The second day of the Grand Slam XIII was the largest in terms of audience, no doubt there to see big draws like William Shatner, but also for the appeal of seeing stars like Alfre Woodard at her first convention, Enterprise's Connor Trinneer, the venerable Majel Barrett Roddenberry, Marina Sirtis plugging her new movie, "Spectres," the always engaging Rene Auberjonois, and finally the fan-friendly Eugene Roddenberry. As some observers noted, it was a low-key and stress-free weekend, which translated into one of the most enjoyable Grand Slams in recent memory.

Rene Auberjonois/Connor Trinneer

After a nice introduction from host Adam Malin of Creation Entertainment, the first two Star Trek guests of the day took their seats and the humorous tone was quickly set as Rene turned to Connor and said, "And you are ...?"

"Looking for work," replied Connor without missing a beat.

Rene expressed wonder as to why he and Connor were paired together on stage, but the answer soon became clear: the two shared screen time together in a first-season Enterprise episode, "Oasis." This led to the next of Rene's jokes about guest starring in this episode. "I was talking to Scott [Bakula] and Scott said, 'this is a good script.' And I said, 'yeah, we did this script in our second season!"

The new comedy duo then fielded questions from the audience.

First off, someone wanted to know if there was something that could have been done to help Enterprise last seven seasons. "Specifically," said Connor, "what we did this year could have helped us be on for seven years." But Trinneer also acknowledged that it is often just down to two key things to keep a show alive, viewership and money. If audience numbers don't provide the revenue in terms of advertising to produce the show, then the show gets canned. And, he noted, if it were not for the fact that Enterprise was a Star Trek show, it never would have made it as far as it did.

Rene noted that all the other Star Trek shows took time to develop and gain their "sea legs."

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

The First Lady of Star Trek, the widow of creator Gene Roddenberry who played "Christine Chapel" in the original show and "Lwaxana Troi" in later incarnations, admitted to feeling a bit "morose" that day. "I went to the set last Tuesday, which was the last day of shooting," Majel told the convention crowd. "And by the last day of shooting, I mean the last day. There will be no more Star Trek sets, ever."

The end of the current Trek makes her think back the 40 years she's been involved with the franchise, beginning with the first pilot shot in late 1964 when she played "Number One." "We had one hell of a ride, I gotta tell you, 40 years of a television show being on," she reflected. And despite her earlier statement, she conjectured that Trek could make a comeback. "In another — oh, my guess is six, seven, ten years — somebody will say, 'Don't we have something in the archives back there?' They'll look at that over at Paramount and they might actually go back and pick it up again. Because Paramount is not a place that lets these kinds of things die quietly. They'll go back, they'll rearrange it, get some new ideas and new stories in, and make sure they have the right combination working on it, and I'll make you a bet it's back in that time! So I'm not going to say goodbye forever. But, I think for my Star Trek, it's gone. And they were great, fantastic years."

Despite her mixed feelings on the cancellation of Enterprise, Majel did remark, "Let this thing have a rest. It needs a rest. We got reruns! They ain't taking everything away!"

Marina Sirtis / Tucker Smallwood

Marina Sirtis is the star and associate producer of "Spectres," an independent film being released on DVD next month, and she came on stage to talk about it with the writer and producer and two castmates, including Tucker Smallwood. Smallwood played the Xindi-Humanoid Council Member in the third season of Enterprise, and also appeared in "In the Flesh."

Sirtis started off by saying, "Let's try and limit the Star Trek questions!" and was hilariously coy about her reported involvement with the series finale of Enterprise. When asked by a fan about the episode she's in, she replied, "What episode I'm in? What episode I'm in?" She's still feeling the sting of being the one to spill the beans to convention-goers about Brent Spiner guest-starring in Enterprise, so she's determined to prove she can keep a secret. When she started a story about being on the set, she stopped herself: "Can't tell you! Of course, I'm not really in Enterprise, but if I was — I can't tell you any stories until after the last episode. Okay. All right. You'll have to wait — wait 'till Vegas. You'll hear all about it. If I'm in it. Which I'm not saying I am. Just watch the last episode. O.K.?"

