The Next Generation’s Best: The Starlog Project, Starlog #195, October 1993

This issue, Starlog presents the results of a reader poll of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This, despite the fact that the show wouldn’t end for another six months or so (and with a highly regarded finale, at that). Nonetheless, I am surprised to see that I agree with many of the choices, including the top two episodes: “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “The Best of Both Worlds, Part I.”

“Yesterday’s Enterprise” was the episode that made me a viewer of Next Generation. I had been turned off by the suffocating political correctness of the first season, not to mention Captain Picard’s penchant for abandoning ship at the drop of a hat.

But then one day I was with some friends at one of their apartments. She was a big Next Generation fan (and a Starlog reader, for what it’s worth), and she never missed an episode. So she made us watch the episode, which turned out to be “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” I quickly saw that the show had matured brilliantly, that it was willing and able to tackle complex issues of morality and duty, that it allowed its storylines to follow the logic of their plots to their conclusions, without trying to tidy up everything by the end of the episode, and that Captain Picard had become a wise and powerful leader.

After that, I rarely missed an episode of the series.

So, Starlog’s readers were smart with their selections. You’ll have to dig out a copy of the October 1993 issue to see the other 23 selections – and whether you agree.

Starlog #195
92 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.95

In the realm of Starlog merchandising, this issue includes an ad on page 73 heralding the newest product: Starlog trading cards. You can buy them in packets, like baseball cards, at stores, or you can buy a complete commemorative set of 100 cards in a binder covered in “Corinthian leather.” It even comes autographed by the company's publisher and editors. Or you could buy a set of the cards on uncut press sheets, or uncut hologram sheets. You can still find packages and boxes of these Starlog trading cards on eBay, which is how I finally got a hold of a complete set.

The rundown: The multi-photo cover highlights the Star Trek reader’s poll, while the contents page features the Trek art of David Mattingly. In his Medialog column, David McDonnell notes that Land of the Giants and Lost in Space are both headed for the big screen, and he writes that that leaves only two major Irwin Allen science fiction series awaiting revivals, The Time Tunnel and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, “an area soon to be visited by Steven Spielberg’s new TV series seaQuest D.S.V.” That’s an interesting comment, considering that one of the best (well, snarkiest) cracks made by a critic after seeing the eventual pilot for seaQuest was that it should be called Voyage to the Bottom of the Ratings. And in Gamelog, Michael McAvennie reviews Batman Returns (a Super Nintendo game, not the eventual motion picture), King of the Monsters, Traveler: The New Era, and others.

The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms is featured in Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile, and Communications’ letters to the editor include comments on race and Star Trek, Jurassic Park, Lost in Space, and more. David Hutchison’s Videolog announces the release of Animation Legend Winsor McCay, among other videos. A four-page Booklog section reviews Harvest of Stars, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection, Core, Ring of Swords, Dream of Glass, The City Who Fought, Golden Trillium, Rainbow Man, Forests of the Night, High Steel, Testing, The Honor of the Queen, The Galaxy Game, Days of Blood and Fire, If I Pay Thee Not in Gold, Alien Bootlegger and Other Stories, Future Earths: Under South American Skies, First Action, and Burning Bright. And Scott Briggs’ directory of fan clubs and publications, plus the usual convention listings and some cartoons, fill up the Fan Network pages.

Joe Nazzaro interviews painter David Mattingly. Marc Shapiro visits the soundstage of Demolition Man to preview the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes science fiction action flick. Jean Airey talks with actor Michael Praed, who discusses his work in Robin of Sherwood, Riders, and other projects. Over six pages, Starlog reveals its readers’ choices for the 25 best Next Generation episodes. Ian Spelling inteviews Trek’s executive producer, Michael Piller, who says that at this point he and co-producer Rick Berman leave most of the day-to-day running of The Next Generation to producer Jeri Taylor (and there’s a sidebar by Spelling focusing on Piller’s work on Deep Space Nine).

Bill Warren profiles actor Roy Brocksmith, who discusses his work in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Total Recall, and “The Switch” episode of Tales from the Crypt, which was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s directorial debut.

