Star Trek Stories

Lynn is joined by Dennis Farris, President of the Austin Police Retired Officers Association, who has worked security for William Shatner (Captain James T. Kirk) three times. Dennis talks about his encounters with Mr. Shatner, while Lynn recalls writing narration for Leonard Nimoy (Mr. Spock), and his time as emcee of the Dallas Star Trek conventions in the seventies. This program was recorded on April 27, 2023 in Austin, Texas.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to Planet Logic. Today's episodeStar Trek Stories, and my guest is
Dennis Ferris, president of the AustinPolice Retired Officers Association, who I found
out is quite the Star Trek fanand like me, has had encounters with
members of the Star Trek cast.So Dennis, let's just talk about some

(00:22):
of those today. And you've metthe guy. The one cast member I
never worked with from the original serieswas William Shatner, and yet you have
three times. Actually, the firsttime I met him was at convention here
in Austin. He was a friendof mine by the name of Mike Young,
who was a cadet classmate of mine. Him and he's even even a

(00:44):
bigger Star Trek fan than I am. I mean, he's got more Star
Trek stuff than I do. Heand I did off the books on our
own, did security for him atthe Austin Convention Center. I met him
when his car came up, openedup the door, got him out.
We were in uniform him. Westood up there while he was up on
stage and then we we uh wewaited for him to come back, and
he went to a door that wouldn'topen, and he stepped back and I

(01:07):
said, hey, TJ kicked theother door, and he reached out and
kicked the door and opened it up. And you know, this was this
was still back in the days whenShatner was a little bit of a you
know, I guess, for lackof a better word to say it,
a little bit of a jackass.I think he was a little stuck on
himself at the time. This islike ninety four, ninety five maybe,
uh, you know, A lotof things changed, I think for him

(01:27):
when his wife drowned. I thinkhe did a lot of self looking at
himself in the mirror, and Ithink some I think I think a lot
of that changed for him. Sothat was the first time I met him.
The second time I met him washe was here about I don't know.
This had to been still while Iwas working at the PDCs. Hasn't

(01:49):
been about ten years ago. Heand his I don't know what the status
of it is because he wears awedding ring, but they're supposed to be
divorced. His last wife were here. He came and did a deal at
the Paramount Theater, and then hehad to fly out of Austin Perkrom Airport
and they needed what basically is whatthey call a greater. So met him

(02:09):
at the car, got him throughsecurity, went up to the uh I
think we were in the American Clubat the time, the Admiral's Club up
there with him, and sat downand talked to him. And and of
course at the time the chief ofpolice in Austin Art also d as a
big Star Trek fan too, SoI called him on the phone, and
I handed the phone to Shatner andhe talked to chief for like ten minutes

(02:31):
and everything. Really nice guy.We got him on you know, we
got him on the We got himon the airplane and he flew out.
And then the third time I methim, he was here for something at
the convention center. I had tobring the mayor and mayor laughing well over
and he and Mary laughing well.He and the mayor got He and the
mayor got quite on. And herefunny thing is he remembered me from the

(02:51):
time before, which was interesting.He goes, I know you, and
I suggest sir, He goes,you're a police officer. And I suggest
sir, He goes, you havea Star Trek tattoo, And I suggest
or I do. That's amazing.I want to ask you though about your
three encounters with Bill Shatner and washe the kind of star like saying Elvis
or Michael Jackson or something like that. If you're walking down the street and

(03:14):
you're guarding him and you're taking himinto some room to speak or whatever,
and somebody recognizes him, I mean, does a crowd just form? Yeah,
it's funny, is well, youhave a lot of people will start
pointing. So the really the onlytime I saw him outside a controlled area
the convention center. Both times atthe conventions. Of the first time I
met him. In the last timeI met him, we're at the convention

(03:36):
center. In the third in themiddle time was at the airport. You
know, we're walking through the airport. People are looking. But you know,
the people in Austin's really funny.They've gotten used to celebrities in Austin,
so celebrities are usually left pretty muchleft alone. You know, you
can go to the airport any timeand see Matthew McConaughey's sitting at a restaurant
at the airport waiting to fly outsomeplace. People leave him alone. So

(03:58):
Austin's really good about that. Butyou know, you have people you know
pointing like there's Bill Shattner and youknow, and and there's Captain Kirk and
if they walked up to him,he was he was very kind. Um
and what's what's you know, wouldsign the would sign their autographs for him
and take pictures with them and stuff. You know. It's funny is he
can't sign anything that doesn't have hispicture on it. Star Trek related.

(04:19):
So like my enterprise here, ifI was to bring this to him and
ask him to sign it, hecouldn't sign. It's against the rules for
him. For him, and Ithink Niemoy was the same way because you
know, they sued over their likenessbeing used and not getting money from CBS
for years. And uh so Ithink there's some restriction about what he can

(04:39):
in cant So you know, backin those days, uh the TV stars
maybe the movie stars were in bettershape, but the TV stars didn't make
as much money as you might think, and they didn't have a good deal
on residuals and this they had abetter agent, right and and he didn't.
I mean you know there were therewere If you read any of his
books, he talks about living ina camper on a bed of his in

(05:02):
the bed of his truck in anational park while he was traveling around doing
these uh you know, dinner theaterstuff. He was broke. I mean,
he was broke. If this wasa guy that was not only Captain
Kirk, but he was t J. Hooker. He was in what was
it Barbary Coast, Barbary Coast?What three episodes or think but his but

(05:27):
his you know, funny thing ishis second wife was in that a series
with him. Uh. She shestarted in that series with him also.
But yeah, I mean, butthis was like in the late early seventies,
early in the mid seventies when afterStar Trek, where he just didn't
he just didn't have any money.I mean he was he talks about it.
He was broke. Uh And youthink about that now, and you

(05:48):
know, he made a lot ofmoney off a Priceline and you know,
and the guy sure, and he'sworth about eight hundred million bucks. But
people don't don't realize that Captain Kirkwas later in his career, you go
back, he was in Judgment atNuremberg, which was a major Hollywood movie.
But there was a there were therewere three or four science fiction shows

(06:10):
going on or horror shows back inthose days, and probably the best produced
and best written of those was probablycalled Thriller. It was hosted by Boris
Karloff. Robert Block, the guywho wrote the story Psycho and the screenplay
for Alfred Hitchcock of Psycho, hadwritten a story called The Hungry House,

(06:33):
and Thriller bought the script and itbecame The Hungry Glass And it was a
story about a writer moving to theseacoast to write and there were ghosts living
inside the mirrors and all the windowsand any anything made out of glass.
And Shatner was the star of thatepisode. And he also started another one

(06:54):
called The Grim Reaper, where apainting was cursed and anybody that if the
paintings started leading, it meant somebodyin the room was going to die.
And Schattner ended up being the villainin that one. Well, you know,
there's also the other thing he's inone of the most famous episodes of
the Twilight Zone. Oh Oh Nightmaredtwenty thousand feet my absolute favorite episode.

