'Trek' writer helps launch 'Nanna'.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

OREGON DEBUT What: "Nanna's Cottage" - a new children's TV program filmed at Chambers Media Center in Eugene When: 5:30 a.m. Saturday on KEZI

Eric Stillwell wants to take "Nanna's Cottage" where no children's television show has gone before: Pluto.

Where else would a longtime writer for the "Star Trek" TV series take the new program - produced in Eugene - in its first episode?

"We're not doing space in every episode, but we do have a time machine," says Stillwell, a 1981 graduate of Churchill High School and a 1985 graduate of the University of Oregon who is now the head writer and associate producer for the show that makes its Oregon debut on Saturday.

A television writer for two decades in Hollywood, mostly with Star Trek's "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" series, Stillwell moved back to Eugene last summer. He and his wife, Debra, an oncology nurse at Willamette Valley Cancer Center in Eugene, wanted a change of pace from Los Angeles, he says, especially after learning that Stillwell's boss, Michael Piller, had terminal cancer. Piller, co-creator of Star Trek's "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" series, created his own company in 1999 and took Stillwell with him. Piller died last November.

Stillwell came home without a job, but he found out about "Nanna's Cottage" last fall after reading about the Chambers Media Center production in a Register-Guard story.

With his interest piqued, he sent a resume and some of his work to the show's creator and executive producer, Davey Porter. Porter, coincidentally, also had moved his family last year from Southern California to Eugene to produce the show.

`When I got his package I was like, `Oh my god, this is a joke,' ' says Porter, also a "Star Trek" fan whose 7-year-old daughter Gracie plays one of the kids on "Nanna's Cottage."

But it was no joke.

And needless to say, Porter hired Stillwell. In fact, both men worked in buildings right next to each other on a Paramount Studios lot in 1993 when Porter was with CBS's "Picket Fences." Porter knew of Stillwell's work, but they had never met.

"Nanna's Cottage," made for children ages 4 to 9, debuted nationally July 1 on the Faith TV Network. The show is set in the rural town of Cottage Hamlet and centers on Abigale "Nanna" Macaroon, played by Los Angeles-based actress Rachael Rizzo. Rizzo, in her "Nanna" costume, seems a cross between Robin Williams' "Mrs Doubtfire" character and Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" character of "Saturday Night Live" fame. Nanna is a world traveler who dispenses love and knowledge in her Irish brogue to her grandchildren and her friends.

Porter says the show is a throwback to longtime children's TV classics such as "Captain Kangaroo" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." The children on the show, most of whom are local actors, interact with puppets, animation and an affectionate - and rather large - sheepdog named Arbuckle.

Asked how his skills as a writer of science-fiction television will transfer to his first work on a children's show, Stillwell says both genres have more in common than one might think.

`The nature of the show really isn't that different from `Star Trek',' he says. "Both deal with the human condition. Good TV really isn't that different at its core."

And don't forget that time machine coming into play in some future "Nanna's Cottage" episode. After all, Stillwell says the best-known "Star Trek" episode he wrote was "Yesterday's Enterprise," No. 63 of "The Next Generation" series.

Stillwell says he became hooked on "Star Trek" reruns as a boy and started his own international fan club, "Starfleet," as a UO student. He also demonstrates his comedic flair during a stint as the "King of the Moon Men" in the first episode of "Nanna's Cottage." And that will not be his first experience in front of the camera; he played a Klingon in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country," the 1991 feature film.

Polara Productions shot 13 episodes for the first season of "Nanna's Cottage," and the first four will run at 5:30 a.m. on Saturdays locally. Porter says he hopes a better time slot will materialize later.