ifteen years ago, I attended my first Star Trek convention at a local hotel in Palo Alto, Calif. My favorite part was cruising the dealer's room, exploring table after table filled with Star Trek memorabilia. I also discovered that almost half the merchandise was fan-produced. Yes, fans made Star Trek prop replicas. It was the only way you could get anything, short of making it yourself. I bought an original series communicator kit for $10. I also gained a renewed interest in Star Trek and a new interest in collecting Star Trek merchandise. By the next year, I started my own business and was selling memorabilia at conventions myself. I could find items at flea markets and garage sales to resell. I sold model kits, boxed and built. I even figured out how to make some prop replicas myself. Things were great, both for retailers and fans. Then a national interest in Star Trek was renewed. The 25th anniversary of the original Star Trek series.

Merchandise sold so well that the corporate powers at Paramount sat up and took notice. Much to the chagrin of fans. Up went the licensing fees. Paramount stormtroopers (no relation to Star Wars) began prowling the conventions, shutting down anybody who sold unlicensed merchandise. For a while, model manufacturers and toy makers enjoyed a wide-open market. Merchandise sold like proverbial hotcakes. But if it wasn't licensed, you could no longer find it. Small retailers went out of business (me, too). Mom-and-pop businesses had to shut down.

After a while, the license fees reached a level that left manufacturers with a very slim profit margin. So slim that AMT/Ert, Monogram and Revell no longer make sci-fi models. Playmates no longer makes toys. Star Trek merchandise in local retail stores like Kmart, Target and Wal-Mart is nonexistent.

About the only thing I can find anymore doesn't seem to be selling. Star Trek DVD sets at twice the price of other shows' DVD sets. That's why I bought the Stargate DVDs instead of the Star Trek DVDs.

Joe Castleberry
joecastleberry(at)netzero.com

love good science fiction—stories which take the human condition, place it in another setting, add some advanced science or unknown psychic abilities, and see how the ethics of the characters evolve in a challenging environment. This is what makes Star Trek, X-Files, Babylon 5 and now Lost fan favorites.

I am intrigued by the many reader theories as to where the characters of Lost are stranded and would like to add my own. I think they passed into another dimension, such as used in many classic sci-fi shows, e.g., Land of the Giants. I also believe that the invisible creature stalking them—as well as the strange things they are seeing, such as the polar bear—are being created by their own minds, as in the classic Forbidden Planet.

As for being dead, perhaps a reader could help me with the title of a very old black-and-white movie in which all the characters are on a ship at sea and slowly come to realize they are dead and the boat is passage to their ultimate fate. There was also a short story in Amazing Stories—era late 1960s—in which space travelers land on a planet and find all their dead relatives, who are being given another chance to restart their lives literally on another world. You don't have to be a member of the religious right to be curious about what happens after death. I don't think making the island Purgatory would ruin the series, but I also think having the characters trapped in another dimension, or lifted to another planet by aliens to become a sort of zoo, etc., would make for more storylines.

I hope we have many, many years of enjoyment as viewers and fans before we come to the end of the Lost mystery, for knowing where the 46 survivors are would mean an end to the series.

TV desperately needs more morality shows that make viewers think, that allow the audience to become involved and ask, "How would I handle that situation?" Let's all hope the TV executives who have given us the tasteless insulting dull dribble of Desperate Housewives will recognize the quality of Lost and not repeat the 1969 decision of NBC.

Gloria Hoffner
Gloriah311(at)aol.com

ne year after the airing of the miniseries and only a month before its release on DVD and the premiere of the new, revised TV series on the SCI FI Channel, it's time to finally set into words what I have been thinking for this entire time: Thank you, SCI FI Channel, for resurrecting and revising Battlestar Galactica!

I know hundreds of purists just flinched in horror, but I am deadly serious. If the new series continues with the quality presented in the miniseries, we are in for a wonderful ride. The miniseries is one of the few instances in television history, in my opinion, where the newer version is superior to the original.

hat is the strongest power in all the SF & F universe? What is the omnipotent force against which neither man nor god in science fiction or fantasy stands a chance? SF & F heroes have compiled a compelling and never-ending archive of grand deeds and miraculous quests in every time zone and in every era, close to home and in galaxies far, far away. But there is an eternal entity so irrepressible that it can diminish, demolish and destroy any and every brave hero fighting for truth, justice and, of course, his own good name.

