Voyages Old and New: Warping Through Over Half a Century of Star Trek

[Trollheart]

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, Enterprise NX-01, Enterprise -D, USS Voyager, Discovery, Protostar, Cerritos, Horizon, Dominion, Phoenix, Intrepid, Osiris, Odyssey, Excelsior, Exeter, Batavia,  the space stations Deep Space 9 and Deep Space 12, and every other location on which the franchise is set. Starting with the first ever series, now known as Classic Trek or The Original Series (TOS) my intention is to check out each series in the franchise. Along the way I will compare the series, see how it has changed or impacted on the franchise, and note any important points each series may have contributed to the Star Trek legend. Hopefully, there'll be time for some fun, too.

Feel free to join in, or watch with me as we go along, but equally, feel free just to read and comment, or just to read.

I also intend to tackle any "non-canon" or independent projects - fan series, that kind of thing - though in general I will NOT be looking at the movies, just TV series, or, in some cases, ones only available online. Some may only have one or two episodes, but that's ok. Quantity is not always a good indicator of quality. The fact that there may be only a handful of episodes could be- and most likely will be - down to the fact that in the case of fan-produced efforts, with very few exceptions, there is no funding, so these are labours of love financed by the people who made them, and, well, your personal money does not last forever. So this may have been all they could afford to do without proper backing.

What will the reviews be like? That's easy: there won't be any reviews. I have about thirty or so series to look at, and all I want to do is give a general overview of each, note the setting, characters, ideas behind it and fill you in a little on each series, how it came to be, how it differs from, or sticks to, the main Star Trek universe. This is just so I can see - and so can you, if you have not already - what the newer series are like, as well as introducing anyone who may not have seen the "big six" (TOS/TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT/DISC) to those shows. Not quite a beginner's guide, as such, but a grounding in the whole world originally created by one man with a vision.

If anyone feels I'm "glossing over" some series I should not, well, plead your case and if I'm sufficiently impressed/convinced then maybe I'll take a deeper look at them. For now, the idea is to take the first - or in some cases, only - episode and do a quick runthrough of that, give my general comments and compare it to the other shows, both authorised and unauthorised, that I have at that point seen.

Star Trek has lasted the test of time, running now for almost sixty years in , at the time of writing, ten different - official - series, some of which have only begun. Should a new one begin during this project I will of course include it. Although this can, as the title proclaims, serve as your introduction to the world of Star Trek, it should be of interest also to those who are hardened Trekkers, Trekkies or whatever you're having yourself.


Okay, a few points before we get going. Although I am well-versed in everything up to and including Voyager, I have seen little of Enterprise and only two seasons of Discovery. Anything from Picard onwards I am clueless about, so much of this will be familiar to me but some will be new, so I'll be learning too.

For those who don't know, a list of acronyms I will be using during this project (assume there is a Star Trek prefixed to each of these,  unless otherwise noted):

TOS - The Original Series; the first one, with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, screened way back in the late 1960s, ran to three seasons.
TAS - The Animated Series, speaks for itself. Shown during the mid-seventies. Two seasons.
TNG - The Next Generation, which was the first new series and introduced us to Captain Picard, Riker and Data. Screened in the 1990s over seven seasons.
DS9 - Deep Space 9. First ever Star Trek series to take place on other than a starship, it revolves (literally) around the space station Deep Space 9. Another from the somewhat Trek-saturated 1990s. Introduced the first real story-arc-dependent version of the series. Another seven-season spectacular.
VOY - Voyager. Takes place in the unexplored Delta Quadrant of the galaxy, and was the first to feature a female captain. They got five seasons out of this one. And yes, it was shown during the 90s too.
ENT - Enterprise. (Originally without the prefix, added later)  A sort of prequel, going back 200 years before the events of TOS and featuring the very first starship named Enterprise. Not very familiar with this one. Ran for four seasons. Final series made in the 1990s.
DISC - Discovery. The first major series since Enterprise ended. Shown from 2017, still on the go. In its third season as I write.
PIC - Picard, following the early career of the captain from TNG. Began in 2020. Two seasons so far.
STK - Short Treks, a two-season series of shorter episodes which take place between the events of DISC and PIC.
SNW:  Strange New Worlds. A prequel to TOS but not as far back as ENT, chronicling the adventures of the original captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike. Began this year, so at the time of writing, in its first season.
LD: Lower Decks. Animated series which appears to focus on comedy (it says here) and so far has run to two seasons, having started in 2020.
STP: Prodigy, the first completely computer-animated series in the franchise, aimed (again, it says here) at younger audiences. Began last year, currently in its first season.

