We used to not talk about episodes we had in the pipeline and production plans. But people started complaining "Hey, if you guys are fan-based,
why don't you share what's going on with us fans? Why so secretive?" And we'd say "Naw, just sit back and watch the episodes we put out-what more do you need to know? You don't want to be bothered with all of our goofy production trials and tribulations." And the response was "Oh, come on! It's been a year since your last episode; can't you at least tell us what else you're working on? You owe us that much." So, we started to be a bit more forthcoming with productions we have in the pipeline.
But now we get grief for telling everyone what we're working on and what our plans are. It's just too confusing for people. So we just can't win.
Also, if you do a Google search on phrases like "...to be aired later this season..." or "...to be shown during sweeps month...," I think you'll find that studios and networks actually *do* discuss story lines and casting decisions for future episodes well before other earlier episodes have already aired. So they don't, in fact, always avoid talking about future productions until earlier productions have been aired. They sometimes announce their plans well in advance.
But I actually don't think we've had so darned much output that it has become all that confusing. But here is a recap of where we stand for those who are confused about our output--and our planned output:
01/16/2004 "Come What May" is released.
10/08/2004 "In Harm's Way" is released.
10/08/2005 "In Harm's Way: Special Edition" is released. (I think it's about 8 seconds longer, and it corrects a few little visual special effects continuity mistakes. Also, it had been a year since we put
anything out and we wanted to get something released-even if it's just a very minimally-improved version of "In Harm's Way.")
03/17/2006 "Center Seat," an eight minute long "vignette" is released, since we know our next full episode "To Serve All My Days" is still months away. (At this point we think it's about three or four months
away; we'll discover its still eight months out.)
We actually shot three vignettes concurrently with "To Serve All My Days" with a small separate crew whenever they had a few minutes available--generally in the wee small hours of the morning. We shot the
aforementioned "Center Seat" and we shot "Change of Command" (a flashback vignette episode that shows Kirk taking command of the Enterprise from Pike) and we shot "No Win Scenario," a brief look at the Klingon Empire.
I don't know if we ever said "one vignette a month until the next full episode gets released." (It would be unlike us to commit to a release schedule in that way.) But in the end, we did only release one of the three that we shot.
By now, in light of our production values in our more recent episodes, releasing these two remaining "old" vignettes would look like a step backwards. Some people might be interested in seeing them, but mostly we figure people would just say "Boy, their production values sure have slipped. I'm not going watch their crappy show now. They used to take pride in their work." So, the technical quality of the two remaining vignettes just isn't representative of our more recent work, so it's hard to imagine the scenario where we would actually want to release them. And if the point was to have them available as a stop-gap measure until the next full episode was available, then, well, that window has long-since closed. We've had three full episodes released--making the stop-gap vignettes unnecessary. But you never know
At any rate, "To Serve All My Days" came out on November 23, 2006.
"World Enough and Time" came out on August 23, 2007.
A revised version of "To Serve All My Days" was released on May 1, 2008. It has all new visual effects and completely different music. (It also has a slightly different ending.)
"Blood and Fire, Part 1" was released on December 20, 2008--which brings us to where we are today.
As to the future, the second half of "Blood and Fire" should be out in the next month or so. "Enemy: Starfleet" was shot in June of 2008; it should be out later this year. "The Child" was shot in October of 2008. It will probably be out early next year.
"Kitumba" is shooting right now. It will probably be out next summer.
Some other projects we had been considering are "The Sky Above, the Mudd Below." J.G. Hertzler (director and star as "Harry Mudd") took a new teaching position shortly after indicating he wanted to do the Mudd project. So he suddenly became far less available. We'd hate to do this fun project without him--after we already promised it to him.
"Killkenny Cats" could still happen. It became a bit of a disappointment when it was learned that the rights to the Kzinti character were sold by Larry Niven years ago--to someone who doesn't want us to use them. So we would have to make some changes so that the Kzinti aren't involved--which we might still do. But it's been hard to work out scheduling and logistics with screenwriter Jimmy Diggs.
"Bandi" by David Gerrold will probably shoot in October. At least that's what we're planning on now.
"Rock-A-Bye Baby--Or Die!" might still happen. But as we got into George Clayton Johnson's original TOS script, we realized it was much like a TNG script. So, it's not the draw to us that it once was. But it might happen.
We've talked about the story "Mind Sifter"--for those of you familiar with novelized Star Trek. So that could happen.
Of course, we have other scripts from the original Phase II series that we're interested in doing. Mostly, we don't really get stymied in our plans after we announce our next outing (although that does happen sometimes). Generally, it's simply that something better comes along and we say "Ooooo! Let's do that instead!" So nothing that we've "announced" is really off that table. We'll do them when we're not working on something we think is better.
And, of course, we all have real jobs and real families and these things cost me thousands of dollars to make--just because I love Star Trek and I want people to have TOS stories in the "Prime" universe that they can watch. But I don't have a bottomless wallet.
I apologize that our free fan-based show is subjected to things like staff sicknesses or recessions or joblessness, and that our show isn't more frequent or reliable from a scheduling standpoint. I wish it were.
So, I hope this makes things a bit less confusing.
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