This Writer Wrote

These words were uttered by Bob Nuchow, SSG Screening Series producer for the Fine Arts Theater, as he introduced the cast and crew of Star Trek New Voyages: “To Serve All My Days” for the Q and A portion of the LA red-carpet premiere of the Walter Koenig-starring episode’s “Special Edition” on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Several cast and crew from the original Star Trek series were in the audience, but the only ones whose names I can remember now are Walter Koenig, DC Fontana and Barbara Luna, who is in the picture below with Walter and his wife, Judy, and James Cawley.

The house was packed with Star Trek fans from the general public and the entertainment industry for this episode which Walter Koenig starred in. This also was the episode where the special effects looked so good to yours truly that it was one of the reasons I participated in the next episode, “World Enough and Time” with George Takei. (WEAT, by the way, has been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo awards, up against episodes from Doctor Who, Torchwood, and BSG.)

It might seem a bit odd to have a red-carpet premiere of an episode which was introduced online over a year ago and prior to the premiere of its subsequent episode, WEAT, but James Cawley, whose successful Elvis impersonator career funds much of this online series and who plays Kirk, had three strong reasons to give this episode another moment of glory.

First, when the episode was originally streamed, time restraints had prevented them from making the episode all it could be. While the special effects of the original effort by Joel Belluccii, Ben Alpi and Max Rem (aka Doug Drexler, Battlestar Galactica) were awesome, James had wanted to do so much more and felt this episode deserved another shot. Following in the footsteps of major studios releasing ‘Special Editions’, James and staff authorized a re-imagining of this episode with new VFX by Daren R. Docherman (Poseidon, X-Men 3, Monster House).

But more than that, James said he wanted to show appreciation to Walter Koenig, not only for his decades of wonderful entertainment, but also for his generous support of STNV. As James explained it, before Walter, STNV was ‘just fans playing Star Trek.’ Walter’s generous participation took STNV to a new level.

Like for every actor, Walter’s participation was contingent on a worthy script, but Koenig went one better than most actors and helped make that happen by phoning up his friend D.C. Fontana (one of my all-time favorite Trek writers) and asking her to write the script. And Dorothy came through with a marvelous script which gave closure to the Chekov character, something Walter felt was missing from TOS (The Original Series). This closure was so definitive that Dorothy insists that the Chekov you see in subsequent episodes is not Pavel, but his cousin, Sergei.

And if you’ve read my interviews (and when you read my upcoming article in Thrilling Wonder Stories), you know that George Takei also attributes his initial involvement in WEAT to Walter’s seal of approval and encouragement. It seems like Walter, whether directly or indirectly, is responsible for bringing a lot of industry people into this venture — both those who worked on the original series and those who wished they could have.

The third reason was because there’s an effort afoot to get Walter Koenig a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and STNV wanted to help showcase that effort. Unbelievably, he’s the only actor of the original main cast to not have a star. James admitted that Walter did not want him to make a big deal of it, but Cawley is determined to get Koenig what he deserves and to get it while Walter is still young and healthy enough to enjoy treading over it. And I heartily concur.

Because of this desire to showcase so much more than just the premier of a special edition of an already-streamed episode, it was billed as “A Night in 1969″ and James got up on stage and promised to take us back there. And he delivered in spades.

Mind you, I should point out that STNV is not done by Cawley alone. Many fans have donated their time, expertise, and even money to create these episodes. Many people donated their time, energy, and funding to make this event happen as well. And people like me were beneficiaries of this hard work and effort as I came out to join in the fun and support of my friends.

One delightful encounter was meeting Chris Doohan, Jimmy Doohan’s son. He’s surprisingly handsome, although why that should surprise me, I don’t know, but maybe because I met Jimmy when he was older and that’s how I think of him, while Scotty will always be as he appeared in TOS to me. In talking to Chris, I mentioned it was a shame he couldn’t play his father and he assured me he was too old.

He started to tell me about how good Simon Pegg was and I kinda cut him off, telling him that I had wanted to see Paul McGillion do the role. I started my typical spiel of how good an actor Paul McGillion is and Chris immediately cut me off saying that he agreed. He stressed that he had wanted Paul to play his dad.

In fact, Chris was quite keen on me understanding how much he had supported Paul McGillion in the role, and I assured him that I was well aware of his support. He then went on to say that Simon was very good in the role and I would like the performance.

Walter introduced me to his lovely actress wife, Judy Levitt, and after the show, I met his children Andrew and Danielle. Danielle had written, directed and acted in this wonderfully hilarious short about her Dad, called “Walter Koenig, Exposed,” which she shared with us. It was edited by her brother Andrew who also acted in it and purported to tell us the ‘true story of who Walter Koenig was.’

In the short, narrator and family friend, Alex Hunt, ‘revealed’ that Walter was a Russian spy planted in the US and even infiltrated the military. Danielle cleverly interspersed footage from her Dad’s films to prove these points.

