Unfortunately this isn't actually accessible for all of you out there yet, but I'm so excited about this that I'll just tell you a little bit about it. Here at Trekzone.net we'll soon be opening a lovely Java chat room. Since the chat rooms at Startrekker.net went down, the Trek community hasn't had access to a decent chat room anymore, but we're going to change all that! Our new client, which allows you to chat via both Java *and* regular IRC clients are scheduled to go live very soon indeed.....

TNO Forums Also Open
Christian (10:03 am CST)
Following yesterday's announcement that the Starfleet CommRelay has re-opened, I probably should also draw your attention to the TNO Star Trek Forums. These forums, which are being operated by The New Order are also UBB-powered, and have got five forums to offer.

Let Seven Entertain You......
Christian (9:52 am CST)
No, this isn't what you think/hope it is :-). The official Jeri Lynn Ryan fan club has posted the Jeri Mi Ni Pai game, a 'fun tile-matching game featuring tons of pictures of our favorite actress.' Four versions of the game are offered for your playing pleasure.

Voyager December-January Ratings Report
Christian (9:49 am CST)
The Star Trek Nielsen Rating Information Data Base has posted its December-January Ratings report for Voyager. As usual, this takes a detailed look at the ratings for the past two months, and draws some interesting comparisons:

These five episodes have shown new hope for Voyager. While few episodes aired in direct correllation to last year, a few comparisons show Voyager beginning to improve over last year's mark. In addition, almost all episodes in this period held or improved the season average to-date.

-At the risk of repeating myself, these two months have provided a myriad of good signs for Voyager, which has been cruising downhill for the past four years. The show leveled off from September through November, and now it appears as though the show may begin to rise. Where the show could only surpass a 4.0 rating with a gimmick a few months ago, Voyager has begun to hit the 4.0 mark quite regularly. December and January have provided some stability and rebound, giving hope that maybe February Sweeps could see more of the same. If Voyager's current trend extends through February Sweeps, Star Trek will have its first year of Sweeps increase since TNG ended its run five years ago.

The full report, which also includes the actual figures themselves, can be found here.

Wildside Press Help
Christian (9:39 am CST)
Today seems to be a good day for Trek book news, as John Gregory Betancourt (author of 'The Heart Of The Warrior') has sent news of a contest to the Wildside Press mailing list:

We are putting in a (free) book auction -- it costs nothing to bid or list items for sale -- and we desperately need help to really "kick the tires" to make sure everything works the way it should. So we need a lot of fake items posted and fake bids made fast. This seems like the perfect opportunity to have a little fun!

For the most wild, creative, and outlandish new item posted on any of the book-related areas on the new auction site during the month of February, we will award a prize of 2 free books (up to $100 in value -- the winner's choice) from our in-print catalog. Two runners-up will each receive 1 book (up to $35.00 in value).

Remember that this is all fake, so you won't be able to loose anything. The auction can be found here.

Starbase Prometheus Chat Update
Christian (9:36 am CST)
After friday's news about the Valentine's Day chat with Trek novelist Dean Wesley Smith, Starbase Prometheus has published an updated schedule:

SERVER
kansas-city.xworld.org:6667
CHANNEL
#starbase-prometheus

Sunday, February 14, 1999
DEAN WESLEY SMITH - STAR TREK AUTHOR

Sunday, February 28, 1999
JOHN VORNHOLT - STAR TREK AUTHOR

Sunday, March 14, 1999
JOHN ORDOVER - STAR TREK EDITOR

All chats will take place at 10.00 PM GMT/3.00 PM CST.

Ordover Speaks Out
Christian (9:31 am CST)
On the alt.startrek.books newsgroup John Ordover, editor at Pocket Books, mentioned that Pocket would release a $3.99 re-print of 'How Much For Just The Planet' in August. Responding to this, someone asked John on his Q&A Board what other special editions would be coming up, and here's his answer:

The six special edition $3.99 reprint books are: THE YESTERDAY SAGA by Ann Crispin Yesterday's Son Time for Yesterday FORTUNES OF WAR by Diane Carey Dreadnought! Battlestations! WORLDS APART by John M. Ford The Final Reflection How Much for Just the Planet? These are six seperate books with new "series" titles.

