Ben Stein is a shonda for the goyim. I avoid purchasing anything he's appeared in ads for. Moreover, he's one of the best-known alumni of my daughter's high school, which is rather unfortunate (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is the best-known alum of mine). Can't he just go away?

For many years, decades really, "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" was only available as part of the awful half-hour Night Gallery syndication package (for which Serling, poor guy, did Night Gallery-style introductions to episodes of the Gary Collins series The Sixth Sense that were added to increase the episode…

Dating? They were married for a while.

She was born in October 1956; Star Wars came out Memorial Day weekend 1977, when she was 20 1/2, and thus was filmed when she was 20 or nearly 20.

Ian Wolfe also had two different Star Trek roles, including Mr. Atoz the librarian (A-to-Z, ha ha) in the series' penultimate episode in 1969, "All Our Yesterdays" featuring Mariette Hartley.

As Picard once said to Data, with a warmth in his voice that I envy his ability to convey: "Nicely done!"

Sorry, I missed the link supplied earlier by The Lame Dane (to an unillustrated version).

PILLER'S BOOK ABOUT WHERE 'INSURRECTION' WENT WRONG
is quite interesting and detailed, going into all the changes from the original idea to the final script and giving lots of insight into how the film ended up as it did. This is entitled "Fade In: The Writing of Star Trek: Insurrection" and can occasionally be found…

I hadn't intended to be a Jack Davis Time magazine cover art collector, but nonetheless I happen to have several of his best around the house, including "Watergate Breaks Wide Open" (April 30, 1973, and findable under that title in Google Images). Glad to hear he's got a book.

Heck yes, the Atomic Lobsters episode (with, I think, Robert Klein hosting) - I actually AUDIO-taped that one when it was first rerun, more than a decade before I owned a VCR.

Heck, I remember Arnie too. Herschel Bernardi, with Bowen as his boss. Premiered in fall 1970 and ran two years, I think.

The very worst of the handwaving in the novel concerns the "scientifically verifiable theory of morals" that's lectured about by the History & Moral Philosophy instructor at Johnnie's high school: "We have such a theory now; we can solve any moral problem, on any level." Jeez, if your ruling class has that on its…

Soldier of Orange was the first Verhoeven film I saw. Excellent in all respects, and starring Rutger Hauer.

Earlier this year, Ken Levine offered some interesting detail on the filming of that scene in "Coach's Daughter": http://kenlevine.blogspot.c….

Thanks for this informative and enjoyable review, but why the surprise that "Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise barely get any mention"? Roddenberry created the original series and The Next Generation, whereas the other three series were created and produced after his death.

What are audiences 100 years from now going to think when they see the end of Two-Lane Blacktop? They'll see the image stop and then burn/melt, but won't have any reference point for what it means.

My hope is that the transition to digital film preservation and projection (in a way that meets purists' standards, of course) eventually leads to a way for me to re-experience 2001: A Space Odyssey the way I first saw it - that is, in Cinerama, at the long-gone Fox theater in center-city Philadelphia. Changed my…

Regrettably, the music in the originally-1967 scenes of "Trials and Tribble-ations" was NOT the "Trouble with Tribbles" music, but instead the usual Berman-era sludge. This is most apparent in the bar brawl scene. Kind of ruins the fun for me.

Couldn't they just retire those songs?

Doug Trumbull had already directed a feature, Silent Running (with Bruce Dern), nearly 10 years earlier. He worked on effects not only for 2001 but for Close Encounters (those lovely spaceships!) and the first Star Trek movie, and of course was very involved in the effects for the two movies he directed. I saw…