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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.ย 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.ย 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. โ 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.
The International Space Station reaches a major milestone, marking two decades of constant human presence in space. Despite close calls with space debris, reduced staffing in the months following the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, coolant leaks requiring spacewalks, and losses of resupply vehicles, the orbiting laboratory has maintained a steady human presence in space.
The 119th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Michael Emerson (Lost) guest stars.
The 97th episode of Arrow, a modern-day reboot of DC Comics’ Green Arrow superhero starring Stephen Amell, airs on the CW. Chad L. Coleman (The Orville, The Expanse) and Wil Travel (Jessica Jones) guest star.
Ten years after the last Star Trek TV project left broadcast television, CBS (corporate heirs to the television rights to Star Trek) announces that a new series is in preparation for a January 2017 premiere on CBS. But current plans call for only the pilot to air on CBS; future episodes will be streamed exclusively on CBS’ paid streaming service. (Territories outside the United States will get to see the new show on television and not just the web.) The new series is being overseen by Alex Kurtzman, co-producer of the two “reboot” movies to date, though CBS is quick to distance the new TV/streaming project from those movies.
Stripped of critical working systems and engines after her final landing, Space Shuttle Atlantis is moved via a ground transport to a new shuttle museum exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors’ Center at Cape Canaveral. Having flown 33 times, Atlantis was the last shuttle to travel in space, having returned from orbit the final time in July 2011. Originally intended to be the last addition to the shuttle fleet, construction on Atlantis began in 1980, and was completed in time for Atlantis’ maiden voyage in 1985.
The 26th episode of James Cameron & Charles H. Eglee’s cyberpunk series Dark Angel, starring Jessica Alba and Michael Weatherly, airs on Fox. Ashley Scott (Birds Of Prey, Jericho) guest stars.
The 61st episode of Joss Whedon’s supernatural series Buffy The Vampire Slayer, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, airs on the WB network. Anthony Stewart Head and Alyson Hannigan also star.
The 12th episode of the Sci-Fi Channel original series Welcome To Paradox airs, a loosely-connected anthology of science fiction stories set in Betaville, a utopian future city whose incredible technology has frequently unintended side-effects. Rachel Hayward (Harsh Realm) stars in another story co-written by SF novelist Donald Varley.
The 27th episode of Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, airs in syndication, starring Robert Leeshock, Lisa Howard, Von Flores, and Richard Chevolleau.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 74th episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, starring Lucy Lawless and Renee O’Connor. Bruce Campbell guest stars.
The 98th episode of Chris Carter’s modern-day science fiction series The X-Files airs on Fox, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. John Finn and William B. Davis guest star in the fifth season premiere.
The Hubble Space Telescope, observing M16 (also known as the Eagle Nebula), takes what may be its most famous image: towering clouds of rapidly-evaporating interstellar gas which scientists theorize are the birthplace of new stars. The huge, light-years-long hydrogen clouds are dubbed evaporating gaseous globules, or EGGs; astronomers also call the structure a stellar nursery. The image quickly becomes a mainstay of the media, making appearances in Babylon 5 and the movie Contact.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the 23rd episode of Babylon 5, opening the second season and introducing Bruce Boxleitner as Captain John Sheridan. Robert Rusler also joins the cast as space fighter jock Warren Keffer. Robert Foxworth (The Questor Tapes) guest stars.
Having successfully kicked off a series of action figures and other toys based on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Playmates Toys goes into the 1993 Christmas season with a product that sends longtime Trek fans salivating: a box set of the complete Enterprise bridge crew from classicStar Trek, packaged in a cardboard replica of the bridge complete with captain’s chair, in the same scale as the growing lineup of TNG characters. With toys based on the relatively new Deep Space Nine spinoff on the horizon in 1994, it’s suddenly the best time ever to be a Star Trek toy collector.
NBC airs the 36th episode of Donald Bellisario’s science fiction series Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell. Heather McAdam (Salvage One, Sisters) guest stars.
The third episode of the science fiction crime drama Super Force is broadcast in syndication in North America, starring Ken Olandt, Larry B. Scott, and Patrick Macnee (The Avengers).