This wasn't the only interesting news to be posted on the board by John Ordover, as he also answered a question about the release date of the DS9 Milennium Trilogy:

Current thinking has it coming out in January and Februart of 2000.

Lastly, he also mentioned that there will probably be more scriptbooks coming out, after the success of 'Becoming Human' and 'The Q-Chronicles', the previous scriptbooks.

Starfleet Command News
Christian (9:05 am CST)
IGNPC has posted the wittily titled Starfleet Command preview, which deals with the upcoming Quicksilver/Interplay strategy game. The preview goes into some detail about the game's roots in the Starfleet Battles tabletop game and is accompanied by a huge load of screenshots. In general the preview is very positive, take a look at this excerpt:

Although we're only goofing around with a pre-alpha, we still couldn't help but be stunned by the visuals in Starfleet Command. Planets that spin and grow huge as you get closer to them, nebulae, and other craft are all displayed with fantastic crispness and smooth animation. Another nice artistic touch are the interface screens, which match the race with which you are playing the game. They do an excellent job of making each race seem really different rather than just another set of space ships. Be sure to check out all the screens we put up. They show the huge amount of variety and detail available in the game. Then reflect on the fact that these guys aren't even close to finished.

The preview goes on to mention that there will be another preview on tuesday, in which IGN will look at some gameplay issues and which will also feature an interview with the designers. Thanks to Evil Avatar for reporting this.

Toy News
Christian (8:51 am CST)
Courtesy of the Raving Toy Maniac comes the news of some 9-inch scale figures that will be made available for general release, as opposed to the retailer exclusives that have been announced before.

The 9" Millenium Collector Sets each feature a Captain and his or her First Officer in dress uniforms. There are four sets that include Captain James Kirk and Mr. Spock; Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Commander William Riker; Captain Benjamin Sisko and Major Kira Nerys; and Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay. This series of figures will be in window-boxed, "Millenium" packaging declaring the slogan "A Bold New Millenium." These are scheduled to ship in September.

Also in the 9"-scale, are the Alien Combat Assortment sculptures. These 9" figures are battle damaged versions of a couple of your favorites aliens, a Klingon Warrior and one very mean looking Borg Drone. Conceptual pieces will be shown at Toy Fair next week, but expect changes in the final product. These are scheduled for September as well.

Today on TV
Christian (8:48 am CST)
- First a correction: I'm sure you'll have noticed that the SciFi Channel wasn't actually broadcasting 'Operation: Annihilate!' yesterday evening. Apparently they aren't broadcasting in the weekend, which I hadn't noticed yet... Sorry!

-In the UK, Sky One will broadcast two episodes once again, namely the DS9 4th season episode 'Rejoined' at 4 PM GMT, and the 1st season Voyager episode 'Time and Again' at 5 PM. As usual, thanks go out to the Television Observation Unit. The BBC has pre-empted Voyager, so you'll have to wait another week for 'Year of Hell, Part 1' to air.

-Germans won't be able to watch any Trek until tomorrow at 15:00 CET, when Sat 1 is broadcasting the TNG episode 'Die Begegnung im Weltraum', but as I probably won't have updated at that time, I thought I'd mention it now.

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (8:31 am CST)
We've got a huge amount of new sites in the Trekseek database today, and I really mean a huge amount! Today, 26 sites were added to the database, giving us a grand total of 732 sites. You can view all the new sites of today right here, but here are some of the highlights:

-The Official John Colicos Fan Club gives you detailed information about the Canadian-born actor John Colicos, who is most famous for his portrayal of Kor on the Original Series and Deep Space Nine.
-The Flying Dutch form the only Star Trek fan club here in the Netherlands. They've got a great web site, but unfortunately it won't be of much use to you if you don't speak Dutch.
-Trekkers i Södra Sverige is one of those sites that gave me a headache. Presumably it's a Swedish Star Trek club, but I'd love it if someone from Sweden would be able to give me a more detailed description.
-Lastly, the Barbie Borg made me laugh. A lot.

Hello World!
Christian (8:22 am CST)
Today I was busy adding extra sites to Trekseek.com, specifically to the Fan Clubs section. We're currently doing a major update on this section, and one of the most important new features is that we've now sorted the fan clubs per geographical region.

