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Lolita Fatjo - Long-time Trek script co-ordinator

A life in Trek
  Tell us about your involvement with Star Trek.

I started working for the show at the beginning of the second season of The Next Generation, so that was many years ago. I began working in the writing department for one of the writer-producers at the time. He was there working under Gene Roddenberry, who was still alive and heading the department back then.

I worked as the assistant to the Executive Producer for about two years and then I became the pre-production co-ordinator and script co-ordinator for The Next Generation. Then I did all of Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, until the second season of Voyager. And I did the same job for Generations and then First Contact.

It truly was a good experience working on First Contact. It was a little overwhelming because we were doing two shows at the same time and then the movies came but it really was a great experience. I believe First Contact is the best of the movies by far.

Different strokes
  You worked on three different versions of Trek. Was there a different feel to each?

There absolutely was. Next Generation was of course a wonderful show, it was great fun to work on, the actors were all very close. There was a real family feeling about that show and it just kept getting better. The writing got better, the characters got better.

But when the show wrapped [at the end of] the seventh season, there wasn't such a feeling of sadness. There was more of a feeling of, "Well, the TV show's never going to be shot again, but next week we're all going to come back and we're all going to make movies." So there was no feeling of it ending, ever.

Whereas on Deep Space Nine, which in my opinion is the best of all the shows, that last day was very emotional. It was an amazing thing to be part of, because we knew that that was it. Those actors, those sets, the crew, everybody was never going to be in that space together again. I wasn't there for the seventh season [of Voyager], so I really can't say how it ended for everybody personally, but again, those people knew they were never going to be at that same place, same time again, because chances are, there's never going to be a Voyager movie, just like there's never going to be a Deep Space Nine movie, probably.

Working on all the shows was an amazing experience, all the way around. In Hollywood, to land on a series that's going to last fifteen, sixteen, twenty years, is unheard of. Most of us go to work on a TV show, whether as an actor or a writer or whatever, and don't know if it's going to last an episode, two, three, or a season. With Star Trek, you're pretty sure you're going to have longevity there.

Enterprise
  What do you think of the latest show in the franchise, Enterprise?

I have to be really honest, I have not seen that many episodes.

I think it has a great cast, and I think it has a great look to it. I have some friends who have guest starred on it, so I've seen bits and pieces, but I can't comment on it because I haven't seen it.

It's Star Trek, and it has a following because of that. Brannon Braga and Rick Berman are still running the show, so, from what I hear from the fans, it's really catching on. If you look back on Star Trek, TNG, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, the first, maybe even second seasons [weren't so good as later ones]. It takes that long to find its ground.

It is a unique thing [to Trek], and I think that that's what Enterprise is going through now, finding its ground. I have a feeling, from the history of my working on the show, that there are going to be a lot of really good things coming from the third season.

Spinning-off
  What Trek spin-off would you do, if it were up to you?

Oh boy. I always joke that I would create a Ferengi show.

I think it would be fascinating, especially for the fans, to come up with a concept that would include a lot of the characters that everyone's come to love and miss.

It's plausible that something like that could happen, where two or three characters from each of those series somehow wind up together. It's something that may or may not happen.

I don't even know what they're going to do with the next movie, when it's time for that. Hopefully we will see characters from the other series coming into that movie, whenever it will be.

Breaking stories
  Can you tell us about your work on unsolicited scripts sent to Star Trek?

Star Trek was the only show in Hollywood, to date, that accepted unsolicited scripts. Anybody could send in a script from anywhere in the world to us, and we would read it, provided they followed the guidelines. Other shows in Hollywood will accept scripts, but they have to be from agents.

Over the time that I was there as script co-ordinator, we received over ten thousand unsolicited scripts, for TNG, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. They no longer have that unsolicited script option for Enterprise, and I can understand why, it's an overwhelming amount of work.

But, especially for the first few years that we did it, it really paid off. Michael Piller, (Executive Producer on The Next Generation and co-creator of Deep Space Nine and Voyager), when he first came to The Next Generation as head writer, didn't know that much about Star Trek. What he did realise was, "Wow, this is a thing that has really a very long built-in history to it. It needs to have the continuity kept together. So where do we turn for ideas? Who better than the fans?"

In the long run it really helped a lot of writers break into the business. Some of them ended up working on Star Trek and became Executive Producers themselves. Others have gone on to write or produce other shows - it opened a huge door for them. And we used many many stories from those scripts. It paid off for everybody for a long time.

How many scripts ended up being produced?

I would say maybe one in fifty. But when you get that many scripts and we can only keep up on so many a week or month [that's to be expected].

Ronald D Moore, Brannon Braga and myself [organised] a writers' workshop that we took all over the States and actually brought here to England, many years ago. They couldn't teach people to write, just as I can't teach people to act, but you can help them hone their skills.

