Next ‘Star Trek’ Spinoff To Feature Next Generation
To the surprise of no one in the known universe, Paramount Pictures has announced the launch of another “Star Trek” movie.
Producer Rick Berman said the new “Trek,” due to film sometime in 1996, will focus entirely on the “Next Generation” crew. This, of course, means the next film will star Patrick Stewart, who played JeanLuc Picard on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”
Other “Next Generation” cast members who would presumably be included are Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis.
While Berman would not reveal any of the story ideas now “percolating,” he did say the new film will have “a great sense of adventure and a bit more fun than the last movie had.”
‘Dr. Quinn’ spinoff
CBS has ordered a “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” spinoff pilot to follow “Dr. Quinn” at 9 p.m. Saturdays, the show’s producer confirmed.
James Brolin, lately of ABC’s “Extreme,” has been cast in “California” as sheriff James “Daddy” Burns of Los Angeles, circa 1870.
Edward Albert will play prominent banker Ryan MacKay in the City of Angels. His real-life dad, Eddie Albert, is in negotiations to take the pilot role of Edward’s onscreen dad, Ben MacKay; he’ll be killed off on the pilot. And John Saxon has been cast as Don Rafael Guevara, head of a prominent Spanish land-grant family.
In the pilot, William Shockley, “Dr. Quinn’s” barkeep, flees Colorado Springs after being framed for a murder and becomes a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles, the most lawless town in America.
If the series is not picked up, the pilot will air as an episode of “Dr. Quinn” and Shockley will return to Colorado Springs a few episodes later.
“‘California’ is designed precisely to (follow ‘Dr. Quinn’),” producer Beth Sullivan said, adding that the pilot is “a little bit stronger and tougher” for the 9 p.m. slot, presumably leading into “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Gingrich anti-rap
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, no surprise, thinks rap music that encourages violence against women shouldn’t be broadcast by radio stations. But he also feels there’s not much he can do about it legislationwise.
He does believe, however, that advertisers shouldn’t buy time on those stations, and he’s going to try to persuade them to act on that thought.
In a wide-ranging interview in the current issue of Broadcasting & Cable, a trade magazine, Gingrich says that rap music “that encourages the raping and mutilation of women is sick and should not be on the air.”
But since every lawyer he’s talked to insists that the courts would block any attempt to limit the music (on the basis of First Amendment rights), he’s taking to the boycott route.