The Trek Files: A Roddenberry Star Trek Podcast

What if Star Trek's most iconic technology was really just a clever budget solution? This week on The Trek Files , Larry Nemecek welcomes back actor, writer, and Does It Fly? co-host Tamara Krinsky to explore one of the foundational documents of Star Trek: an excerpt from Gene Roddenberry's August 1966 Writer-Director Information guide. Among its many insights is an early explanation of the transp...

Before Star Trek  or The Lieutenant Gene Roddenberry explored his role as a television creator by developing a series for one of Hollywood's biggest stars: Joan Crawford. This week, Larry welcomes Roddenberry Podcasts Technical Director and Gene-ology co-host Earl Green to examine a 1961 memo in which Gene proposes major revisions to The Joan Crawford Show , a legal drama pilot titled A Man's Worl...

Earlier this season, we explored an unusual piece of Star Trek history: a proposed sitcom starring Lwaxana Troi . Now, the story takes an unexpected turn. When listeners helped identify one of the creators behind the never-produced project, The Trek Files tracked down writer and media innovator Jack Myers, who hadn't seen the pitch document in decades. Together, Larry and Jack revisit Lwaxana in t...

The story of Star Trek 's officially licensed 1994 stage production continues this week on The Trek Files as actor Adrian Cohen returns to share even more memories from Star Trek: The Lost Voyage of the Enterprise . Using a rare 1995 review from Total Theatre Magazine as the document of the week, Adrian and Larry Nemecek dig deeper into the ambitious London production that somehow brought transpor...

Before there was streaming Trek or "immersive experiences," there was something almost unbelievable: an officially licensed Star Trek stage play in London in 1994. This week on The Trek Files , Larry Nemecek welcomes actor Adrian Cohen (credited at the time as Adrian Neil), who played Mr. Spock in the ambitious theatrical production mounted during the height of the Star Trek: The Next Generation e...

Thirty years ago, Star Trek: First Contact brought one of the franchise's most important moments to life: humanity's first meeting with the Vulcans. This week on The Trek Files , host Larry Nemecek welcomes actor, writer, and Does It Fly ? co-host Tamara Krinsky for a uniquely personal look behind the scenes of that iconic sequence. Using an original production call sheet from April 23, 1996, the...

The Trek Files welcomes back visual effects veteran Stuart Ziff for a firsthand trip into the making of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . This time, the documents are original production call sheets from April 1986, detailing the now-legendary "B-Tank" shoot where the Klingon Bird-of-Prey splashed down into San Francisco Bay with George and Gracie the humpback whales. Stu recalls the practical filmm...

Before Star Trek: The Motion Picture reached theaters, its visual effects production was already becoming legendary… for all the wrong reasons. This week on The Trek Files , Larry Nemecek welcomes visual effects veteran Stuart Ziff for a firsthand account of the chaotic early days of TMP production under Robert Abel & Associates. Using internal memos and legal correspondence from 1977 and 1978, La...

What if Star Trek had spun off into a full-blown sitcom starring Lwaxana Troi? To kick off Season 15 of The Trek Files , Larry Nemecek welcomes actor, writer, comedian, and Star Trek: Lower Decks star Tawny Newsome for a deep dive into an early-1990s pitch centered on Majel Barrett Roddenberry's Betazoid ambassador. The document up for discussion is a never-produced sitcom concept built around Lwa...

Before she was Tasha Yar, she was Lieutenant Commander Macha Hernandez . For the Season 14 finale of The Trek Files , Denise Crosby joins Larry Nemecek to revisit her original 1987 audition sides for Star Trek: The Next Generation, including early character descriptions that reveal a very different version of the Enterprise's security chief. Denise first read for Deanna Troi before Gene Roddenberr...

In this very special episode of The Trek Files , actor Robin Curtis joins us to revisit a little-known chapter in Saavik's story, one that never made it to screen. Drawing from a pair of early  Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home script drafts, we explore a scene that implies Saavik is pregnant with Spock's child, a narrative thread begun in  Star Trek III but quietly dropped by the time the final film...

Before Star Trek: Discovery 's final season sent its crew in pursuit of ancient secrets, Carlos Cisco had already taken inspiration from one of the most profound episodes of The Next Generation, "The Chase." In this week's The Trek Files , Carlos returns to explore the thematic connections between the 1993 TNG episode and Discovery's modern narrative arc. With Larry Nemecek, he discusses how "The...

