Author: Fred Bronson

July 25, 2016 3:24pm PT by Fred Bronson

The U.S.S. Discovery from CBS All Access’ ‘Star Trek: Discovery’  

Rod Roddenberry also talks with THR about why he never watched the beloved drama until after his father’s death.

When Rod Roddenberry was 8 years old, he visited his mother’s office. Majel Barrett Roddenberry — who played Nurse Christine Chapel on the original Star Trek series — ran Lincoln Enterprises, a company that sold souvenirs related to the show created by her husband, Gene Roddenberry. “There was a back storage room that was dark and dingy,” Roddenberry recalls. “There were thousands of canisters that contained Star Trek footage taken off the cutting room floor during the three years of the original series. I thought it was fun to put my finger in the middle of the reels and twist and make a ‘volcano.’”

Over the years the cans were moved around to various storage facilities and finally the basement of the Roddenberry home, which experienced at least one good flooding. Thinking that the reels of unseen deleted scenes, alternate takes and bloopers might be of interest to fans, Rod began a series of phone calls and meetings with CBS in 2006, and a year later, Star Trek experts Mike and Denise Okuda, whose many assignments have included working on Star Trek: The Next Generation and writing multiple editions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, were brought in to view and log all of the footage. It took them three years to watch all of it.

The project has been so secret for the past decade that Denise couldn’t even tell her parents what they were involved with. Phil Bishop, executive vp worldwide production for CBS, gave the Okudas a code name for their work: Sargon, after an alien entity in “Return to Tomorrow,” a second-season episode of the original series.

This past weekend at Comic-Con, the veil of secrecy was finally lifted as the Okudas, Bishop, Rod Roddenberry and producer Roger Lay Jr. revealed that this rare, long-hidden Star Trek footage would be released in various Blu-ray products under the umbrella title The Roddenberry Vault. First roll-out is expected in the fall, according to Liz Kalodner, exec vp consumer products at CBS.

It’s been a long journey for Rod Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment. In his youth, he didn’t understand the impact of his father’s creation. “I wasn’t into it,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I never paid attention. My father wasn’t the great bird of the galaxy to me, he was my dad, an authority figure. I was more interested in girls and cars and heavy metal music and being cool.” Rod didn’t watch Star Trek as a teenager, but he did tune in to Knight Rider and Starsky & Hutch. “Compared to Star Trek, it was fairly one-dimensional programming.”

But Rod didn’t realize that until after his father passed away in October 1991. Rod was 17. “That’s when I started to listen to these amazing people who either had a disability or they came from an abusive situation or they were never given the support by their family members that they needed and they’d tell me that Star Trek gave them a future and now they’re a doctor or a scriptwriter or they’re raising their children in a better way and they attributed that to my father. It just blew me away. I couldn’t believe that this TV show inspired people. So I learned about Star Trek from the fans first and then I went back and watched it. I thought, ‘I get it! Now I see what you guys are talking about.’ Sadly, it was after my father passed away.”

On March 3, CBS announced that Rod and Roddenberry Entertainment COO Trevor Roth were joining its CBS All Access series, Star Trek: Discovery, as executive producers. “When we found out that CBS was going to do a new series, I thought it was great and I hoped they would find a good team. I was surprised when they said they wanted me to come on board and be an executive producer on this. I had quite a moment of hesitation. Being the son of Gene Roddenberry, I don’t want to be Gene Roddenberry. And what would my involvement be? Could I do the show justice?

“I never wanted to take over Star Trek or follow in my father’s footsteps. I love the show’s philosophy and I am so proud of my father’s vision for the future, which I call my own vision now because I feel the exact same way. For the past couple of decades, I’ve done my best to represent the name. Now that I’m involved in Star Trek, it’s not my show to write. I was thrilled when they brought Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, American Gods) onboard because he’s an accomplished writer, and a fan and he really gets the philosophy. He’s the right man for the job. Trevor and I are a part of the team and we are very much involved. As materials come through, we provide comments and thoughts and ideas and share where we can share. But Bryan’s got it. I appreciate the way he’s approaching it, too, because the landscape has changed in television. Star Trek is about change and diversity. I think he’s going to make a fantastic new version.”

