Grand Slam Convention, Pasadena, California

Building upon a typical misconception of the non-Trek world, Robert Beltran (Chakotay-“Voyager”) came out telling the audience how glad he was to have been a part of “Star Wars” for seven years. While he is terminally cute, his flippancy with audience questions began to be grating. He complained that during the last three seasons it seemed as though “Voyager” only had two characters, one who said, “Do this” and the other who said, “I won’t.” He also shared the story of a snippy “JAG” employee who ticked off the “Voyager” cast so much with her spitefulness that male cast members started dropping their pants as they walked past her window in the next building.

Neil Norman and His Cosmic Orchestra entertained the audience at various times during the weekend. They promised that the “Buffy” theme would be on their next album but wouldn’t give a release date.

The most frequent guest star on “The Original Series” was Eddie Paskey, who played Mr. Leslie. He spoke briefly to the audience about his experiences on the show.

Tim Russ (Tuvok-“Voyager”) played with Neil Norman and sang his trademark rock-n-roll to the audience before taking the stage and answering questions. Now sporting a goatee and eyebrows, he described his long relationship with Trek, beginning with his competition with Levar Burton for the role of Geordi LaForge. He played various roles on “The Next Generation” and was also in “Generations,” and turned down several acting jobs while waiting to find out if he had the role on “Voyager”.

Also serenading the audience was Robert Picardo (The Doctor-“Voyager”) but his songs were his parody compositions. He auctioned off a computer panel from the set to benefit the Pasadena Playhouse (The State Theater of California, just a few blocks from the convention). He described his role of the Doctor as “a computer program with a bad attitude.” When asked what his favorite species on the show was, his response was “7 of 9.” He also noted that he had trouble remembering the name of another, and constantly referred to them as “Species 90210.”

Ethan Phillips(Neelix-“Voyager”) followed Picardo on the stage and shared that he likes to hike and that he knows flowers. He referred to Tim Russ as the “Vulcan Gas Giant,” for reasons better left unknown. When asked about his relationship with Naomi Wildman on the show, he believes that the writers had a story arc in mind when they first began that storyline.

Just before Phillips left, Jennifer Lien (Kes-“Voyager”) arrived. She was subdued and appeared ill-at-ease, but shared that she was the mother of a 6-month-old boy. She has done voiceovers and attended college (majoring in art) since leaving the show.

The Friday evening cabaret consisted of “House Calls”, a 2-character play featuring Neelix and the Doctor which added a postscript to the show. (Believe it or not, Harry Kim finally made Lieutenant!) Following that were live performances of two classic “Twilight Zone” episodes.

Saturday-
Armin Shimerman (Quark-“DS9”) arrived on stage wearing a Ferengi head and a Buffy jacket. His favorite Deep Space Nine episode was “Far Beyond the Stars”-he was thrilled to act without prosthetic makeup! He has a great respect for Sarah Michelle Geller, who had the opportunity to have left Buffy years before, but stayed out of loyalty to Joss Whedon. Post-Trek and -Buffy, he is staying busy with his “Merchant Prince” book series.

Calling it a “small miracle” that he got the role, Alan Ruck (Captain Harriman-“Generations”) said that he was amazed at his welcome into the “amazing Star Trek world”. He spoke of his work on “Speed” with Sandra Bullock, who was a great practical joker. After she tricked him with fake doggie doo, he took a glue gun into her dressing room and glued everything down. (Sounds like there was more than one prankster on the set!)

Looking frail and walking with a cane, James Doohan (Scott-“The Original Series”) arrived on stage to a standing ovation. Convention co-host Adam Malin facilitated the dialogue between Doohan and the fans. At one point he commented that he thought Scotty was more loyal to his ship than to his captain, to which Doohan replied, “I think you’re quite right.” Doohan’s three-year-old daughter briefly joined Daddy on stage, to hundreds of flashing cameras.

Douglas Murray hosted the Star Wars panel, which included Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), David Prowse (Darth Vader), Kenny Baker (R2D2), Jeremy Bullock (Boba Fett-“Empire”/“Return”), Maria D’Aragon (Greedo-“Hope”), and Silas Carson (Nute Gunray-“Menace”/“Clones”). Before they came on stage, Murray gave the answer to the two most-asked questions: Yes, it was hot in those suits; and no, they couldn’t tell us anything about Episode 3. Prowse disclosed that he lost the voice role of Darth Vader because of his English accent. The most difficult part for Baker was getting in and out of the robot. Bullock said that his most embarrassing moment was forgetting one or his four lines in “Empire”!

Walter Koenig’s (Chekov-“The Original Series”) claimed that his reputation as a “screamer” was caused by the writers. Being the youngest (and therefore the most vulnerable) crew member, a scream from Chekov was shorthand to let the audience realize that the ship was in danger. His greatest experience was the roll-out of the NASA Enterprise shuttle. The Star Trek cast was unaware that they were the main event instead of bystanders until they heard the band playing the theme song and saw the ship name.

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura-“The Original Series”), who has been kept busy with her autobiography, fiction writing, and NASA recruitment, commented on current events. She said, “Strife of war should be the very, very, very last resort. I pray for our young people who are in harm’s way.” She also noted that efforts to meet Gene Roddenberry’s dream “must begin with me”.