"Spectres," which also features Linda Park ("Hoshi Sato"), is described as a "spiritually uplifting ghost story." And this "ghost story" was filmed in a house that presumably was really haunted, which all on the panel concurred upon. "I was scared. I couldn't go down in the basement," Sirtis claimed. Smallwood elaborated: "From time to time I went downstairs, and you were always looking over your shoulder; you always had a sense of something that just passed out of the corner of your eye. There was energy there. But it was never a malevolent energy; it was a benign energy, so it was not a scary situation. But it kept you awake."

Writer/producer Bud Robertson said that while they were reviewing the dailies, "There is one shot of Marina where some little light drifts by behind her." They had all the windows blacked, so it couldn't have been a reflection from outside or anything else they could explain. They put that shot on the DVD as a bonus feature, so "You can look at it for yourself, and call us crazy or not."

Ronald D. Moore

Former Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writer and producer Ron Moore was also on hand to field questions, but more so for his current hit series, Battlestar Galactica, than Trek. However, if fans wanted to talk about his former show, he was more than willing to answer questions.

The first question was, naturally, about a DS9 episode, "Trials and Tribble-ations," and how it was conceived as a 30th anniversary tribute. However, Ron's original idea had to do with revisiting the Iotians, as seen in "A Piece of the Action." His pitch focused on how the Iotians, in the intervening years since Kirk and company visited, had turned into these huge fans of the captain, his crew and the voyages of the Enterprise. Ron's concept was meant to show loyalty and dedication by the fan community.

"I wanted to say something for the 30th anniversary about the fan phenomena that supported the show through all those years."

William Shatner

A thunderous ovation announced William Shatner's emergence from behind the stage curtains. When he heard the roar of admiration, he quipped, "If this many people watch Enterprise, then they wouldn't have canceled it!" Shatner saw many young fans in the audience and remarked that it was a good thing that young people were getting involved with the franchise. "With these young fans, we can build a new audience for Star Trek."

Shatner is an ebullient and funny guy. When asked about kissing Nichelle Nichols, he said, "40 years ago, Nichelle was the prettiest thing you ever saw ... and so was I." He said that there were concerns about the show being canceled in the South because of the interracial kiss, but ultimately, Star Trek simply showed the episode, and no one said anything.

Shatner talked about March being "William Shatner Month". His birthday is in March, and "Miss Congeniality 2" is opening on March 29. During the shooting of "Miss Congeniality 2," he had to swim underwater and try to get inside a boat through a porthole. However, there was a cannon blocking his access to the inside of the boat, so he said, "There's a cannon in my porthole!" The audience laughed, and Shatner hoped aloud that the scene would make it into the movie and that audiences would laugh at the moment, too.

Shatner held a brief auction that benefited horse-riding programs. Shatner is a horse-riding enthusiast, and he feels that horse-riding can be therapeutic for people with certain disabilities. He's launching a horse-riding program in Israel this summer that will allow children of all backgrounds — Jewish, Jordanian, Palestinian, etc. — to interact with one another in a peaceful environment.

Before leaving the stage, Shatner talked about pitching an idea for a "Starfleet Academy" series, along with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, to Paramount. The series would be about Kirk, Spock, "Bones" McCoy, and others during their Academy years. When Shatner asked the crowd what Kirk would be like as a young man, someone shouted, "Horny!" Paramount rejected the idea, but Simon & Schuster was interested in developing the story. Therefore, sometime later in 2005, look for a Pocket Books release based on the "Starfleet Academy" pitch.

Robert Walker Jr. / Grace Lee Whitney

"Charlie X" was one of the earliest episodes of Star Trek, and it featured a very memorable performance by Robert Walker Jr. as the petulant super-teenager "Charles Evans." In the show his character had an awkward relationship with "Yeoman Janice Rand" played by Grace Lee Whitney. Walker and Whitney reunited after nearly 40 years before a full room in the Little Theatre of the convention center. This was Walker's first convention.

"Doesn't he look great?" Whitney exclaimed as the audience applauded. She told her former castmate, "You know, you should have had an Emmy for that show, because you were so intense. Those eyes, and the way you zapped us all out of there. I think you should have had an Emmy."

