D’Abo found Rogers to be compelling due to the challenges and potential of the character. “She was actually a lot of fun to play and I think I was more interested and challenged by how she dealt with the obstacles she had to overcome in the storyline,” said d’Abo. “I had fun discovering and revealing her inner conflicts and where the possibilities lived inside her.”

Amanda Rogers may have been a Q, but d’Abo found parallels between Rogers’ potential and the potential that is inside any human being. “I definitely made a choice to play her as human as possible,” she said. “And I made that choice because we all have a great power inside us. Sometimes, others see it in us before we see it in ourselves, so there’s a process we must go through to recognize it. I saw Amanda that way. She had great depth, power and potential. That can be scary at times for all of us because our potential for greatness is so vast and expansive that we shy away from it. But hopefully it’s what we aspire to claim for ourselves… when we’re ready.”

Roger’s vulnerability also appealed to d’Abo. “Amanda had a vulnerability I related to because she was an orphan and in the episode was clearly at a stage in her life where she had some pretty important choices to make about her future,” said d’Abo. “She had a strength and a wisdom about her. She was searching for the truth and searching for her own sense of truth. Though she was impressionable at times, it was inevitable to me through playing her that through her own self discovery she’d know which choices to make and what path to take.”

D’Abo worked alongside John de Lancie, whose personality reminded her of a Shakespeare character. “John de Lancie was great to work with,” said d’Abo. “He had tremendous energy and reminded me of Puck from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He was wonderfully mischievous, always so excited on set and eager to educate me on the importance of what a true Q represented.”

De Lancie also clued d’Abo in regarding the world of Star Trek and what it meant. “He also continually reminded me how Star Trek lives on forever, that it’s immortal and so important to so many people all around the world,” said d’Abo. “I wasn’t necessarily sure what he meant at the time, but he was right. In some way strange way, for that episode’s moment in time, we were contributing something to science fiction history.”

D’Abo will be seen next in a new TV movie, We Have Your Husband, in which she plays the best friend of an American-born woman, whose Mexican husband has been kidnapped from their ranch in Mexico, and is being held for ransom. We Have Your Husband airs on Lifetime tomorrow night at 8 PM EST.

Other Star Trek actors from four of the five televised series can also be heard on the audio dramas.

According to de Lancie, he was “raised on the classics. – Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and others. Now we can bring these to even wider audiences by means of new technologies and old friends. We at Alien Voices feel that the dramatization should remain faithful to the original works. We are presenting Verne, Wells and other giants of the science fiction genre as they, themselves, might have wished to be heard.”

“After years of being associated with other people’s projects we wanted to enter the nest century at the helm of our own,” said Nimoy. “Alien Voices gives us the chance to work with other artists who also want to branch out, yet still provide audiences with the quality they’ve come to expect from us.”

The five audio dramas were based on three novels from H.G. Wells and from novels by Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They include: The First Men in the Moon, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, The Lost World and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Other Star Trek stars lent their voices to the project, including: Ethan Phillips, Dwight Schultz, William Shatner, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Nana Visitor, Armin Shimerman and Andrew Robinson.

The audio dramas can be purchased here.

In Torchwood: Miracle Day, viewers are asked to “Imagine a day when nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging. They get hurt and sick but they never die.”

“I’ve just finished working on Torchwood,” said de Lancie. “I’m a recurring character in the final three episodes of the series. My character is CIA, very gruff, unimpressed by the ‘Torchwood clowns’ as he’d call them.”

De Lancie’s time on Torchwood: Miracle Day was enjoyable for the actor. “Working on the show was great fun,” he said. “My sense is the show is still quite British. It has, mostly, an American crew, but the sensibility of it, led by Russell [T. Davies] is very British. It’s a completely different show to Star Trek, there’s no technobabble. It’s someone’s future, potentially real. I enjoyed that.”

De Lancie was cautious about sharing details about his role on the show. “There’s not much more I can tell you,” he said, “they’re very serious about what we can and can’t say.” Fans will have to watch Torchwood: Miracle Day to figure out just what de Lancie meant when he added, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but it’s all about the big yellow banana. That’s the key.”

The ten-episode (each episode an hour in length) Torchwood: Miracle Day will premiere on STARZ July 8 at 10 pm ET/PT.