Next up was Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia-Star Wars “Hope”/“Empire”/“Return”). She said that she was sure that she would be fired during the filming of the first movie because she was hired under the condition that she lose 10 pounds. As she was unable to do that, she believed that when Leia and Luke swung across the hall on the rope, that she would go “splat” against the wall and be replaced by Jodie Foster. However, before she began the third movie, George Lucas told her that she needed to look at her proposed costume. She asked him, “Why? They’re all pretty bad.” That’s when she figured they got revenge for the unlost 10 pounds. She noticed that whenever she wore “that costume” she didn’t speak.

The famous Creation auction was up next, and Freddy volunteered to help, which meant that he held up items while the bidding was going on. While he was showing the director’s clapper from Star Trek V, apparently William Shatner decided that the bidding wasn’t high enough, so he joined Freddy on stage to drive up the price.

After the introduction for “the Stars of Star Trek” both William Shatner (Kirk-“The Original Series”) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock-“The Original Series”/“Next Generation”) strolled onto the stage. The format was conversation between the two. Shatner brought up (again!) the lack of funds for special effects in Star Trek V. One spooky occurrence was that the spotlights went out right after they mentioned DeForrest Kelley’s (McCoy-“The Original Series”) name. (Maybe he was there after all.) At one point Shatner turned around to the screen which was calling ticket holders to Carrie Fisher’s autograph line. He called, “Where’s Carrie?” She came out and went nose to nose with him. She then gave them both a kiss (although Nimoy hammed it up a bit) and went back to her signing. Then Nimoy presented Shatner with Creation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Science Fiction and Fantasy Genres.

The evening show consisted of Armin Shimerman and Max Grodenchik singing parody songs as the Ferengi Blues Brothers. Then Wil Wheaton and his comedy troup entertained the nightowls with improvisational skits.
Sunday-
The fabulous George Takei described his unorthodox discovery of his part in “Voyager.” It seems that a friend told him that episode information was on the Internet, but Takei’s agent and the studio knew nothing about it. However, a week later his agent called to tell him that the Internet was right. The greatest challenge of that episode was tracking down the bridge crew from “The Undiscovered Country” to recreate the scene with the teacup. A future role for Takei is Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta in Showtime’s production “9-11”.

Larry Minetti (“Magnum, P.I.”) and Lorenzo Lamas (“Falcon Crest”) made a brief stage appearance. Lamas quoted his father, upon learning of his first movie role in “Grease”-“Who the *&% is John Travolta?” As they left, Minetti said, “This isn’t like the Academy Awards-God bless America!”

Weirdness reigned as James Leary (Clem-“Buffy”), Andy Hallett (Lorne-“Angel”), and Danny Strong (Jonathan-“Buffy”) showed up together, calling themselves the “New Evil Trio.” Wild tales of pranks on the sets abounded, some of them unprintable. Hallett complained that David Boreanaz’s favorite trick is to pull of Lorne’s horns at the end of the day. However, unlike Boreanaz’s vampire forehead, the horns use a superglue-type adhesive! They revealed that Charisma Carpenter had given birth to a boy the week before and told of the various subterfuges used to hide her pregnancy before it was written into the script.

The former lovers from “The Next Generation”- Michael Dorn (Worf) and Marina Sirtis (Deanna Troi)-were reunited. They compared the chaos of “The Next Generation” set to the solemn atmosphere of “Deep Space Nine.” “Dornie” (as Sirtis called him) didn’t have much to say, but Sirtis commented that “Actors seem to think their opinions count which is a load of tofooey-they just have a forum you don’t have.” Wil Wheaton joined them briefly and commented that Paramount was so cheap they wouldn’t pay to airbrush the zits off his forehead in his favorite photograph.

Juliet Landau (Drusilla-“Buffy”) revealed herself to be an all-American girl, whose British accent was coached. Describing her character as “pretty loopy”, Landau was a professional dancer before she moved into acting. Because both her parents were in the business (Martin Landau, Barbara Bain), she knew what she was getting into.

Alabama native Robert Hall presented a slide show of the special effects he has produced. He has worked on “Buffy”, “Angel”, and “Firefly”. When asked what inspired him to go into that career, he answered, “I don’t know-I guess I’m just warped.”

Nicholas Brendan (Xander-“Buffy”) revealed that he is sad because the show is ending partly because of fear of the unknown and partly because he will not see the cast and crew (his second family). He was comfortable being the “Dude in Distress” surrounded by powerful women-“Women are stronger because they put up with more *&$#.” His comment on Tara’s death was that “Joss likes to kill people” and that it was one of the best gun deaths that he has seen.

The audience (especially the female members) went wild when James Marsters (Spike-“Buffy”) strolled onto the stage. He auditioned with both British and Southern accents, and the producers decided they liked the punk rock look and “bleached the *&#% out of his black hair and shellacked it down”. He didn’t know that Spike was getting his soul back until he was given new lines right before filming.

After the last star and the last autograph, the “Front Row Society” adjourned to a restaurant for steak dinner and farewells until next year.