Anyway, for the past hour or so, I have been adding sites to the Scandiniavia section, and I can tell you that *that* was aggravating. If I see another 'ö' I think I'm going to scream! Mind you, I've got nothing at all against Scandinavians - they make wonderful music and live in beautiful countries, but, believe me, their language is absolutely incomprehensible!

Saturday February 6, 1999

Win A Trip To Vegas
Christian Höhne Sparborth (1:23 pm CST)
The Dutch television station Veronica has just started an Insurrection-themed contest in which you can win a trip to Las Vegas! If you win, you and a friend will fly to Vegas, where you'll be treated to a six-day stay in the Hilton Hotel. Of course, you'll also get to visit the Star Trek Experience during your stay.

All you have to do to win this is answer three easy questions, enter your address and wait anxiously. The contest can be found here, but remember that it's probably only open for Dutch people. (Haha! Finally we get revenge for years of American-only contests :-)!) Thanks to Senad Music for telling me about this.

Jordanian Regent on Voyager
Christian (10:44 am CST)
Jason Davidson has posted an interesting bit of trivia to his Star Trek news page:

This isn't so much recent news as it is timely trivia given current events, however it's interesting to note that Abdullah Bin Hussein, Crown Prince and likely imminent King of Jordan once appeared on Voyager in a cameo appearance. Prince Abdullah is a self declared fan of Star Trek and appeared in the second season episode "Investigations". He can be seen briefly in the opening of that episode, talking with Ensign Kim in a corridor.

This certainly alleviates my fears about Abdullah. I mean, if he likes Star Trek, he can hardly be a dictator, right :-)?

Dark Frontier Teaser Movie Available!
Christian (10:39 am CST)
In another update at The Continuum, we finally get to see something more from 'Dark Frontier', as the article is accompanied by three stills from the episode and one 10-second 'sneak preview'. The article begins as follows:

Airing mid- February will be a spectacular television event, an epic Star Trek: Voyager two hour telefilm that marks the television debut of the evil Borg Queen, the central node in the vast Borg group mind seen previously in Paramount Pictures blockbuster movie "Star Trek: First Contact." The two-hour Star Trek: Voyager television movie is scheduled to air on February 17th on UPN.

For the rest, the article gives some plot info, but nothing we haven't heard yet.

Insurrection Toy Pictures
Christian (10:28 am CST)
The Flagship has posted some pictures of the latest Insurrection toys, some of which have the crew in dress uniforms or in planet gear.

Sirtis Does Comedy
Christian (10:19 am CST)
Another news update at The Continuum talks about Marina Sirtis' lead role in the Neil Simmons play 'Hotel Suite', which is currently attracting audiences in Philadelphia.

The four-act romantic comedy stars Sirtis as Diana, one half of a couple whose life is glimpsed at hotels in Beverly Hills and London in two stays 16 years apart. Locals and visitors in Philadelphia can call the theatre at 215-574-3550 for ticket info. Shows run Tuesday through Saturday nightly at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

The full article then goes on to describe the career of Sirtis (Troi).

Vulcan Blues
Christian (10:14 am CST)
The Continuum has posted a news item about Tim Russ' debut CD. Tim Russ, who plays Tuvok on Voyager, is apparently a rather active musician, who regularly plays guitar and sings in Los Angeles. According to the Continuum, he often plays blues, rock and jazz, but....

.....But there's a softer side to Russ' music, and now his fans don't even have to be in Southern California to share it.

STAR TREK: CONTINUUM visitors are among the first to be able to order Russ' four-song CD of acoustic and ballads, entitled Only a Dream in Rio.

The full article contains a picture of the cd cover, plus, of course, information on how to order the cd.

Starfleet Commrelay re-opens
Christian (10:03 am CST)
After a leave of absence of more than a month, the Starfleet Commrelay, part of the Treknews Network has re-opened. A word of warning, though, as the forums are still being beta-tested and could be slightly shaky:

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! These forums are in BETA FORMAT. Features are being added and removed constantly. Some functions are broken. The Forums are being opened to aid in the debugging of the new features.

