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Copyright 1995, Cyberspace Vanguard Magazine
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| C Y B E R S P A C E |
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| V A N G U A R D |
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| News and Views of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Universe |
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| cn577@cleveland.freenet.edu Cyberspace Vanguard@1:157/564 |
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| PO Box 25704, Garfield Hts., OH 44125 USA |
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| TJ Goldstein, Editor Sarah Alexander, Administrator |
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| tlg4@po.cwru.edu au001@po.cwru.edu |
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Volume 3 June 9, 1995 Issue 1
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-! 1 !- Ramblings of a Deranged Editor
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They say that if you aim for nothing, you usually hit it. What
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they don't tell you is that if you aim too high, what you usually
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hit is your head.
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Don't worry, there's a point to this.
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Many of you have been waiting, patiently, for the next issue of
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Cyberspace Vanguard, and we appreciate that. It's been a
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ridiculously long time since the last one. (So long, in fact,
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that we won't talk about how long it's been.) Here's why:
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As you all know, CV is distributed without charge. As such, it's
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not very good at paying the bills, so everyone involved has to
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have a full time job. (We're all really fond of eating.)
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Personally, Sarah and I have also moved -- twice. This second
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time, we moved 1300 miles, from Cleveland to St. Petersberg,
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Florida.
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The last move was for yours truly to take a job doing interactive
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multimedia -- the type of thing we want to do with CV. When I got
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here I discovered that what I was trying to do with an artist and
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our spare time was being done by a full time staff of 14 people.
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Naturally, this prompted a re-think.
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So, we have made arrangements for space on the World Wide Web, and
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are presently setting up a "starter" site. In the next couple of
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months, we'll be putting up interviews with Rene Auberjonios, K
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Callan, Geraint Wyn Davies, Mira Furlan, Lisa Mason, Ethan
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Phillips ... oh, lots of people.
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The URL, if you'd like to pop over and check it out, will be
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"http://www.actwin.com/cvanguard". We're still setting up, so have a
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little patience, and we'll try to make it all worthwhile.
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In the meantime, we bring you MICHAEL PILLER,
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co-executive producer of the 3 new STAR TREKS and UPN's
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LEGEND, which will be having a special airing following
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ST: VOYAGER on June 12 as executives try and decide whether
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or not to keep it. (Letters of support can be sent to
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LEGEND@paramount.com as well.)
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So enjoy! And when you check out our website, drop us a
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note and tell us what you think of it. Like CV itself, we want to
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make it something you're a part of.
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---- TJ Goldstein, Editor
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Cyberspace Vanguard Magazine
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-! 2 !- The Old West and the New Future: Michael Piller on saving
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LEGEND
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Michael Piller is a busy guy, for the most part.
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Besides Executive Producing both of the current STAR TREKs,
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he has also created and is producing LEGEND, a "comedy
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western" about a writer, played by MACGYVER'S Richard Dean
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Anderson) who winds up impersonating his heroic creation
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with the help of a nineteenth century mad scientist/genius,
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given life by ST alumnus John de Lancie.
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LEGEND is what's keeping Mr. Piller busy these days,
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even though filming has pretty much wrapped up, because the
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show is currently in limbo. Officially, UPN has not decided
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whether or not to drop the show along with all of the rest
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of it's current lineup (aside from ST:VOYAGER, of course).
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"The UPN network," Mr. Piller told CV in a phone interview,
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"in response to a really remarkable amount of letters and
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wishes from people who like the show, has asked for more
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time to make up their minds about the show, so we've
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extended the contracts so they can give us some more tryouts
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in June. They are going to put us on Monday night June 12th
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following VOYAGER. The message is very clear. If we hold
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that STAR TREK audience, then we are going to making a big
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impression on UPN."
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Monday's show will be a new episode, featuring John de
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LancieUs character, Janos Bartok. The guest villain in this
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tale of the late 1800's will be played by Robert Englund,
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perhaps best known for his role as Freddy Kreuger in the
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Nightmare on Elm Street films.
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Ernest Pratt, the show's main character, and Professor
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Bartok will have plenty to fight the villain with, of
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course. Mr. Piller describes Bartok as "someone who's ahead
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of his time. Somebody who could take steam and turn it into
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a moving vehicle. Somebody who could take electricity and
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turn it into a stun weapon. Somebody who could do something
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with the science that was available in 1876 that was beyond
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history, but possibly within the scientific knowledge of the
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time."
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Of course, all of this creates a challenge for the
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writer: how not to let them invent their way out of any
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problem that they face. "Well that's an interesting problem
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and one that we run into all the time. We don't want to
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make it easy for them. They have a great advanage with
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these weapons, and their balloon that they travel around in,
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and the cars and the wings and the other things that our
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hero has invented, so we just have to work hard to put them
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into situations where not all of these inventions always
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work, creating jeopardy that they can't always easily solve.
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And that, in the great tradition of drama, is the writer's
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problem."
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And, of course, all of this has to be done within the
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constraints of 1876 science, or it becomes fantasy. There's
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nothing wrong with fantasy, of course, but it's a subject
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that has stirred up controversy around the STAR TREK shows
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for years.
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"From the day I got here, Rick Berman and Gene
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Rodenberry made it very clear to me that they felt there was
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a very important line between fantasy and science fiction
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and that we were to stay on the side of science fiction with
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STAR TREK. The difference was that things happen in fantasy
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that have no logical explanation. That essentially was our
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operating assumption. So if somebody came in with a story
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that did not have a basis in science, it was generally
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frowned upon. As the years have gone by, I'd say that we
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have expanded that line quite a bit, but we still require a
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scientific basis for any of the fantastic events that occur
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on STAR TREK.
