Okay, so now I can talk about the work I’ll be doing for Star Trek: Renegades. As many of you probably know there has been a tradition of fans of the show making their own episodes and putting them up on-line. They range in quality, but some are produced by people in “the Industry” as we call it. Renegades is one of those.

I was approached by executive producer Sky Conway and asked if I would come on board. I said I would have to look at the pilot they had produced and also that they had to be a WGA signatory. I don’t work outside of my guild. I then went and watched Renegades and was very impressed.

I was especially attracted to the idea of showing a side of the Star Trek universe that was glossed over or ignored in a lot of the shows — the grungy underbelly. My elevator pitch for Renegades is Guardians of the Galaxy meets Star Trek. The idea of writing about crooks, criminals, and con artists, journalists — in short people who didn’t (in the famous words of Peter Quill) “have broom sticks shoved up their asses” was very appealing.

So I’m headed back to L.A. to take up my duties as the executive producer overseeing the writing. I’m writing episodes 2 and 3. Which has me jazzed because these will be featuring Admiral Chekov (the ten year old Melinda had a total squee moment because I spent about forty minutes on the phone with Walter Koenig discussing the show).

One of the things that was important to me was to approach these next 11 episodes the way Daredevil was approached on Netflix. Tell a complete story arc rather then just a series of episodes. Because productions are always a frantic effort to meet deadlines and lay track there will be some hard days, but mostly I think this is going to be fun. And I get to write scripts again which is my preferred form when it comes to writing.

One of the things that helped me make the decision was listening to Felicia Day talk at the Jean Cocteau theater.  It’s clear that you can reach a broad audience on-line, and that this is a vibrant new way to offer entertainment.  Felicia became a star because of an on-line show.  This looked like an opportunity and I decided to take it.

If you are interested in giving us your support you can go to the kickstarter and become a renegade.Star Trek Renegades