(07:16):
It's one of the most it isnot maybe the best episode of the two
this day, Dennis I always getthe wing seat to watch for the Gremlin
exactly, and that is, tome, is the best episode. How
many people do that? Though?Think about how many people watch and look
to see if something ends up onthe wing? Right? I do it.
But it's funny and I wonder.I've commented several times. And I

(07:39):
don't fly constantly, but I flya fair amounts. And I'll get in
sconch there and somewhere near the wingand I'll be looking out the window while
we're waiting to take off, andI'll say I'm watching for Gremlins, and
everybody seems to know precisely what I'mtelling to do. You know, it's
funny, and you know one ofthe well, the last one of the
U I guess the middle time thatI'm INTI when we took him out at

(07:59):
the airport, I never even thoughtabout he gets on the plane. I
don't even thought about I mean,didn't even click. You know. It's
it's one of those things where whenyou're sitting here talking to him, you
get a little you get a littlestart being a huge Star Trek fan,
right, you get a little starstruck, and you know you don't want to
you don't want to just bombard himwith Star Trek because you know, I
after a while you have to youknow, you got to figure it gets

(08:22):
old for him. Everybody Star Trek, Star Trek, Star Trek because I
mean, the guys had a hugecareer. I mean he was he was,
He was Captain Kirk, he wasin the Barbary Coast. He was
t J Hooker. He was tJ Hooker longer than he was Captain Kirk.
Actually, I mean if well,I guess if you add all the
movies in maybe not. He hosteda TV show called Rescue nine one one

(08:43):
he held you know, he's hada ton of shows. He had The
Raw Nerve with William Shattner. Ithought The Raw Nerve with William Shaton was
really good. It was a TVshow where he sat down and interviewed just
straight interviewed guys and they sat ina chair a kind of a couch where
their backs were like this. Sowhen they sat in the chair, they

(09:03):
were facing each other, but theywere they were facing they were looking at
each other, but they were facingopposite directions. That makes sense. And
he brought all the living members ofStar Trek on there and basically got down
to what's your issue with me.He remember the one with Walter Kning very

(09:24):
very much because they literally got down, I mean, Shatterer was crying when
it was over, and they seemedto have buried the hatch. And the
only one he doesn't seem to haveburied the hatch with is George ta ka
Takai whatever. Well, here here'sthe thing about let's let's just settle on
t k okay. And I've methim on numerous occasions, most recently at

(09:46):
the start at the not Star Trekconventions, but the radio talk show conventions
because he was doing some stuff withHoward Stern, I believe, and he
was there and I happen to seehim standing there, and this was all
all people with huge ego, youknow, except me. I was the
only ego free person there. AndI see t K over there, and
I thought, well, I'll goover and I said, hey, George,

(10:07):
I'm Lynn Woolley. You remember LarryHerndon down in Dallas? And he
uh, And I said Star TrekConventions says, oh yeah, I remember
that. I used to do those. And I said, and I used
to introduce you. And I madea comment that the same comment I've made
to you today, I said,I've basically met or worked with in some

(10:28):
former fashion every member of the originalseries cast except William Shatner. Well he
just went ballistic. Well you're lucky. I ate William got blah blah by
just all this absolute torrent of hatredfor William Shatner. Can you explain it?
Uh? You know. The onlything I can think is when the
original series started, they all thoughtthey were equal. They they I think

(10:54):
they went in. This may havebeen Roddenberry's plan, right, because I'm
finding out and I've read and stuffthat Roddenberry really wasn't all that nice a
guy drug user, which you wouldthink being an ex cop, but Gene
Roddenberry really wasn't all that great aperson personally. Maybe I'm wrong. I
don't know. I've read again,you got to read. But I think

(11:15):
he pitted I think he pitted theminor characters. And when I say the
minor characters, Nichelle Nichols, WalterCanning, George Dakai, Jimmy Doon against
Shatner, Nie moy and Kelly,because if you look at the credits the
first season, the only credits youpeople whose names show up on the credit
are Shatner, Nie moy and Kellyeveryone else. You know, they're they're

(11:41):
they're not recurring characters, but they'renot the main characters. And I think
that for George has always been abig issue and I don't think he's ever
gotten past it because he think Ithink he felt his character should have been
more. And if you notice inThe Undiscovered Country, he's the only one

(12:05):
of the casts that ever moved onto another ship. And they made him
a captain, and that was theonly way they could get him back to
do that particular movie, was tohave him. I wondered about that.
It was gave him, gave him, gave him his own command. Well,
let me take you back to myfirst encounter with Star Trek cast members.

(12:26):
We were it was under the fairnessdoctrine. If you remember what that
was. It was that if you'regoing to talk political stuff on the radio,
everybody gets equal time. The equaltime clause was all involved in that,
and you had to give a certainamount of time to this and that
and blah blah blah. And itwasn't until the end of the Fairness Doctrine

(12:46):
under the Reagged administration that paved theway for Russia Limbaugh to come on and
be able to talk openly about politics. So I was at five to seventy
w FAA, which, if youknow Dallas right there at Young in Houston
in the Channel eight building, andthey brought in a guy from Cleveland named
Bush Ed still around lives in Athens, if I'm not mistaken, he's long

(13:09):
retired. And they put ed onat a time when AM radio put talk
shows on the air back in thosedays, ten pm to one am,
and I happened to be the newsanchor, and so Ed could not go
on, and I don't even knowif he was inclined to, but he
didn't go on and do the politicsbecause that would have invoked all of these

(13:31):
equal time provisions. So he didweird stuff. He had a guy named
Peter beater On that was his name, had a book called Conspiracy against the
Dollar, which was saying that theRockefellers Nelson in particular, was trying to
take over the world by commanding theUS dollar and bringing it down, similar

(13:54):
to stuff here today. And hewould do he did Chariots of the Gods
with air V Danikin and all that. Well, we had all the surviving
three stooges, which were essentially Moeand Larry. At the time, we
had all the cast of Leave Itto Beaver, and we had the Star
Trek cast, so it was funny. He would have rotating shows with the