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"We are currently developing a story in which one of
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the characters on the Voyager finds himself mysteriously back
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home where he doesn't belong. He's back on Earth, living a
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life he shouldn't be living. When he starts to investigate
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he discovers that Voyager is in fact missing, but that he
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was never on the crew in the first place, and that in his
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place is somebody who wasn't actually on the ship when he
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was there. So that's a pretty fantasy based story. But, in
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order to make it STAR TREK, or rather to make it fit into
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the vision and rules that Gene Rodenberry had worked out for
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us, we have created a circumstance involving an alien
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culture that explains how this could have happened
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scientifically, even though the story we wanted to tell is
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... well, pretty Twilight Zone.
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"I don't think science is 'very important', I think its
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absolutely essential."
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And yet the net is full of science-oriented people
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ready to pick apart the show whenever it mentions anything
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specific.
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"I'm not a scientist, so excuse me, but I think when
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you deal with speculative science there are interpretations
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and subjective opinions that come into the judgments. A lot
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of these are things that could possibly occur. I don't
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think there are many mistakes that are clear and obvious
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mistakes. I can tell you that from day one Gene thought it
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was very important to have a science consultant on the show
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who read every script and gave notes on the show, and that
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this be a legitimate scientist with good credentials. We
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currently have a gentleman who holds a Ph.D. with and
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astrophysics background and a variety of other degrees who
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goes over everything that we do and makes corrections, makes
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suggestions, helps us with the science. We never
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deliberately violate scientific principles. We're always
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trying to make the science something that could conceivably
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be the outgrowth of some contemporary science that we're
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aware of."
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Of course, with the lighthearted nature of LEGEND, the
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science seems to be less of an issue.
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While Bartok was inspired by turn of the century
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scientist and inventor Nicola Tesla, Pratt himself was
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inspired by ... well, itUs hard to say. Both Pratt and
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Piller are writers who have backgrounds in journalism -- Mr.
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Piller started out with CBS news -- but ...
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"I can tell you that I am not a womanizer, a drinker,
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nor a gambler, but I count many of them among my friends. I
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would say that Pratt is much closer to Bill Dial, my
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collaborator. But I can tell you what he is. What I tell
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all the people who come in to write LEGEND is that he's the
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closest thing to us that you'll ever have to write. If you
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want to know what's going on in this character's mind, look
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inside your own, because he's a writer. He thinks like a
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writer. He speaks like a writer. He uses language like a
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writer. He uses language as a weapon to disarm his
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opponents. These are all things that I think are important
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to bring to the character."
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So what's a writer to do if he (or she) wants to do
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just that? Several years ago ST: THE NEXT GENERATION began
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reading unsolicited scripts, as long as they were
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accompanied by the proper release forms. ST: DEEP SPACE
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NINE continues the tradition. The decision about accepting
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scripts for ST: VOYAGER has not been discussed, but Mr.
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Piller feels that if LEGEND continues, it is something he
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would like to do.
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"I think that once a show is on the air and people can
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see what we're doing and how we write the shows, they can start
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going to their typewriters and word processors and coming up
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with ideas. I just feel it's so important to generate ideas
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from a wide variety of sources We've gotten so many good
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writers this way that even if we get a hundred bad scripts,
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it's worth it to me to get the 101st one that gives me an
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idea that we'd like to buy, or finds us a writer that we'd
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like to develop something with."
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Not that writing for LEGEND will be easy. Aside from
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the jeopardy issue, there is the genre itself, which seems
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to have a hard time finding a mainstream audience.
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"It is an unusual genre, a comedy western with
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overtones of science, but I believe in the genre. I believe
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it can work. It just needs time to find an audience. I
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would like it to have the same audience as ST."
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As for the future of STAR TREK, "We plan to continue on
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how we're going, and not throw any more STAR TREK's on the fire and
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dilute the audience any further." The next feature film,
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which will feature the cast of TNG, is in the planning
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stages, but Mr. Piller is not involved with it.
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That's probably just as well, as he seems to have his
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hands full trying to save LEGEND.
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"The most important thing to communicate is that we are
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trying very hard to go to cyberspace to save LEGEND. A
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group of people who have never seen each other but who have
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a shared experience with a television show have sent
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hundreds of letters. A letter from a person who's seen a
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show sends a message to an executive, with, of course, the
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most important message being the ratings. We've never done
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this before but I think we're finally defining a use for the
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Internet. I think that with this experiment LEGEND will be
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saved. I'm very gratified and hope people keep watching and
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will tell everyone else to watch. It will all be decided in
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couple of weeks."
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His "absolute commitment to saving this show" means
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he's reading every piece of e-mail that comes in to him at
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LEGEND@paramount.com. (Comments to the United Paramount
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Network can also be sent to UPNmail@aol.com.) Of course,
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he's not the first producer to come to cyberspace looking
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for support, but not everyone agrees with the practice.
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"One person said it was unseemly for a producer to be
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seen to ask for help in saving his show. Well, if it's
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unseemly, then so be it. I think LEGEND is important
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because it celebrates history, science, literature; it's
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heroes are nonviolent. If we don't work to save shows like
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that, we're going to lose them."
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--
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CYBERSPACE VANGUARD MAGAZINE
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News and Views from the Science Fiction Universe
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TJ Goldstein, Editor | Send submissions, questions, comments to
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tlg4@po.cwru.edu | cn577@cleveland.freenet.edu
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