February, 2004
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Newsletter of the U.S.S. Chesapeake Star Trek Club February, 2004 Voyager goes from the Delta Quadrant to DVDs Star Trek: Voyager arrives Trek territory. on DVD starting this month, • “Voyager Time Capsule—Kathryn Jane- courtesy of Paramount Home way:” A new, exclusive interview with Kate Entertainment, as reported by Mulgrew talking about how she landed the startrek.com. role of Janeway, the challenges of playing a Star Trek: Voyager breaks into the DVD Tuesday, February 24, will see the release female captain and her Broadway play on universe this month. of season one in its entirety in a five-disc Katharine Hepburn, Tea at Five. Also includes collector’s box set. The set includes all 15 archival interviews with the actress and rare episodes from the first season, exclusive behind-the-scenes footage. featurettes and bonus material. According to • “The First Captain—Genevieve Bujold:” Paramount, a new season of Voyager will be Reveals rare footage and outtakes of Bujold as available every other month. Captain Janeway, with commentary by Exec- The contents of the set are as follows: utive Producer Rick Berman. Disc 1: “Caretaker,” “Parallax,” “Time and The season one DVDs are presented in Again” full screen with newly remixed Dolby Digital Disc 2: “Phage,” “The Cloud,” “Eye of the English 5.1 tracks and English Dolby Sur- Needle,” “Ex Post Facto” round. The set is expected to be priced at Disc 3: “Emanations,” “Prime Factors,” under $100. Total running time for all five “State of Flux,” “Heroes and Demons” discs is over 728 minutes. The discs are Disc 4: “Cathexis,” “Faces,” “Jetrel,” closed-captioned for the hearing impaired. “Learning Curve” Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway), who Disc 5: Special Features, including: has spent many months portraying Katharine • “Braving the Unknown—Season One:” Hepburn onstage in Tea at Five in New York, Presenting new interviews with Executive Connecticut and Florida, will return to Los Producers Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Angeles to star in a production of The Royal Jeri Taylor discussing how they created the Family. She will appear in the George S. series. The trio reveals the challenges of cre- Kaufman and Edna Ferber 1927 comedy at the ating fresh, new characters, a new premise and Ahmanson Theatre from March 23rd through IN THIS ISSUE: the risks of sending the crew into unfamiliar May 16th. Art Credits 3 Captain’s Log 2 Club Members Happy 13th birthday, U.S.S. Chesapeake! Insert front Coming Events 6 The next meeting of the U.S.S. Chesapeake fellow club members are up to and get the Directions to Meeting will be held on Saturday, February 21, at the latest on Star Trek news, as well as an update Insert front Holodictation 6 Potomac, Maryland, home of Chief Opera- on other areas of science fiction. We’ll also Meeting Minutes tions Officer Ann Harding. celebrate our 13th year as an active Star Trek/ Insert back We’ll gather around 6 p.m., then head to a sci-fi club in the metropolitan D.C. area. Rantings 5 Reflections 4 local restaurant for dinner. We will return to Do you need directions to this month’s Science Trek 3 the Harding home by 8 p.m. meeting? Then please be sure to check out the During the club meeting, we’ll discuss the insert that is included with this month’s recent Farpoint convention, find out what newsletter. Volume 13, Issue 2 CAPTAIN’S LOG: By any other name It’s February, time once again to celebrate tude,” which thoughtfully addressed the issues the anniversary of the launching of the U.S.S. related to cloning after Trip gets duplicated by Chesapeake. Here’s to another 13 years of fun, one of Phlox’s little critters; “Proving Ground,” frivolity and, most of all, Star Trek! which brought back the Andorians and showed This month, I want to turn my attention to there’s still a long, long way to go before the the current season of Enterprise, and as I do, I United Federation of Planets is formed; “Strat- can’t help remembering my reaction when I egem,” which featured not one, but two Mis- first heard the show wouldn’t have those two sion: Impossible-style scams by the starship magic words in the title: “I’ll know when this crew; and “Twilight,” which showed the depth series is in trouble because they’ll put Star of the relationship between Archer and T’Pol, Trek in its name.” It’s nice even though it got soiled by a Brannon Braga- to be right every now and trademarked ending where “time gets rewound.” then. But Enterprise has still had its share of But that’s not the only clunkers. Those include: “Extinction,” which