The vast galaxy of space has seen many starship crews conquer “the final frontier”. On one end of the spectrum was the Starship Enterprise, whose heroic feats were enjoyed by millions in both the STAR TREK TV shows and movies, each in their various incarnations. On the other, however, is the worst starship crew in all of space, the crew portrayed in the comedy web series VOYAGE TREKKERS, created by Nathan Blackwell and Craig Michael Curtis, produced by Phoenix-based Squishy Studios, and executive produced by Tray Goodman of Goodman Creative Minds Media.
The show, which premiered in July of 2011, was highlighted on #WebSeriesWednesday back in March. Now a bigger, badder, second season is set to premiere on May 1, 2013, with 10 episodes released once each Wednesday on Youtube and Blip.tv. The show stars Adam Rini as the starship’s commander, Captain Sunstrike. Logan Blackwell plays Commander Powell, and Gabrielle Van Buren plays Doctor Rena.
Blackwell cites his and Curtis’ love of sci-fi, and in particular, STAR TREK, as their main inspiration for creating the show. “It never escapes us how great it is that we’re grown adults running around in space outfits with ray guns, fighting people with lizard masks. The project was born out of the desire to make something that was good and silly fun. There was no ambitious master plan. It was just supposed to be a single weekend with however many episodes we could finish in that time and that would be it. But because we had such a good time, with people we loved to worked with, the project took off with a life of it’s own.”
While the action in season 1 took place away from their ship, season 2 finally provides viewers with a chance to see the hapless crew in their home environment, an opportunity made possible by the show’s crowd-funding campaign, and while both Blackwell and Curtis saw this as an opportunity to expand the show’s storyline, and the cast of characters, making for a full ensemble, the process of building the set, which took the better part of last year, proved to be the biggest challenge. “Man alive, building that set was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to done, it was just a beast. The final set was big, at about 26′ by 26′. And that really when so many of our friends really stepped up to the plate and just awesome with helping us out,” Blackwell says. In addition, while the first season of the show was shot in only 5 days, the second season has thus far been filming for 11 days, with the remaining 2 episodes set to bring the total to 14 days.
VOYAGE TREKKERS has not only proven to be a hit among fans of sci-fi, and especially STAR TREK, STAR WARS, and other popular sci-fi franchises, it is, more importantly, a labor of love for both producers, says Blackwell. “My (Blackwell’s and Curtis’) production company Squishy Studios has been making films for a while and we’re so lucky now to have a family of people we love to work with. No one gets paid on the show, myself included, we’re just too low budget of an operation, so I can’t tell you how grateful I am for everyone’s hard work.” Blackwell, who has described the show as GALAXY QUEST meets IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, believes that the show’s success, like that of the popular sci-fi franchises that inspired the show, comes from one important place: “I hope people really enjoy the show and love the characters, and if they do please share it with your friends. We’re truly a labor of love and we absolutely depend on word of mouth of our fans.”
ON THE WEB: www.voyagetrekkers.com
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/VoyageTrekkers
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/voyagetrekkers
YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/user/voyagetrekkers
BLIP.tv: http://blip.tv/voyage-trekkers
TUMBLR: http://voyagetrekkers.tumblr.com
GOOGLE+: https://plus.google.com/104500147003529899640/posts