Sunday, November 16, 1997
Still working on That Fated Shore! Working on roughing in chapter nineteen! (The book will only have twenty-one chapters.)
Matt Nelson passed along some news a few weeks ago: "Anyone who's been wondering what JenLien is up to after leaving Voyager, she's on... Men In Black! That's right, our former alien now plays an alien-policing law official on the Kids' WB cartoon."
And Brian Lombard sent me an interesting tidbit. "I just returned from a week's vacation in Hollywood. While there, I went on a tour of Paramount Studios. As we walked down Star Trek Alley, (soundstages 8 and 9, homes of Voyager and DS9), our tour guides told us that just the day before, Shatner had been on the lot, in negotiations to appear in the next Star Trek movie. As the tour progessed, we spotted DeForest Kelley on the lot. Who knows, perhaps he is in negotiations as well. Just thought you'd want to know."
And finally, this came in from Shirley Kolb: "I thought you'd get a laugh out of the following question & answer that was in the latest Star Trek Communicator.
'Question (to Rick Berman): Why did you make the decision to remove Jennifer Lien's character on Voyager and add Jeri Ryan's new Borg character?
'Answer: I'm a big fan of Jennifer Lien as we all are. It had nothing to do with her. The character of Kes was just not working. There was a relationship with Neelix that didn't work out that well. Rather than adding another new character to our existing cast, we decided to replace one because we had so many people to start with. .......Having a female Borg who had been disconnected from the hive and has to rediscover her humanity would give her all those self-reflective Spock/Data-like qualities, in a real Star Trek fashion. The fact that she was going to be a "babe" was not really in our thoughts although it was certainly not something we were adverse to. We were really more interested in finding the right actress. It was an interesting hunt, and when we had found Jeri, we realized we had everything we wanted. She's really an extremely talented & serious actress. The fact that she is gorgeous is an added plus. The costume we have her in now is going to be changing. She is not going to be wearing that same kind of metallic, painted on look in all of the upcoming episodes. Jeri's character is so rich that all the writers are jumping to write for her. She is doing a great job & her character is developing wonderful relationships with the other characters. We're all very pleased.'
"I'll leave most of the comments to you, Phil, but this addresses several things you've mentioned on the site. I'm just not sure how serious to take these comments. ("The character of Kes was not working out." That's why we featured her in so many episodes last year. "We weren't looking for a babe." Oh really? The outfit was painted on? So that's why she couldn't sit down!)
(Note from Phil: Ah the intrigue of being a television executive. Does anyone else have a problem believing anything that any television executive says? I just always get this feeling--whenever I hear television executives talk--that they are trying to be oh-so clever in how they form their words so that we mindless sheep will believe what they tell us to believe and slavishly watch whatever they want us to watch.)
Monday, November 17, 1997
Forgot to mention yesterday: THE X-PHILE GUIDE IS ON THE SHELVES! YEA! I've already heard from some nitpickers and they have been very kind in their comments. For that, I do thank them!
Here's a sampling of comments. (I don't toot my own horn very often so bear with me!)
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Murray Leeder: I just got it today! I had a dentist's appointment downtown and I figured I'd stop in at Coles to check... and what do you know... The world's third book with my name in it! Say, am I really the second most prolific contributor? That's quite a distinction. I've flipped through it and it looks lovely! Very nice page formatting. Although I can't seem to think of much to contend... yet. *evil laughter*
Donald Carlson: I noticed the latest edition of the 1-800-TREKKER catalog has your new X-Philes guide featured prominately on the back! Looks great!!
Scott Padulsky: I just wanted to let you know that you did a great job on the X-files. Very entertaining and your take on Mulder and Sculley's chracterizations are right on the mark! I've a relatively new fan of the show (just started watching this year) and have gone back and rented as many of the episodes that are availible on video as I could. And now as soon as the show is over I pick up your guide to see how the creators messed up!:-) Of course I can't read the episode entries before I see the episode because that would spoil the plot. Are you already thinking about an update a few years from now? It'd be a great idea eventually especially since you'll have a movie to nitpick as well! Thanks for reading and again, great job on the guide!
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I'm already talking to Kathleen about what comes next for the X-phile Guide. We'll know better when the series actually ends! Up until a short time ago, it sounded like five seasons was going to be it. Now, it sounds like there may be seven seasons! have to wait and see!
Uploaded more nits for Year of Hell, Part II!
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT: The Brash Reflections for the third season of Voyager are officially frozen. However, you may feel free to send in additional nits for the episodes. I will keep the information for future reference and possible inclusion in a Voyager Nitpicker's Guide. Also frozen are Trials and Tribble-ations, along with all movie files. Also, aside from "Trials and Tribble-ations"--which was a special case, there aren't any Brash Reflections for DS9 on the website. Sorry. Just don't have the time to do another series and I started with Voyager when I started the homepage.
Tuesday, November 18, 1997
No uploads planned. Will be working on the December issue of the newsletter.
Wednesday, November 19, 1997
Updated the Nitpickers Guild Membership List and the Current Guild Statistics.
Uploaded a Brash Reflection on Random Thoughts. (Last week, I uploaded a Brash Reflection for Year of Hell, Part II)
Thursday, November 20, 1997
No uploads planned. Will be working on the December issue of the newsletter.
Friday, November 21, 1997
Uploaded a new Ask the Chief Column. (Click here for last week's column.)
(Last week, I also began a new file for Rick Kuzma's Star Trek: Voyager Statistics.)
Saturday, November 22, 1997
No uploads planned.
United We Nitpick!
Phil
P.S. While you're surfing, be sure to stop by my Shameless Plugs page and the
Bantaam Doubleday Dell Home Page. Of interest,
the Spectra Science Fiction Forum
(http://www.bdd.com/spectra) and the
Star Wars Forum
(http://www.bdd.com/starwars)!