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| Still from "Assignment: Earth" (1968) |
I haven't been writing much lately -- I've been rather busy with real life, although I do have a few pieces in the works -- but I wanted to take a moment and recommend a couple of Star Trek related items that should be of interest to readers of this blog.
First up is a series of blog posts that I've been enjoying this week over at Space Ghost. That blog's author, who calls himself "Sham Mountebank," has been doing research into a mostly undocumented portion of Star Trek history: the show's initial and subsequent transmissions on the BBC. These began in 1969, not long after the show was cancelled by NBC, and continued throughout much of the 1970s. Star Trek's initial run on the BBC wasn't without a little controversy, as it turns out.
Mountebank has written five pieces on Star Trek so far, covering the show's transmission on the BBC in 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, and 1974-76.
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| A painting by Roger Stine, which adorns the cover of Return to Tomorrow (2014) |
Secondly, I'm recommending the new book from Creature Features publishing, Return to Tomorrow, which isn't just a great book about the making of Star Trek--The Motion Picture, but is a remarkable piece of nonfiction, period. The author, Preston Neal Jones, does an superb job of juxtaposing interviews with countless members of the cast and crew into a compelling and rich narrative, and he does it with a minimum of editorializing. Better yet, these interviews were all conducted during the film's lengthy post-production process, leaving the memories of all involved fresh and detailed.
Love or hate the film (and, to be honest, I've always been a bit indifferent, although the movie has grown on me), Star Trek fans won't want to miss out on this remarkable book, which is limited to 1,000 copies.
Hopefully, by the end of this weekend, I'll be able to finish my piece fact-checking some of the claims made in the newest issue of CBS Watch, which is dedicated to the original Star Trek. Suffice it to say, many of the images inside are beautiful and well-worth the $9.99 list price of the magazine, but some of the claims in the text leave this fact-checker scratching his head.
Update (12/27/2014): According to Creature Features, the first edition of Return to Tomorrow has sold out, but they "are now taking orders for an upcoming second edition, projected for arrival in February/March."
Images courtesy of Trek Core.
Yes! Whoever wrote the text for the CBS magazine knew nothing. I mean, they say that Leonard Nimoy left "Mission: Impossible" to take a job with "Star Trek," when thirty seconds with IMDB would tell a person that Mr. Nimoy appeared in "Mission: Impossible" AFTER "Star Trek." There are other errors, too, but that one makes it clear just how much fact checking went into their statements -- i.e., none at all.
ReplyDeleteBelieve me, I know -- I've been working on my fact checking piece for the magazine all week, and I still am not quite finished. There are a lot of whoppers and/or head-scratchers in there!
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