The first novel based on the British science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, is published. Written by series creators and writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor (under the collective pseudonym Grant Naylor), the book features familiar events and scenes, but is generally played out on a more expansive canvas than a BBC television studio would allow.
The 674th episode of Doctor Who airs on BBC1. Though not generally known outside of the inner circle of the cast and crew, this story is intended to be a surreal parody of the Thatcher administration.
The week-long national syndication window opens for the sixth episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is the first episode after Encounter At Farpoint to feature future Star Trek: Deep Space Nine regular Colm Meaney as a yet-to-be-named crewman.
Dark Horse Records releases ex-Beatle George Harrison‘s 11th solo album, Cloud Nine, featuring contributions from Ringo Starr, Elton John, and Jeff Lynne, among others. The first single, “Got My Mind Set On You”, is a major hit, putting Harrison (and Lynne as a producer) back on the map.
ITV premieres the second episode of the sitcom Astronauts, concerning a fictional British space station crew aboard Skylab. Each episode is written by former Goodies cast members/writers Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
The sixth episode of Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking science documentary series Cosmos premieres on PBS. A popular history of science and scientific theory vs. tradition and superstition, segueing into Sagan’s field of expertise (astrophysics), Cosmos is a major milestone in American documentary filmmaking and the popularization of science and the scientific method (and makes an instant celebrity out of Sagan).
The 41st episode of the live-action series based on Marvel’s comic The Incredible Hulk airs on CBS, starring Bill Bixby, Jack Colvin, and Lou Ferrigno. L.Q. Jones guest stars.
The 19th episode of Harold Jack Bloom’s sci-fi series Project UFO airs on NBC, portraying fictionalized investigations into what the show claims are actual cases from the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book investigations. Edward Winter and Caskey Swaim star. Michael Strong guest stars.
Atari introduces its first-person driving game Night Driver, the first video game to attempt to simulate depth in its display. Introduced in black & white, Night Driver will later gain even more popularity in color on Atari’s first programmable home video game system.
The 44th episode of The Six Million Dollar Man is broadcast on ABC, starring Lee Majors and Richard Anderson. Lee Majors directs an episode featuring pro football players Larry Csonka, Mike Henry, Tom Mack, and Earl Faison; Dick Butkus and Carl Weathers (Rocky, Predator 2, The Mandalorian) guest star.
The ninth episode of Land Of The Lost premieres on NBC, as Rick Marshall finds himself having to depend on the help of a Sleestak to escape more aggressive Sleestaks.
The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 16, a six-day manned space mission to test modifications to the Soyuz vehicle design ahead of 1975‘s Apollo-Soyuz Test Project international flight. Cosmonauts Anatoly Filipchenko and Nikolai Rukavishnikov test the new Soyuz docking mechanism and solar panels, and new rendezvous/docking equipment intended to assist with the Apollo-Soyuz flight as well as to prevent “wasted” missions such as Soyuz 15.
ITV airs the seventh episode of the mystery/spy-fi series Strange Report in the U.K., starring Anthony Quayle, Kaz Garas, and Anneke Wills (Doctor Who). (The series is an international co-production and airs in the United States on NBC.) Zienia Merton (Space: 1999) guest stars.
ABC airs the 33rd episode of Irwin Allen’s sci-fi series Land Of The Giants, starring Gary Conway, Don Matheson, Deanna Lund, and Don Marshall. Guy Stockwell guest stars.
The 220th episode of Doctor Who airs on the BBC. Kevin Stoney guest stars as Tobias Vaughn, and Nicholas Courtney returns as the freshly-promoted Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, head of the newly created UNIT. This is the last Cybermen story until 1975.
This episode is missing from the BBC’s archives, but has been replaced on DVD with an animated reconstruction.
ABC broadcasts the eighth episode of the Filmation animated series Fantastic Voyage, based on the 1966 movie of the same name. Marvin Miller, Ted Knight, and Jane Webb lead the voice cast.
The eighth episode of Irwin Allen’s adventure series Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea airs on ABC, starring Richard Basehart and David Hedison. Richard Carlson guest stars.
NBC airs the eighth episode of the military drama The Lieutenant, created and produced by future Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and starring Gary Lockwood (2001: a space odyssey) and Robert Vaughn (The Man From UNCLE).