This week, we're joined once again by Cash Edwards , who shares an intimate look at his longtime friendship with Star Trek: The Next Generation producer Herbert J. Wright . Their relationship, and shared history with Gene and Majel Roddenberry , sparked a bold attempt to revive one of Gene's most personal concepts: The Questor Tapes . In 2004, Herb, Cash, Rod Roddenberry , and a team that included...

This week on The Trek Files: warp coils, dilithium chambers, and a whole lot of gamma rays. Returning guest Rick Sternbach joins Larry Nemecek once again for a lively exploration of Star Trek: The Next Generation's scientific backbone. Using early technical memos and a classic 1987 warp engine sketch, Rick walks us through how the team brought real-world physics into the heart of the Enterprise-D'...

Long before The Next Generation brought LCARS to life or 3D printers made cosplay easier, Star Trek fans relied on one book to make the Enterprise feel real: The Starfleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph. In this week's episode, Larry Nemecek welcomes back Karen Schnaubelt , daughter of Franz Joseph, to mark the 50th anniversary of that seminal 1975 publication, just weeks after its surprise appe...

Writer/producer Mike Sussman returns to The Trek Files with a personal favorite: the creative and very meta preface to Gene Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . In it, Gene (writing as himself and as Admiral Kirk) casts the original  Star Trek series as a fictionalized dramatization of real events. Wait… what? Join Mike and Larry Nemecek as they unpack Roddenberry's playfu...

What happens when your sci-fi franchise is also a part-time science think tank? This week, Rick Sternbach returns to The Trek Files to discuss a set of internal memos he and Michael Okuda sent to the TNG production team, an essential peek behind the curtain at how plausible science and week-to-week TV production collided during the Berman era. These "tech notes" weren't just background noise. They...

Before Star Trek: Discovery unmasked the Breen in season 5, they were little more than an enigma in the Trek canon, name-dropped but rarely seen. This week on  The Trek Files , Discovery writer and producer Carlos Cisco joins us to talk about tracing those first cryptic mentions of the Breen, buried in  The Next Generation scripts for "The Loss" and "Hero Worship," and how they helped inspire the...

This week, we open the Starfleet personnel file for Admiral Jonathan Archer, a detailed biographical memo written by Star Trek: Enterprise writer/producer Michael Sussman for the fan-favorite episode "In a Mirror, Darkly." It was only meant to be a quick background graphic, so how did it evolve into a fan-favorite bit of canon? And why did Mike sneak "President of the UFP" into the character's rés...

Before it was a spoon-shaped ship lost in the Delta Quadrant, the U.S.S. Voyager was a series of sketches, foam-core models, and engineering daydreams from the mind of artist and tech consultant Rick Sternbach . As we continue marking the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager , Rick returns to The Trek Files to walk us through the behind-the-scenes process of designing one of Trek's most distinct...

This week, The Trek Files returns to one of our most personal corners of Trek history. Reinelda Estupinian , known lovingly as Reina, joins us again to share rare family photos and her firsthand memories of life inside the Roddenberry household. Hired in 1974 as a nanny for six-month-old Rod Roddenberry, Reina became a trusted part of the family for over three decades, eventually working closely w...

What happens when fans learn their beloved Star Trek is returning, but not the way they expect? This week on The Trek Files, we take a mid-season dive into the pre-internet letter-writing era of fandom with a look at Interstat #109 , a Star Trek "LOC-zine" published just after the announcement of The Next Generation in late 1986. With Mission Log host and producer John Champion joining Larry, we r...

In the 1993 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Interface," Geordi La Forge uses experimental technology to remotely explore a stranded starship and is confronted by a deeply personal mystery. Was the image of his mother real, or something else entirely? This week, returning guest Dr. David Williams joins Larry to explore the real-world science behind this episode. Using a vintage press summar...

Imagine being invited to visit the Star Trek: The Next Generation set before it even aired by none other than Bob Justman. This week, The Trek Files welcomes back Doug Drexler to share the story of his very first visit to the TNG set in 1987, spurred by a letter from legendary Trek producer Robert H. Justman . That visit changed everything. Doug quickly transitioned from fan to crew member, taking...

Before he was an Oscar-winning makeup artist and Star Trek's go-to designer, Doug Drexler was just a teenage fan fighting to save the show he loved. This week, Doug joins The Trek Files to reflect on a remarkable journey—from the 1968 Newsday article that quoted him as a 14-year-old letter-writing activist, to working for the legendary Federation Trading Post in New York, and eventually becoming o...