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Welcome to Gene-ology, a podcast by Roddenberry Entertainment that dives deep into the early TV writing works of Gene Roddenberry. To fans, they were the Great Bird of the Galaxy and the First Lady of Star Trek. To their friends and co-workers, Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry were, perhaps, slightly less mythic figures with their own very human quirks, but still beloved and admired. In this panel from the TrekTalks 5 telethon in support of the Hollywood Food Coalition, Gene and Majel are remembered by those who knew them. Podcast hosted by Earl Green & Ashley Thomas TrekTalks panel hosted by John Champion Panel guests: Fred Bronson, Denise Crosby, Ernie Over, Rod Roddenberry About Gene-ology Gene-ology explores Gene Roddenberry's early television scripts, including his lesser-known works before Star Trek using the Mission Log format popularized by Roddenberry Podcasts. We analyze the themes, writing style, and cultural impact of his scripts, and we even unearth stories from the Roddenberry archives that were never produced. Join us as we trace the roots of Gene's creative genius. In This Episode Memories of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett Roddenberry from those who knew and worked with them Join the Conversation What did you think of this episode? Share your thoughts, theories, and favorite moments in the comments or reach out to us on social media or email us at missionlog@roddenberry.com Did you know Roddenberry Podcasts is on YouTube? Find the video versions of your favorite shows like Mission Log: Prodigy, Mission Log: The Orville, as well as exclusive content only available on YouTube. Subscribe now! https://www.youtube.com/@RoddenberryEntertainment?sub_confirmation=1 Follow us on Social Media: INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/roddenberrypodcasts BLUESKY https://bsky.app/profile/roddenberrypod.bsky.social THREADS https://www.threads.net/@roddenberrypodcasts FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/MissionLogPod Our shows are part of the Roddenberry Entertainment family. For more great shows and to learn how we live the legacy of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, follow us here: RODDENBERRY PODCASTS https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryPodcasts RODDENBERRY ENTERTAINMENT https://www.instagram.com/RoddenberryOfficial RODDENBERRY FOUNDATION https://www.instagram.com/TheRoddenberryFoundation Support the Show For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Mission Log Discord Community! There, we continue the discussion with dedicated channels and a weekly video chat with the hosts. Become a member of our Patreon today! https://www.Patreon.com/MissionLog Subscribe and Stay Tuned Be sure to subscribe to Gene-ology for more deep dives into Gene Roddenberry's early works. New episodes are released regularly as we uncover more of Gene's television legacy. – Gene-ology is produced by Roddenberry Entertainment. Executive producer Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry. Visit https://Podcasts.Roddenberry.com for more great content. Edited by Earl Green.
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity lifts off from Spaceport New Mexico on its first fully-crewed flight with passengers, including Virgin Galactic founder/owner Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses (who flew aboard a previous flight), Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett, with veteran Virgin Galactic pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci at the vehicle’s controls. The flight is suborbital only, but does earn the rookies among its crew their commercial astronaut wings. The flight was only announced at the beginning of July, where some observers interpreted the announcement as an attempt to upstage the previous announcement that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin would be flying a fully crewed New Shepard capsule on July 20th. Independent flight of Unity lasts approximate 14 minutes, from drop/booster ignition from its carrier aircraft to landing (total time in both air and space for those aboard is approximately 58 minutes, from takeoff of the carrier aircraft to Unity‘s touchdown on the runway). (The flight system of carrier aircraft and air-dropped spacecraft was established almost exactly 17 years earlier in the first SpaceShipOne flight by Scaled Composites, which sold the design to Virgin Galactic for commercial development.)
Nintendo of Japan CEO Satoru Iwata dies as a result of complications from gall bladder surgery. As the head of game developer HAL Laboratories, Iwata oversaw games in the Kirby, Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon series, until he replaced outgoing Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi in 2002. His tenure saw the introduction of the Nintendo DS handheld, the Wii console, and the wildly popular Amiibo figurines, as well as unprecedented interaction with fans and customers on the internet.
Dr. Claudia Alexander dies at the age of 56, while still serving as the chief scientist of a suite of U.S.-provided instruments aboard ESA’s history-making Rosetta mission. Renowned as one of JPL’s finest research scientists, she was a member of the Galileo plasma instrument science team before becoming, by the mission’s end in 2003, the project manager of that mission to Jupiter.