Apart from these official series there is also a shedload of fan-produced material, some of it almost to Hollywood standards, some of it, well, not. Again, I will be ignoring movies (don't you think I've enough to do?) but that still leaves us with an additional SIXTEEN series, as below:

Note: I have no idea what acronyms relate to these, so I'll make my own up and note them here.

HF: Hidden Frontier: A series with fifty episodes, which ran from 2000 - 2007 and led to four spinoff series. This one takes place just after the Dominion War, which dominates seasons four to seven of Deep Space 9.
EX: Exeter, only two episodes released. Ran from 2002 - 2014. Wait, what? Twelve years to result in only two episodes? Okay, well, this one is set in the TOS era and takes place on, you'll be unsurprised to discover, the USS Exeter. Of course it does.
NV: New Voyages, also set in the TOS era and actually intended to finish the interrupted five-year mission of the original Enterprise. It was so well received that cast members from TOS were signing on to appear in it. Ran from 2004 - 2016 and had ten episodes.
DA: Dark Armada. Set after the events of the third TNG movie, Nemesis, it ran from 2006 - 2016 and had four episodes.
ODY: Odyssey. A spinoff from Hidden Frontiers, which sees the USS Odyssey trapped in the Andromeda galaxy, making it, I believe, the first and only series in the franchise to move outside of our own galaxy. Ran from 2007 - 2011 and had ten episodes.
FA: Farragut takes place in the TOS era on a sister ship to the Enterprise. Anyone want to guess her name? It ran from 2007 - 2016 and had eight episodes, though there may be more as the finale was only released last year.
INT (not to be confused, of course, with ENT): Intrepid, the first fan series to be produced in the UK, this is a Scottish production and although it ran from 2007 - 2018, I'm confused about how many episodes there are, as the producers seem to have also collaborated on episodes of Odyssey and Hidden Frontier, but I guess we'll find out.
OS: Osiris. Seems to have been one of the duds. Ran for one year and four episodes in 2008 but was slated. I'll make my own judgement thanks, as I always do. Set just before the events in Nemesis.
PHX: Phoenix, set after Nemesis, but seems to have only produced one episode in 2010.
CON: Continues, which, as the title suggests, attempts to continue, possibly in the same way as The New Voyages, the mission of the original Enterprise. Ran from 2013 - 2017 and produced eleven episodes.
VAL: Valiant is again set in the TOS universe and between 2014 and 2021 released three episodes.
POT: Potemkin Pictures (no Star Trek prefix), a huge franchise with ten spinoff series and over eighty episodes. 2010 - 2020, based in the TOS era.
TATV: These are the Voyages, a series of five (or possibly six) episodes set in the Enterprise (ENT) timeline. Ran from 2017 - 2019.
BOT: Blood of Tiberius (no Star Trek prefix) envisages a timeline occurring after the events in the TOS episode "Bread and Circuses", with descendants of the crew. Not sure how many episodes, but they're all animated.
DD: Dreadnought Dominion (no Star Trek prefix) also takes places in the TOS era, and ran for 13 episodes from 2015 - 2020.

As if that wasn't enough to be getting on with (it is, it is!) there are also a number of parodies and even some series that have had to distance themselves from the Star Trek brand thanks to draconian "guidelines" by CBS as to what they will allow in fan made productions, and I'll investigate these to see if they're worthy of checking out. But that will be a long time in the future, and possibly, to counter-paraphrase (or something) Star Wars, quite far away. I have plenty of work to do, and it starts today.