One funny sequence was Danielle and Andrew saying how their Dad lied to them about going to Star Trek cons when he would sneak out to do his spying. He would bring home all these strange home-made items for them that he claimed fans had given him. Years later, they learned that he had made all these items himself at night in his various hotel rooms.

I can not do justice to how funny and clever this piece was, but the Koenigs were sitting behind me and I just had to turn around and tell Danielle what a great job she did.

Come to think of it, I was like in a Chekov sandwich — I had Walter Koenig, the original Chekov, behind me and Andy Bray who plays the young Chekov in front of me. Obviously a great place to be.

But this wasn’t the only delightful introductory piece. The Koenigs contributed the trailer to the upcoming movie, Inalienable, which Walter produced, wrote, and acted in. JJ Abrams also generously sent the trailer to his upcoming Star Trek film to help celebrate New Voyages and Walter’s night.

I’m not going to describe the episode in detail here, except to say, that an accidental explosion causes the virus from “The Deadly Years” (I’m not up on my ST trivia) to revive and age Chekov prematurely. Chekov must face his mortality and decide whether the life he has chosen has been worth it.

But what was really cool about this episode presentation here was that they truly took us back to experiencing it as we would have in 1969. WITH COMMERCIALS. Yes, I know, I don’t watch commercials much — if I can, I tape most programs and fast forward through the commercials as much as possible. Back then I did my school homework, ran to the bathroom, or to the refrigerator. But it was still cool to see those old commercials and remember that for the most part we did have to watch them.

Ralph Miller had located and edited in authentic commercials from the time period, and while I don’t know if I ever saw the particular commercials he used, they were so reminiscent of commercials I had seen, that they were delightful.

So too was a groan from a guy in the audience when an act came to an end and he moaned, “Not another commercial.” We all laughed because, even though we were loving these commercial breaks, we all have gone through similar reactions in front of our TV at home.

The roadrunner Plymouth commercial was great fun, but the highlight for me was seeing again the wonderful original environmental PSA commercial– the Native American who paddles his canoe through the polluted waters and stumbles through the garbage left on the ground in the forest AND CRIES FOR WHAT WE’VE DONE TO THE LAND. That tear rolling down his cheek always affected me growing up and even here, it choked me up.

When I first came to town and attended my first AFI Film Festival, I was fortunate enough to meet the Native American actor and tell him how much his performance had meant to me.

The sad thing is that I can’t recall any environmental public service clips of that caliber today. In fact, I can’t recall seeing any at all. If they are out there, they certainly aren’t memorable like this one.

Seeing the Crying Indian made me miss another favorite PSA — that of Smokey the Bear who taught kids not to start forest fires. Something we really need to see again out here in California where so many fires are arson caused.

The final remarkable and spectacular gift was a surprise tag at the end. One of the jarring things to me was that “To Serve All My Days” gives a resolution to Pavel Chekov that is inconsistent with the young Pavel Chekov appearing in our “WEAT” episode, which is the very next episode. Watching one after the other without an explanation of how Chekov could reappear young in “WEAT” after he died old in “TOAMD” prompted DC Fontana to insist that future episodes starred Pavel’s cousin, Sergei. I won’t spoil it for you, but this remarkable and fun tag scene bridges those two episodes nicely and I praised Andy for giving it to us.

After the showing of the episode, the theater’s Bob Nuchow introduced the participants in the Q&A panel: James Cawley, Andy Bray, John Carrigan who plays the Klingon Kargh, D.C. Fontana who wrote the episode, Walter Koenig, and Daren Docherman. Originally, Koenig was supposed to sit between Cawley and Fontana, but when Walter took the stage, he went to the end and sat in Nuchow’s chair.

Nuchow had his staff bring out another chair so he could sit at the end and see all the participant. This left an open spot next to Cawley. James then asked Jeff Quinn who played Spock to come up from the audience, making a nice introduction for his friend. I have to admit it was nice to see Kirk and Spock sitting together. It felt… right.

My favorite part of the Q and A panel which ended the show was when someone asked DC Fontana how she got involved and she said, “Walter called and played a dirty trick on me. He asked, how would you like to write another original Trek episode? What could you say to that?”

After much picture-taking, handshaking, and kudos to the various actors and creative people, many of us gathered at Cantor’s Deli to celebrate further.

It was a great night — a fun trip into the past and a delightful evening spent with truly talented and wonderful people.

Now, if you agree that Walter should also have his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame and while he’s still young enough to tread over it (the late Jimmy Doohan was sick by the time he was awarded his), you can write your support here:

Walk of Fame Commitee
c/ Hollywood Chamber of Commerce
7018 Hollywood Blvd, 2nd floor
Hollywood, CA 90028

That’s right, the old-fashion way… with pen and paper.

You can also get more information at Walter Koenig’s official site: www.walterkoenigsite.com/waltersstar

Addendum: “To Serve All My Days” and “World Enough and Time” are episodes of the online Star Trek New Voyages which were honored with a TVGuide.com Video Series Award in 2007.”

“World Enough and Time” has been nominated for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and we are waiting to see how the vote goes.