VOYAGERS!
EPI-LOG JOURNAL
EPI-LOG JOURNAL: THE TELEVISION JOURNAL OF SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY AND ADVENTURE.
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JANUARY – FEBRUARY, 1993/ISSUE #6
This Epi-log out of print, but you can try to find additional copies on eBay. It is one of the most comprehensive print articles on Voyagers! to date and a great piece of memorabilia for fans to own. The cast for Star Trek: The Next Generation appears on the cover, and Bogg and Jeffrey are on the back cover. I compiled the information from the Magazine and put it in episodic order along with screen-captures. I also made my own additions and some corrections with asterisks. (*)
A Voyagers! Episode Guide along with photos appeared in Epi-log Winter Special #1 (1991-1992) The issue features William Shatner as Captain Kirk on the cover.
VOYAGERS! PILOT
Mary Murphy is in fact actress Mary Pickford. Presumably, her estate wouldn't allow producers to use the Pickford name. On the "Voyagers from the Unknown" made-for-video movie she is called Mary Pickford on the video box
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*She is also referred to as Mary Pickford in the Voyagers! Junior paperback novel.
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The Omni is subtly different in this episode than any other. There is a tiny red 'V' at the top of the time-dials. Also, the Omni's globe doesn't move as it does in later episodes. For instance, in this episode, the Voyagers are in France – but the Omni's globe shows North America.
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*There were a few different versions of the omni made throughout the course of the series. Some just for stunt-work that didn't open. It's been noted that James Parriott keeps one on his desk. (He actually has all 3)
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As originally conceived by creator James D. Parriott, the omni was a gold wrist-device with digital controls. Fortunately, someone realized that if the omni were attached to Bogg's wrist it would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to lose it or have it stolen – a factor which became critical to the series. The omni that was eventually used in the show just may be the most elegant looking time machine in all fiction.
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*The Voyagers Junior novel also uses the gold wrist-watch version.
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Bogg's hair is straight in this episode, and curly in the rest of the series. Because of this change, the end 'tag' of this episode was redone (with a curly haired Jon) and used in the opening sequence.
The line where Bogg says, "Green Light kid! We did it!" was also used only in the opening sequence – it was never spoken in the pilot.
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*Correction! The line is used in the Pilot, when Bogg and Jeff are going down in the plane after the dogfight with Red Baron.
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Take a good look at the book Jeffrey puts on his bookshelf. He had fallen asleep reading a book called, "Pirates in History", hence his vivid dream with his parents and also a foreshadowing of Bogg's immediate arrival!
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A very early draft of the script for this episode was adapted into a seventy-six page novel written by Joe Claro and published by Scholastic Books in 1982.
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The set of Jeffrey's Dream sequence seems to be the same set used later in World's Apart When Bogg is captured along with Lawrence of Arabia and held in the Arabian prison camp.
CLEO AND THE BABE
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It is ironic that Lindbergh's landing should cause Bogg & Cleopatra to be separated in N.Y.C. – Since the Voyagers helped the landing come about four episodes later in "An arrow pointing East."
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Cleo pawns her jewelry at "Sherman Jewelers"-named for scriptwriter Jill Sherman.
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*If you look carefully at the flapper outfit in the window as Cleo models her dress, it's red with a green feather boa. Red and Green are the colors of the omni lights.
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*When Bogg and Cleo land in the carriage, you can see the platform as stunt people jump off.
AN ARROW POINTING EAST
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Take a good look at the Merry Man in Act IV who says, "One more step, your grace, and my next arrow will find your heart!" He is wearing a silver wristwatch – A device that won't be invented for centuries. (Maybe he was a Voyager too?)
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The castle set was used two episodes later in Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley play the Palace.
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*Although the Robin Hood legend is supposedly real, it is the first and last time the Voyagers help along the history of a known literary character.
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In an earlier episode, The day the Rebs took Lincoln, the Voyagers meet a group of shady pickpockets named Fagin and the Artful Dodger, but they also meet Charles Dickens, leaving us to presume that the characters of Dickens' famous "Oliver Twist" were real and inspired the author to write about them.
THE TRIAL OF PHINEAS BOGG
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Voyagers! was canceled by NBC and this would have been the final episode – but a massive letter writing campaign led by fans Debbie Sheldon, Margo Coburn, Tracy Graham (Of the Meeno Peluce Fan Club) and another fan, Shelagh Collins, brought the show back for the rest of the season.
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Jon-Erik Hexum paid to have his own poster designed and sent out over 5,000 copies to various Junior and Senior High Schools across the country in an effort to preserve the show. He was interviewed by TV and radio stations in over 28 cities prior to Dec. 3rd 1982. (This effort was successful, allowing the show to run into 1983)
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William McLaughlin (Sam Houston in this ep.) plays explorer Merriwether Lewis in "Old Hickory and the Pirate."
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The Omni that Drake uses in this episode is notably different from the one he later uses in Jack's Back. It doesn't have an activator button on top, and it is a much duller silver.
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Drake describes his Omni as "model 3-16-50" – Probably the birth date of scriptwriter Jill Sherman.
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The courtroom set was used four episodes later in "Destiny's Choice."
VOYAGERS OF THE TITANIC
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This episode used deleted/unused footage from the movies Raise the Titanic! (1980) and Titanic (1953)
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This episode was a reunion of sorts for Jon-Erik Hexum. He once played Molly Brown's boisterous husband, Johnny Brown, in a Summer stock play called "The unsinkable Molly Brown."
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This episode and the Pilot were edited together into a ninety-one minute made-for-video movie called Voyager from the unknown.
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*Actress Fionnula Flanagan portrays Molly Brown in this episode. Years later she'd gotten involved with time travel again. Flanagan had a recurring role as mysterious "Eloise Hawking" in the mega-hit TV series, Lost. Eloise holds answers to time-travel and many secrets of the LOST island.
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*Jeffrey Jones' predicament after catching Rabies mirrored the real life case of 9 year-old Joseph Meister in 1885. After getting mauled by a rabid a dog, his frantic mother took him to Dr. Louis Pasteur. After 11 days and 13 innoculations, the boy recovered. Within 3 months Meister was in good health and the popularity and success of Pasteur's Rabies' treatments spread abroad.
