Commentary: Trek Stars 18: Defending the Cheese Element

Wilkerson Part 1: Trek. This week, Max and Mike are joined by Star Trek writer Ron Wilkerson in the first of two very special episodes. Ron has written seven hours of Star Trek, including “Imaginary Friend,” “Schisms,” “Lessons,” and “Lower Decks” for The Next Generation, and “Learning Curve,” “Fair Trade,” and “Ashes to Ashes” for Voyager. He has also written a new novel entitled Houdini & Lovecraft, The Ghost Writer, which is available on Amazon.com. In this episode, Ron tells us about his work on Star Trek, including the origins of “Lessons,” building stories around pre-existing characters and elements, collaborating with other writers, having his scripts re-written by others and re-writing other people’s scripts himself, tackling the issue of Maquis integration, what his relationship was with Star Trek growing up, and what he thinks about the current incarnation of the franchise. We also discuss how it is perfectly reasonable to get the cheese to sickbay.