(14:18):
Star Trek cast members and when hegot in trouble and they couldn't think of
an episode name or who starred inan episode, Ed would just say on
air, all right, Lynn,who who was this? And I would
go in and tell him who itwas, because I had at that time
and encyclopedic knowledge of it. AndI just remember McCoy. That was where

(14:39):
I first talked to him, andit was on the air and he was
on the phone from some other city. And then Larry Herndon, who is
long passed, but Larry Larry wasa guy who had multiple sclerosis or something
of that nature, was confined toa wheelchair, and he put on Star
Trek conventions in Dallas for years,saying brought all them in. By that

(15:01):
time, I was working over atKRLD, with a big news station in
Dallas, and so I always gotmy time alone with them. If I
wanted to interview them, I introducedthem, moderated the panels. They were
On. So I did that withGrace Lee Whitney on several occasions, with
who was in Yeoman Reign, metJimmy Dowon, Michelle Nichols, Sulu and

(15:26):
check Off. And I worked withLeonard Nimoy indirectly. I never met him
in person, but I wrote alongwith Alex Burton. I wrote narration for
him for the Dallas Symphony Archestra thatput on a big show. And I
brought the media kit to show you. Those were some pretty heavy days.

(15:46):
And the big question, Dennis,and you're gonna laugh at this now,
the big question at every one ofthose Star Trek conventions was are we ever
going to get a movie or asecond series? And you know it,
if it wasn't for Star Wars,I don't think we've ever gotten the movies.
I think the I think the successof Star Wars brought Star Trek got

(16:14):
Roddenberry back in with the movie studiosand said hey, we can do this,
and they of course I liked thefirst movie, The Motion Picture,
because I'm a Star Trek fan.It's probably the worst of the movies.
I mean it's really not it isbecause it got away. I mean,
they weren't like they were. Theyweren't. It wasn't like they were they
were stiff, right, Their characterswere stiff. Their characters weren't what we

(16:37):
saw towards the end of the series. And like most people, look,
I'm almost sixty one years old.I never saw Star Trek in the first
run. I didn't become a StarTrek fan until it became it got into
syndication, and I would see itwhen I got home in the afternoon.
You know, the TV back thenthere were only three channels, right ABCNBC,
and CBS, and then the localstations would run their own programming in

(17:00):
the afternoon, and Star Trek wasone of the things. I'd get home
from school, turned the TV onand Star Trek was on, and I'd
watch Star Trek, which is wheremost people are today. They're you know,
a lot of people. Obviously therewere more fans of Star Trek when
it was originally on. We wouldhave seen it lasts more than three seasons.
Uh, well, they saved itall. There was the biggest let

(17:22):
biggest letter writing campaign history and TVhistory that they brought it back for the
third year. But if you watchedthe third year, you know they recycled
a bunch of the FX stuff,and it was they didn't they they they
didn't do you know, they mbeam down a lot of planets and it
was always the same red planet onthe view screen. And you know,

(17:42):
the third season was was really thebudget You could see the budget cuts in
the third season, but you know, it brought it back, so uh.
But the conventions also helped resurrect Startrek Um the second season. The
second series was actually supposed to havehappened in the mid seventies, not the

(18:04):
late eighties, which is we allknow is the next generation stuff. But
and they wrote scripts for it foryeah, they did. And then of
course we had the animated series thatwas on for you know, was on
quite a bit and then it wasjust a rehash of all their episodes,
but they animated them, the animatedSees series. I think the animated series

(18:25):
was really good too. Well.There was one particular episode and I'm trying
to remember the name of it,that was an animated series where Spock went
back to Vulcan when he was achild and met himself as a child,
and I remember that being having anemotional wallop. Even though it was animated,

(18:47):
it was I think all these shipseries tend to have a standout episode,
and that was the standout episode forthe animated series. Did you have
a chance during your time I'm guardingand being with Bill Shatner to talk to
him? Did he have a favoriteepisode? You know, It's really funny,
is I'd never really broached that subjectwith him because I didn't want to

(19:12):
come across as being too much ofa fanboy, right, I mean,
I'd already showed him. Look,I have a when I was thirty nine
years old, I gotta I've gota on my right calf. I have
a tattoo of the star Trek ofthe Enterprise, the Enterprise, the refit
Enterprise, not the one like themodel I've got here, the Refit with

(19:33):
the square with the more square andnacells. Not the a model, but
the one from the movie from thewhen they brought they brought the Enterprise back
for the and they refit it andmade it bigger in a whole nine yards,
upgraded it, do whatever. SoI showed that to him and he
got to kick out of that.And actually somewhere there's a picture floating around
with me. But like pants lagpulled up and Shatton or pointing pointing at

(19:55):
my enterprise tattoo, right, ButI but I tried not to. I
just picked his brain, you know. I just talk to him about just
what I if I was that person? Um, what I would I want
to be bombarded with Star Trek stuff? You know. I remember there's that
famous episode, the famous thing wherehe was on Saturday Night Live where he

(20:15):
yelled, get a life, rightto the to the to the at the
Star Trek fans, get a life. And I didn't want to be that
guy, right, Um. Soyou know I didn't ask him because I
think that's probably been asked of himthousands of times. What's your favorite Star
Trek episode? I don't know thathe's ever answered it. Well, we
talked a little bit, and I'llbring this up, uh at this point,

(20:38):
because I think it fits here.The writer Harlan Ellison, whom I
met, I don't remember. Idon't recall introducing him to the crowd,
but I typically did so I mayor may not have h This was in
Dallas. All these conventions where Iworked with these guys were in the seventies,

(20:59):
and he a story called City onthe Edge of Forever. And you
may want to tell the plot,but I'll tell you what. If you're
any kind of a star trek ortelevision fan or anything like that, and
you have any kind of an emotionalcapacity. The last scene when they're still

(21:21):
back in time and Edith Keeler's tryingto cross that street, If that doesn't,
if that doesn't hit you with awith a big bang, you're not
human. No, you're right,it does because you realize that, you
know, if you believe in timetravel and you believe the different dimensions,
and that there's things going on allthe time, like we're reliving somewhere somewhere

(21:42):
in another dimension, the sixties arein the United States are still going on,
right, seventies that you're different planes? Right, How else do you
expel? How else do you explainwhen somebody goes, man, that's I've
just had an episode of days likeI've done. Absolutely, that's the only
way to explain it. It isvery I mean, it's to realize that

(22:02):
that one thing that they show inthat change the history of the world.
Right. And you know what's interesting. I think the name of that animated
episode that I'm thinking of is YesterYear, and it also involved a plot
device that Ellison created for City onthe Edge of Forever, and that's the
Guardian of Time, right where it'sjust this odd looking rock with a big

(22:26):
hole in the middle, and youcan look through it and see other times
and they're passing by rapidly. Andif you can use your can I use
the word tricorder to decide exactly whento jump, you can go into any
particular era. And in this particularepisode, McCoy who gets shot with some
drug that puts him out of hismind and he jumps through the Guardian of

(22:48):
Time before they can stop him,and Kirk and Spock have to go back
to the depression era, and spoksears are a bit of a problem,
right, They get there just abouta week before he did, right,
so when they show up, sohe they spend a week in the thirties
with Edith Keeler and you know,you're right, box ears were a problem.