Since the writing staff and myself were the ones who were going to have to look through these scripts, that it could only help us if we could get the information to the fans on how to at least make them presentable and professional. And Jane Espenson [of Buffy] did that course, and interned for us, and the rest is history. She's on a very popular show.

We've had a lot of successes like that. As a matter of fact, Ron Moore, who was on the show for years, and wrote Generations and First Contact, with Brannon, came from a spec script. He sent in a spec script called The Bonding, and that got him his first [break]. It was a good way to get your feet wet, that's for sure.

Where no writer has gone before
  You must have got some pretty strange scripts over your time with the show.

We had a couple. One time we got a Next Generation script, and the basic concept of it was very bizarre.

The Enterprise crash-landed on a planet made of Velcro. The whole planet was made of Velcro, so therefore everybody was stuck to the planet, and stuck to the people they met on the planet.

We had another one where Troi ended up somehow on a planet of Amish people, and her job was to milk the cows everyday. It was different.

Then we got one which I don't think we ever read because it was at the very end of The Next Generation deadline. We all realised that the person was just trying to get Ron Moore's attention, because when we used to do this workshop, Ron used to tell everybody that he was a fan of Elvis Presley, and he had a velvet Elvis in his office. Well, we got a script in one day called Elvis meets the Enterprise. We all had a good laugh at that one.

That's why one in fifty is probably about how many [got made]. The truth is, there were a lot of really really good scripts, but you can't use them all. We always used to tell people not to get discouraged if their story wasn't bought, because it was very possible that it was similar to something we were already doing. Which at least meant that they were on the right track.

Top tips
  What would be your advice to anyone who wants to become a writer?

I think one of the most important things is practice, as it is in any business. In the entertainment business, whether you want to direct or act or write, you need hands-on experience, and you need to keep at it.

I think taking scriptwriting courses at whatever place is available, whether local university or colleges or workshops, and joining writing competitions are good. [Also] trying get on some internship [work experience] programmes that would enable you to become part of a writing staff for a week or two. You get some great feedback and feeling and it's a wonderful learning experience.

Then, in the long run, if somebody's very serious about doing it, they have to have a couple of great scripts and get an agent. Without an agent you're really not going to get anywhere.

Special stories
  Which scripts are you most proud to have been involved with?

I was the script co-ordinator, I wasn't actually a writer. A lot of my job had to do with continuity [and that sort of thing]. Literally, I worked on all the scripts, if you want to put it that way. Naming a few of my favourite episodes might be better.

I think TNG had some amazing episodes. Measure of a Man that we did in the second season was just unbelievable. [Also, The Inner Light], where Patrick [Stewart]'s real life son played his son in the episode, [the one] where he played the flute. And All Good Things, the finale episode, was truly wonderful.

On Deep Space Nine, The Visitor was amazing. On a fun note, and we got a lot of great feedback about this, was the baseball episode, Take Me Out to the Holosuite. It was fun and different, and for all of us that worked on the show, it was great. Again, I think the finale, What You Leave Behind, was really good.

On Voyager, I loved when we brought Q in those couple of times. I loved the relation [between] him and Captain Janeway, that was great stuff. I also really enjoyed the Doctor Chaotica and the Captain Proton episode. [Bride of Chaotica].

Then as far as the movies go, just working on First Contact was a great experience. It was such a good movie and I just felt honoured to be part of that.

Fan central
  Tell us how you became so closely involved with the convention scene.

I didn't know anything really about Star Trek when I got this job sixteen years ago. I didn't really know anything about fandom. I'd heard of Star Trek conventions and I'd heard about Trekkies or Trekkers, but it was completely out of my world.

A couple of the people who worked on the show at the time were fans, and they said, "Oh, why don't you come to the convention." So I went. It was a big one, at that time they were all quite large because there weren't as many, and they had William Shatner there, and a lot of the Original Series people. I'd never seen people dressed in costume before. It was fascinating.

Then Ron, Brannon and I, along with Eric Stillwell, who was still working on the show then, started talking, and that's how the writers' workshop came to pass. So one thing led to another and I started being invited as a guest, to speak and do the workshop.

Then Eric and I, along with a couple of other people, started our own convention business. We did that for a couple of years, and it went very well, but the problem was that was all of us involved were getting promoted at our jobs at Star Trek and it just became too much to do both things.

I kept going along as a guest, and people I got to know a lot of people all over the world, which I'm so thankful for. I can honestly say that I've been to over 150 conventions all over the world.

Then I started getting involved as a manager for the actors, [booking] them into the conventions. So now that's what I do full time.

The other thing that keeps me very active with the conventions is three years ago Max Grodenchik who played Rom, and myself wrote a play called The Ferengi Family Hour. It features Chase Masterson who was Leeta, and Aron Eisenberg who was Nog, and we've done that at about fifteen different conventions over the last few years. We did bring it to London about three years ago and we're hoping to come back in January, with the Creation convention and do it again.

It's a lot of fun and I really enjoy it, and I enjoy putting together tours for actors.