Scientists, analyzing Hubble Space Telescope spectographic data taken during a transit of the exoplanet HD 189733b against its parent star, reveal that they have determined the planet’s color in visible light. The doomed gas giant, only 63 light years away, is said to be a “deep azure blue” not unlike how Earth’s oceans appear from space, though in this case the color is theorized to be the result not of water, but of silicate rain – airborne glass – blowing in 7,000mph winds as the atmosphere is blasted away due to the planet’s proximity to its sun.
Syfy airs the 54th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Ming-Na Wen (Agents Of SHIELD, The Book Of Boba Fett) and Tembi Locke (Sliders) guest star.
Benbella Books releases the non-fiction Star Trek essay anthology “Boarding The Enterprise”, edited by and featuring contributions from David Gerrold. Other contributors include Norman Spinrad, D.C. Fontana, Paul Levinson and Eric Greene. (theLogBook.com webmaster Earl Green aided with this book’s fact-checking and editing.)
Welsh toy company Dapol announces the release of a box set of “early” Daleks depicted in various 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The set, containing four uniquely modified Dalek action figures, is a limited run of 2,000 units.
The eighth episode of Mark Verheiden’s science fiction series Timecop is broadcast on ABC, starring Ted King and Don Stark, loosely based on the 1994 movie of the same name (also co-written by Verheiden). Rena Sofer guest stars. (The series has already been cancelled at this point; ABC is burning off the remaining episodes into off-season time slots.)
Showtime airs the 60th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. David McCallum (The Man From UNCLE, The Invisible Man, Sapphire & Steel) guest stars in a remake of an episode from the 1960s Outer Limits series.
Actress Claudia Christian, having completed four seasons on the syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5, allows her contract to lapse prior to the start of production on the show’s fifth season (slated to air on cable channel TNT). Within days, rumors circulate on the internet that Christian has been fired from the show, touching off a fandom firestorm. The first scripts for the fifth season are revised accordingly to feature a new character, Captain Elizabeth Lochley, and actress Tracy Scoggins is cast as the new character within weeks. Christian’s appearances in the two upcoming Babylon 5 TV movies (set to premiere in 1998) and the final episode of the series itself (already filmed) are unaffected.
Having announced the band’s breakup, Crowded House releases Recurring Dream, a final album – priamrily a greatest hits collection – with the band’s original lineup. Despite having left the band months before, drummer Paul Hester rejoins Neil Finn and Nick Seymour to record three new songs for the album.
Having weathered the storm of the 1983 video game industry crash longer than most, Coleco Industries, maker of the early ’80s Colecovision video game system, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, Coleco is America’s sixth largest toy company, but the video game industry isn’t its downfall. Overproduction of the company’s Cabbage Patch Kids toys has proven to be fatal, with two straight years of annual losses exceeding $100,000,000. The remains of Coleco are eventually bought up by rival toymaker Hasbro.
Fox airs the first episode of Werewolf, created by Frank Lupo (The A-Team) and featuring makeup effects by Rick Baker. John J. York and Lance LeGault star; Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) guest stars.
After intense solar activity results in a brief swelling of Earth’s atmosphere, Skylab‘s days are numbered: it has already been slowed enough by contact with the outermost layers of the atmosphere to come tumbling back to Earth. Unoccupied since 1974, the now-derelict space station is expected to disintegrate harmlessly over the Indian Ocean, but NASA is caught off-guard when unexpectedly large chunks of Skylab survive long enough to crash into the Australian outback. No one on the ground is hurt, and NASA is jokingly fined for littering.
Argo Records releases the standalone Doctor Who audio drama LP Doctor Who and the Pescatons in the UK, starring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, and guest starring Bill Mitchell in a story written by veteran TV writer Victor Pemberton. The first release of its kind licensed by the BBC (although plans had been made, and abandoned, for a radio series starring actor Peter Cushing in the 1960s), this release is the first in a very long history of Doctor Who stories told entirely in the audio medium, and will be re-released in other forms in later years.
Recent Jet Propulsion Laboratory hire Michael Minovitch submits the first of a series of papers and technical memorandums on the possibility of using carefully-calculated gravitational assist maneuvers to speed transit time between celestial bodies while requiring minimal engine/fuel use. Where most previous scientific thought concentrated on using engine burns (and a lot of fuel) to cancel the effects of a planet’s gravity, Minovitch demonstrated that gravity could be a big help with a carefully calculated trajectory. Though nearly every planetary mission since then has capitalized on Minovitch’s research, it was initially rejected by JPL. Minovitch’s calculations are later revisited by Caltech grad student Gary Flandro, who flags down a particular combination of Minovitch’s pre-computed trajectories for a “grand tour” of the outer solar system, a mission which will eventually be known – in a somewhat scaled-down, less grand form – as Voyager.