Before Chris Evans made the role his, actor Jay Underwood suited up as the Human Torch in a 1994 Roger Corman produced The Fantastic Four film, which you’ve in all likelihood never seen. That’s probably all to the best, because Evans was great. But Underwood has quite a career under his belt, too, and he tells Marc Shapiro about his Fantastic Four duties, as well as his work in Not Quite Human, The Boy Who Could Fly, and other films. Tom Weaver talks with Ann Robinson about acting in George Pal’s classic The War of the Worlds, as well as in Space Ranger. In his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn discusses Sharyn McCrumb’s book Zombies of the Gene Pool. And editor David McDonnell wraps it all up in his Liner Notes column by chatting about the Trek top 25, and revealing what numbers 26 through 50 were.

"... I ran off to Mexico in 1957 and blew my career out of the water – I married a famous Mexican matador and had two children. When I got back home, Hollywood had passed me by. I blew it. I should have stayed around and paid more attention. Now I realize why they call it ‘the business’ – because it is a business. I thought it was all fun and games and glamour, and I didn’t take care of it as a business. … After my second son was born in 1963, I did a Gilligan’s Island and that was about it. Motherhood suddenly took over.”
–Ann Robinson, actor, interviewed by Tom Weaver: “In Martian Combat”

For more, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent site.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #164, March 1991: Dan Aykroyd's Nothing But Trouble

Valkenvania, the Dan Aykroyd/Demi Moore/Chevy Chase fantasy comedy, has been renamed Nothing But Trouble and relaunched on the cover of this issue of Starlog. It’s not exactly the most pleasant cast of characters on the cover; you know it’s an odd collection when Edward Scissorhands (upper left corner) is the most normal “person” on your cover. But that’s genre publishing!

BTW, in an interview with the movie’s director, Aykroyd, inside this issue, the Saturday Night Live alum recalls giving the script to Warner Brothers. “They said, ‘Fine, we want to make this movie with you and John Candy.’ I said, ‘Fine. I want to play the judge and the banker.’ They said, ‘How about Chevy Chase as the banker?’ I said, ‘Great!’ He said ‘Great!' Everybody said, ‘Great!’ Then, we kind of looked at each other and said, ‘OK, who’s going to direct?’ And I thought to myself, ‘If I say I don't have a director at this point, it’s going to take months to find somebody,’ so I just blurted out, ‘I’ll do it.’”

Starlog #164
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $4.50

Reading through this issue, one notes that a number of Starlog family publications are chugging along. The licensed magazine Star Trek: The Next Generation is working on its fourth season, All-Star Action Heroes has its third edition, as does Comics Scene Spectacular (there would soon be a Starlog Spectacular and a Fangoria Horror Spectacular), etc. Of note (and editor David McDonnell does note it in his editorial) is the release of the 100th issue of Fangoria, the sister magazine that almost didn’t survive. It had a rough time (legally and in terms of sales) getting out of the gates in 1979, until the editors went with their guts and made it a full-fledged horror magazine and not a fantasy-horror-science-fiction hybrid. It was reportedly struggling again around issue #50, after both editors (“Uncle Bob” Martin and David Everitt) left and sales were soft, so Starlog editor David McDonnell took over editing chores (while he edited Starlog and numerous other titles; I really don’t know how he did it) for a little more than a year while he groomed future Fango editor Tony Timpone, who would go on to helm Fangoria for a quarter century – until early 2010, in fact.

All of that’s a long-winded way of saying that Fangoria reaching its 100th issue is a big deal. And it celebrates with a very good, special 100-page issue. As I write this (in 2010), Fangoria is nearing its 300th issue. It never would have gotten there if Starlog’s editor hadn’t stepped in and supported it when it was in danger of dying.

The rundown: Dan Aykroyd and John Daveikis are in fat-baby suits on the cover, while Jack Rickard’s illustration of the Creature from the Black Lagoon is on the contents page. In the Communications section, readers write about Beauty & the Beast, Land of the Giants, and Star Trek, plus Mike Fisher’s Creature Profile features the Creature from the Black Lagoon; and David McDonnell’s Medialog reports on a whole slew of sequels, including a planned sequel to The Punisher before the first movie has even been released.

Interplanetary correspondent Michael Wolff is back with another exploration of a popular genre concept, this time looking at Frankenstein throughout the years (as illustrated by George Kochell); Edward Gross hears Kenneth Johnson’s unrealized plans for the continuing adventures of Alien Nation; the Fan Network pages feature Lia Pelosi’s fan club directory and a convention calendar; David Hutchison reports the release of 42 episodes of Space: 1999, in his Videolog column; Tom Weaver interviews director Robert Day about his Tarzan films (in an article that is sadly undercut by a green patterned background on the pages that is printed too dark, making the article nearly unreadable); Dan Yakir talks with director Tim Burton about Edward Scissorhands; and Marc Shapiro interviews actor/director Dan Aykroyd about his new film Nothing But Trouble.

