Some preliminary words...

No, the "Star Trek Journey" has not been cancelled, as some of you may have assumed due to its absence in the last week and the pretty late publication this week. Indeed, I had to take a break since I was not in town the week before, and needed some time to play with some new high tech toys in the last days (i.e. DVD drive, for the eager ones!).

Again, this issue focuses on our well-loved standard topics this year, Series V and the Voyager finale - for obvious reasons which I won't reveal already in the preface...

In order to stop keeping you in suspense,

Engage...

The weekly flashback

The week was quite interesting: many Series V rumors - as improbable and mind-boggling as some of them are - are still alive and kicking, while we finally got some new (but few) information by Rick Berman concerning that matter. Interestingly, many signs now underpin the assumed Birth of Federation premise of the series, while sadly, they also support the infamous Casting Sheet.

Among those little suspicious hints is Berman's announcement that the shooting of the pilot is planned for May 8th, 2001 - the same date as in the sheet. He also mentioned some time ago that there are 7 cast members, 5 humans and 2 aliens, like in the sheet, and in the recent Star Trek Communicator interview he vaguely confirmed a male captain - unfortunately. I'm quite disappointed of this development, since this makes Captain Janeway, the only female out of 5 captains, a mere figure of quota - a concession to the infamous American political correctness, and nothing more. If the casting informations is fully correct, the same applies to Captain Picard, then the only non-Anglo-Saxon in a long row of virtuous North-American captains. This kind of narrow-mindedness (as well as petty nationalism) is completely against the spirit of Star Trek and its values of multi-cultural diversity and tolerance. What a pity.

Berman didn't say much more new but repeated that the series will be completely fresh & different concerning tone and creative values. However, the latter one may be only wish due to the involvement of many known faces including Michael Okuda, John Eaves and Meri Howard, who is a Star Trek Voyager producer at the moment. 

You may say: but we even had an official approval of the sheet by Richard Arnold, on the FedCon 8 convention in Bonn this week end! Well, my answer is concise: who is Richard Arnold to know and announce that? He's been Gene Roddenberry's assistant ten years ago, but doesn't work at Paramount for years, with his relations to TPTB having... cooled off in some way.
So if nobody knows of the real thing but those who are directly involved (Berman, Braga and the yet announced production crew members), how should a non-official and now "Paramount outsider" know anything for sure? We have seen in the past that Arnold simply repeated Internet rumors while announcing them as "official information", which quite often turned out to be wrong (the Enterprise-E appearances in "What You Leave Behind" and "Pathfinder", for example, or the "Trill symbiont being completely killed off" in "Tears of the Prophets" some years ago). He still may have some contacts and insider sources at Paramount, but those sources are as fallible as the other "spys" whose "facts" show up on the big Trek news sites regularly.

So I'll repeat the basic advice I stick to myself since the revelation of the casting sheet: don't take *anything* for granted until the official announcement of setting, time and circumstances of the new series (according to Rick Bermans most recent statements, in a few weeks, but on the other hand, he said the same thing a few weeks before...) has been made.

Did you notice our little Scott Bakula joke on April 1st, 2001? The Star Trek Dimension and the Trek Zone Network "collaborated" for the "official announcement of Series V lead Scott Bakula". TZN provided an in-depth report, while the Dimension featured a nice "new" logo with "all five Starfleet captains" (it's no longer avaiable on the frontpage, but have a look at the quite surprising logo pic here and the "casting photo" here). I mention that because ironically, it is still possible that the April fool's joke wasn't one, but that indeed the Dimension presented the real series V captain for some days (albeit not in the correct clothing...)! The rumors that mentioned Bakula being in negotiations with Paramount concerning the leading role have been supported by more sources in the last week, and you know the old saying: every rumor has a grain of truth...

And the other big news: shooting of Voyager's (still untitled) finale should have ended on April 9th, 2001 after 2 weeks. The first sets have already been torn down the week before, and if all went well, the final two hours should be in post-production now. The actors are probably currently packing their bags, anticipating the announced wrap-up party this Thursday with a smiling and a whining eye (well, many of them surely two whining eyes).

Although we have not seen what they have come up with for the last few hours of Star Trek: Voyager (at least it now seems there have been quite many "cooks": beside Biller and Berman as well Braga and Doherty), the era of the forth Star Trek series is over. This is why the series has been the focus of my columns and the whole Star Trek Dimension this year - and the reviews, conclusions and appreciations will continue in these special months.
The first retrospects you will find - you might have guessed it - in this issue and the one next week. At the hour of imminent destruction, the following "topic of the week" is all about the Voyager sets ...

Topic of the week

The Voyager Set Necrology, part 1

So they've dared it. Done it. Again.

1994, the Federation flag ship USS Enterprise-D went to the scrap yard, and in May 1998, the vast, impressive space station Deep Space Nine followed her.

Of course, I am speaking of the unpleasant, quite insensitive "rite" that is performed everytime a television series ends: the real-world equivalents of the series locations - starship bridges and space station promenades, for instance - are destroyed due to budgetary reasons. Space and maintenance is expensive (let alone the fact that the stages are needed for other productions), so the sets of a series are torn down or recycled after the finale.