change made in Enterprise uses a virus to turn crew members into aliens this year. In fact, many of that seriously need a class in improvisational what Rick Berman calls acting; “Exile,” which puts Yoshi in a boring “course corrections” have “Beauty and the Beast” relationship; “Chosen sounded very oddly famil- Realm,” when religious zealots (the most iar to me. overused cliche in TV) take over the ship only First, there’s a new to find that the war they wanted to win at group of varied villains: home has destroyed the planet in their absence T’Pol (left) confers the Xindi, with its mammalian, amphibian with Shran in the (Where’s Frank Gorshin when you need Enterprise episode, and other races. They remind me of DS9’s big him?); and “Rajiin,” in which a beautiful slave “Proving Ground.” baddies: the Dominion, with the Founders, girl (Is there any other kind?) uses her hands the Vorta and the Jem’Hadar. Hmm. to “scan” the crew—even T’Pol—and learns Then, there’s a new part of the galaxy just what swell folks humans and Vulcans are. specifically to explore: the Delphic Expanse. Enterprise has also faced a series of off- Of course, DS9 took us inside the Gamma screen setbacks. Paramount cut back the Quadrant for the first time. Hmmm. number of episodes for this season so that, by Copyright 2004 Also, there’s a season-long story arc as the the end of its fifth year, the show would hit the U.S.S. Chesapeake Enterprise tries to prevent the Xindi from magic total of 100 programs necessary for NCC-9102, a destroying Earth. Still, DS9 had even longer successful syndication—and no more. not-for-profit organization. story arcs, like the Dominion War. Hmmmm. Also, the series is getting pushed back an All rights reserved, And there’s a group of soldiers who aren’t hour, a sign that the teen angst of Smallville is including members of Starfleet joining the crew in its reproducing parts of winning the time slot for the WB and putting this document. new mission. Of course, no one could say that UPN firmly in last place on Wednesday nights. Odo, Kira and Quark were exactly Starfleet But perhaps the most interesting tidbit “Star Trek,” “Star issue, either. Hmmmmm. Trek: The Next floating around the online Trek boards is the Generation,” “Star Could it be that the “new” Enterprise has a rumor that the folks at the Big P are carefully Trek: Deep LOT in common with the “old” Deep Space watching how the show fares during this Space Nine” and “Star Trek: Voyager,” Nine? We report, you decide! sweeps month, with the possibility actually as well as the terms However, I’ve said from the start that being discussed that Rick Berman might be “starship” and Enterprise has several things going for it: good given his walking papers if there’s no improve- “starship Enterprise,” are registered characters, capable actors, state-of-the-art ment in its performance. After Nemesis made trademarks of special effects and cool sets. My biggest The Final Frontier look like a smash at the box Paramount Pictures problem with the show has been the writers, office and Trek on TV has been losing even Corporation. All rights reserved. who haven’t exactly been producing stellar long-time fans for years, what a great birthday Absolutely no scripts. Has that improved this season? present for the club that would be! infringement on In a word, yes. However, while there are Next month: If Berman still has his job, these rights is intended. more good episodes, there are still some that we’ll check out the newest Kirk novel in the make me cringe. “Shatnerverse” series. COMSTAR, page 2 Among the good ones have been: “Simili- Captain Randy Hall SCIENCE TREK: Science by season V— the animated series If you want an interesting opening to a which Original Series novel also used a bal- column, go read Lorenzo’s … after you read loon Enterprise? mine, that is! “Albatross:” Here’s one of my personal The fifth edition of “Science by Season” favorite themes from Trek: the consequences brings us to the shortened second season of of personal actions (see “Space Seed” and Star the animated Star Trek series, whose six Trek II). In this case, though, the culprit is episodes originally aired from September 7, radiation that likely mutated an existing 1974, to October 12, 1974. (Do you remem- pathogen (recall from some science class you ber where you were?) took that an aurora is simply the result of solar “Pirates of Orion:” A good example of radiation impinging on a planet’s magnetic what can happen in a closed environment field). The timing of McCoy’s inoculation such as a starship as an illness sweeps through program and the plague was coincidental.