NASA begins soliciting studies from contractors for an unmanned robotic spacecraft to land on the moon. Intended to carry scientific instruments and television cameras to examine the moon from ground-level, the Surveyor landers are intended to reap their own benefit in the form of scientific data, but they will also serve as advanced scouting support missions for possible later manned landings on the moon.
Absolutely no generative AI was used in the creation of the content on this website. It’s mostly just some guy named Earl.
The CW airs the 91st episode of Legends Of Tomorrow, starring Caity Lotz, Matt Ryan, Jes Macallan, and Tala Ashe.
Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity lifts off from Spaceport New Mexico on its first fully-crewed flight with passengers, including Virgin Galactic founder/owner Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses (who flew aboard a previous flight), Sirisha Bandla, and Colin Bennett, with veteran Virgin Galactic pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci at the vehicle’s controls. The flight is suborbital only, but does earn the rookies among its crew their commercial astronaut wings. The flight was only announced at the beginning of July, where some observers interpreted the announcement as an attempt to upstage the previous announcement that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin would be flying a fully crewed New Shepard capsule on July 20th. Independent flight of Unity lasts approximate 14 minutes, from drop/booster ignition from its carrier aircraft to landing (total time in both air and space for those aboard is approximately 58 minutes, from takeoff of the carrier aircraft to Unity‘s touchdown on the runway). (The flight system of carrier aircraft and air-dropped spacecraft was established almost exactly 17 years earlier in the first SpaceShipOne flight by Scaled Composites, which sold the design to Virgin Galactic for commercial development.)
Nintendo of Japan CEO Satoru Iwata dies as a result of complications from gall bladder surgery. As the head of game developer HAL Laboratories, Iwata oversaw games in the Kirby, Super Smash Bros. and Pokemon series, until he replaced outgoing Nintendo CEO Hiroshi Yamauchi in 2002. His tenure saw the introduction of the Nintendo DS handheld, the Wii console, and the wildly popular Amiibo figurines, as well as unprecedented interaction with fans and customers on the internet.
Dr. Claudia Alexander dies at the age of 56, while still serving as the chief scientist of a suite of U.S.-provided instruments aboard ESA’s history-making Rosetta mission. Renowned as one of JPL’s finest research scientists, she was a member of the Galileo plasma instrument science team before becoming, by the mission’s end in 2003, the project manager of that mission to Jupiter.
Scientists, analyzing Hubble Space Telescope spectographic data taken during a transit of the exoplanet HD 189733b against its parent star, reveal that they have determined the planet’s color in visible light. The doomed gas giant, only 63 light years away, is said to be a “deep azure blue” not unlike how Earth’s oceans appear from space, though in this case the color is theorized to be the result not of water, but of silicate rain – airborne glass – blowing in 7,000mph winds as the atmosphere is blasted away due to the planet’s proximity to its sun.
Syfy airs the 54th episode of the science fiction series Eureka, starring Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Joe Morton. Ming-Na Wen (Agents Of SHIELD, The Book Of Boba Fett) and Tembi Locke (Sliders) guest star.
Benbella Books releases the non-fiction Star Trek essay anthology “Boarding The Enterprise”, edited by and featuring contributions from David Gerrold. Other contributors include Norman Spinrad, D.C. Fontana, Paul Levinson and Eric Greene. (theLogBook.com webmaster Earl Green aided with this book’s fact-checking and editing.) 
The 136th episode of Stargate SG-1 airs on the Sci-Fi Channel, starring Richard Dean Anderson, Amanda Tapping, Michael Shanks, and Christopher Judge.
Decca Records releases Michael Kamen‘s soundtrack from the movie X-Men. 
Welsh toy company Dapol announces the release of a box set of “early” Daleks depicted in various 1960s Doctor Who episodes. The set, containing four uniquely modified Dalek action figures, is a limited run of 2,000 units. 
The eighth episode of Mark Verheiden’s science fiction series Timecop is broadcast on ABC, starring Ted King and Don Stark, loosely based on the 1994 movie of the same name (also co-written by Verheiden). Rena Sofer guest stars. (The series has already been cancelled at this point; ABC is burning off the remaining episodes into off-season time slots.)
Showtime airs the 60th episode of The Outer Limits, a revival of the 1960s science fiction anthology series. David McCallum (The Man From UNCLE, The Invisible Man, Sapphire & Steel) guest stars in a remake of an episode from the 1960s Outer Limits series.