With more than 300 registered users, more than 20 forums, and a professionally modified UBB script, the Commrelay is one of the best choices to discuss all things Trek, so go there and post! Of course, another very good option if you want to talk Trek is the soon-to-be-opened Trek BBS, located right here at Trekzone, if you'll excuse the shameless plug :-).

Starfleet Academy Contest
Christian (9:54 am CST)
Ynroh'Keeg at Star Trek Gaming Central has posted the following update about two contests to be held at the Klingon Imperial Navy:

The Klingon Imperial Navy is sponsoring two contests for all of us out here. With the help of Interplay and Kali, they will be holding a Starfleet Academy Battle contest as well as a story writing contest, so even if you don't have SFA, you can still participate in at least one of not both of them! The whole thing is just in the formative stages, but it looks extremely cool, and is actually a legit deal (as Interplay is involved...looks like they're providing prizes!). I will be updating you regularly as information presents itself!

I couldn't actually find any news of the contest on the page itself, but, as Ynroh'Keeg mentioned in his update, the whole thing is just being developed. I'll post more info on the matter as I hear about it.

Unleash Your Vulcan Fury!
Christian (9:46 am CST)
Games Domain Review, the 'Independent online magazine written by gamers for gamers', has posted a Secret of Vulcan Fury petition. As you probably know, 'The Secret of Vulcan Fury' was an adventure game that was being developed by Interplay, which ironically enough also uses the motto 'By Gamers, For Gamers.'
Last October, Interplay announced that the game's development had been put 'on hold', which everyone assumed meant the game had actually been canned. However, it seems there may still be hope for the game:

Its fate is still uncertain - however, Interplay has scheduled to re-evaluate this project in the springtime to decide whether it is to be cancelled completely or continued. In order to help them make the decision to continue development, Games Domain Review has created this petition to allow the gamers to show their support. Since the earliest Interplay had indicated they would be able to re-evaluate the game was in mid-March, the deadline on this petition is March 10.

If you also want to save the game, you can sign the petition here. In case you're not certain you want to, you can always head over to Interplay's Official Vulcan Fury site, where you can find info on this amazing game.
Thanks go out to Ynroh'Keeg at Star Trek Gaming Central for reporting this.

Trek Sweep Stunts
Christian (9:31 am CST)
I was actually going to post this yesterday, but unfortunately the update slipped through. Anyways, in this week's 'Sci-Fi Hot List' column at TV Guide the February ratings sweep month is looked at. Many sci-fi shows are doing something extra during this month to attract extra viewers, and of course DS9 and Voyager are doing this as well. Deep Space Nine's most important ratings cannon in February will be the episode 'Fields of Fire', which premieres on the 10th. A short teaser of what can be expected from the episode:

As Ezri Dax, deBoer encounters a previous Trill host in "Field of Fire," which premieres in syndication Feb. 10. Joran, one of Dax's earlier incarnations, comes to Ezri in a dream and confesses to a murder. At Joran's urging, Ezri channels his memories to help solve the recent murder of a young Starfleet officer. The psychic sleuthing hits a snag, however, when Ezri awakens to news of a second homicide.

Meanwhile, Voyager is depending mostly on the upcoming telefilm 'Dark Frontier', which must be the most hyped episode since 'Scorpion'. In case you have been living in the closet for the past month, this is the two-hour episode that features the return of the Borg Queen.

"Fans have been clamoring to see the Borg Queen again ever since First Contact," Ryan told Jeanne Wolf in a recent TVGO interview. Playing Seven's relationships with the collective and with Voyager's Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) against each other, says Ryan, makes for "this neat little triangle. It's almost like meeting your birth mother and your adoptive mother."

'Dark Frontier' will air on wednesday the 17th of February at 9 PM ET on UPN. For more info on the DS9 and Voyager episodes, plus news on 'La Femme Nikita', 'The Sentinel' and 'Buffy', check out the full article.