(23:14):
They were a problem. In theVoyage Home he had to wear a
toboggan or a ski cap and thatone. And then in in the Voyage
Home in nineteen eighties San Francisco,he wore a You remember he took part
of his his ceremonial gown that hehad on, or rope that he had
on, tore it and put iton and put a headband on, right,
so were covered up. We coveredup his ears. Is you know,

(23:37):
how do how do you explain theguy with he explained a guy with
pointed ears? But it is?But you know what thing didn't nobody had
noticed and then he did. Hehad a green complexion right to his blood
was green. But they never explainedhow his complexion wasn't exactly human but his
or his eye or his eyebrows,but they covered up his ears. So
but you're right, it is.It is. There are certain episodes in

(24:00):
each series I think that are thatare very much the best, right best
episode. Well, and if youmoved through the original season, which the
original series, which is still myfavorite, I still think it's the best,
just like I think Superman is thefirst and best superhero and the Beatles

(24:21):
are the first and the best Britishinvasion group. But if you go back
and look, there are a fewepisodes that stand out. And I want
to ask you if you've ever hada chance to see The Cage. The
Cage was the original Star Trek pilotwith Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike.
It did not get picked up,and they couldn't use Pike later because Jeffrey

(24:44):
Hunter was not available. And thenthey made that into a two parter called
Menagerie. But that was an absolutelyamazing episode that NBC turned down because they
said, that's too good, that'stoo intellectual. No one will will either
be able to relate to it.Yeah, I've seen I've seen the cage
and you wonder what if, right, especially like Jeffrey Hunter, because I

(25:08):
think I think he died. Hedied into seventy yeah years ago. Yeah,
but you wonder what had NBC pickedthat up, how much different this
whole thing would be? Now?Well, think about it. The crew.
You had Spock, a very youngLeonard Nimoy on the bridge. He

(25:29):
was already the science officer, buthe would smile and things that he never
did later. You know that hewas a little bit out of character.
Nurse Chappell, who was Majel Barrett, who was Gene Roddenberry's wife in real
life. She was the original numberone, right. And you know what's
funny is you never heard Kirk referto Spock as number one, no,

(25:51):
but but Picard always referred to Rikeras number one, number one, so
it's skipped. So even though itwas number one, you know, he
would call he called Magel Barrett orthe character, uh, number one.
And she had dark hair too long, dark hair, not short, yes,
bob blonde hair like she did hisnurse chapel Um. It's Kirk never

(26:15):
called Spok number one. He alwayscalled you know, mister Spock. You
never heard, you know. Andobviously, uh, Patrick Stewart always called
Jonathan Franks number one. He goesnumber one in in in uh, you
know, so it's one. It'sfunny how it jumped from one to you
know, there was that three yearperiod in there were number one. But
even in the even in the movies, the original series crew in the movies,

(26:40):
number one was never was never awas never a thing, and now
obviously it is now. Well,you know, if you go back and
you look at some of Roddenberry's thoughtsand ideas, he changed the name of
the captain over and over and over. You know, it was less.
It was Christopher Pike was Jeffrey Hunter. Before that he was going to be
Captain Robert Winter. And before RobertWinter, it was going to be or

(27:03):
maybe it was something other than Robert, because it was a Robert April in
there as well. There was aHoratio Captain Horatio at one point, and
I believe that Ape the April characteris being revived for one of these new
series that yeah, so there,you know, they are going a lot
of bombages. They are, Yeah, and if you look at throughout the
whole thing, you'll hear them.Like in we talked about the TV series.

(27:26):
The one TV series I think isvery underrated as Enterprise. I think
it was. I think they wereI think the American people in the sci
fi community had just had enough ofStar Trek when they were just Ronald Moore
and Brandon Braga were just shoving StarTrek down people's throats, and I think
when Enterprise came along, people weretired. They'd had it had been on

(27:47):
the air for it'd been on theair for fifteen straight years or any different.
Don't hate attition, don't hate mefor this, but I thought Enterprise
was better than Next Generation. Iloved Dinner. I thought Enterprise was where
I like. Of course, I'ma I'm a Scott Bacula fan, right,
so I think I think it was. I think when you have episodic

(28:08):
television where it's where you have anarc, so like Deep Space nine,
where Deep since nine had the domllionin Wars right, and the stories continn
you it was in the next generationwas just episode episode episode, different episodes.
You know, you have a coupleepisodes of LinkedIn there together where it
would be to be continued. Butif you look at if you look at

(28:29):
Deep Space nine, deep Space ninewas a continuation. It had it had
stories that continued, and I thinksome of the dominion if you look at
Deep Space nine, the last twoyears of Deep Space nine were probably some
of the best, some of thebest Star Trek. I mean, Deep
Space nine was a really good anda lot of people don't like it because
it wasn't it didn't have an enterprisein it, right, And a lot

(28:49):
of people don't like Voyager because itdidn't have the enterprise and sometimes Captain Cisco
was not the main character of thestory. Now, but you know,
but I think, you know,Cisco was a very good character. I
mean he really was. He wasa very good and I think of all
the Star Trek characters, I thinkone of the better characters and all the

(29:11):
Star Trek is Wharf. I thinkI don't think people give I don't think
people give his crip, but hewas. He was actually in more episodes
of Star Trek than anybody Michael Doranas as a wharf. But going back
to Enterprise, I think that Ithink we had had Star Trek overload,
and I think that's the reason whyit wasn't given it's full. It was
Look, they always want every series. They always wanted every series to be

(29:34):
Once the Next Generation went to sevenyears, Voyager was seven years, DS
nine was seven years. Enterprise wasintended to be seven years, and people
just got tired of it, andthey kind of jipped the Enterprise crew.
When I the TV series Enterprise,because the last episode was really just an

(29:55):
episode of the Next Generation. Itwas just a it was just an episode
of the Next Generation. It waslike, we're going to close this out,
but we're gonna you guys can't carrythis on your own. We're gonna
bring Maria Sertis and Jonathan Franks inhere to really give you guys the right
send off. Well, some ofthe writing on Enterprise was good. There
were some episodes that are, youknow, fun to watch, but not