Last month, TrekToday reported that actor John De Lancie would be appearing in Torchwood: Miracle Day. Today, it was announced that another Trek actor would also be appearing in the series.

In Torchwood: Miracle Day, viewers are asked to “Imagine a day when nobody dies. All across the world, nobody dies. And then the next day, and the next, and the next, people keep aging. They get hurt and sick but they never die. This is the extraordinary premise of the highly-anticipated STARZ original drama series, Torchwood: Miracle Day, produced by BBC Worldwide Productions for STARZ, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Worldwide.”

Joining De Lancie will be Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Nana Visitor. They joinTorchwood alumni, John Barrowman, Eve Myles, and Kai Owen as well as new headliners: Mekhi Phifer, Bill Pullman and Alexa Havins, plus an impressive list of guest stars including: Wayne Knight (Seinfeld, Jurassic Park), C. Thomas Howell (Southland, The Outsiders), Ernie Hudson (OZ, Ghostbusters), Mare Winningham (Mildred Pierce, George Wallace) and Frances Fisher (Titanic, The Lincoln Lawyer).

The ten-episode (each episode an hour in length) Torchwood: Miracle Day will premiere on STARZ July 8 at 10 pm ET/PT.

Torchwood writer Jane Espenson shared the news via Twitter. “I just this minute got permission to tell about the Torchwood guest star I was tweeting about,” she told her followers. “Two great Sci Fi fandoms collide.”

“He’s de licious,” said Espenson. “He’s de lightful. He’s de lovely … our friend Q from Star Trek: TNG, John De Lancie, is part of the #Torchwood family.”

It is not yet known what part De Lancie will play Or for how long he will be seen in Torchwood: Miracle Day, but according to Espenson, “He’s not playing Q! Let’s be clear!”

In Torchwood: Miracle Day, “Not a single person on Earth dies,” said series creator Russell T. Davies. “The old stay old. It’s great news for some people, but globally it’s an instant population boom. Earth relies on people dying. Suddenly you’re affecting everyone on the planet. That’s where the Torchwood team comes in.”

The ten-part Torchwood: Miracle Day will debut in the U.S. on Starz and in the U.K. on BBC One on Friday, July 8.

De Lancie, who can list opera director as well as actor on his resume, will be presenting the master class this week. The class will focus on acting as it relates to roles in opera.

“It is an opera-intensive class,” said Sam Mungo, director of opera studies at Texas State. “He came to me with the idea of offering a class on acting as it relates to opera, and I invited him to come to Texas State. This is the inaugural presentation of his class.”

Participating students in the class will present a free informal workshop on Sunday, September 19, at 6 PM in room 216 of the Music Building, open to the public.

De Lancie comes from a musical family, with a father who was a world famous oboist for the Philadelphia Orchestra. De Lancie made his directorial debut in 2006.

Koenig opened the convention, expressing his gratitude to fans for their enthusiasm. “No matter what happens, when I come to a convention, I feel a certain viability, and that’s you guys,” Koenig said. Koenig also received condolences from a fan on the loss of his son Andrew, who passed away earlier this year.

When asked about plans to return to television, Koenig said, “I don’t know what the future holds in store, but there’s nothing I can point to now that says you’ll see me on the silver screen.” Koenig did add that he just completed a 25-page treatment for a project that he hopes to turn into a feature film one day, but will first be produced in the form of a graphic novel. “It’s about vampires,” he revealed.

Takei followed Koenig on stage, greeting fans with the Vulcan “live long and prosper” hand gesture. Takei promised he would be appearing in another TV ad this fall. “I’m still going to be selling Sharp TVs, but this time in three dimensions,” he said.

“I’m in a feature film with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts called Larry Crowne,” he continued. “It’s a comedy about unemployment. [Tom Hanks] co-wrote it with Nia Vardalos, and he’s directing it as well as starring in it.” Takei most recently shot a pilot called Super Ninjas in which he played the Master Sensei of the group. In addition to his recent film and TV work, Takei is also working on a musical about the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II entitled “Allegiance,” which is scheduled to debut on Broadway sometime in 2012. Fans can catch Takei on Sirius radio on the evening of Monday, August 9th discussing his own personal experience living in one of the camps.

