With filming under way for Star Trek 2, two of the newcomers, Benedict Cumberbatch and Alice Eve, are settling into their jobs, and a familiar face returns briefly to the Trek set.

While promoting his latest film, This Means War, Chris Pine spoke briefly about Cumberbatch and Eve. “They’re getting on great,” he said. “We have a really good, warm, inclusive group from the first one and I think everybody’s kind of getting the hang of things and fitting in quite nicely.”

Meanwhile, if his tweet today is any indication, Leonard Nimoy has made his visit to the Star Trek 2 set, as he announced that he would do last week. “Lots of hugs and handshakes,” said Nimoy. “Like being surrounded by family. So proud to be part of the Star Trek history. LLAP.”

Leonard Nimoy has been offered what most Star Trek fans would love to be given, an invitation to visit the Star Trek 2 set.

“I’ve been invited to visit the set of the new Star Trek film,” said Nimoy via his Twitter feed. “Hope to do that next week.”

In 1968, while Nimoy was playing Spock on Star Trek, he and wife Sandra Zober purchased a house in the Westwood-area of Los Angeles.

After the Nimoys divorced in 1987, Sandra remained in the house until her death last April. The 3,664 square foot house, built in 1938, was listed for sale for $1.72 million and sold for $1.95 million.

To see what Nimoy’s former house looks like today, head to the site located here, where photos and a video of the residence can be seen.

But Hartley is surprised that she’s not the only one who remembers the role after so many years. “[People are] still fascinated by [Zarabeth],” she said, after attending last summer’s Creation Entertainment Official Star Trek Convention. “I’m just so stunned. I go there and it’s like going to a foreign country, with so many people in different costumes, dressed as different characters. I’ve met a few Borg, actually. It’s so bizarre and wonderful, and I kept thinking, ‘Are they going to have things like this for Grey’s Anatomy in 20 years?’ This has such a very special heat, still, to it.”

Speaking of heat, what about that heat between Zarabeth and Spock? “But when you kiss Spock, I mean, come on!” said Hartley. “I remember De Kelley. I remember the whole thing vividly. I remember taking off that huge coat, the fur coat, and people going, ‘Oh, wow.’ I had no idea that I had a figure. I come from Connecticut. I had no idea what sexuality was. I was doing Shakespeare.”

Part of what attracted Hartley to the role was what happened between Zarabeth and Spock. “When I did my episode, I just loved the script,” she said, “loved the idea that this strange man (Spock) was finally going to be schtupped and I was going to be the one to do it, and that I was going to be the one to teach him how to not be a vegetarian. So I loved the idea.”

Hartley is still acting and has been a recurring character on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She also will be performing on the stage in January, at the Cleveland Play House where she will play the mother of Alfred Lunt in a comedy titled Ten Chimneys.

Nimoy took on the role at the last moment after Alec Baldwin withdrew after a joke of his mocking the Rupert Murdoch phone scandal was cut from the skit. “They edited out a line and he asked them to not air the segment,” a friend of Baldwin’s explained. “He didn’t want to do something that had been edited afterwards because if it’s comedy and you take out a key line, it just doesn’t work.”

So Nimoy graciously stepped in and the skit was reshot, with Nimoy taking the place of Baldwin, in a short role as the President of Television. “I’m firmly convinced that you are the most logical person to host the Emmys this year,” he told Lynch, whose character in the skit was excited to go out to show everyone “what we do when we create the magic of TV.” “To men, you’re womanish,” Nimoy said, explaining why she was the perfect host. “To women, you’re mannish.”

The skit can be seen here.

“Chicago Oct. 1&2 is my final con appearance,” he said. “I have promised a couple acting appearances which may still crop up. LLAP.”

Nimoy will be appearing in his last Star Trek convention in early October at the Official Star Trek Convention to be held September 30-Oct 1 at the Westin O’Hare Hotel in Chicago. Other Star Trek actors in attendance will be: Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Nichelle Nichols, John de Lancie, Dominic Keating, Connor Trinneer, Nana Visitor, Rene Auberjonois and Arlene Martel.

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.

Like many Americans, Nimoy doesn’t like to see the never-ending conflict in the Middle East. “I reach out to you as someone who is troubled to see the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians continue apparently without an end in sight,” he said.

“In fact, there is an end in sight,” said Nimoy. “It’s known as the two-state solution–a secure, democratic Israel as the Jewish State alongside an independent Palestinian state. Even Israel’s nationalist Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, has come to see this as the shape of the future. The problem is how to reach that end point. It’s something we should be concerned about–not only as world citizens, but as Americans.

“You might recall the episode in the original Star Trek series called, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Two men, half black, half white, are the last survivors of their peoples who have been at war with each other for thousands of years, yet the Enterprise crew could find no differences separating these two raging men.

“But the antagonists were keenly aware of their differences–one man was white on the right side, the other was black on the right side. And they were prepared to battle to the death to defend the memory of their people who died from the atrocities committed by the other.

“The story was a myth, of course, and by invoking it I don’t mean to belittle the very real issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians. What I do mean to suggest is that the time for recriminations is over. Assigning blame over all other priorities is self-defeating. Myth can be a snare. The two sides need our help to evade the snare and search for a way to compromise.

“The Middle East is only getting more tumultuous. The upheavals throughout the region show that what happens in the Middle East can’t help but affect us in the United States. This year, we’ve seen oil prices rise sharply and America become involved militarily in Libya. The cost to American lives and our economy continues to rise at a time when unemployment and deficits are sapping our country’s strength.”

There was a time when Nimoy struggled to find acting jobs that weren’t related to the pointy-eared Vulcan character that he had made famous. “During that period (mid-1970s), I had a struggle,” he said. “I was busy. I had no problem finding work. But the work pretty much was related to the Spock character. I was, on the one hand, happy to be working because I know what it’s like to be an out-of-work actor. But at the same time I was hoping to broaden my scope, and eventually I did.”

But Nimoy came to terms with Spock and is willing to say what made Spock tick and why people were attracted to the character. “Well, I’ll tell you something,” he said. “I came to believe finally that Spock was at least as human, and perhaps more human, than any of the other characters on the show. Spock’s condition was a quintessentially human condition.

“I think that’s maybe the underlying secret to why so many people identify with him, because he had this inner life that so many people recognize, which is the struggle between our logic and our emotion; our right or left brain. We all, to some degree, have this process to deal with. Particularly young people who are in their formative years, trying to figure out how you’re supposed to function in relationships, in your career, in your personal choices. It’s a condition that’s easily recognizable.”

Why did Nimoy say “Yes” to playing Spock again after so many years? “[J.J. Abrams] asked me if I would come to a meeting,” explained Nimoy. “And this was before they started writing, I think. I met with him and his writers. The conversation, frankly, was actually moving to me, because it had been a number of years since I’d been asked to do anything with Star Trek.

“And here comes a guy named J.J. Abrams who has a lot of cachet, I thought, a very good filmmaker and his writers, and they’re telling me about their sense of Star Trek and their sense of the Spock character. I thought it was profound, frankly. I thought, ‘Wow, these guys really get it.’”

Nimoy will be appearing at the Dallas Comic Con this weekend.

Fox has released a new promotional video for Friday’s episode, titled Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.

According to a description of the show, “The situation looks dire as the team goes to extreme measures and makes a desperate attempt to remove William Bell’s consciousness from Olivia’s body and return her to her normal self before she is lost to them forever.”

http://youtu.be/8Xy4zB0JrZY