First off, I want to apologize to any readers who’ve been following my posts from Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 for the previous four days. I meant to file a post last night, the last night of the event, but I didn’t crawl back to my hotel room till around 8:30-9 pm and my arthritic old joints were killing me. I took a hot bath, ate a perfunctory imitation of a dinner, and crashed. This morning, I made ‘the voyage home’ back to California, so I haven’t really had a chance to catch my breath until now…and I really want to share with you everything that happened on a very intense final day at Star Trek Las Vegas, 2018.
First, here are the links to my previous four entries:
Sunday, Day 5 started out with me still feeling pretty worn out from the previous days (my wife noted my dark eye circles when we FaceTimed the previous night), but I was determined to get some work done. I’d been unable to get my interview with Aron Eisenberg (“Nog” from “Deep Space Nine”) on Saturday, as he was very busy with his fans, and I was determined not to interfere with that (that’s why he’s here).
Luckily, he and I finally settled on doing the interview on Sunday morning at his table in the Dealer Hall, before he got too much fan foot traffic. A window of opportunity opened around 9:45 or so, and we sat down to do the interview right then and there. I got a solid 20 minute interview with him, and he was simply terrific. A genuinely down to earth, witty guy. A real pleasure to talk with.
Aron, if you’re reading this, the full transcription is nearly done and will be published both here and ontrekcore.com. And thank you SO much. You’re a fine Ferengi!
Afterward, I covered an event for Trekcore regarding the new Star Trek Online Discovery extension pack, “Age of Discovery.” I got my front-row press seating (yay!) and arrived at the event earlier than I expected. The moderator of the panel (Elio Leio, from Priority One) came out and introduced the game’s development team, Al Rivera, Bill Yeatts and Tom Marrone.
The big surprise of the panel came via two guest stars from “Discovery”; Mary Wiseman (“Cadet Sylvia Tilly”) and Rekha Sharma (“Lt. Landry”). I wasn’t allowed to ask too many questions (CBS was being as tightlipped about the details an Aldebaran shell-mouth), but it was still a fun event. The renderings and detailing of the virtual sets/characters are exceptional, especially the CGI renderings of the Discovery interiors. As I’ve said before, I personally don’t really do a lot of gaming since I have the gaming reflexes of a sedated sloth. But I had a bit of fun with the backstage press access (!). As we asked a couple of post-panel followup questions of the development team backstage, most ofthe cast of “Star Trek: Discovery” quietly filed by us, as they were getting ready to surprise ambush a Discovery cosplay gathering. I might’ve gasped aloud… damn my fanboy nature!
It was really neat, being backstage with the DSC cast too! Wiseman and Sharma were already there, but they were joined (backstage and onstage) by Sonequa Martin Green (“Michael Burnham”), Anthony Rapp (“Lt. Paul Stamets”), Wilson Cruz (“Dr. Hugh Culber”), Shazad Latif (“Ash Tyler”/“Voq”, or TyVoq?) and the talented series costume designer Gersha Phillips. I’d like to personally thank Phillips someday for creating the simplest Star Trek cosplay with the Discovery crew’s exercise wear; a navy blue “Disco” t-shirt and leggings. There were a group of cosplayers wearing them onstage, as were Wiseman & Cruz. There were also a gaggle of white-uniformed ‘Doctor Culbers,’ too!
Despite the irony of being at a Discovery cosplay event, I didn’t get too many other cosplay shots on Sunday, but I did manage to get a few before I limped back to my hotel room, ate a very rare hot lunch (chicken/cheese enchiladas; yum!) and started catching up on my correspondences as well as beginning my transcriptions of the Aron Eisenberg interview. I had a little time to kill before my next panel, so I thought I’d use my time wisely. Sadly, I didn’t finish before I had to leave in time for both the panel and to begin waiting in line for the Discovery cast autographs, but more on that in a minute…
After the panel, there was an onstage auction for merchandise, posters and collectibles. To be honest, I’m growing out of collecting posters, toys, etc. I’m more about getting books and autographs these days.
Speaking of autographs…
After that, I called it a night, and well… you know the rest (see: opening paragraph).
While this is the end of my day-to-day Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 coverage, I still have more material coming from this event, with my full Aron Eisenberg and Marc Scott Zicree interviews.
Mr. SciFi himself! Author/screenwriter/producer/director Marc Scott Zicree. Amazing guy!
Thanks for covering this awesome event and sharing all the great Star Trek photos 🙂
My pleasure!