The painted wood, plastics and metals in the legendary Paramount stages 8 and 9, that was transformed  to the bridge, engineering, mess hall and crew quarters of the Federation starship USS Voyager by our phantasy every week, is destroyed while these lines are written. Reportedly, engineering and the mess hall are gone for already a week now, and all other main sets will be dismantled in the next few weeks - although for the first time in 14 years, the mentioned stages will not be primarily used by the next series (the series V sets are currently built at another stage)

It's quite distasteful, resembling the burial of a persons which is not entirely dead. Why not donating it to a museum or selling it to a private exhibition or even an eager (and well-off) fan? What about adding it to the Star Trek Experience in Vegas? Perhaps they will even do that with the bridge - but all other sets are lost forever, since copyright issues and the mere fact that these locations should only be used for the production of the now finished Star Trek: Voyager prevent a further use. Even if they will do a Voyager tele movie or feature film, paradoxically it will be cheaper to rebuilt everything from the scratch than to preserve all sets for an indefinite time.

Yet - the sets of Voyager may be physically destroyed, but surely they are not obliterated from history and our memories.

The bridge - it looked quite strange at the beginning to the experienced Star Trek fans, since it differs the most from the established Enterprise bridge look. Nevertheless, we have grown fond with this pinnacle of Starfleet design over the years, and though the relatively large distance between the stations made interactions between Captain and Tactical officer like in The Next Generation (and a "jump over the horse wing") impossible, some of us especially enjoyed the preserved closeness of Captain and First Officer...

Most of the ship-concentrated action took place on the bridge. During 7 seasons, it was damaged more than a dozen times and sometimes (or in some realities) even completely destroyed ("Dead Lock", "Year of Hell"). It was invaded by the Kazon, the Voth (though only two), the Devore, the Borg (though only in simulation) and a few other powerful species. Despite all violence and quick action on the bridge, this place was primarily a location of mutual understanding and, as the command center of the starship, the representation of the Star Trek values of exploration and frontier spirit.

Do you remember? The bridge we'll see in the finale isn't the bridge we saw in the pilot "Caretaker" - it's a all-new, still relatively young version from the original Voyager set. Back in fall 1998, a light bulb exploded and caused a fire that lead to the complete re-construction of all deck 1 sets: bridge, ready room and conference room. Ironically, most damage was done not by the fire, but by the water of the sprinkler system. The holodeck episode "Bride of Chaotica!" owes its existance this incident - the few scenes on the bridge and in the conference room were filmed weeks later in the reconstructed sets.

Captain Janeway's ready room - the most comfortable one ever seen in a Star Trek series or feature film. Perhaps twice as big as Picard's ones aboard the Enterprise-D and E, the room greatly reflected the personal, familiar atmosphere Captain Janeway established aboard her ship and among her crew - something that was absolutely necessary on a ship thousands of light years away from home, alone in the deep vastness of space. The large, elevated sitting area near the formal Captain's desk, with the impressive view at the things yet to come represented this "piece of home" aboard Voyager, and was a great place for both friendly and aggressive interaction. Janeway and Seven in "Dark Frontier" and other episodes, Janeway and Tom Paris in "Thirty Days" or the various Janeway and Chakotay disputes over the years are some of the events I associate with the ready room. Of course, the first scene in this set will not be forgotten as well - Janeways welcome to the "green" Harry Kim and the not much loved "observer" Tom Paris in "Caretaker".

On the other hand, no other Voyager set reflected the personality of Janeway as well as the ready room. Even her own quarters were a featureless place in contrast to it. Remember "Counterpoint" - this episode included a little tour through the ready room requisites, the nautic instruments and pieces of classic art, greatly demonstrating the somehow contradictive character of the captain and mankind itself - strength and beauty, science and faith, rationality and emotion, somehow mingled harmoniously... The ready room, albeit re-built, changed little over the years, though the desk computer noticeably changed its colour from blue in the first seasons to green in recent episodes.
And as a contribution to Janeway's interests, a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (her inspiration featured in Voyager's forth season) was added in the late season 6. I was quite exhilarated than discovering this subtle detail - the set decorators of Voyager mostly forgot to physically add texture to the characters, in contrast to The Next Generation, where even over the seasons personal things were added to the sets (Picard's Ressikan flute or the Mintakan tapestry).

Like the bridge, the conference room was also a new approach after the long-shaped versions shown in The Next Generation series and feature films. However, it quite resembled the classic version from TOS. And like the ready room, it represented the familiar, personal atmosphere aboard - with the senior officers sitting together on a vaguely circle-shaped table which has slightly changed over the years (the hole in the middle was not closed at the beginning, if I remember correctly). Though generally lacking particular details, you may have noticed the strange, modern-looking piece-of-art hanging right next to the door.

While the bridge was the place of action, the conference room showed the great moral debates and discussions of human issues on Voyager, with the more personal talks taking place in the crew quarters. Especially in seasons 5 and 6 it was used in nearly every episode for this purpose, and not always in a justified, well-done way, since the captain all too often cut off all discussions with her "final statement" - remember "Spirit Folk" or "Memorial", for instance.

And the reminiscing tour through the Voyager sets continues... next week we will leave deck 1 and take a retrospective look at engineering, the mess hall and astrometrics. See you then,

Christian Rühl

Webmaster - Star Trek Dimension

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