Imagine, if you will ...

One beautiful morning, Mother Nature, in all her glory and full of wrath, appears in the corporate boardroom of Marvel Comics.

"Thieves most foul," she addresses the legendary Bullpen. "You have stolen the word 'spider' from me, a creature I myself named at the beginning the time. 'Spider' in all its forms belongs to me. Continue to use MY Word at your peril!"

The Marvel suits were flabbergasted. What could they do? Their Spider-Man was worth billions, but with one flick of her little finger, Mother Nature could bring forth a gigantic tornado and whisk away their entertainment empire.

"We'll have to think the unthinkable!" decreed the CEO.

"But how?" said a lesser suit. "Everybody knows who Spider-Man is."

"That's how we'll play it," said the CEO. "We'll keep everything about our meal ticket exactly as he is, except ..."

"His comics, his movies, his toys ... all different," said a chorus of Brooks Brothers. "And still the same."

Thus was created a new name only the stockholders could love ... "The Amazing SONY-Man!"

A bit far-fetched? Try reality on for size.

"The ending gong of midnight ... the roar of the airplane engine, at first in the distance ... then stronger as it sounds in a dive ...," his intro blazed across American radio. "This was Captain Midnight!"

Created by Robert M. Burtt and Willfred G. Moore and sponsored by the Skelly Oil Company in 1938, the true-blue Captain Midnight and his Secret Squadron had only begun to fly and fight against the enemies of our country.

The series grew in popularity and was broadcast over the Mutual Network beginning in 1940, sponsored by Ovaltine, a powdery chocolate drink mix, bringing the regional Captain Midnight series to a national audience, complete with exciting premiums purchased with foil tops and labels. Young listeners could join the Secret Squadron by signing up to receive decoder badges. Often the premium played a big part in the series. As a part of the Secret Wing of the Secret Squadron, every listener who got a code-o-graph was encouraged to sign the pledge within the manual.

Eventually, the series moved from radio and comic books to film and finally to television via Columbia Pictures. Once but a stirring audio signal, Captain Midnight had become the straw that stirred 10 million Ovaltine drinks.

Richard Webb, a veteran B-movie pro, got the title role. (Trekkers might remember him as Finney, Kirk's alleged victim in "Court Martial.") Webb delighted viewers with his no-nonsense portrayal, but outraged the sponsor when he refused to drink Ovaltine in public. It was an ill omen; as so often happened with the chocolate-flavored powder, Captain Midnight was headed for hot water.

The half-hour, black-and-white show originally ran on Saturday mornings starting in 1954, but the program proved to be popular with adults and was moved to Monday nights until the network run ended in May, 1956. There was no farewell episode. After all, Captain Midnight was an immortal. Sooner or later, he'd return.

I remember that first time, tuning in to an obvious rerun in the mid-'60s and seeing Webb wearing his cool shirt and his trusty sidekicks exactly as I had known them, but why were they calling my favorite TV hero "Jet Jackson"? Who the heck was "Jet Jackson, Flying Commando"? And what was he doing asking me to join his club, which entitled me to carry a small two-way radio and be in constant communication with him to report any cases of serious crime?

What had happened to Captain Midnight? Was this impersonator a commie trick to take over American TV? What sinister villain had concocted this scheme to corrupt the innocent?

Actually, it was Ovaltine that owned the rights to the Captain Midnight name, and it wasn't giving them up. Not to miss the shot at a quick buck, Columbia simply changed the title and dubbed in "Jet Jackson" anytime someone had once said "Captain Midnight."

Jet Jackson and His Flying Commandos had a deservedly short flight, but left behind a moral to this tale. No matter how brave and courageous the hero, there is one power against which all are helpless victims: the Almighty Dollar.

Kevin Ahearn
kahearn(at)netpub.net