(30:18):
memorable. There was one where thechief engineer was cloned in some way by
some alien and I can't recall allthe instances of it of what exactly happened,
but the setup was that the chiefengineer on the enterprise was in some
kind of a coma and they wereable to clone him, and they were

(30:38):
hoping to use the clone and somehowto keep him going. Well, the
clone found out later because he washe acted childlike and then he started growing
really fast. It turns out thathe only has three years to live and
he's going to live his whole lifein three years, and it's either him

(30:59):
or the actual chief engineer, andin the end he sacrifices himself. But
it was one of those with thatbig emotional ending that you'll just never forget.
And I think if I were doinga compilation of the all time best
Star Trek episodes, that one wouldbe one of them, you know,
the and in that one, andthen I think in the Next Generation,

(31:21):
I think that me personally, thebest episode of the Next Generation is the
one where Picard is taken up.He passes out on the bridge and he
goes back to that village where hewakes up and he's all of a sudden
he's married the Inner Light. Theinter light right to me that I personally
think that's the best next generation ifyou're a Beatle fan, named after a

(31:44):
Beatles song written by George Harrison.Yeah, the Inner Light. And then
at the end he thinks it's allof it's all as all a dream,
and then he finds his little flute, his flute that he had. Yeah,
they pull, they pull, theypull the probe in and they open
it up and there's the you know, So it's the ones that really make

(32:07):
you, you know, it's theones that really that make you think,
right, they're not just going out. Let's just see how many phases and
how many photon torpedoes we could exactlylow people up right, I'm going to
talk about another episode, and don'ttry to stop me, because resistance is
futile. The best of both worlds, remember Q introduced us to the borg

(32:28):
correct, and then that was JohnDelancy his Q. And then and then
the best of both worlds had Picardkidnapped and turned into a boorg locutus named
Locutas, which always was amazing becausethey were always a hive. I don't
know how he got his name.Seven of nine was just seven of nine,

(32:49):
right, But I'm thinking I washaving this running bet with members of
my family. I was saying,this is it, this is it.
They can't get him out of thisdead. Actually, you know, I
heard that there was very much thoughtgiven to killing off Picard and given the
command of the Enterprise to Riker andand I think there was some backlash on

(33:12):
it. I think when they whenthey, I think they probably did some
test stuff and I think it cameback. Look, Patrick Stewart carried,
I mean, he is he youknow, he's Look, he's about as
left wing as they come, right, but he is he is very much
I mean when you see him,he's very stoic. He's supposed to be
what the captains are supposed to be. Right. You look at Shatner,

(33:35):
Uh you look at you look athim. You look at Shatner. You
look at even uh Kate Mulgrew asas as uh Katherine Janeway. Yeah.
The first seasons aren't very good.I mean the very first the very first
season of Next Generation really wasn't verygood because they were trying not to be
the original series, and it wasalmost like they acted like that HRK and

(34:00):
them didn't exist. Although in thevery encounter at far point, you see
Data talking to a very old doctorMcCoy walking through the walking through the uh
the decks of the enterprise, andMcCoy's a very old man. He's like
one hundred and thirty five or onehundred and thirty seven years old, and
Data Data brings up to him.You know, it's unusual for humans to

(34:22):
live that long. And I thinkit had something to do with the mind
Melt spotted with him in the voyageHome or not the voyage Home, in
the Search for no in the Wrathof Conu. And you know it's funny
is McCoy looks at him and Acoor. McCoy is very much the southern gentleman
that he was always intended to be, and he goes, boy, you
don't look vulcan, but you soundvulcan. And the Data realized, you

(34:45):
know, Data tells him, well, I'm an android. He goes,
oh, you know, and yousee him And in the last thing he
tells him, he goes, thisis a good ship. Take care of
him. She'll bring you home.Every Spider was amazing, especially when we
did the dual rolls, Oh yeah, and him in his crea right,
and so it's it is, youknow. So there are certain episodes that

(35:05):
you know, when we were talkingabout that that really stand out. Another
one that I could watch over andover was a comedy is The name of
the episode was Captain's Holiday and Piccardbeamed down to a planet by himself to
have some wine, women and andfun and and remember remember what the the
you know what a mcguffin is,right, right, and mcguffin is something

(35:28):
that moves the plot along but nevershows up. Like the most famous mcguffin
of all time is the Maltese Falcon, which never played a part in the
in the in the movie, butthe whole movie was about it. Well,
in this particular episode, there wasthis amazing weapon everybody wanted called the
taksuit taught and uh and and Picardwhen he beamed down for the vacation didn't

(35:49):
realize he was beaming down right intothe middle of this big mess. And
it was a really funny episode.Bosh, that's where's the first time he
runs into and he he was giventhe riker, gave him that uh like
horv auth or whatever that little lookfor lack of a better word, to
look like a little tig doll,right and on rise of If you've got

(36:10):
that thing out, it means thatyou're looking for you know, you're looking
for hanky panky, I guess,for lack of a better way to say
it. And he had it outand a couple of people are coming up
and he finally realized what it wasand he covered, you know, so
cards wearing shorts, you know,and he's very much relaxed, and he
realizes that and he throws it.He just wants to read his book,
remember, he just sitting there.I want to just read my book exactly.

(36:32):
I just want to read my book. Yeah, there are a lot
of the Next Generation episodes, andyou know, if you watch What's So
Cool About You ever watch H andI on H H and I TV,
it's called Heroes and Icon. Ifyou've got you verse, it's eleven thirty
seven. Uh, they show allthe series back to back to back.

(36:52):
Start seven o'clock, you have thenext you have the original series. Eight
o'clock is the Next Generation. Nineo'clock is do you Space? Nine ten
o'clock. As voyager in eleven o'clock, his enterprise every night, six nights
a week. They throw all theyshow all the Star Trek and you know,
it doesn't take long. There's onlyseventy nine episodes of the original series,

(37:13):
so if you're playing it five daysa week, it doesn't take six
days a week. It only takesabout eleven weeks to get twelve weeks to
get through all the episodes. Butit imagine the Guinness Book of World Records
for a TV show having the mostthe most series about it. I would
have given it to Maverick before StarTrek has Maverick had the original Maverick series

(37:34):
right then, it had the NewMaverick. Then it had Young Maverick.
Then it had Bret Maverick right then, and those are TV And then it
had the movie with Jim Garner.Well, no, Jim, oh no,
you're talking about Mel Gibson. MelGibson, you know it was in
the movie. I want to takeyou back just for a moment. Something

(37:54):
happened to me when I was atKRLD. That was one of the coolest
things that ever happened. I wasthe morning news editor and I sat in
a little horseshoe shaped desk with everypolice monitor in the world and I ran
the whole morning news block, wentin and anchored twice an hour, and

(38:15):
my sports guy was Frank Glieber,who was with Dick vermil the number two
in the bill announcer for CBS,Dick Glieber and Frank Glieber and Dick vermil
Well. His office was to myright, and then later Brad Sham and
our big star other than our morninganchor was a guy by the name of

(38:35):
Alex Burton. And Alex was aCanadian who had moved to Dallas when he
was younger to try to get intoradio and had become kind of like Cactus
prior was to Austin. You know, everybody knew him. He was so
well known that the billboards simply hadthe headline, did you Alex Burton this
morning? And when I went thereto work, I was very intimidated.

