The Trek Files: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

As The Trek Files continues to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated series, we look back at a rather pointed letter from Dorothy Fontana about the draft for "Eye of the Beholder." Aaron Harvey joins us again as we reveal a newly discovered detail about the episode's development! See the documents: Eye of the Beholder - September 21, 1973 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

It might seem like a given that a TV series must be written to fit a budget. In the early days of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a serious concern between Gene Roddenberry and Bob Justman was to keep the scripts under control. Returning guest Mike DeMeritt joins The Trek Files to help parse the intersection of creativity and commerce. See the documents: Writing to Series Budget memo - 1987 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

What exactly is the internal physiology of a Klingon, or a Horta, or a Tholian? In 1975, an enterprising undergrad wrote to Gene Roddenberry to get some answers. Today, we've got educator and Star Trek science consultant Mohamed Noor with us to talk about the intersection of fact and fiction. See the documents: College of the Pacific letter - 1974 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

We're joined again by Luanne Fortier to share her stories about fandom in the 1970s. This time, the Star Trek stars come to town when William Shatner goes LIVE with an album of his college tour, and Luanne reminisces about Gene Roddenberry himself on stage. See the documents: William Shatner LIVE - 1977 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

As Star Trek was getting ready for a return to television, Dorothy Fontana was teaching a class to aspiring writers. One of those students, Robert Coyle, pitched his own animated Trek adventure and got multiple lessons along the way in writing for television and the hash business of production. Paul joins The Trek Files to tell his story! See the documents: Point of Extinction story pitch - 1973 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

It's time for another look into Gene Roddenberry's mail bag! This episode, we've got a range from 1971 - 1975, everything from an up-and-coming student writer to a pilot who claims to have unlocked the secrets to Star Trek tech! See the documents: Fan letters to Gene Roddenberry - 1971-1975 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

Star Trek may have broken a lot of ground on television, but the marketing of the show went boldly into new frontiers as well. A document aimed at fanzine publishers marks the transition to an "official" newsletter in what we might today call a bit of viral marketing. Tim Gaskill joins us again to discuss the ways Star Trek reaches its fans. See the documents: Star Trek Enterprise fanzine letter - ca. 1968 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

Our 250th episode deserves a special guest, and we've got Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan for a bonus-length chat! We cover the history of animated Star Trek to the threads that connect TAS to modern stories, and we may get to the bottom of why there are no Tellarites in Lower Decks. Don't miss this highly animated conversation! See the documents: Star Trek Animated Fan Club Newsletter - 1973  The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

David Gerrold visits The Trek Files again, this time to discuss the development of a story that didn't make it to TNG but found new life as a fan film, "Blood and Fire." Along the way, we revisit the personalities and controversies that led to the real chaos on the bridge. See the documents: Blood and Fire story by David Gerrold The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

Continuing our look at the creative process that brought Star Trek: The Animated Series to life, we welcome back Aaron Harvey for another dive into unproduced story pitches. Gene Roddenberry himself gets into the mix with one (and a half) pitches that apparently don't pass Dorothy Fontana's scrutiny. See the documents: Unroduced Star Trek Animated pitches - 1973 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

We continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Star Trek: The Animated Series, this week with a look at some of the stories that did not make it into production! Joining us to speculate on what could have been for the animated Enterprise crew is Aaron Harvey, co-author of "Star Trek: The Official Guide to the Animated Series." See the documents: Unproduced Star Trek Animated pitches - 1973 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

Longtime Star Trek journalist and promotions writer Tim Gaskill drops by as we revisit a letter from the Nimoyan Fellowship to Gene's attorney. It's another story of a fan who had a run in with the business side of things on this week's episode of The Trek Files. See the documents: Nimoyan Fellowship letter - June 1968 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

We're glad to welcome Luanne Fortier back to The Trek Files to continue her stories about the William Shatner Letter Exchange. This conversation kicks off with Star Trek's transition to an animated series and all of Shatner's anticipated appearances in a post-Star Trek world. See the documents: Letter from Dorothy Fontana - 1973 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!  

In the "letters and stamps" days of Star Trek fandom, between the original series and the Motion Picture, industrious fans connected with each other as "pen friends" through organizations like the William Shatner Letter Exchange. Luanne Fortier, a WSLE founder, joins The Trek Files to look back at those early days of celebrating their favorite series. See the documents: William Shatner Letter Exchange - 1972-1977 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

In 1968, David Gerrold pitched a story to Star Trek called "Bem," and while it went unproduced for TOS, the story would find new life in animated form. Hear the full story from David himself, our special guest to kick off the 11th season of The Trek Files! See the documents: "Bem" Contract Request - 1968 The Trek Files Season 11 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

While Star Trek: The Animated Series was winding down, Gene Roddenberry was developing what might have been his next animated sci-fi series (with a healthy dose of Star Trek influence). In our season finale, Aaron Waltke joins The Trek Files again to discuss Gene's vision for "Starship" and the many parallels to getting an animated to fly today. See the documents: Starship (Animated) - September 1, 1974 The Trek Files Season 10 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

When Star Trek premiered as an animated series in 1973, Gene Roddenberry and Dorothy Fontana assured fans that the new medium wouldn't affect the importance of the storytelling. A half century later, we are joined by Star Trek: Prodigy co-producer Aaron Waltke to discuss what has changed in the animation process and what has stayed the same in bringing Trek's core values to a whole new audience. Recorded live at STLV! See the documents: Star Trek Animated Fan Club Newsletter - August 1973 The Trek Files Season 10 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

From humanist philosophy to religion to our future with technology. Gene Roddenberry covered a lot of ground in the days of his college lecture tours. We're joined again by Star Trek motion graphics director Tim Peel to examine the deep side of Gene's thoughts in the years between Trek on TV and at the movies. See the documents: Hastings College speech - 1979 The Trek Files Season 10 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

Office politics have a certain timeless quality. In 1967, Leonard Nimoy found himself battling the higher-ups for the simple necessities to fulfill his fan mail obligations. On this week's The Trek Files, we explore the battle of memos with return guest Daren Dochterman and a very special reading! See the documents: Leonard Nimoy fan mail memos - 1967 The Trek Files Season 10 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!

A document from 1985 written by Mike Okuda addresses no less than the entire look and feel of Star Trek's graphics and the logic of starship display design. This week, we examine a portion of that pitch with the talented Tim Peel, heir apparent to Okuda's work as the director of motion graphics for all Star Trek since Discovery took flight in 2017! See the documents: Star Trek graphics, instrumentation, and set designs 1985 The Trek Files Season 10 on Memory Alpha All episodes and documents: The Trek Files on Memory Alpha Visit the Trekland site for behind-the-scenes access and exclusive merchandise. The conversation continues on Discord with live chats and the Roddenberry Podcasts community! Join today!