Pat Janiewicz talks with writer Jerome Bixby about Fantastic Voyage, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Star Trek’s “Mirror, Mirror” episode, and more; Tom Weaver and Michael Brunas interview actor Richard Denning (Unknown Island, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Day the World Ended, and more); Weaver solos with an interview of 1950s star John Agar, who talks about Tarantula!, Revenge of the Creature, and other films (with a sidebar on The Creature Walks Among Us); Kyle Counts checks in with director W.D. Richter, who wowed Starlog’s editors with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and is back with Late for Dinner, a far less bizarre affair; in his From the Bridge column, Kerry O’Quinn discusses Aggiecon; and David McDonnell’s Liner Notes column notes Fangoria’s 100th issue and lists some more contest winners.

“[When I was a kid] there was this kid next door who we convinced that an alien spaceship had crashed in the park. We had set up a bunch of ruins of a ship and told him it was inhabited by these invisible aliens, so we put footprints – it was very elaborate. I think we also used the same poor kid when we staged a fake fight out in the front lawn. I was playing a masked killer or something, and I beat up my brother and stabbed him in front of this kid, and he screamed and his mother came out and started screaming and called the police. The kid also bought it when I took my clothes off and threw them into the pool and we said that they had acid in the pool to clean it and someone fell in and disintegrated. Oh God! We would go to any length to make this work.”

–Tim Burton, filmmaker, interviewed by Dan Yakir, “Director’s Cut”

To see more issues, click on Starlog Internet Archive Project below or visit The Starlog Project’s permanent home.

Just Found This Two-Year-Old Interview with Horror Historian Tom Weaver

While searching for something else online, I came across this interesting interview with Tom Weaver on ClassicHorror.com.

Weaver is well-known to anyone who's read Starlog or Fangoria for the past couple decades. His stock in trade is the extensive, well-researched interview with classic filmmakers. In the ClassicHorror.com Q&A, he says he thinks he's done about 600 of them so far; a fair number of them have appeared in Starlog and Fango, and sometimes it seemed he was a regular fixture of their pages. (Always a fan of Weaver's interesting articles, I once wrote to Fangoria expressing surprise that they'd gone something like two consecutive issues without publishing a Weaver article; it was meant as a compliment to the man, and I received a nice response from him.)

Anyway, check out the ClassicHorror.com interview. He begins with a fascinating (well, for us writers and editors, at least) story about how he got his start interviewing these folks: sending audio cassettes with a list of his questions and having them record their answers and return the tapes.

PS: Weaver's interviews have also been collected in many books. His latest seems to be A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews with 92 Filmmakers.

The Starlog Project: Starlog #117, April 1987: Enter Tom Weaver

"Ib." That's the first word (a first name of an interview subject, if you're curious) of the very first Starlog article written by Tom Weaver, one of the most talented and prolific of contributors to the magazine. In issue #117, Weaver interviews the unlikely named Ib Jorgen Melchior, the "Danish Monster Master of Mars." Over the next two-decades-plus, Weaver would write countless (if, like me, you're too lazy to actually count them) articles for the magazine, almost always featuring actors, writers, directors, and producers from classic films, especially from the 1950s.

If you haven't read anything by Weaver, he might surprise you. His articles are mostly in the question-and-answer format. I have always appreciated his ability to go in-depth into the lives of the people he interviews. He is polite but insistent. He is informed about his subjects, but willing to be surprised by a contradicting fact from his interviewee and able to pursue it to a satisfying conclusion. He is a wizard at getting interesting stories out of his conversation partners. I rarely am familiar with the people he interviews, but I never miss reading a Weaver article (in Starlog or Fangoria), because he'll take an old movie I've never heard about, or an actor I've never known about, and I'll end up reading some interesting stories and excellent insight into movie making.

So, welcome to Tom Weaver.

(Not that you asked, but the last word in Weaver's first article is "that.")

