Don’t make any plans for mid-February next year…your calendar is soon to be full of convention festivities. That’s right kids, Creation Entertainment’s Grand Slam: The Star Trek & Sci-Fi Summit XVIII, comes to Burbank, California on February 15-17, 2013. This con has a great set of celebs already lined up with more promised to be added as the event approaches. There will even be a Saturday night reunion event of the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast featuring; Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden and Marina Sirtis.

We just got back from a fantastic con in our neck of the woods. That's right earthlings, it's time for the Wizard World Austin Comic Con post convention wrap-up. This was a special Trek centric con, that featured the entire bridge crew from Star Trek: The Next Generation. We've been covering news about Austin CC for the past several months and the show really lived up to the hype.

For all of you that are excited about the Star Trek: The Next Generation reunion at Austin Comic Con, Wizard World just released the full programming schedule. In addition to all of the exciting TNG programming, our good friend Larry Nemecek is slated to appear at the con as well.

Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher) has been up to a bunch of new stuff lately. (How’s that for a totally professional sounding opener?) Part of the reason for all of the new activities is the excitement of TNG’s 25th anniversary, this year. Because of this milestone celebration she has begun attending conventions again, much to fans’ delight. You see, she’s been hard to find on the convention circuit all of these years mostly because of her devotion to theatre and the craft of acting.

Austin Comic Con is nearly a month away and Wizard World just announced that Wil Wheaton has been added to the roster. All that's left for a complete US Next Gen cast reunion is Denise Crosby. Fingers crossed... Here's the Trek guest rundown; Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander William T. Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data), Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher), and Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher).

The first U.S. Star Trek: The Next Generation 25th anniversary reunion is happening right in our own backyard, Austin Texas. This October, Wizard World is bringing together 7 stars from the Next Gen cast for this bridge crew reunion. So far on board are Patrick Stewart (Captain Jean-Luc Picard), Jonathan Frakes (Commander William T. Riker), LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge), Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf), Marina Sirtis (Counselor Deanna Troi), Brent Spiner (Lt. Commander Data) and Gates McFadden (Dr. Beverly Crusher). Dang! With a line up like this my head might explode.

Well, the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation is swiftly upon us. I can’t believe it’s been so long. I still remember watching the first episode, begrudgingly, because my mom wanted to watch it and we only had one TV in the house. You see I was a purist…it wasn’t the Original Series…so I didn’t want any part of it. Needless to say, at the end of those two hours, I was totally hooked. Now, fast forward seven years to the series ender. We swear we didn’t plan it this way, but “All Good Things…” just happened to be aired during our honeymoon. Being the fans that we were, we ordered in that night. There was no way either of us were going to miss that.

Creation Entertainment announced today that Gates McFadden (ST:TNG - Dr. Beverly Crusher) and George Takei (TOS - Mr. Sulu) will be among the celebrity guests at this August’s Vegas Convention. They have a stellar (ya, we meant to do that) line up so far for the upcoming convention. Most of the captains (hopefully more to be added), tons of the series regulars and a whole bunch of episode special guests. Confidentially, we haven’t yet seen Gates in person because she doesn’t seem to attend quite as many conventions as some of the other cast so we’re pretty excited to see her in Vegas this year.

You can check out the current confirmed celebrity guest list here. If you have a favorite, make sure to jot down when they will be appearing, because not all guests will be there for the whole weekend.

Here’s a mini Next Gen reunion for ya. Gates McFadden is directing a new play, in Los Angeles, called “House of Gold” whose cast includes fellow Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Denise Crosby. Let’s hope that Denise’s current character doesn’t go on any away missions this time.

Gates talks about her impetus for this particular subject matter and its relevance to today’s society.

"House of Gold is a hilarious, yet scathing critique of our culture, revealing dark truths about our values, and, ultimately, about ourselves," explains EST/LA artistic director Gates McFadden, who also directs. "Reading this play returned me to my own childhood. Like the character in the play, I was the ‘pleaser' child-performer. As an adult, my role on Star Trek was my parents' dream come true, but for me, it brought back a lot of childhood ambivalence."

She continues, "In American culture, reality TV is more real than real life. Parents think it's normal to exploit and humiliate their children on camera, if only to give their own dreary lives more meaning-‘my video got over a million hits on You Tube!' Children either receive too much parental attention or not enough. Something horrible in the news? Goodie! Let's get the details."