FYI I will be going as chronologically as I can, which means that where there are fan series in between even major official ones, such as Enterprise or Discovery, I will do those first, so that everything fits in together along a basic Star Trek timeline, rather than do all the official series and then the fan ones. That of course means we may in fact be emulating Doctor Who and jumping up and down that timeline, as some of the fan series have their programmes set in the TOS universe, some have them in DS9 and so on, but I still reckon this is the best way to see how the franchise as a whole has evolved.

And it all began here, with a "Wagon Train to the stars".

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek (TOS)
Pilot episode title: "The Man Trap"
Original transmission date: September 8 1966
Total seasons (to date if current): 3
Span: 1966 - 1969
Writer(s): George Clayton Johnson
Director: Marc Daniels
Basic premise: Visiting an outpost planet, the Enterprise crew meet what appears to be Dr. McCoy's ex-girlfriend. But as will become usual, things are not as they seem.
Mood: Dark, depressive
Setting(s): Enterprise, Planet M-113
Themes: Loss, obsession, murder, hunger, survival, racial extinction, shapeshifting
Things I liked: The cute plant in Sulu's quarters, sort of foreshadowing a Tribble; the most action for Janice Rand until her almost-rape scene in "The Enemy Within"; the more mature nature of the episode in general.
Things I didn't like: The awkward flirting between Spock and Uhura (well, all Uhura really)
Timeline: 23th century
Stardate: 1513.1
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Registry: NCC-1701
Class: Constitution
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Standard health check and supply run
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain James T. Kirk
Mr. Spock, Science Officer and S-I-C
Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Ship's Chief Medical Officer
Hikaru Sulu, Helmsman

Supporting:
Dr. Robert Crater, archaeologist
Nancy, his wife
Yeoman Janice Rand

Ancillary:
Crewman Darnell
Crewman Greene
Crewman Sturgeon
Starring (Main Cast): William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy (RIP), DeForest Kelly (RIP), James Doohan (RIP), George Takei, Nichelle Nichols (RIP)
With: Alfred Ryder, Jeanne Bal, Michael Zaslow, Grace Lee Whitney, Bruce Watson, Francine Pyne, Vince Howard, John Arndt

Note: in the following category ratings, in general this refers to the series as a whole, if I know it. If I don't, then it has to refer to the episode I get to watch.

Writing: 8/10
Acting: 7/10
CGI: 5/10
Soundtrack/effects: 5/10
Costumes: 8/10
Probability of watching more: n/a
Balance between animation and live-action: 3/10
Gender balance: 3/10


Synopsis

On the dead planet M-113, archaeologist Dr. Robert Crater and his wife are conducting research. Nancy was once Dr. McCoy's lover, so this mission is a little hard for him ooer, but when he meets her all is not yadda yadda yadda. He sees her as the young woman he fell in love with twelve years ago and remarks that she hasn't aged a day, and she hasn't: not for him. But Captain Kirk sees her as she is, a grey-haired, much older woman. Crewman Darnell, the third in the party, sees her as a woman he knew, also young and pretty. When he goes outside she lures him away. Dr. Crater (they call him doctor and professor, so I'm just going to go with Doctor) seems unhappy to see them when he arrives, saying he wants to be left alone with his wife. Other than a supply of salt, he wants nothing from them. McCoy however is under orders to check on their health and will not be brushed off. There's probably a little jealousy, too, that Crater got his girl, though his professional manner doesn't allow that to show.

Dr. Crater seems concerned that Kirk and McCoy both see Nancy as quite different in age, but he brushes it off with the air of a man who does not want to broach a subject that may end up landing him with more questions to ask. Then Nancy screams, and they rush to find Darnell dead; Nancy says he ate a poisonous plant. Back on the ship however Spock and McCoy agree that, after an examination of Darnell, he was not poisoned. So why did Nancy say he was? And what is her weird obsession with salt? McCoy can't even understand what killed the crewman. After a further examination, he finds that Darnell has no salt in his body, but he had no idea how he could have lost it.