Part of that performance was playing a 17-year-old while being 26 years old. What was his secret? "That was me. I was innocent," Walker explained. "You know, I had two children already, and had lived all over the world, but I was still very innocent. I am still pretty much." Grace Lee then reminded him, in character, "You know, I was the first woman you ever saw!"

Walker, always a busy actor, was offered the role of Charlie without an audition. But he admitted he didn't want to do it at first. "I realized I was going to wear tights, and I felt self-conscious about my skinny legs." But he decided it was a pretty good salary for five days' work. He thought, "'You know what? I'll do it, I'll give it my best shot, I'll earn my paycheck, I'll give them their money's worth — nobody will ever see it.' Wrong!!"

He told a story about walking along "Skid Row" in Seattle with his wife ("Don't ask me what I was doing on Skid Row!") about 15 years ago. "There was a blind man standing there, with a cane and a tin cup and dark glasses. This is a true story. I walked by, and he did a double-take. 'Charlie X! Charlie X!' Blew his cover!"

Whitney credited the enduring success of the original Star Trek to several specific things, including the genius of behind-the-scenes personnel such as director of photography Jerry Finnerman and costumer William Theiss. "That was movie lighting on a television show. I thought the costumes and the color were brilliant. I thought the dynamic between De [Kelley], Leonard [Nimoy] and Bill [Shatner] was to die for. The fact that we were sassy and funny — the sense of humor in the first year was unmatched. We laughed a lot."

Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry

Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry's son, took the stage to talk about his "Trek Nation" documentary. During the past few years, Rod has been collecting footage that examines the effects that "Star Trek" has had on society. Rod presented a trailer that even included snippets of an interview with George Lucas talking about how Gene Roddenberry influenced him. Many other celebrities have also agreed to participate in the "Trek Nation" project.

Rod explained to the audience that interacting with fans helped him understand his own father because he was only 17 when "The Great Bird of the Galaxy" passed away. "Not until I worked on Earth: Final Conflict did I understand the impact that Star Trek had on people." Rod concluded by stating, "I want to protect the family name, but just as importantly, I want to make the fans proud of us still after all these years."

Alfre Woodard

The venerable award-winning actress who played "Lily Sloane" in "Star Trek: First Contact" was extremely gracious and down-to-earth in her first appearance before convention fans. She made a point of learning the name of every person who asked a question, and talked a lot about her very normal, suburban family life. "It's really weird that I'm sitting here and you're taking pictures of me, 'cos I'm just, like, a schleppin' mom! That's all I do!" Woodard said. It's a balancing act between work and home even for movie stars, and there was a time when she had no choice but to take her two dogs to work — she was dressed in a glamorous gown and lots of fake jewelry, and she had to break every hour and a half to go walk her mutts! She refuses to entertain the illusion of glamour. "Only in magazines and only on awards nights do people have those kinds of lives."

She recounted her long relationship with "First Contact" director Jonathan Frakes, and how she became his "godmother." Woodard and Frakes were among a group of young actors who all came to Los Angeles about the same time to pursue their careers. "We used to all basically live with each other. We had three apartments between about 10 or 12 people, and we would pool our money to buy chicken and beer ... We really grew up together in the business." One day she was talking about her godmother to Frakes. "In my family godmothers are very important — she's sort of your spiritual touchstone, all your life. And he looked at me one night, and he said, 'I don't have a godmother. Would you be my godmommy?' Now, he's older than I am, but I said, 'Yes, I'll be your godmother.'"

So years later, when Frakes called to say that "First Contact" was a go and he was directing it, she was very excited for him. And then he told her he wanted her to be in it, and she was ecstatic!

But Woodard admitted she was not very familiar with the show, and in fact Frakes decided not to send her tapes of TNG because her character was from another century. And that put her at a certain disadvantage. "One day on the call sheet it said 'Interior - Jefferies Tube.' And I said to Jonathan, 'Okay. Where's Jeffrey? It says we're in Jeffrey's tube!' And he looked at me, and he looked at Patrick, and he said, 'You just start talking when I start rolling.'"