The Official Star Trek Las Vegas Convention

Robert Picardo (The Doctor) sang a couple song parodies based on the Borg, then was joined on stage by Tim Russ (Tuvok) and Robert Duncan McNeill (Paris) as “The Boys of Voyager” reunited. McNeill recounted the story of the malfunctioning Captain Proton jetpack, which set his pants on fire while he was hoisted 30 feet into the air. Russ had shot scenes with all three potential Voyager Captains (Susan Gibney, Genvieve Bujold, and Kate Mulgrew) and said that when “Katie” came on stage, he knew they’d found their captain. Picardo believes that an adlib during his audition won him the role. After “I believe someone has forgotten to terminate my program” he added, “I’m a doctor, not a nightlight.”

Nichelle Nichols (Uhura-“TOS”) was asked about the costumes on Classic Trek and responded that they were comfortable, pretty and reflected the times (1960s). She said they reflected Gene Roddenberry’s belief that “you don’t have to lose the difference between the sexes to have parity and equality.”

James Doohan (Scotty-“TOS”, “TNG”) made a brief stage appearance. He was tired from all the autographing, but did reveal that he could do 16 accents. When he joined Star Trek, they told him to tone down the accent so he would be understandable.

It was an exciting experience growing up on Deep Space Nine, according to Cirroc Lofton (Jake Sisko-“DS9”). He was “discovered” by a modeling agent while playing sports at the park. Avery Brooks took him under his wing and that was the “most valuable thing [he] took away from those seven years.”

Corin Nemec (Jonas Quinn-“Stargate SG-1”) appeared in the Toby Keith/Willie Nelson music video “Whiskey for my Men, Beer for my Horses.” He said that Christopher Judge was the total antitheses of his Teal’c character, but darn! he wouldn’t tell any stories.

To the dismay of the fans, Leonard Nimoy (Spock-“TOS”, “TNG”) claimed that he was “officially done with directing”. When asked what he would have done differently while directing Star Trek IV, his response (to audience applause) was, “Do different? It was perfect!” Someone mentioned William Shatner, and Nimoy claimed that once Shatner said that he (Nimoy) was uncomfortable around horses. “While Bill Shatner was doing Shakespeare in Canada, I was filming Westerns!”

Friday evening’s treat was a buffet at Quark’s bar, with entertainment by Max Grodenchik (Rom-“DS9”), Tim Russ, and Chase Masterson (Leeta-“DS9”), followed a complimentary visit to Star Trek: The Experience.

Saturday-
Armin Shimerman (Quark-“DS9”) claimed to be a little woozy, as he hates to fly and took a four- hour pill for a 45-minute flight. He said all the (male) DS9ers have grown beards because they “all want to be Avery Brooks”. There were two challenges encountered during the filming of “Take Me Out to the Holosuite”. The first was that they were at a ballpark near the Los Angeles Airport and they had to wait for the airplanes to go by until they began taping. Also, the characters who were supposed to play baseball well were played by actors who couldn’t, and the characters who were supposed to be novices were played by actors who were skilled. (Max Grodenchik handicapped himself by playing with his non-dominant hand.)

Onstage together were Greg Evigan of TekWar and Spice Williams (Vixis) and Todd Bryant (Klaa) from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. Spice “married” Greg on his show “My Two Dads.” An automobile accident caused Spice to create a healthy lifestyle. Todd got into acting as a child with the musical “Oliver!” (“Falling off two-story buildings—great!”)

Roxann Dawson (Torres- “Voyager”) has remained busy directing since the end of Voyager. Not only has she directed five episodes of Enterprise, but she has also been at the helm of episodes of The District and Charmed. The highlight of her seven-year stint on Voyager was “biting Robbie (McNeill) on the cheek” while her character went through pon farr. She also mentioned that the actors had to be careful with the props “because some of them worked”!

The ever-attractive Alexander Siddig (Bashir-“DS9”) sported long hair and a rough beard at this appearance. While his career primarily flourishes in England, his children are in the United States, so he splits his time between the two countries. He explained his name change (from Siddig el-Fadil) with two reasons. His mother wanted his name to represent both his European and Arabic heritage, and he also wanted to “mess with Paramount merchandising”. At the time of the change, people couldn’t pronounce his name, but “of course, now everyone is used to Arabic names”. A special treat was a brief stage reunion with his former wife and co-star, Nana Visitor (Kira), who had been autographing backstage.

Once again looking a little bit uncomfortable on-stage, Robert Beltran (Chakotay-“Voyager”) revealed that he was doing the play “The Big Knife” by Clifford Odets in Los Angeles. An eleven-year-old asked what his favorite episode (of Voyager) was, and he responded, “I like the ones where I got to kiss a girl” and wagged his eyebrows. He was also asked, “Who would he prefer Chakotay to date—Janeway or Seven?” and he countered, “Why are the boys left out of the equation?” Hmmm.

The Star Trek universe was one which Walter Koenig (Chekov-“TOS”) appreciated. He enjoyed portraying a society in which everyone can retain their customs and culture and work together harmoniously, while respecting their differences. As a result, he said that Star Trek audiences are the best representation of what Gene Roddenberry had in mind for society, proving that people of diverse beliefs can get along. Even during the initial run of the Original Series, he did not receive hate mail for portraying a Russian in the middle of the Cold War; even taking into consideration that his character appealed mostly to youth, that says quite a bit about the effect of Star Trek even in its infancy.

