The planets lined up in favor of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the awards scene this weekend, as the series itself and one of its stars brought home gold.

Saturn Awards

The seven DVD box sets of TNG, which were released entirely during 2002, collectively won Best DVD Television Release in the 29th annual Saturn Awards, presented last night in Hollywood by Cinescape magazine and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films.

The trophy was accepted on behalf of Paramount Home Entertainment by Donald R. Beck of Beck-ola Productions, who produced the extra features on the entire DVD collection. He credited the win to the technicians who remastered the video and audio of the show for DVD, and the marketing team who put it all together. "It's a beautifully packaged set, and I think the fan really gets something special for their money," Beck said. He admitted to the press afterwards that he himself is still missing three of the box sets in his collection. "They're hard to come by because they're very very popular and — thank you — they're well done." Beck worked with Gene Roddenberry in the 1980s when the show was first getting off the ground, and even played golf with him. He revealed: "He was a horrible golfer ... but a wonderful man."

The seven-season Next Generation DVD set beat one- or two-season releases of Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Highlander, The Outer Limits - The Original Series and The X-Files.

The Star Trek franchise earned a total of 10 nominations in this year's Saturns, including four for Enterprise and four for "Star Trek: Nemesis" (related story). Enterprise fell to Alias in the Best Network Television Series, and that show's Victor Garber also grabbed Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series away from Connor Trinneer. Angel's David Boreanaz overcame Scott Bakula for Best Actor, and for Best Supporting Actress, Buffy's Alyson Hannigan bested last year's winner, Jolene Blalock.

"Nemesis" lost to Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" for Best Science Fiction Film, and Tom Hardy ("Shinzon") was out-gollumed for Supporting Actor by Andy Serkis in "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." It also lost in the Costume and Make-up categories among a very crowded field. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" was up for DVD Classic Film Release, but that was taken by "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial."

The Special Effects award went to the team on "Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones," which included Rob Coleman, John Knoll and Ben Snow, who have done visual effects on "Star Trek Generations" and other Trek projects.

The Saturn Awards are presented each year to honor work in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, action, adventure and thrillers for film, television and DVD.

Burton Wins Daytime Emmy

If you watched the 30th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards presentation last Friday, you saw LeVar Burton take the stage and accept yet another award on behalf of his PBS educational program Reading Rainbow. The show won Outstanding Children's Series. This is the third year in a row executive producer Burton has taken home this trophy, and the eighth time overall.

With another award for Single-Camera Editing handed out in a separate ceremony, this brings the Emmy count for Reading Rainbow up to 20 over its lifetime, including several for Burton personally as a performer on the show. It's getting to be a very crowded trophy case, with more than 150 honors to its credit, including several Image Awards from the NAACP (related story).

But there's some bad news. In his acceptance speech, Burton warned that the show's days may be numbered if more funding isn't forthcoming, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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