I am – Hercules!!


“World Enough and Time,” a new episode of “Star Trek,” arrives 7 p.m. tonight on the Internet and at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills, Calif.

It’s about a mishap that strands young Hikaru Sulu and a fellow, female Enterprise crewman for decades (or minutes, depending on your perspective) in a temporal anomaly. George Takei plays the elderly Sulu who emerges from the calamity. The episode swims in more than 700 effects shots.

Here's how we got here.

A few years back, a Trek geek named James Cawley spent more than $100,000 building – in an abandoned car dealership in Port Henry, N.Y. – near-flawless recreations of the interiors of Jim Kirk’s Enterprise.

Then, with a platoon of other geeks, he began making fresh episodes the original Kirk-Spock “Star Trek.” He bills the new episodes as the original 1966-69 series’ “fourth season.”

Never mind that Sylar guy! Jeffrey Quinn, a Virginia videogame-store employee, plays Spock. Cawley, a professional Elvis impersonator living in nearby Ticonderoga, N.Y., plays Kirk. John M. Kelley, a real Oregon urologist, plays Dr. McCoy. (Those who think William Shatner a poor actor – he’s not, by the way – may discover a new appreciation for The Shat’s Emmy-winning thespianic acumen after they see eyebrow-waggling Cawley in the role.)

The Digital Animation and Visual Effects (DAVE) School at Universal Studios Florida helps out with the show’s striking special effects.

Three New Voyages episodes appeared on the Internet between 2004 and 2006.

* “Come What May” was released Jan. 16, 2004. It’s about a powerful alien, I haven’t seen it. One hears it’s not so good.

* “In Harm’s Way, released Oct. 8, 2004, is supercool, a terrifically nerd-pleasing installment co-written pseudonymously by a guy who did effects for “Star Trek: Enterprise.” It shows what the Federation did with the Guardian of Forever after Kirk used it to make Edith Keeler die. William Windom reprises his role as the doomsday-dodging commodore Matt Decker.

* “To Serve All My Days,” released Nov. 23, 2006, is a sequel to “The Deadly Years,” with Pavel Andreievich Chekhov belatedly succumbing to the aging disease that almost claimed the Enterprise’s more senior officers. Walter Koenig returned to play the aged version of Ensign Chekhov.

* A fourth episode, “World Enough and Time,” is the one premiering tonight.

* An upcoming fifth episode, “Blood & Fire,” is based on David Gerrold’s non-Trek starship novel about a deadly parasite. It will star Denise Crosby as one “Dr. Jenna Yar.” (Gerrold originally pitched the story – unsuccessfully – as an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation.")

* A sixth episode, “The Sky Above, The Mudd Below,” will see “Deep Space Nine” vet J.G. Hertzler (he played the Klingon commander Martok) inherit the role of interstellar ne’er-do-well Harry Mudd.

Real Hollywood screenwriters script some of the New Voyages. D.C. Fontana, who wrote “Journey To Babel,” scripted the Chekhov-centric “To Serve All My Days.” Gerrold, who wrote “The Trouble With Tribbles,” co-scripted and directs “Blood and Fire.” Howard Weinstein, who wrote the 1974 animated “Trek” episode “The Pirates of Orion,” wrote the new Harry Mudd episode. Marc Scott Zicree, who got story credit on the TNG episode “First Contact” and the DS9 episode “Far Beyond The Stars,” co-wrote and directed the Sulu-centric “World Enough and Time.”

Loads of other “Trek” actors have lent their talents to New Voyages, including Grace Lee Whitney, John Winston, Eddie Paskey and Malachi Throne. Most either play their original Trek characters or relatives of those characters.

Viacom, which owns “Star Trek,” allows Cawley & Co. to make these episodes as long as they don’t profit from them.

A major spoiler for the series lurks in invisotext. Chekhov, who appeared to die of the aging disease in last year’s “To Serve All My Days,” is in “World Enough and Time” young, healthy and back at his navigation station!

Watch Interviewing Hollywood’s chat with George Takei about New Voyages here.

Download old and new New Voyages episodes here.

Look! Press release!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
GEORGE TAKEI BACK AS SULU
IN AUGUST 23 STAR TREK PREMIERE
Oscar and Emmy winners – along with the fans – team to complete Sulu STAR TREK episode begun 30 years ago

GEORGE TAKEI may be playing a hero on HEROES and serving as Howard Stern's recurring sidekick on subscription radio, but it's as the dashing Mr. Sulu, helmsman on the starship Enterprise, that he will be forever loved by the fans.

But he hardly imagined his greatest Sulu episode would come in 2007! Takei is starring in "World Enough and Time," a new STAR TREK episode produced by an amazing mix of Industry pros and fans that will be premiering at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills on August 23, 2007, with both the premiere and episode streaming real-time worldwide on the Internet – literally a world premiere.

Plus one lucky fan will win airfare to the premiere and exclusive dinner with Takei, the writers and director of the episode. (To register to stream the episode and/or enter the contest, log onto www.startreknewvoyages.com)

It all began when STAR TREK – NEXT GENERATION writer MARC SCOTT ZICREE learned of STAR TREK NEW VOYAGES, a high-quality series of fan episodes that were getting millions of viewers and beating the networks at their own game.

"I recalled a terrific Sulu story my friend MICHAEL REAVES came up with for STAR TREK PHASE II, a series Paramount was going to do in the mid-70s," Zicree recalls. "After a year of building sets and buying stories, the studio made the movies instead, so the script was never written. Ironically, Michael's story had Sulu aging 30 years and raising a family on an alien planet, so it seemed perfect timing to do it now."

Zicree suggested to Reaves, an Emmy-winner and also a STAR TREK – NEXT GENERATION writer, that the two of them write the script together. He then contacted JAMES CAWLEY, producer and star of NEW VOYAGES, who eagerly agreed to their proposal.

Finally, Zicree met with Takei and pitched him the episode (the two had been friendly acquaintances since Zicree had interviewed Takei for his landmark book THE TWILIGHT ZONE COMPANION). "I told him, 'You're a brilliant actor who never got the Sulu episode you deserved, and this is it." Zicree laughs. "He read the synopsis then and there and said, 'I'm in.'"

Utilizing the existing cast and crew of NEW VOYAGES, Zicree set about augmenting it with Industry pros from his own career on network shows, including top STAR WARS artist IAIN McCAIG (designer of Darth Maul and Queen Amidala) and Oscar and Emmy-winning makeup, effects and storyboard wizards from such TV shows and films as BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, LOST, HEROES and SPIDERMAN 3.

Guest roles included two more STAR TREK legends – GRACE LEE WHITNEY, reprising her role as Rand, and MAJEL BARRETT RODDENBERRY, Gene Roddenberry's widow, contributing her talents as the Enterprise's computer voice. Rounding out the cast was Broadway actress CHRISTINA MOSES, as Sulu's daughter Alana.

Shot in high definition with over 700 effects shots, "World Enough and Time" boasts a level of production far beyond a network show. More than that, Zicree is proud that the story works on an emotional level.

"People who see it are in tears by the end," he notes, adding that ardent fans of the episode include such noted writers as MARV WOLFMAN, creator of BLADE, and science fiction icon RAY BRADBURY.

With the world premiere finally in sight, Zicree can breathe a sigh of relief at having finished his first directorial effort (after over 100 script sales as a writer-producer). Mentors who advised him included such esteemed directors as GUILLERMO DEL TORO (PAN'S LABYRINTH), MICHAEL NANKIN (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) and ROXANN DAWSON (HEROES). "But the best advice I got was from J.J. Abrams, who said, 'Pretend you know what you're doing!'"

(this ships now)