The theme song from Star Trek Enterprise began with the line, “It's been a long road, getting from there to here.” It may not have been a long road, but it was an interesting turn in it, going from a show about space travel (the aforementioned Enterprise) to a program about counter-terrorism, the hit FOX series, 24 for Co-Executive Producer Manny Coto. When asked if it was a bit of a shock, he responded, “It was in a way. Although there are some science fictional aspects of 24, with the technology used in the show a lot of it is made up and a lot of it is extrapolation, so there's a little bit of scifiness to it. But I had never really worked on anything that didn't have a fantasy or horror or scifi aspect to it really, so it was unique in that respect.” That apparently wasn't a very hard hurdle to clear as the series in his first year with it was not only acclaimed as one of the best by its fans, but also won the Emmy for Best Drama Series.

Two years later, 24 is about to enter a new chapter with some interesting twists, both in the show itself, and in the circumstances surrounding it. For its fans, the last 17 months have been a nightmare. When they last saw their weary hero, Jack Bauer, he had won the day, but again suffered loss in his personal life. Then came an opponent that even Bauer could not withstand, the writers strike which crippled production of movies and television shows for weeks. Because of this delay, the decision was made to postpone the seventh season until January of 2009. Thankfully to the relief of its hero deprived fans, Jack Bauer will return to television on Sunday November 23^rd in a two hour TV movie event, entitled 24: Redemption. This movie will be a prequel to the upcoming delayed seventh season which will premiere on January 11^th and 12^th with its traditional two day, four hour launch.

Many have feared that the year off would cause interest in the show to cool, and thus possibly mark the end for this hit series, but those fears are not shared by Coto. “I think that what it's done is that its created a lot of expectation for the show. You know the old adage, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' I think a year without 24 may...now I could be wrong and it could turn out to be not good for the show, but my gut tells me that the show having been off so long, and people who like the show are really missing it. So that anticipation will build into a little bit of a fever, so that when we do premiere, there will be a lot of people watching.”

When fans last saw Jack Bauer, their beleaguered hero had literally lost everything he had for his country yet managing to save the day for the USA one more time. In the movie, we move four years into the future, where we find out that he is in Africa, working for a missionary there. Suddenly a coup attempt arises, and Jack is in the middle of it. What happens next will, according to FOX, “....set the stage and raise the stakes....” for the seventh season. After dealing with assassins, biological terrorists, nuclear terrorists, and other assorted enemies including the ones in this movie, one would wonder what the writers could come up with to threaten the world with in January. The answer is cyber terrorists, led by someone who was once very close to Jack......Tony Almeida, who will be played once again by Carlos Bernard.

Another new twist in the show for both the movie and the seventh season is that a new president will take office, replacing the current one in the show, played by Powers Boothe. The new president is being played by two time Tony award winning actress Cherry Jones. This is an interesting turn for the show, especially after the last season where the president (played by D. B. Woodside) was not received well by the fans. The producers decided that the time was right of another change. “We decided that we wanted to have a female president. We had wanted to do this for awhile and decided that this was a good year and started looking around. We need a strong actress, naturally, to project that presidential quality and that is a difficult thing to find, not just for females but for men as well. It is always very challenging to find an actor or actress to play a president. We knew we had to find a woman who could project that sense of command and authority, but at the same time be a mother and a wife and other qualities and she just seemed perfect” commented Coto. In the trailer for the upcoming movie, Jones is seen in her role, giving her character's inauguration speech and presents herself very presidential, a fact in which Coto agrees with this writer. “She has a great inauguration speech which she prepared for. She told us she memorized it backwards and forwards as she wanted to really sound like she knew where she was coming from.” Coto continued to praise her performance. “In this season, she is just tremendous, giving one of the great presidential performances, going back to David Palmer.” Palmer was the first president on the show played by masterfully by Dennis Haysbert.” You can see the trailer for the upcoming movie at www.fox.com/24 .

Next week, I'll continue with part two of my interview with Manny Coto.

A Shout Out to Nashville

I want to say a special thanks to Crystal Deane of the Nashville Tennessee Public Library who was our hostess this past weekend. The library sponsored a presentation entitled Star Trek: A Catalyst for Change which featured an appearance via DVD by Rod Roddenberry with Jill and myself as moderators for the discussion that followed. Rod's presentation was very well received and the discussion afterward was lively and fun. We had a great time and hope we can be of service to them again one day.

Ain't That Weird

This week was the grand finale of the NASCAR racing season. Just like many other fans, I often tune into the Speed Channel for their coverage of pre-race events, called RaceDay. Today, the hosts were discussing the merger of two racing organizations, DEI (Dale Earnhardt, Inc) and Chip Ganassi Racing into one team for the 2009 racing season. During the discussion of this news, the question arose what the new team should be called, which caused one of the hosts, race driver Kenny Wallace to quip that the team should be called..........Chip and Dale.

Think about it.

Photos:  startrek.com, wikipedia.org, Yahoo Photos