Mania Magazine reviews new Trek episodes
Christian (9:19 am CST)
The latest issue of Mania Magazine carries reviews of Voyager's 'Gravity' and DS9's 'The Emperor's New Cloak'. As usual, the reviews are rather in-depth, offering a lengthy plot summary and a detailed analysis, so stay clear if you don't want to be spoiled. A short excerpt from the DS9 review

A less-dark voyage to the other side than the past few alternate universe stories, this was also one of the more enjoyable Ferengi stories of the past few seasons. It makes TOTAL sense that Zek, the man who wanted to buy his way into the Dominion and to bribe the Bajoran prophets, would attempt to cross over looking for new markets; it's also predictable though rather sad that he would cheat on Moogie with the Intendant, a woman no one seems to be able to resist even though they all know better. I was puzzled about Quark's admission of familial loyalty to the Nagus - now THAT sounds like an alternate universe version of the character - and more so about Ezri's familiarity with Ferengi on our side, considering that as far as we know, she's never crossed over, and Ferengi are do-gooders in her universe.

Today on TV
Christian (8:35 am CST)
-Tonight, the SciFi Channel is broadcasting 'Operation: Annihilate!', which was the last episode of the first season when it first aired. The episode will air at 6:30 PM CST, and is being repeated at 10:30 PM CST.

-In the UK, Sky One will broadcast two Trek episodes, namely the 4th-season DS9 episode 'Indiscretion' at 4 PM GMT, and the 1st-season Voyager episode 'Parallax' an hour later. Thanks to the Television Observation Unit for this.

- In Germany, Sat 1 is actually broadcasting the Original Series episode 'Seit es Menschen Gibt', which started at 15:05 CET. Furthermore, if you missed yesterday's showing of Voyager's 'Leben nach dem Tod', you can catch the rerun at 23:45 CET.

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (8:26 am CST)
Well, we were actually able to get 700 sites in Trekseek before the weekend started. As a matter of fact, we've got 705 sites in our database at the moment, and that number is bound to grow as we add more sites this weekend. Some of the new sites that were added today include:

-The Star Trek Fan Club Mönchengladbach, a German fan club that organises a monthly Trek dinner for its members,
-The German 1st Star Trek Online Club, which offers things such as exclusive interviews, newsletters and mailing lists, and
-AUSTREK, which is a Melbourne-based Australian Trek fan club.

If you detect a common theme in those sites, well, you're right. At the moment we're doing a massive update of the Fan Clubs section, so if you're looking for a Trek fan club in your region, go check it out! Of course, we also added some more sites to other categories today, you can find them at the listing of new sites.

Hello World!
Christian (8:16 am CST)
This morning, I saw one of those annoying Tell Sell programs on television. This particular program dealt with a new 'fast reading' course - within 4 hours you (yes, you!) would know how to read at speeds previously unimaginable. The inventor of the course was supposedly able to read through an entire mathematics book in just 22 seconds. Now, I know there is of course no way this would actually work, but I sure as hell would love such a thing for web pages - that would certainly make my life a *lot* easier :-).

Friday February 5, 1999

Ethan Phillips (Neelix) Chat Transcript on-line
Christian (12:23 pm CST)
The Star Trek Continuum has posted the transcript of yesterday's chat with Ethan Phillips. Some snippets from the transcript:

Welcome to STAR TREK:CONTINUUM. We are very pleased to bring you tonight's exclusive chat with Ethan Phillips. Ethan plays "Neelix" on "Star Trek: Voyager." Ethan is also the co-author, with William J. Birnes, of "Star Trek Cookbook" - a collection of recipes.

[...]

Ethan Phillips: For a couple of years everytime I went to a convention at least 20 or 30 people suggest I write a cookbook. And it has always been in the back of my mind. I met Bill Birnes, the author of many cookbooks... and he said, it would be fun to do this. And we just started messing around with ideas and this is what popped out. I wrote all of the Voyager sections, and anything to do with our crew. I wrote all the introductions, as well. Bill has an encylopedic knowledge of Star Trek and is responsible for the sections on TNG, DS9 and TOS. But I helped him write all the intro gags and stories.

[...]

Rod asks: Is it true that Janeway (Mulgrew) wants to leave the show,? If so, why?

Ethan Phillips: That's a rumor. And not true. As far as I know it was started by Genevieve Bujold.

