Posted:
16:37:28 on April 12
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Voyager
TrekWeb has the opportunity to have a correspondant at the 'Voyager' wrap party last night...
VOYAGER WRAP PARTY
The Star Trek: Voyager Series Finale Wrap Party was held at the elegant W
Hotel in Westwood, California, on Wednesday night. The venue offered both
indoor and outdoor areas for partiers to mingle, eat, drink and be merry.
Indoor areas were large rooms with a high-tech atmosphere and outdoors was
setup around the swimming pool surrounded by gardens of tropical plants and
lush greenery. Guests were greeted in the lobby of the hotel with an option
of libations with exotic names, including "Fantastic Voyager," "Borg Blast,"
"Starfleet Sensation," and "Maquis Madness" (each one a different variety of
brightly colored martini -- purple, green, orange & red). There were also
numerous bars offering a wide choice of other drinks. Buffet style food
stations were located at a variety of spots both indoors and outdoors
offering selections such as spicy orange chicken, pan-seared ahi tuna, and
grilled medallions of beef, along with salads, antipasto, rice, mashed
potatoes and vegetables.
Once the party got into full swing, there were quite easily 500 to 600
guests, including the entire principle cast of Voyager, a variety of guest
stars, including John de Lancie, Jonathan Del Arco and Scarlet Palmers, as well as the writers, producers, production personnel and studio
executives. Several people from Deep Space Nine were also on hand, including
Armin Shimerman, Rene Auberjonois, Ira Steven Behr and Rene Echevarria, among
others. Also on hand, representing the upcoming Star Trek feature film, were
Brent Spiner and John Logan. As always, Majel Barrett Roddenberry was in
attendance. Unfortunately, neither Michael Piller or Jeri Taylor (both
co-creators of Voyager) were able to attend. Michael was in Vancouver,
British Columbia, shooting a new TV pilot, and Jeri lives in northern
California and was unable to make it down for the party.
In one room, continuous video was running on three futuristic monitors with
edited montages from each of Voyager's seven seasons, including brief bits of
scenes from the top secret final episode. This was followed by a gag reel
that included both unintentional bloopers and outtakes from the series as
well as staged antics such as Robert Picardo (as the Doctor) singing "What's
Up Pussycat" to the cardboard standups of Captain Janeway, Seven of Nine and
B'Elanna Torres. The various videos repeated throughout the evening in a
continuous loop that would put any time anomaly to shame and were also seen
on various monitors throughout the party.
In an adjacent room there were areas for people to sit and eat their meals
and visit with other guests (if you could hear yourself think). The music
was very loud. A few people were dancing. Mostly the place was wall-to-wall
bodies by 9 pm. At one point they actually turned off the music to allow a
few words from Rick Berman, but the size of the crowd and the hubbub of
voices made it impossible to hear anything he was saying. I'm not certain if
others spoke or not, because it was essentially too crowded to squeeze into
the room with the number of people. Persistence was futile.
On the way out of the building at the end of the evening, each guest was
given a unique commemorative gift from the Voyager production, a blown glass
bowl designed by glass artist Karli Sears, crafted especially for the Star
Trek: Voyager series finale. Each piece was hand-blown, signed and numbered
by the artist. There were only 475 pieces produced. On a printed card
included with each gift box was printed the following: "The care and
creativity which Ms. Sears puts into each work of art reflects the seven
years of care and creativity you've put into making Star Trek: Voyager a
timeless work of art."
A good time was had by all.