(39:00):
This guy was as radio stars goan AM radio in the mid seventies,
he was he was known by everybody. He's an icon. And he walked
over to my desk one time andhe said, Lynn, I got a
call from the Dallas Symphony. Isaid, oh, he says, yeah,
they're gonna remember Star Wars and CloseEncounters were the top movies of that

(39:24):
time. This was a probably lateseventy seven because the memo I'm about to
read to you as dated February tenth, nineteen seventy eight. The symphony wanted
to increase their visibility, the DallasSymphony and Maestro Eduardo Mata, Maestro Matta,
and they thought they could do it. They could bring culture to the

(39:46):
masses using star Wars and Close encounters. So they decided to do that,
do the music from there, andto also do Holtz as the planets,
because he had written a suite foreach of the known play in its which
we didn't know about Pluto, butit's a Mickey mouse plant anyway, right,
So I throw these things in tosee if you notice. Oh yeah,

(40:07):
there's no question. Yeah, thequestion is who else figured out what
you just did? That's right.So Alex said, they've asked me to
write narration for each of these thesethemes they're going to do. And he
said, so, I've got alittle outline here. He said, do
you want to do this with me? And I said, well, I

(40:27):
wasn't going to tell the Great AlexBurton no. And I mean that with
all right, all sincerity, Hewas fabulous, and he came over to
my apartment in Dallas with a littleportable case with a typewriter in it,
and we sat up and he said, well, you do the one for
Close Encounters, and I'll do theone for Star Wars. And I said,

(40:50):
okay, So I put a pieceof paper in. He put a
piece of paper in. Suddenly Ihear cli cli cli, cli Cli clickick,
and I'm just looking at my blankpiece of paper. So finally I
started, and I'm not going toread the whole thing, but here's what
I wrote. Is there anyone thereis man alone in this evolutionary journey?
Could this blue marble be the onlyvisited planet among the millions Nope, billions

(41:15):
of possible solar systems that might existin the myriad galaxies. No, it
seems unlikely that whatever gods attend tothe matters of the universe would concentrate their
energies in this single speck. Andit goes on, and I got down
to I needed an ending, andso I wrote this, uh right up
to the end, asking what wouldwe do if we met an alien?

(41:38):
The scholars would say, we mustgreet them with a Pythagogorean theorem sketched out
in the dust. The teachers wouldcome with books, saying there is much
we could learn. The language linguistswould offer communication through words, a composer
through music. The merchants would meetwith goods to trade, and YadA,

(41:58):
YadA, YadA, and then thescientists would start building the bombs, the
ammunition. We must prepare for war. And I said, I need a
big ending. Alex looked at mysheet, put a sheet in his typewriter,
and without even thinking, he wrotethis. At the edge of infinity,
a country parsec from this space,A many tentacled figure stands behind him

(42:23):
a genta stream, and gazes intohis amber sky. He wonders, is
anyone there? And I got goosebumps, and I thought, oh you
should. I thought, damn,this guy is good. So anyway,
let me read you the memo.This was from Lloyd Haldeman. It was
to Alex Burton, Lynn Woolly,Maestro Matta, and a few other people

(42:45):
that were involved with the symphony.Please find attached the retype text for the
Star Wars Encounters, as written byAlex Burton and Lynnwoolly. This is the
draft upon which we will base thefinal program narration. He goes on to
talk about any possible changes in whatthey should do about him, and then

(43:05):
he said this tentatively, Leonard Nimoywill be the narrator. This is not
for public release. Now you thinkthat didn't blow me away, You start
thinking about I just wrote something forand this is in the seventy right,
this is well, this is datedFebruary ten nine, right, so the
movie doesn't come out the The StarTrek the motion picture doesn't count till seventy

(43:30):
nine, right, it comes outin seventy nine, so they were working
on that then. But again,everybody knew who Leonard Nimore was, especially
if you're a Star Trek fan.I mean, you knew who Leonard Nimore.
And again, just like Shatner,Niemoy had this huge career before Star
Trek. He was in Mission Impossible. You know he and if you've ever

(43:50):
read his book and you read abouthim, you know he and and Shatner
both are very classically trained. Andso I can imagine that would be like
me writing something now and having uh, you know, I don't know,
Tom Selleck read it to me fromExcel. I'm a big toe. That's

(44:15):
that's my last bucket list guy Iwant to meet and I never met Nimoy.
Alex did, yeah, and hetold me about it, and I
wish I could remember more. Iwish I'd gotten a chance to meet him.
He was in Austin when they whenthe when the first Star Trek movie
of the Kelvin Timeline came out,the one with uh with Chris Pine in
the minute, and he was inthat movie. He actually brought a copy

(44:38):
of the movie that they showed atthe Paramount for a screening. He brought
it with him on the plane.He had it with him, and I
didn't. I was tied up andI couldn't go meet him, or I
would. I would have been methim that day, and I would have
liked to have met him. Doesthe title Zombies of the Stratosphere being anything
too? Yeah, you know whereI'm going exact exactly. So a bit

(45:00):
player, Yeah, very much,A bit in a in a chapter play
what they called a Saturday matinee serial. And Leonard Nimoy was a bit player
in that his first encounter in spaceas an actor. So you know what's
funny too, is again Niemo wasthe same way. After Star Trek.
He was broke and we were talkingabout, you know, asking about you

(45:23):
know, two people, would peoplecome up to Shatner and stuff. We
were talking about that. You know, they sued CBS for residuals for all
the merchandise they were selling. CBSwas getting rich now they were first on
NBCC Now NBC, Well, wellit was CBS gets the rights to a

(45:43):
lot of these shows. Yeah,but I think it was because you know,
all that stuff even though they wereon NBC, it was produced by
CBS. It was a CBS televisionproduction that sold NBC. Like I'll use
Magnum Pi Magnum Pi as a CBSTV show, but it was done by
Universal, who was owned by NBC. So NBC owns owns it, but

(46:05):
they sold it to CBS. Sothere was something in there where they didn't
they had to sue to get moneyfrom the lunchboxes and stuff that were sold.
Everything they had their name and likenesson it. Right. You think
about the college kids now with thena l stuff. They weren't getting any
of the they weren't getting any moneyand they and they were getting uh Universe

(46:25):
or Paramount or whoever owned at Desilu. A lot of people don't realize that,
uh Lucy, Lucille Ball and DesiArnez owned Star Trek at one time
with Desilu. Uh they were makinga ton of money and none of the
stars were getting any of it.And they sued them and they won,
and they started getting they started gettingtheir royalties like like they should have.