They beam back down to the planet, but again Crater is unhelpful when they demand to know why he needs all the salt he has requested. Meanwhile, two more crewmen have been killed, and Nancy now seems to take the form of Greene and when they again beam up to the ship she goes with them. She wanders the ship but is unable to find any salt, or manage to take any victims (it has now become obvious she is some sort of shapeshifting alien, who needs salt to survive, and that she is responsible for the deaths of the crewmen down on the planet) until she comes across McCoy's quarters. Meanwhile a dead crewman (yes, another one) is found in the corridors, and Nancy takes McCoy's form while he sleeps under her power.

Kirk and Spock return to the planet, where Crater has gone over the edge, threatening them with a weapon. They find the body of Crewman Greene, so Kirk now knows that whatever beamed up with them was not him, and raises an alert on the Enterprise. They  get the jump on Crater, and while stunned he reveals that Nancy is not Nancy, but an alien shapeshifter. Taken to the ship, he recognises the creature in McCoy but says nothing, as together they try to plead the alien's case, Crater pointing out that it is the last of its kind, that it is not dangerous (a claim that can be readily refuted as the bodycount mounts!) and that it needs salt, but also love. Kirk is not impressed with his comparing it to the buffalo on Earth, and Crater refuses to help.

As a result, the creature ends up killing him. It would have killed Spock too, but his blood is based on copper, and the salt content is not to its taste. It returns to McCoy and rouses him, turning back into Nancy. When Kirk and Spock come for it, he stands in their way. Kirk offers the creature salt, and while he and McCoy tussle the creature grabs Kirk and entrances him, preparing to kill him by extracting all the salt from his body. Spock enters and growls at McCoy to kill it, or his captain will die. Torn by indecision, he waits, as Spock wades in but has his arse kicked by the creature. He snaps "Could Nancy do that, Doctor?" and as the creature again fastens onto Kirk, McCoy sees it for what it is, and fires. The creature, wounded,  briefly reverts to Nancy but McCoy knows it now for what it is, and finishes it off.

Comments

Although of course it worked, I feel the producers took a chance here, a real one. This opinion is, I'm not surprised to find, shared by almost everyone involved with the show. As Star Trek was to become known for its easy, friendly, almost family atmosphere between the crew, this episode, as a basic pilot, has none of that. It's very dour, very serious, and everyone is intent on their job. There's no ribbing between the three main characters - very much a feature of the show as it progressed, and possibly one of the main reasons for its success and longevity - there's little in the way of friendship, though there is some sympathy for McCoy, though pretty much only from Kirk. Spock remains aloof, as above, and makes no comment. Even when the message comes back that one of the landing party has died, he merely acknowledges it, though he has no way of knowing this is neither the captain nor the doctor. Uhura berates him on his lack of feeling, and perhaps it was decided he was too cold?

It's very much a product of the fifties and sixties science fiction movies of its day, with a kind of monster-of-the-week to be tracked down, and while there is a certain humanity towards the creature - only expressed, it must be said, by Crater, who has something to gain, and the creature itself while in the form of McCoy - they still kill it in the end. Look, for a comparison, at the Horta in "Devil in the Dark". The difference in the way the crew treat this creature is staggering, and remember, both have been killing humans, but there is a better understanding, mostly due to Spock's mind melding with the creature, so it's a pity they didn't use that here. But at this point the mind meld was perhaps not even thought of, as otherwise they could have got the information they wanted from Crater that way, instead of using the old CIA standard, truth drugs.