USA Networks announces 4th Quarter Figures
Christian (12:20 pm CST)
USA Networks, Inc. , the parent company of the SciFi Channel, has just announced its 4th-quarter results. Some interesting news on the SciFi Channel:

The Sci-Fi Channel added 5.9 million homes during the year to eclipse the 50-million mark, and its burgeoning slate of original programming helped boost the Q4 average primetime rating by 50% to a 0.9. The continued momentum has begun to impact Sci-Fi's bottom line, driving 93% higher EBITDA in 1998 as compared to the prior year.

New Eon Magazine Appears
Christian (12:18 pm CST)
Eon Magazine issue 13.0 has just appeared. Some interesting features include:

-- Reviews of the Star Trek VI DVD and a new Chekov toy.
- A new 'Column of Anger', dealing with 'Things about the STAR TREK Phenomenon I'm REALLY Pissed about' (the author of the column, not me :-) ) and the most interesting article:
- 'May the Borg be with you', which talks about the Borg in Voyager. Included in it are Brannon Braga's story of how he conjured up the Borg, info from Jenosky on the development of the Borg, and info on the upcoming Voyager television movie 'Dark Frontier'.

The premise of the telefilm has Voyager coming upon a damaged Borg Sphere that, according to Braga, is "limping" home. Aware that the vessel is equipped with a transwarp drive that could shave at least 20 years off of their journey, Janeway is determined to get her hands on the technology. Unfortunately, the new Borg Queen is aware of what's going on and contacts Seven, stating that she will spare the starship crew if Seven allows herself to be reassimilated.

The article goes on to talk about the new Borg Queen, Susanna Thompson, more background info on Annika Hansen/Seven of Nine, and Brannon Braga's thoughts on the future of Voyager.
Recommended!

Decipher CCG Contest
Christian (12:14 pm CST)
Decipher, the company publishing the Star Trek CCG line, has posted the details of a new on-line contest, the 'Reverse Anagram Contest'.

C'mon, you know what an anagram is - rearranging the letters of a word to make a new word. In the past, our Web contests have asked you to rearrange scrambled card titles so that they make sense. This time, take an actual Star Trek CCG card title and scramble it to make a new word or string of words.

Once you've done that, email us the results and we'll choose choose the ten we like best, using all sorts of subjective, non-measurable criteria, like, 'the funniest' or 'most surprising' or 'most clever.' Then we'll award prizes.

Ten winners will receive a set of Star Trek CCG cards.

Bliss Press Release On-Line
Christian (12:12 pm CST)
The Star Trek Continuum has posted the official press release for the upcoming Voyager episode 'Bliss'. An excerpt:

Finally, after five long years, an exhilarated crew of the U.S.S. Voyager finds a wormhole that will bring them back to the Alpha Quadrant. As the happy crew prepares to return to Earth, a skeptical Seven of Nine violates captain's orders and enlists The Doctor, little Naomi Wildman and an alien pilot, Qatai, to help her stop the ship from entering the wormhole.

German Banner News
Christian (12:06 pm CST)
Die Deutscher StarTrek-Index (German Star Trek Index) has posted an update on its banner program:

Der DSi Bannertausch, das bisher weltweit größte Bannertausch-Programm für Star Trek Websites, ist bis auf weiteres eingestellt worden.

Hauptgrund für diese drastische Maßnahme war ein schwerer Hardwarefehler seitens unseres Providers, der am Dienstag, den 26. Januar 1999, den kompletten deutschen StarTrek-Index, darunter auch das Bannertausch-Programm, eliminiert hatte. Die Wiedereinrichtung des Bannertauschs gestaltete sich schwierig, bzw. ließ sich bisher nicht vollständig realisieren.

Basically, their banner program (the world's largest, according to DSI), has been canceled due to server problems. The entire update can be found here.

'News' on Star Trek - Series V
Christian (12:04 pm CST)
The Den's Daily Sci-Fi page has posted some speculations on the new Trek series:

It's about time the rumor mill finally started churning on this topic. As all Trek fans should know by now, Deep Space Nine ends this season, leaving Voyager to defend the honor of the Star Trek franchise. Predictably, a lot of fans are worried, because, frankly, Voyager isn't as good as Next Generation. So, everybody's asking questions like "What's Paramount going to do after Deep Space NIne?" Well, it seems the answer is, "Start a new series."