(46:49):
But there are certain things they couldand couldn't do. But he'm alway the
same way shatterw was. He wasstruggling in the in the early seventies.
They were. He was a verymuch a struggling actor. Having been on
at the time. Nobody really thoughtof Star Trek. Wasn't that successful when
it originally ran. It wasn't untilit went into syndication. Then it blew
up like it did you know?And something that you know, I don't

(47:10):
know you and I've ever said wewere all the times we've talked about Star
Trek. What my question, Iguess my question for you was what drew
you to Star Trek? Oh Iwas lifelong comic fan and science fiction fan.
I read Asimov, corresponded with himonce, and when it came on,

(47:31):
I would literally change my schedule.I was a senior in high school
I believe during Star Trek I wouldmake it a point because remember we didn't
even have Beta max machines then,so you had two chances to see that
episode, the original run and therepeat that they would do later in the

(47:52):
summer, and if you missed it, it was gone. And then when
I started going to these Star Trekconventions, we were able to rent sixteen
millimeter sound versions of these episodes andshow them, and the movie rooms were
the most popular attraction. You hadthe movie room, the dealer room,
and the panel discussion rooms, andthat's where I saw episodes of George Reeves

(48:17):
as Superman, in early episodes ofa Thriller and The Outer Limits and all
of that. And that was youronly chance. And now click up Amazon
and you can get anything you want. Yeah, you go. Now you
can watch any In fact, Istill own a sixteen millimeter print of the
pilot episode of The Outer Limits fromnineteen sixty three. I wonder what that's

(48:40):
worth. Not much, because youcan get it, so I mean,
yeah, but I mean, butit's on the you know, the media
that it's on makes it like recordsare coming back. So for me,
my father worked on the Space program. He worked to help. I'm an
IBM Bratt, so he worked atIBM. I grew up in Huntsvilla all
about I didn't move here till Iwas fifteen. Um, so I grew

(49:02):
up in the middle of the spacerace, right Kennedy's to me, the
best one of the best quotes ofpresident's ever had as Kennedy's we choose to
go to the Moon not because it'seasy, but because it's hard. It's
great. I had it in myso when we owned our house, I
built a media room that was literallyspace related. So on the ceiling was

(49:22):
the ceiling was painted with was paintedto look like the stars. I had
a shuttle and I had a shuttlein the space station next to each other.
I had the command module and lunarmodule flying towards the Moon. Of
course, on the walls was allmy star trek stuff was on the walls.
And then I had Kennedy's quote,and to me is the I love
that quote. Well. Growing upin a city that was Huntsville is referred

(49:46):
to as the rocket city because that'swhere the Saturn five is developed. All
the rockets NASA used were all developedin Huntsville. My dad worked on the
Space program. So it was justa natural thing for me to be to
be uh gravitate towards that. Andbeing a kid born in sixty two,

(50:06):
I didn't get to see Star Trek, like said earlier, until I wasn't
you know, wasn't it was injunior high and come home in the afternoon
watching on television the afternoon. Becamea huge fan of Star Trek at that
point, and not so much youknow. It's funny, is I knew
really was never a big fan oflike Buck Rogers or or The Outer Limits
or things like that. But itwas just something drew me to Star Trek

(50:27):
well because they took it seriously right. It was fantasy, but it was
science based, right, and Ithink it was about the whole thing about
everybody just getting along, right,and we'd just gone through all the turbulence
of the late sixties Vietnam, youknow, when I first started watching Star
Trek, you know, Vietnam wasvery much still on television every day.

(50:47):
I mean you'd turn on the six, you know, you'd sit down for
dinner. You know, we usedto do that, right, We used
to sit down as a family fordinner and you turned the TV on and
the news was coming on at fivethirty and either you know, Walter Cronk
and all the newsreels coming back fromVietnam. So that's, you know,
that's kind of what drew me.That's kind of what drew me to Star
Trek. And then the obsession gotworse, I should say, the obsession

(51:12):
when I turned twenty one. Sowhen I turned twenty one, my sister
gave me a birthday card for mytwenty first birthday. That's got you know,
we've always so I've had Scottish terriers. Scottie's right. There was a
beagle on the bottom and up inthe window there was a Scottish Terrier sticking
out and he opened up the cardand it said beat me up, Scottie,
Happy birthday. And at that point, right now, I decided,

(51:37):
when I got another Scottish Terrier,I was going to name my Scottish terrier
Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott. So myfirst Scottie that I got, Louis Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott named him after thechief engineer on the USS Enterprise. My
first encounter with Jimmy Doon, Ibrought him a picture of Scott of Louie,
I know of Louis of monty Montewas the first one, and he

(51:58):
laughed and he goes as he gotpuppies. Say no, we had him
fixed. He because, well,if you get another one, you have
puppies, let me know. Andhe gave me his Publists phone number and
said, I want a dog.So after I had Monny, the second
one was Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott dashA called him Louis. And then the
most recent one who died a yearago, the one that I've got the
tattoo on my arm from Lieutenant MontgomeryScott dash B. I called him dash

(52:22):
B. So all Star Trek stuff. So that's where my obsession was.
Star Trek came from it. Andhe was like, you named your dog.
I said, yep, and Ihave people tease me. Then you
have a flying saucer on your leg. I said, no, I have
the Enterprise on my leg. There'sa difference. Oh that's a great story.
Well yeah, I think I thinkStar Trek appealed to people like you
and me because they took it seriously. I mean they may not have during

(52:45):
the breaks and shooting, but onscreen they took it seriously. And my
all time favorite movie from when Iwas a small child has been The Day
of the Year of Stood Still,Right Michael Renny has Clatto a great movie.
Fab And then there was a moviein nineteen fifty six that featured Captain