It would also be a feature of TOS that there would be, generally, few "sad" or "dark" endings, to the effect that a large percentage of the episodes would end up with Kirk and crew laughing at some joke, thereby leaving the viewer with the indelible impression of a group of friends, or even a family, jaunting around the galaxy and having fun. This definitely does not convey that kind of feeling. So all in all, a poor one to begin with. The cardinal rule of writing is hook them in the first sentence or few sentences, but once you've done that you have to retain that attention, and ideally give them a happy, or at least satisfactory ending. To see one of the crew have to kill a representation of the woman he had loved and probably be haunted about it ever afterwards, is not what you'd call a happy ending. So I think it was a bad choice to showcase the series, but as time and history shows, they overcame any initial doubts and got enough of the audience's attention to make them come back the next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. Soon, the new series was a phenomenon, and a legend was well on its way to being born.

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek: The Animated Series
Season: 1
Episode: 1
Episode title: "Beyond the Farthest Star"
Original transmission date: September 8 1973
Total seasons (to date if current): 2
Span: 1973 - 1974
Writer(s): Samuel A. Peeples
Director: Hal Sutherland
Basic premise: The Enterprise gets pulled into the gravity of a dead star, and encounters a deadly ancient alien.
Setting(s): The Enterprise, the alien ship
Themes: Loneliness, power, abandonment, coercion, exploration
Timeline: 23rd century
Stardate: 5221.3
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Class: Constitution
Registry: NCC-1701
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Stellar cartography
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain James T. Kirk
Mr. Spock, Science Officer and S-I-C
Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Ship's Chief Medical Officer
Hikaru Sulu, Helmsman
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Chief Engineer
Lieutenant Uhura, Communications Officer
Alien helmsman
Supporting:
Ancillary:
Transporter operative Kyle
Nurse Christine Chapel
Redshirts
Starring: (The voices of) (Main Cast):[/b] William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy (RIP), DeForest Kelly (RIP), James Doohan (RIP), George Takei, Nichelle Nichols (RIP), Majel Barret (Roddenberry) (RIP)
Guest Star(s):

Synopsis

In orbit around a dead star which appears to have what Mr. Spock describes as "hyper-gravity", the Enterprise encounters a much larger alien ship drifting in the planet's orbit. It appears to be dead, but there is some sort of signal coming from it, so they leave it alone and head on home. Yeah right. Spock's analysis of the strange ship dates it to about 300 million years ago. Kirk organises a boarding party where the idea quickly emerges that the ship is a living entity. Or was, once. There's also evidence that seems to suggest the crew destroyed the ship themselves. Uhura tells them the signal the ship was sending stopped once they beamed aboard.

Scotty reasons that the entire ship was set up to receive and store energy, and when they move into a sort of honeycomb chamber they find both that communication with the Enterprise has been lost and that their phasers do not work. Outside, something appears to be trying to get in, and they find some sort of communication that Kirk reckons could be the ship's log. Or a warning. Spock tries to translate it, and finds that it is indeed a warning, a warning about the lifeform which is now onboard the ship. Rather than allow it access to their civilisation, the crew have decided to let the ship be drawn into the orbit of the dead star in order to destroy it. They have given their lives to protect their race.

Things start to explode, and the party makes a quick exit, beaming back to the ship. Unfortunately there's a stowaway, and the alien creature in the form of a green mist seeps into the vents, into the computer systems and is gone. It then takes control of the ship (well, duh) and turns the phaser banks on the alien ship, destroying it. Then it starts shutting down life support, which is never good. It now communicates with them, confirming Kirk's hypothesis that it is caught in the dense gravity of the dead star and needs a starship to help it break free. Now that it has taken control of the Enterprise, that's exactly what it intends to do.

Spock tells Kirk that the alien is pure energy, but is capable of symbiotic relationships and has entered one with the ship, taking it over, in effect becoming the Enterprise. It orders Kirk to take the ship to the heart of the galaxy, where it can reproduce and take over all ships there, but Kirk has an idea. To avoid using the computers and alerting the alien, Kirk has his own walking computer do the calculations for a sling-shot manoeuvre to get them out of the planet's orbit; Spock can do that standing on his head. But as that would be far too undignified for a Vulcan, he remains on his feet and works out the maths. As they dive towards the planet, the alien, fearing that they too are about to destroy their ship, flees, and Kirk has Sulu cut in the warp drive and they sling-shot the fuck out of there! Score!