Rod’s plate is more than full, not just with his production company and duties on Star Trek: Discovery, but with The Roddenberry Foundation, which he founded in 2010 to embody the philosophy of Star Trek. “We find organizations, institutions and individuals who are working toward the long-term advancement of our species,” he tells THR. “We’re not looking for band-aid solutions. We find the systemic cause of a problem and we try to fix it.” In 2011, the Foundation made a $5 million contribution to the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco to establish the Roddenberry Center for Stem Cell Biology and Medicine. “They do stem cell biology. They can take any cell and reverse engineer it into a stem cell programmed to be heart, liver or lung cells. The implications are tremendous. You can test heart medications on cells.”

The foundation also contributed $5 million to the J. Craig Venter Institute. The grant went to scientist Orianna Bretschger, for her work on converting sewage into drinking water. “Microbial fuel cells break down sludge into its atomic form, converting it to clean water,” Roddenberry explains.

In 2014, the foundation gave a grant to the Global Learning XPRIZE crowdfunding campaign to support developing technology to bring literacy to hundreds of millions of children around the world.

Gene Roddenberry didn’t live long enough to see his only son become an adult. He only knew the teenager who was concerned with girls and cars and heavy metal music. But there is no doubt the father would be more than proud of the son who has a strong dedication to the humanitarian philosophy behind Star Trek, the TV series that in its 50th year continues to have an impact around the world.

Courtesy Allison Iraheta

If Hasbro ever produces an American Idol edition of Trivial Pursuit, we have the perfect question. Who is the only Idol finalist to appear on two complete seasons of the Fox television series?

The answer is season eight alum Allison Iraheta, who has also been on stage for all of the season 13 live episodes. The magenta-haired singer turned 17 while she was competing on Idol. Today, she is 22 and has spent another full season on the show, this time as a backing singer in Rickey Minor’s band.
Iraheta sat down with The Hollywood Reporter after a Thursday results show to talk about her return to Idol.

Who called and asked you to be part of season 13?

Rickey Minor. He was doing The Tonight Show. This guy has been paying my rent. He’s really helped me out so much with work and the ability and opportunity to work with these incredible musicians. He called me up and said, “We’re going to do Idol again. We’re going to get the family together.” I said, yes, please, thank you.

Since you’re working on Idol every week, is your band Halo Circus still active?

Yes, they are. It couldn’t have come at a more perfect time — this journey to sing background vocals with the band for American Idol. We’re wrapping up the record with Halo Circus. The band is the rest of my life and is my career. I’ve been working too hard on it to just stop. We’re really excited. There’s a lot of stuff that’s going to be happening after this.

With your Idol schedule, when do you have time for Halo Circus?

At night, when I get home. I don’t stop. On my days off we’re getting masters in for the next single and recording the video for the second single. And rehearsing for our upcoming shows.

Tell us about your weekly schedule with Idol.

It’s Monday through Thursday. On Monday, we get here and we go through the songs before the contestants [are on stage] and then we run through the songs again with the contestants.

Is Monday morning the first time you know what the songs are for the week?

No, we get them on Saturday because we’re doing the iTunes sessions as well. Then we have Sundays off.

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So, Monday — first you rehearse without the kids…

Yes, at 8 a.m. and then the kids come up and we do the songs with them. They do them two or three or more times. We do them as many times as they need to in order to get their versions and make sure they are comfortable. It doesn’t matter how many takes it takes — whatever it takes!

And then what happens on Tuesday?

On Tuesday, we start getting more of a blueprint down for everyone as far as what the kids will be doing onstage, where the cameras are going to be – it’s like the skeleton starts forming for them. They go through the songs twice.

There’s a live show on Wednesday but what is your day like before you hit the air at 5 p.m. west coast time?

Wednesday, we have the rehearsal right before the show. We go through the entire show as timed and try to get through it with no mistakes or anything, then we have a break, then it’s the show.

Thursdays are the results show, and you are still on stage.

And just like everyone else, we don’t know what we’re going to be singing until we know, until you guys know, until everyone knows.

Have you rehearsed all the songs? Because everyone has prepared a goodbye song.