You can read the full article, which includes some speculation on a Robert April series, here.
Thanks go out to PlanetRiker for reporting this.

Overnight ratings for 'Gravity'
Christian (12:02 pm CST)
ore ratings news appeared at the Star Trek Nielsen Rating Information Data Base, in the form of the following article:

Voyager dipped slightly entering this February sweeps, dropping to a 5.4 rating, 8 share in the overnight metered markets. That's down 4% from last week's "Latent Image" (5.6/8).

As the major networks brought out their big guns for sweeps, Voyager was clobbered in timeslot competition. "Gravity" finished 6th behind the WB's "Charmed" (5.8/9) and Fox's "Party of Five" (7.8/11). NBC replaced its retched "Lateline"/"Encore! Encore!" set with a "Law & Order" movie, which put a dent in Voyager's numbers.

The final numbers for this episode should be decent, but not great. The market was suddenly extremely cramped for a night with many of the major networks targeting Voyager's demographics. As it stands, the final ratings for this show should be on par with Voyager's February performance last year, which still puts the show in a good position with its ace, "Dark Frontier," coming in two weeks. Final ratings will be out when I recieve them.

DS9 reclaims #1 Syndicated Spot
Christian (12:00 pm CST)
'Deep Space Nine Shines in Syndication' is an article at Trekweb celebrating the fact that DS9 has reclaimed its position as the #1 syndicated drama show. A short snippet from the article:

After losing an uphill battle with Xena and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys for the past two years, Deep Space Nine reclaims its position as the #1 syndicated drama for its seventh and final season. Beginning with a tight gap among the three shows at the start of season 7, Deep Space Nine finally outranked Xena and Hercules in the November sweeps period, earning a 4.6 average household rating. Xena followed DS9 with a 4.5, while Hercules fell to the third spot with a 4.0. But DS9's winning streak continued in head-to- head competition following the November sweeps in reruns and first-run episodes, with Hercules falling to a distant third, and Xena battling DS9 neck-to-neck for the number one spot. The two latest first-run episodes, "It's Only a Paper Moon," and "Prodigal Daughter" easily defeated Xena, reestablishing the number one spot for Paramount's syndicated drama series.

Star Trek book news
Christian (11:58 am CST)
Pocket Books editor John Ordover has answered another batch of questions in his Q&A-section. He answered some questions about the Shatner novels, new book covers, literary agents, and he mentioned the following thing about a possible sequel to Mark Reynold's 'Mission to Horatius' book:

I've considered it, and even worked on the idea a bit, but sequels to books, just like sequels to movies, tend to suffer from "sequelitis." Also, even with the current re-issue, I'm not sure that enough fans will have read the book to make a sequel really a plausible idea.

Also, on the Simon & Schuster Book Forum, David R. George III (co-author of the new DS9 novel 'The 34th Rule') answered a question about how he met Armin Shimerman:

One of my closest friends is Eric Stillwell, who as you may know was the script coordinator on TNG for many years (he now assists Michael Piller, co-creator of DS9 and Voyager, and writer of Insurrection). Eric ran, and was a guest at, many conventions over the years, and through those experiences met Armin.

The full post can, of course, be found at the Book Forum.

Trek novelist chat at Starbase Prometheus
Christian (11:56 am CST)
Starbase Prometheus, the major Starship Creator web site, has just announced a Valentine's Day chat with Dean Wesley Smith, co-author of books such as "The Long Night", "The Soldiers of Fear" and "The Big Game", and editor of the Strange New Worlds Contest.

He will be there to answer questions about his books, experiences in Star Trek, and other works he has done. Server: kansas-city.xworld.org:6667 Channel: #starbase-prometheus 1 PM Pacific, 4 PM Eastern, 10 PM Greenwich Mean Time

Jeri Ryan speaks out
Christian (11:54 am CST)
Three stories featuring Jeri Ryan made their way to the web today. The first article, TV Guide's 'Backstage with Jeri Ryan' deals with her appearance last monday at the TV Guide Awards, where she also gave some extra info about Voyager.