Takei had nothing but praise for the cast of the recent Star Trek film. “I’m glad the new movie was made, and the cast was brilliant,” he said, going on to add, “Certainly I’m proud of me as a dashing young man—aren’t I handsome?” 

The actor, who married his longtime partner in California in 2008, lauded Wednesday’s judicial decision to overturn Prop 8, saying, “Yesterday was a glorious day. Propostion 8 was defeated and equality won.” He added, “I respect everyone’s right to their faith, but no faith has a right to write their values into civil law.”

Takei was followed by Star Trek casting director Joseph D’Agosta, who worked closely with Gene Roddenberry to cast the original series. After working with Roddenberry on his pre-Star Trek show The Lieutenant, Roddenberry brought D’Agosta over to Desilu to help cast the classic series. Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Takei, Koenig and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) had all appeared on The Lieutenant. “Nimoy had a leg up and easily won the part,” D’Agosta revealed of the Spock role.

When asked whether the diverse cast was his idea or Roddenberry’s, D’Agosta said it was “all Gene.” He said of the Trek creator, “He thought one day we’d all be one world, one species.”

The only guest appearing on the main stage who was not from classic Trek was Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s John de Lancie, who portrayed the playful and mischievous Q. De Lancie shared that he has been writing a lot of shows for symphony orchestras in addition to appearing on stage in the plays “Tartuffe” and “The Constant Wife.” He compared appearing at Star Trek conventions to “having a dinner party people are still talking about 25 years later.” He also reminisced about his time on the soap opera Days of Our Lives, describing it as “the most fun I’ve ever had as an actor.”

When asked about his favorite power of his omnipotent character, de Lancie said it was “living with the notion that I had infinite power and no responsibilities.”

Although Q was a troublemaker and a nuisance for several Trek captains, de Lancie did not consider him a villain. “Q was never a villain as far as I was concerned … I might have been arrogant and badly flawed and all that, but I never thought of the character as a villain.”

De Lancie was satisfied with his role, but would have liked to have been on more Star Trek episodes, provided that the issues discussed were important and not trivial. “I would have liked to have been on the different Star Treks more than I was, as long as the episodes were about big issues,” he said. “When I was on it with little issues – like Q and Vash – I just don’t think those episodes worked as well. I know some fans appreciate them, but episodes about reclaiming your life, suicide, do you deserve to be out here … those were the ones about the most interesting issues, so those are the ones that had the best scenes and that I think of as the best episodes. So if they’d continued in that vein I would have liked to have been more involved.”

What was Q’s best scene in all of the episodes in which he appeared? “… I can tell you that I think a lot of what came out of All Good Things… really clicked. I remember being particularly pleased with many of the scenes in the finale.”

Would de Lancie appear in a new Star Trek movie if asked? “I’d be very interested,” he said. “The only problem is that I, too, am suffering from this mortal thing called aging and there’s a point at which it might not make sense. What might make sense is that you hear my voice, but I just don’t know that it would make sense to have an aging Q. I would have a problem with that as a viewer, and I don’t think I’d be the only one.”

On June 2nd and 3rd, Star Trek fans in the Ontario area will be able to hear some of the most notable music from Star Trek.

Music will include the theme from the original series, the Klingon battle theme, selections from James Horner‘s work in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan and more, taken from the five televised series as well as from the movies.

Star Trek fans are welcome to attend in costume. The performances will be held at Centre in the Square, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Tickets can be obtained here.

For those who wish to mingle with de Lancie and Picardo afterwards, separate tickets are also available for an exclusive After Party, including a meet-and-greet with the Star Trek hosts.

Fans of War of the Worlds are in for a special Trek treat, as an airing of a classic radio show featuring several well-known Star Trek actors is available this weekend.

The L.A. Theater Works has posted their broadcast of War of the Worlds, which features Leonard Nimoy, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton and Brent Spiner. This War of the Worlds broadcast was directed by John de Lancie.

In addition to War of the Worlds, one can listen to Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World which follows a scientific expedition deep into the Amazon jungle and back to the time of cavemen and dinosaurs.

Finally, there is an all-new “Question and Answer” session with Leonard Nimoy, recorded before a studio audience.

Head here to listen to the broadcasts.