As a downbeat postscript, the alien whines and cries about being left behind as they warp off, saying it is so lonely. Aw. Fuck it.


The Resolution

Meh, general Trek stuff. Basically a game of chicken that the alien loses. All right I suppose.


Questions, and Sometimes, Answers

I know the animation here is early and crude by today's standards, but I always wondered what the deal was with the idea that whenever one of the characters ran they had to punch the air in front of them? Pretty funny really.

Personal Notes

It's interesting when you see how much more can be done with a show like this when it can just be animated. Some of the sequences, especially inside the alien craft, while they could easily be replicated today, would have been way out of the reach of the effects around at the time of the original Star Trek. It's good to see they can push the envelope, even adding in a strange alien crewmember who takes the place of Chekov beside Sulu at the helm (but who never talks), and overall it's a pretty faithful kind of continuation of the original series.

[Trollheart]

Interestingly, perhaps inevitably, all Star Trek series begin with a two-hour (sometimes broken into two parts) premiere episode, and so it is with the first to pick up the baton after Kirk and Co had warped off into  hypergalactic retirement, Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is often tricky, as if you make it too boring (as in "The Cage") you can damage your prospects of being picked up by the network. But while "Encounter at Farpoint" is far from the best TNG episode, even in season one, there was never a danger of it not being picked up, as it was to be the triumphant return of the franchise after over twenty-five years in the wilderness, and the audience was certainly there for it. More, there were two distinct audience demographics: those who had grown up on the original and were either salivating at the prospect of its return (or waiting to tear it apart with savage commentary and criticism; didn't matter, they still had to watch it first) and those who either had never seen it and were interested, or else were just science-fiction fans. There wasn't much of sci-fi on the TV at that time, and so anything even vaguely space related was welcome. Plus TNG was coming in on the cusp of a new sci-fi revival, with films like Star Wars, Alien, ET and Blade Runner, to say nothing of four Trek movies whetting the appetites of sci-fi enthusiasts young and old. It was, in short, a great time for the Return of the King.

But any show that has reached such iconic, almost legendary status is going to be hard to replicate, and the inevitable comparisons would be made, so how to make this not simply a continuation of the original series, but a quantum leap forward? Well, plenty of ways. First of all, while maintaining the accepted family atmosphere aboard ship, the "power trio" idea had to be dispensed with. The original Star Trek had mostly focussed on Kirk, Spock and McCoy, with occasional contributions from the likes of Scotty, Uhura or Sulu, and later Chekov, but I don't think there's one episode in the entire three-season run that did not feature all three of the main characters. This put the others at a disadvantage, relegating them to the position almost of bit players, guest stars even. An episode would survive the absence of Sulu or Scotty, and much of the time Uhura was just a glorified telephone operator, but the three main men always had to be in the camera's crosshairs.

TNG sought to do away with that to an extent. While it's true that the captain was, and always would be, the centre of any action, this new series "farmed out" or even shared out the adventure. It would not be unheard of for Doctor Crusher, Geordi or Worf to have their own episode, and even the "kid" on board, Wesley, would feature prominently in later ones. Relationships would be explored and developed, and to a much greater degree than had been in the original series, where little more than a hint that Nurse Chapel was in love with Spock was allowed, or references were made to Kirk's many ex-girlfriends and conquests. Here, everyone was related in one way or another. Geordi and Data would become fast friends. Riker and Troi had past history they were still trying to get past, and even the captain had a romantic interest in the doctor, although it would be some time indeed before he would admit it, more before he would act on it.

The crew was larger, the ship more powerful and majestic, and the storylines would of course be more far-reaching, deep and intelligent, and there would be, by and large, little of the easy humour for which Star Trek had become known. Picard was a hard man, an authoritarian who seldom smiled, disliked and distrusted children, and seemed to have few hobbies other than reading. He was a solitary man, alone among over a thousand souls, with responsibility for their safety, and though his crew were loyal to him and would follow him into Hell, at first he does come across rather a little like Christopher Pike on his one and only voyage aboard the USS Enterprise.