Right, but we don’t rehearse them. If it’s a song they did weeks ago, then we better hope to remember it, because we don’t practice.

You have a lot of songs to learn every week. Is that easy for you?

Once you get a rhythm down, it starts to get easy. You find a place in your brain for that kind of stuff. It was hard at first when there were 30 contestants. But something you don’t see when you’re watching American Idol is that everyone in the band has this connection. I haven’t been with these guys as long as they’ve been with each other. When you’re surrounded by these people that have this schedule and rhythm, you either get on board or you get left behind. I’m very lucky that I’ve been able to follow them and keep up.

How many of the songs do you already know and how many are new to you?

Some of them, I’ve sung on the show. I know about 50 per cent of them because there are a lot of theme weeks. When we did the ’80s, I knew a lot of those songs. So that makes it easy and even more fun.

You’re used to being a lead singer — in terms of ego, how is it to take on this job?

I don’t have a different relationship with being a lead singer and being a background singer or being with the band. I’m with a band now, so I think that’s maybe why I see it as we are all in this world together. As long as I’m supporting myself and supporting others in any way or growing in any way and growing with others in any way, then I’m good. And I find this to be one of the biggest opportunities anyone in this industry can have.

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How do you interact with the other backing vocalists? Do you sit down and go over the songs together or do you do them by yourself and then get together with them?

First we get them down as close into our brains as possible and then we go to the studio and we just nail them. We have such an awesome relationship. We’re already like family. We’ve done gigs outside of Idol together with Rickey Minor. We did the Clive Davis Grammy party together and The Tonight Show. We listen to each other, so it’s really easy.

In terms of harmony, do you each have a different part or do you decide that song by song?

It’s song by song. Whoever sounds good with this person will do it. That’s the other thing about this that you don’t realize — how you sound with another person, how you listen to their techniques and the way they sing. I’ve never been able to listen like I do now and I love it.

What are some of the performances that have featured your voice?

I did one with Caleb Johnson, “The Edge of Glory.” I did “One Mississippi” with Dexter Roberts and that was a lot of fun. And then Jennifer Lopez [on “I Luh Ya Papi”]. On Sam Woolf’s “Time After Time,” people confused Nayanna Holley with me. She was actually singing with Sam. And I think that’s cool because it shows how spot-on she is with blending and being incredible. She’s amazing.

Having been a contestant yourself, do you interact much with this season’s contestants?

Not much. They all seem like awesome people. I’m rooting for each and every one of them. I know exactly what they’re going through.

What’s it like being up there onstage and knowing exactly what they’re going through?

Besides reminding myself that I’m not going home that week — it’s not you this time, I swear! — I feel for them because there’s a thing that happens after this is all over. You wake up and snap out of it and think, I wish I could have had more fun or I wish I could have remembered all of this. Because there’s no way in hell you can actually stop and say, this is happening right now, let me stop and take it all in. If you stop, you’ll get stepped on because everyone is going so fast and it’s a competition. But I can feel how they are very tired and confused at times. I’m sending them love and whenever I have a moment with them I say, “Once this is over, that’s when it really starts. Just have fun now.”

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What’s it like on Thursday nights for you when you’re on stage and someone goes home, and you know exactly what that’s like.

It hits me right in the heart. It’s so sad. I was sad that I was leaving my family. It’s a lot of pressure and I feel for them every Thursday.

What’s it like for you being back at Idol?

The first day, I had to sit in my car for 20 minutes and take a billion deep breaths and say, “You’re going back. This is happening. What does this mean? Why are you going back now? And how are you going to go back as who you are now and with what you’re representing in your life? You’re not the same little girl and you’ve tried different things and so how are you going to take this?” I love everyone here. They’re family and I love the people I work with but there was a lot of emotional stress in this place for me.

Are you now observing it at a distance?

Yes, observing myself as I go through the hallways, as I talk to people and the way they talk to me and remember the 16-year-old girl. Then I catch them up on my life because a lot has changed. A lot of good and a lot of bad happened after the show. And I think that that makes all the difference in the world. I find it to be an incredible and huge gift in my life to come back and to be able to see it for what it was and for what it is now.