Actress Claudia Christian, having completed four seasons on the syndicated science fiction series Babylon 5, allows her contract to lapse prior to the start of production on the show’s fifth season (slated to air on cable channel TNT). Within days, rumors circulate on the internet that Christian has been fired from the show, touching off a fandom firestorm. The first scripts for the fifth season are revised accordingly to feature a new character, Captain Elizabeth Lochley, and actress Tracy Scoggins is cast as the new character within weeks. Christian’s appearances in the two upcoming Babylon 5 TV movies (set to premiere in 1998) and the final episode of the series itself (already filmed) are unaffected.
Having announced the band’s breakup, Crowded House releases Recurring Dream, a final album – priamrily a greatest hits collection – with the band’s original lineup. Despite having left the band months before, drummer Paul Hester rejoins Neil Finn and Nick Seymour to record three new songs for the album. 
Having weathered the storm of the 1983 video game industry crash longer than most, Coleco Industries, maker of the early ’80s Colecovision video game system, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At the time of the filing, Coleco is America’s sixth largest toy company, but the video game industry isn’t its downfall. Overproduction of the company’s Cabbage Patch Kids toys has proven to be fatal, with two straight years of annual losses exceeding $100,000,000. The remains of Coleco are eventually bought up by rival toymaker Hasbro.
Fox airs the first episode of Werewolf, created by Frank Lupo (The A-Team) and featuring makeup effects by Rick Baker. John J. York and Lance LeGault star; Chuck Connors (The Rifleman) guest stars. 
Buena Vista Records releases the LP Star Wars: Rebel Mission To Ord Mantell, an original audio drama written by Brian Daley (the writer behind the entire National Public Radio adaptation of Star Wars). It features none of the movie or radio cast members. 
Atari releases the arcade video game Crystal Castles, an internally developed game featuring a new character, Bentley the Bear. 
ITV airs the 63rd episode of the anthology series Tales Of The Unexpected. Carol Drinkwater (Chocky) guest stars.
After intense solar activity results in a brief swelling of Earth’s atmosphere, Skylab‘s days are numbered: it has already been slowed enough by contact with the outermost layers of the atmosphere to come tumbling back to Earth. Unoccupied since 1974, the now-derelict space station is expected to disintegrate harmlessly over the Indian Ocean, but NASA is caught off-guard when unexpectedly large chunks of Skylab survive long enough to crash into the Australian outback. No one on the ground is hurt, and NASA is jokingly fined for littering.
20th Century Fox Records releases The Story Of Star Wars, a surprisingly literate adaptation on LP for younger listeners, recreating and encapsulating the movie’s story with narrated audio from the film. 
Argo Records releases the standalone Doctor Who audio drama LP Doctor Who and the Pescatons in the UK, starring Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen, and guest starring Bill Mitchell in a story written by veteran TV writer Victor Pemberton. The first release of its kind licensed by the BBC (although plans had been made, and abandoned, for a radio series starring actor Peter Cushing in the 1960s), this release is the first in a very long history of Doctor Who stories told entirely in the audio medium, and will be re-released in other forms in later years. 
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation airs the tenth episode of the science fiction series The Stranger, starring Ron Haddrick.
The 33rd episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. This is part three of the story now collectively known as The Sensorites.
Recent Jet Propulsion Laboratory hire Michael Minovitch submits the first of a series of papers and technical memorandums on the possibility of using carefully-calculated gravitational assist maneuvers to speed transit time between celestial bodies while requiring minimal engine/fuel use. Where most previous scientific thought concentrated on using engine burns (and a lot of fuel) to cancel the effects of a planet’s gravity, Minovitch demonstrated that gravity could be a big help with a carefully calculated trajectory. Though nearly every planetary mission since then has capitalized on Minovitch’s research, it was initially rejected by JPL. Minovitch’s calculations are later revisited by Caltech grad student Gary Flandro, who flags down a particular combination of Minovitch’s pre-computed trajectories for a “grand tour” of the outer solar system, a mission which will eventually be known – in a somewhat scaled-down, less grand form – as Voyager.
NASA begins soliciting studies from contractors for an unmanned robotic spacecraft to land on the moon. Intended to carry scientific instruments and television cameras to examine the moon from ground-level, the Surveyor landers are intended to reap their own benefit in the form of scientific data, but they will also serve as advanced scouting support missions for possible later manned landings on the moon.