The coordinates are set and the TIME TUNNEL is ready to take you back to the year when Voyager was being prepared, a comet impacted with Jupiter and the world said goodbye to a much-loved horror actor…

Trials and Tribulations for Voyager

October 1994, and dreamwatch leads the new issue with news of Star Trek: Voyager’s cast. A Paramount press release reveals a list of hitherto unknown actors and ‘politically correct’ roles. A few slight variations in names and – more tellingly – in reasoning behind the casting decisions makes for interesting reading with the benefit of hindsight.

The French-Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold is the surprise choice for Captain Janeway, although a disagreement between Paramount / VIACOM executives had delayed the casting as many had preferred to put Brit actor Nigel Havers in the command chair, expressing hope that another British face would continue the success that Patrick Stewart had brought to the franchise. It was also felt that DS9’s choice of an American actor (Avery Brooks) in the lead role had failed to generate as much interest.


In fact, DS9 was experiencing its own problems at this time, with Rick Berman expressing doubts as to how the show could attract Next Generation fans who felt alienated by the more low-key adventures set on the Federation space station. Berman planned to introduce the ‘Gamma Quadrant’ – a new ship – to inject some much needed exploration and action elements to the show, although the ship is quickly dubbed ‘the Batmobile’ by cynics.

But further trouble was just around the corner for Executive Producer Berman, as the November issue of dreamwatch reports that, after just three days in the role, Genevieve Bujold has walked from the set of Voyager claiming, “I did not study acting all these years to play a cartoon character!”

Kate Mulgrew is quickly drafted in as replacement for the departing actress, amid press reports that Bujold had “acted the diva from day one,” although Bujold’s camp claim that the actress was humiliated when told she “looked too old on the dailies” and was ordered to dye her greying hair. Whatever the truth of the situation, Berman found himself with few supporters at the network and seemingly beset from all sides. To cap it all, the test screenings of new Trek movie Generations had met with negative reaction, and the franchise was looking to be on distinctly shakey ground…

Goodbye to the original Vampire Slayer

11 August: The actor Peter Cushing dies, aged 81, following a long illness. Cushing is best known for his roles as a ‘horror actor’ in many classic films for Hammer and other studios, often appearing as the twisted Baron Frankenstein (The Curse of Frankenstein being the first in 1957), or the vampire-hunter, Van Helsing.

Cushing was considered by many to be the ‘gentle man of Horror’, although his life was not without a tragedy that hung over the actor for the rest of his life. In 1971, Cushing’s beloved wife Helen died and, in an interview later in his life, the actor admitted that he was just “waiting until I can be with her again.”


Despite this event, Cushing threw himself into his many and varied roles with gusto. In 1965, he was the man chosen to take the concept of Doctor Who from the small screen to the silver screen in Dr Who and the Daleks, with the high-colour, high-adventure movie proving a great success. When asked about the role of the Doctor, Cushing said, “Although I did not consider myself a fan of the programme, I did watch it when I agreed to take the part and I wanted my Doctor to be a bit more likeable and eccentric… It is a shame that Bill Hartnell [television’s first Doctor] couldn’t do the film as he would be marvellous, but it has been a wonderful experience!” Cushing reprised the role a year later in Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 AD, but ill-health meant that shooting was often delayed.

A run of further horror and mystery roles continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s, before Cushing was invited to play another big screen baddie: General Moff Tarkin in George Lucas’s Star Wars. His final film appearance was in the 1986 reimagining of Biggles.

Monkey Man Dies

Pierre Boulle, the author of the book which kicked off the whole Planet of the Apes franchise dies. Boulle, who wrote both Monkey Planet (the title was changed for the movies and subsequent book reprints) and Bridge on the River Kwai, was heavily influenced by the way man treated his fellow humans, notably – he felt – that of the treatment of prisoners of war by the Japanese. Although this is more clearly apparent in Bridge on the River Kwai, Monkey Planet makes its point through the use of a SF concept, although who, ultimately, is the oppressor and who the oppressed, Boulle left to the imagination and conscience of his readers.


World Events In 1994

  • South Africa holds first interracial national election (29 April); Nelson Mandela elected President.

  • IRA declares cease-fire in Northern Ireland and Ulster Protestants declare cease-fire.

  • The Comet P/Shoemaker Levy crashes into the surface of Jupiter causing massive impact craters which are visible through powerful telescopes. Over the course of a few days, scientists, astronomers and amateur star-watchers get the chance to see the effects, and wonder whether Earth could ever be the target of such devastation…


  • Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain kills himself. He was 27. He leaves behind singer/songwriter wife Courtney Love and daughter Frances Bean.

  • Comedian Bill Hicks dies at the age of 32.

  • Ninety-five million viewers watch O. J. Simpson and Al Cowlings drive along Los Angeles freeways in history’s most exciting low-speed chase. Simpson is charged with the murder of his wife Nicole Brown, and eventually faces intense questioning in court, but is acquitted.

  • Despite his earlier successes with such films as Jaws and E.T., it is the harrowing story of the Holocaust – Schindler’s List – with which Steven Spielberg wins his first directing Oscar.

  • Brazil make it through to the final of the World Cup in America and find themselves facing Italy in a tough match. An exciting final gives way to the prospect of a no-score draw so both teams have to slug it out in a penalty shoot-out (Brazil’s first ever in a Cup final). Italy look to have the edge until they miss one of their penalties… Brazil win 3-2

  • And Sky One premieres a little show called The X-Files…


    • This article originally appeared in Dreamwatch Issue 87.