Starlog #117
76 pages (including covers)
Cover price: $2.95

When I was in grade school, I read a short story by George R.R. Martin that blew me away. It might even have been the story from which the film Nightflyers originated (I'm not sure; I never saw the movie and I don't remember the story's title). But the story was incredible. I remember that someone's head exploded, and I'd been completely unprepared for it. I thought it was the most powerful story around. What it meant, of course, was that Martin was one of the most powerful writers around, so it's great that Hollywood tapped his works to make a film. But, still, I never saw the film.

BTW, in staffing news, Gary Schneider is the new production director at Starlog.

The rundown: Catherine Mary Stewart in Nightflyers is on the cover. In his From the Bridge column, publisher Kerry O'Quinn announces a special Starlog convention celebrating Star Wars' 10th anniversary (you'll of course remember the magazine's recent convention celebrating Star Trek's 20th anniversary, which turned into a special Starlog issue, #112, and the Star Wars convention will be mined for content for another special Starlog issue, #120, so stay tuned). In the Communications department, readers defend Howard the Duck (and make me feel sad for joking about it a few issues ago), rip on Starlog's cover text, criticize The Fly, and more; Medialog includes an unbylined short article quoting classic Star Trek actors commenting on the new series Star Trek: The Next Generation (including William Shatner's "I don't feel good about the new series"), and David McDonnell gives an overview of genre news (such as the cancellation of The Twilight Zone series).

Steve Swires interviews actor Adam West, who talks about the upsides and downsides of playing Batman in the camp 1960s series (when his agent pitched him the role, he said, "Come on, I'm trying to have a serious career"); between "ib" and "that," Tom Weaver spins his first Starlog article, an interview with the Danish writer and director Ib Jorgen Melchior, who talks about The Angry Red Planet, Robin Crusoe on Mars, and more; grandmaster L. Sprague de Camp continues the Mars mini-theme with an eight-page exploration of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars stories, with an assist from Edward Gross, who writes a sidebar on Princess of Mars screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue; David Hutchison has a few more words on the colorization debate and how it's being played out in the marketplace, and he shares them – along with some notes on new genre video releases – in his Videolog column.

Michael Wolff makes his first appearance as a writer for Starlog, with more Mars coverage – specifically, with a look at George Pal's The War of the Worlds adaptation of H.G. Well's classic novel; Jean Airey and Laurie Haldeman interview Terry Nation, creator of Blake's 7; Texas-based writer Ardath Mayhar, writing the Other Voices guest column, looks at the creation of fictional aliens; in the cover story, Brian Lowry interviews Nightflyers star Catherine Mary Stewart; in a three-page "The Writers of Star Trek" section, Edward Gross profiles three different contributors to that series: Carey Wilbur ("Space Seed"), David P. Harmon (The Deadly Years," "A Piece of the Action"), and Stephan Kandel ("Mudd's Women" and "I, Mudd," plus the animated series' "Mudd's Passion" and "Jihad"); Robert Greenberger interviews actor Mark Lenard, who reprises his role as Spock's father in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; the Fan Network pages include items on international fan clubs, a revived Nichelle Nichols fan club, answers to reader questions (such as, "Holy turnaround, what's going on with The Batman movie?), and more; in a two-page "The Guests of Trek" section, Mark Phillips profiles Roger Perry, and Frank Carcia profiles Meg Wyllie and Michael Forest; still more Trek comes from Edward Gross, who interviews Robert Butler, director of "The Cage" pilot episode of the original series; in his Booklog column, Chris Henderson chats with Fred Saberhagen (who talks about The Frankenstein Papers), and he notes the new print releases; Eric Niderost previews Robocop; Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier talk with Frank Oz about his new film, Little Shop of Horrors; in the Comics Scene column, Patrick Daniel O'Neill talks with Mark Evanier, co-creator (with Sergio Aragones) of Groo the Wanderer; and in his Liner Notes column, editor David McDonnell shares some behind-the-scenes tales of interviews, including a cute exchange he had with Rick Moranis and Frank Oz ("Rick, he's telling you to lie").

"Hell, the plot for 'Space Seed' came from an old Captain Video I did some 30 odd years ago. Of course, we did some very far out things on that show, including the popular idea of people being transported in space while in suspended animation."

–Carey Wilbur, writer of "Space Seed," interviewed by Edward Gross: "Carey Wilbur: Seed for a Trek Fairy Tale"

To view previous Starlog issue descriptions, click on "Starlog Internet Archive Project" in the keywords below or visit the Starlog Project's permanent home.