Dominic Keating (Reed-“Enterprise”) came onto the stage, singing the much-maligned Enterprise theme song. Revealing the extent to how far some fans go, he revealed that a fan in Australia had Keating’s face tattooed on one shoulder, Connor Trinneer (Trip-“Enterprise”) on the other, and Brent Spiner (Data-“TNG”) in the middle! He defended the show by stating that out of the 26 shows that come out a year, only four are really clunkers, the rest are pretty good, and some are very good.

A change of pace was provided by Nana Visitor and Rene Auberjonois (Odo- “DS9”), who performed an abridged reading of “Love Letters” for the audience.

Surprise visitor Rita Rudner introduced Kate Mulgrew (Janeway-“Voyager”) to the audience. She feels blessed to have had the role of Janeway and misses the cast of Voyager. When asked what was the strangest thing she was asked to do during the run of the show, she responded, “Having lizards with Mr. Paris!” One of her favorite perks was playing the Bride of Chaotica. “I had just met my husband [to be] before that episode. Who knew that I would soon become the TRUE bride of Chaotica?” referring to his campaign for political office. One fan asked if she would consider comedy, and she replied, “I will certainly consider comedy if comedy will consider me!”

The specialty Saturday night was a series of dramatic readings by Walter Koenig, George Takei, J.G. Hertzler, and Robert O’Reilly and a “Dessert Fantasy” provided by Creation.

Sunday-
Robert O’Reilly (Gowron-“TNG”, “DS9”) and J.G. Hertzler (Martok- “DS9”) brought down the house while onstage with Jeffrey Combs (Brunt and Weyoun-“DS9”; Shran-“Enterprise”) by performing “The Klingon Rap”. The song featured the chorus, “Kill ‘em all first, that’s the only way to solve it”, which O’Reilly admitted caused some problems with his wife when their triplets started singing it. Both Combs and Hertzler have appeared on Enterprise, but they said nothing compares to Deep Space Nine. “[It] was a once-in-a-lifetime magical experience and we knew it at the time,” claimed Combs.

The “Supporting Sci-Fi Stars” panel included Natalia Nogulich, Patrick Kilpatrick, J. Paul Baker, and Manu Intiraymi. Nogulich described Admiral Necheyev (TNG) as the “antagonistic one who tried to get Captain Picard to obey” and wished they had written her the line “I told you so”. Kilpatrick played several characters on Deep Space Nine and Voyager, including the head Kazon on Voyager and was also the mad bomber on Babylon Five. Baker was Seven’s baby Borg (Voyager) and also played the father of Torres’s baby (Voyager) in “The Killing Game”. Intiraymi described Icheb (Voyager) as a “big tough Borg who was only 60% assimilated”, with one bare leg showing.

Several cast members of Lexx then shared the stage. Louise Wischermann started acting at the age of 12. Of her role as Lyekka, a man-eating plant, she said, “I don’t mean to be bad; we have to eat to survive.” Jeff Hirschfield wrote about 20 episodes and cast himself as a robot head; he now works on kids’ shows “to do something clean and wholesome”. Patricia Zentilli played several parts, including Bunny, who was killed. When fans wrote in and complained, she was recast as Queen Bunny. Xenia Seeburg had the difficult task of taking over a part that someone else had played; she then took the character in a different direction and made her a fighter. Brian Downey quoted several “Rules” of the series, including “Stanley Tweedle shall never lose his hat” and “In space, there are no rubber-faced aliens.”

The ever-popular George Takei (Sulu-“TOS”, “Voyager”) made mention of Matt Jeffries’ passing, stating that “his imagination gave the visuals of Star Trek”. Regarding his role as the First Ancestor in “Mulan” and its sequel, Takei commented that the Disney people must think that his voice is “fat”, as those are the characters that he voices.

Nicole deBoer (Ezri Dax-“DS9”) recalled an unsuccessful audition for TekWar, in which she suddenly screamed, “Oh my God, you’re William Shatner! This is so cool!” When she took over the role of Dax, she incorporated Jadzia’s habit of walking with her hands behind her back into the new Dax. When asked which character she wanted Ezri to end up with, she replied, “I wanted to be with Worf so I’d be in the movies. I love Julian but he ain’t in no movies.”

Armin Shimerman, Ethan Phillips, and Phil Kaufman introduced the short film, “Living in Walter’s World”. Shimerman gave the “Ferengi’s Word of Honor” that we would enjoy it. (We did.)

Fame does have its perks. Other guests were given bottled water for their stage appearance; William Shatner (Kirk-“TOS”) received specialty iced tea. His current projects include a Nashville recording session (oh boy!) and a Sci-Fi Channel movie entitled either “Fire of Hate” or “Inferno of Hate”. He recalled that he once met a woman who had multiple personalities and they were all Star Trek.

The “Rubber Head Gang” ended the convention. John Billingsley (Phlox-“Enterprise”) sang a parody of “Day-O” with the words “Character actors have more fun, Eleven days off and the checks still come.” He claims that Jolene Blalock is the reincarnation of French vaudeville performer Joseph Pujol. (Look it up—this is a family website.) “And if she wants to rebut that, she can come to the conventions!” he declared. Michael Dorn (Worf-“TNG”, “DS9”) said that what his experience has taught him is to be careful what you wish for. He had once said, “Wouldn’t it be great to do something in makeup?” Ethan Phillips (Neelix-“Voyager”), who was caught taking pictures of the audience with his digital camera, often had problems with his makeup. Once during an emotional scene with Kate Mulgrew, simultaneously his teeth popped out and his makeup (prosthetic head) popped up. That certainly was a mood-breaker!