(53:06):
J. J. Abrams as thecommander of his particular starship. It was
called Forbidden Planet, And I meanyou go back and you see where the
Star Trek idea came from, right, because Forbidden Planet could be considered the
first episode of Star Trek almost andLeslie Nielsen was the captain and he was

(53:30):
not a comedian in those But youknow what, I think, You're right,
you think, if you think aboutit, what draws us to people
to Star Trek is the fact thatwe figured out how to everybody literally figured
out how to get along. Becauseif you look at Star Trek at its
basic, it's socialism. Really,I mean, everybody's equal, there's no

(53:52):
money. Everything diversity just is,yeah it is, but that's fine.
But it's like there's no money,you know, if you need something,
it's just given to you. Right, I'm gon use the replicator or use
the replicator tea Earl Gray hot exactly, which, by the way, now
is my favorite tea. Is itliterally is Earl Gray. I got that,

(54:13):
you know, that's funny. Igot that from Star Trek. Uh
you know, but but it isit's this utopian idea that everybody can get.
And I think deep down that's theway the human race really wants to
be. I think we all we'retaught. First of all, you're taught
to hate um. But I thinkrealistically, deep down, that's the way
people really want. And it makesyou feel good. I mean, you
walk out of a you walk outof you watch an episode of Star Trek,

(54:35):
you watch or whatever, and youfeel better when you after you watch,
you feel they're like, man,look you know it's it's great and
it and it was that, youknow, Roddenberry is very smart in his
idea. You know, of courseit was a wagon trained to the stars,
right, uh as as the concept, but it was everybody, everybody
gets along. It was we've fixedthe problems of Earth. We've come together

(54:58):
as a society, we wiped outmost illnesses. Now let's go take on
space. Let's do something fun andexciting and get off the planet. But
you know exactly, but you know, I was just thinking too about what
you just read at the very thingabout the narration, if we think and
the reason I think another reason StarTrek is popular and Star Wars and things

(55:22):
in science fiction because first, firstof all, most of it's not science
fiction anymore. Right, there weresome stuff in Star Trek. I read
that, some of them like thebiobed. The military goes, where did
you get that idea? Because themilitary was working on that. We have
a biobed, right, we do? We have that, we have you
know, I've got my communicators.Footphones are the communicator, RIGHTA iPads are

(55:43):
tricorders. Tricorders are the iPads,right. I mean everything that we that
you saw in Star Trek has somehowWhat kind of effect did that have on
Steve Jobs? And how much didit have? Body will invent the transporter?
You know. Phasers, the tasersthe police officers carry now are basically

(56:08):
the phasers. They just haven't figuredout a way to shoot a beam to
incapacitate you, right, but theybut it's a phaser is an electromagnetic and
the photo torpedo probably, oh,I'm sure. Look the laser guided bombs
we have now, I mean,there's so much stuff that that science fiction
has brought us. It's not reallyscience fiction anymore. But we also have

(56:30):
to think about it. We arenot the only planet that has life on
it. No, if we,if we can't be, if we can't
be, if we if you thinkthat, you're arrogant, because why would
God go, I got billions ofplanets out there. I'm gonna pick that
one right there, and I'm gonnaput life on that one. No,
they put he put life on thatone to see what which was the theme

(56:52):
of the narration exactly? And that'swhat I'm going. Let's see how it
develops here. Let's put it overhere and see how it develops here.
Well, let's just take a cupof minutes, uh, because it's about
time to wrap it up. Butyou're all time of all the series,
your all time favorite episode, it'sgot to be the Sitting on the Edge

(57:12):
of Forever. Well, yeah,I mean I can't I can't even argue
with that. It's just it's themost gripping episode probably I've ever seen on
a television show. Right, yeah, it is. I mean, of
all the Star Trek episodes, it'sthat one. Now, if you take
each individual series, I don't knowthat I have a favorite episode of Voyager
Um Voyager was just there, right, it was it was just out there.

(57:37):
UM. The Next Generation obviously theone where we that we talked in
the interlike Enterprise. You know,I don't have a I don't have an
episode of Enterprise. I don't likeum. There are episodes of the Next
Generation I didn't care for. Ididn't really care for the first year.
I was like, man, ifthey better get better, this is gonna
really well. There was an episodeof Next Generation called Yesterday's Enterprise. Yes,

(58:00):
it's very good also, and thatone was just uh, the tension
was a different type of city onthe edge of forever. It was like
annihilation at any second, you know. And they finally got through all that
well, and then you have theTrouble with Troubles, which is a very
funny episode. Gerald wrote that achance to meet him, very funny episode.

(58:22):
And then Deep Space nine came backwith more troubles, more tribbles,
Right, that's one of that,that's one of my But you know,
you go back to Deep Space nineall of you know, when when they
got in, they really dove intothe deep dark side of everything, uh
that you know, even the GreatFederation had a dark side. Oh it
sure did, Dennis, this hasbeen great, this is last. You

(58:45):
are very good at your Star Trek. I have to admit, well,
you know it's funny. So we'reI was talking about my buddy Mike Young
and I were fining wrapping up here. Um my buddy Mike Young went to
cadet class together. There were fourof us in cadet class. We're huge
Star Trek fans, right, andwe would sit around at lunch while we're
in the police academy discussing Star Trekand uh Mike Uh, Mike Young,

(59:09):
Chief outs of Ato nicknamed him Databecause Mike looks a lot like Brent Spinery,
right, and and skinny like Spinerwas, and everything he called him,
he called him. He called himData. But there were four of
us that we would sit around allday, I mean at lunch in our
breaks, and all we would discussis Star Trek stuff, right, And
it's just it was it was reallyit was really wild. And they keep

(59:30):
giving us more to talk about.More series still coming. Well, I
tell you, I don't you andI both just I don't care for Discovery.
Never couldn't get into it. Icouldn't I figured they took it.
They took it far. The firsttwo seasons of a Card were you know,
I think we're garbage. Um.The new uh New Worlds, strange

(59:50):
Strange New Worlds is really good.They're going back to what Star Trek is,
back to the basics, and thenI think they're going to pop up.
Another series is going to come fromthe end of Picard. It's going
to be called Legacy. I thinkthat one's gonna be I think that one's
gonna be rude because he gets backto what Star Trek is supposed to be.
All Right, Dennis Ferris is thepresident of the Austin Police Retired Officers
Association and is challenging me with myknowledge of Star Trek. I think I

(01:00:19):
think he may be a little bitbetter anybody, Dennis. That was fun.
Thank you so much, Thank youanytime. All Right, be logical,
everybody, We'll see you in thenext episode. This is Planet Logic.