What it’s like to work with Rickey?

We all know how exceptional this person is and how much history he has in those fingers and in that brain of his. To even sit down and talk to him is a huge opportunity to learn. He only has incredible and trustworthy and respectable and respectful people around him. And they’re family. To be able to say that I work with this man is beyond anything words can express.

This is a completely different panel of judges from season eight. What do you think of the current judges?

I love them. Harry Connick Jr. is hilarious but at the same time you have to listen to what he says. He gives incredible advice. And J-Lo, I mean, how do you beat that? She knows the ins and outs and she works so much. She has full control of what she is and who she is. I have so much respect for that. And Keith Urban, same thing. These guys are no joke. Idol always gets the best. To be a part of it is really great and humbling.

Finally, I have to ask you about Jessica Meuse. Have you noticed her hair?

Has anyone not noticed that hair? How can you miss it? It looks so good. We’ve complemented each other. “You have great hair.” “No, you have great hair.” Whenever I see a person with bright-colored hair, it’s usually special effects, but I’ll always talk to them.

Twitter: @Idol_Worship

Michael Becker / Fox

If you watched Caleb Johnson and Jena Irene battle it out on American Idol‘s top 2 performance show Tuesday night, you saw an epic showdown. What was happening off-camera at Los Angeles’ Nokia Theatre? Read on for 9 things you didn’t see on TV.

1. In a venue that holds 7,000 people, there were only three Idol finalists from past seasons (though many more are expected at Wednesday’s finale). Season eight’s Scott MacIntyre and his wife Christina flew in from Nashville to attend and were seated in the front row. Seated further back were Erika Van Pelt and Jeremy Rosado from season 11.

2. The number of Idols goes up if you count the current crop of finalists. The season 13 eliminated contestants from the top 13 were seated together in the second row, right across the aisle from the MacIntyres. That required a whole lot of seat fillers to come running when this year’s Idols were called to the stage to join Johnson and Irene in singing Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway.”

3. One new thing we learned on Tuesday night: old Idol sets aren’t discarded, they’re stored. Returning to the stage were the gyroscope-looking towers with the revolving American Idol logos. They haven’t been seen on the CBS stages for at least a couple of years. For the performance finale, the oval Idol logos weren’t spinning around, they were stationary.

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4. Keith Urban and Jennifer Lopez have doled out their share of standing ovations during the season. They gave another one Tuesday night to Johnson when he sang “Dream On,” the Aerosmith song chosen for him by Idol creator and executive producer Simon Fuller. The two judges didn’t wait for the end of the song, they were on their feet about three-quarters through. Harry Connick Jr. remained seated.

5. A new addition to the American Idol set on stage 36 at CBS this season was a collection of large, lighted photos of the top 13. As contestants were eliminated, their photos were dimmed. Only two photos had to be transported to the Nokia, and they were hung high above the stage. Johnson and Irene were thus smiling down on everyone.

6. The Idol finale was a hot ticket but just a few minutes before the live broadcast was about to begin, there were hundreds of empty seats. Ticketholders had been asked to be seated by 4:30 p.m., so they were either late, or an extraordinary number of seat-fillers were pressed into service.

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7. Just before round three of the competition was to begin, director Louis J. Horvitz gave an audio shout-out to the audience, praising them for being so great. It sounds like something you’d expect a director to say to every audience, but this was rare praise, so we suspect Horvitz really meant it.

8. When the one-hour show was over, it wasn’t over. The audience was asked to stay, both by Horvitz and warm-up maestro Cory Almeida. The reason? Two numbers for Wednesday night’s show were going to be pre-taped — one by the three judges and Randy Jackson, the other by Lopez in a solo turn. A majority of audience members did stay, despite a 40-minute wait for the judges’ performance.

9. Following the first take of the judges and Jackson singing a medley of Cyndi Lauper‘s “True Colors” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way” came the clue that there would be a second take as a large entourage suddenly made its way to the stage. While hairdressers and make-up artists did their thing, Horvitz announced on the p.a. that there would be another take. That second run-through was interrupted and the talent started over, so the total number of performances was 2.5.

Twitter: @Idol_Worship