Despite rumors that Kate Mulgrew, who plays Voyager's Capt. Janeway, will jump ship sometime soon, Ryan told TV Guide Online visitors that "there is no immediate plan to get the crew home." Not that she'd even want that: "It's a great bunch of people to work with," she said.

Furthermore, she talked about an upcoming episode where Seven of Nine and the Holodoc "have a sort of a Pygmalion thing going [...] It's going to be really cute."

The second story, a short update by Cinescape On-line entitled 'Ryan On Trek Cons' reads as follows:

While participating in a press gathering in Pasedena last month, Star Trek: Voyager's Jeri Ryan revealed her initial reaction to her first Star Trek convention, according to Sacramento Bee writer Rick Kushman. Ryan revealed, "You can't be prepared for a dozen people dressed in Klingon costumes, drinking blood wine and shouting in Klingon."

Lastly, the Official Jeri Lynn Ryan Homepage reports that Jeri will be making her second appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien Wednesday, February 10. Meanwhile, pictures of her previous appearance can be found here.

Playtesting for new Trek games
Christian (11:50 am CST)
The following information was posted yesterday at gaming news site Blue's News.

I received an invitation for gamers to participate in a focus group for Interplay. You MUST live in the LA/Orange County, CA area and be willing to visit Interplay for a couple hours of playing games that haven't been released. If you're interested, email betatest@interplay.com with the words "focus group" as the message subject. Everyone who participates will get a free Interplay game of their choice.

Why is this interesting for Trek fans? Well, as you probably know, Interplay is currently developing several games based on their Original Series license, including 'Klingon Academy', 'New Worlds' and 'Starfleet Command', and there's a good chance these games will also be included in the beta test session.

Nanites becoming reality?
Christian (11:48 am CST)
A press release from the UC Berkeley Extension, entitled 'New UC Berkeley Extension Course Looks Into the Future of Nanotechnology', talks about a course dealing with nanotechnology.

Imagine curing cancer with millions of tiny, smart ``mechanical submarines'' that enter the bloodstream and attack tumors one cell at a time.

Contemplate a device that can store a thousand gigabytes bytes of information within the space of a grain of sand. Or a chip ten times smaller than a human blood cell, yet as powerful as millions of PCs. While these ``miracle'' devices may sound like something out of a ``Star Trek'' episode, they are just a few of the possible future applications that will be discussed in a new UC Berkeley Extension course on the emerging field of nanotechnology.

The full article, which can be found over at Yahoo! Finance by clicking here, gives detailed information about a course 'Tinkering with Atoms: The Emerging Field of Nanotechnology', which explores the uses and processes behind nanotechnology.

Today on TV
Christian (11:45 am CST)
- Tonight, the SciFi Channel is broadcasting "The City on the Edge of Forever", generally hailed as the best Trek episode ever. The episode will air at 6:30 PM CST, and is being repeated at 10:30 PM CST.

-In the UK, Sky One will broadcast DS9 season 4 episode 'The Visitor', a very touching episode dealing with Jake and Benjamin Sisko. The episode airs at 5 PM GMT, with a repeat at 11.30 PM. Thanks to the Television Observation Unit for this.

-In Germany, Sat 1 will broadcast the Voyager episode 'Leben nach dem Tod' (dubbed) at 20:15 CET. Also, tomorrow morning at 3:50 CET Sat 1 will run a repeat of TNG's 'Erster Kontakt'.

New at Trekseek.com
Christian (11:40 am CST)
Will we be able to get to 700 sites before the weekend starts? At the moment, the "largest, most accessible Star Trek search engine on the net", Trekseek.com, has got a whopping 698 sites in its database. Some of the new sites that were added today include:

- The U.S.S. Sovereign, which is the oldest Star Trek club in Philadelphia and
- The Star Trek soundtracks page, which is web site designed to provide comprehensive information on all Star trek soundtracks released on compact disc.

Go check them out, or take a look at all the other new sites in the Trekseek database.

Hello World!
Christian (11:08 am CST)
Welcome to the very first real news update at Trektoday! Of course, you won't actually be seeing this, as this is just a test run for us staff, but if you ever happen to read this in the archives - hello there! This first day took me about 90 minutes to collect all the news - I'm still looking for ways to speed things up. For now, let's get on with the news!