Series: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season: 1
Episode: 1 and 2
Episode title: "Encounter at Farpoint"
Original transmission date:  September 28 1987
Total seasons (to date if current): 7
Span: 1987 - 1993
Writer(s): D.C. Fontana, Gene Roddenberry
Director: Corey Allen
Basic premise: On its maiden voyage, the new USS Enterprise encounters a strange, omnipotent alien who sets them the task of proving humanity is not still savage, using their mission to explore the mystery of Farpoint Station as the yardstick by which he will judge them, and all humanity.
Setting(s): Enterprise, Farpoint Station,
Themes: Imprisonment, impotence, slavery, animal cruelty, exploration, mystery
Things I liked: Oh what's not to like? New Star Trek, at the time? Bring it on!
Things I didn't like: Picard's stiffness, surrender in episode one...
Timeline: 24th century
Stardate:
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Class: Galaxy
Registry: NCC-1701-D
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): To visit Farpoint Station and negotiate for the technology that has allowed the station to be built so quickly
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
(Main Crew) Captain Jean-Luc Picard
First Officer William T. Riker
Lieutenant Data, an android
Commander Geordi LaForge, Helmsman
Commander Worf, Tactical Officer
Dr. Beverly Crusher, CMO
Wesley Crusher, her son
Deanna Troi, Ship's Counsellor, a half-Betazoid alien/human hybrid
Lieutenant Tasha Yar, Security Chief
Miles O'Brien, Helmsman
Supporting:
Q, an omnipotent, godlike alien
Groppler Zorn, administrator of Farpoint Station
Ancillary:
Admiral Leonard James "Bones" McCoy (cameo)
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Levar Burton, Will Wheaton, Michael Dorn, Colm Meany, Denise Crosby, Marina Sirtis
With: John de Lancie, Michael Bell

Guest Star(s): DeForest Kelly

Synopsis

On the way to Deneb IV, the new USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, is heading towards its first mission. A starbase has been built there, called Farpoint Station, and the Federation wish to know how it was built so quickly and if more can be built. Picard is yet awaiting the arrival of his ship's doctor and first officer, who are to meet them at the station. En route though they are suddenly accosted by a malevolent intelligence which manifests upon the ship's bridge, calling itself "The Q". It accuses the human race of being a "dangerous, savage child race" and directs Picard and his crew to return to their home planet. Picard of course refuses, loudly proclaiming the advances humanity has made, and the creature, seemingly intrigued by the captain's ideas of testing them, retires, promising to return.

The Q has however blocked the path of the Enterprise with a weblike net, which Picard now attempts to break away from. He prepares the ship for "saucer separation", a procedure which will detach the main bridge in the flat, disc-like section of the top of the ship from the main body. As they accelerate away from the net it follows them, and they find it impossible to outrun. Picard orders the saucer separation, and despite his chagrin, Worf is ordered to take command of the saucer section, into which all the women and children have been herded. The remainder of the ship, now known as "the battle bridge" turns to take on the "hostile" as it gains on them. It is however a futile action, and Picard reluctantly orders their surrender.

Once he does, they all find themselves in a courtroom, where the judge is none other than the intelligence known as The Q. Troi confirms that, though the scene they are in is out of the late twenty-first century, and cannot be real, must be an illusion, it is real. The Q again accuses the crew of being savage and dangerous, and tricks them into admitting their guilt under duress. Outmanoeuvred, Picard puts forward a challenge: let the Q test him and his crew, let them represent what mankind has become, and let him see if they have in fact evolved beyond what the powerful alien accuses them of. The Q is satisfied, even happy with the outcome, and tells Picard that solving the mystery of Farpoint Station will serve as his litmus test. The court dissolves, and Picard and his crew are back aboard their vessel.

Meanwhile, at Farpoint Station, Commander William Riker awaits the arrival of the Enterprise and visits the man in command of the station, an alien named Zorn. He expresses amazement that the station could have been built so quickly, and so perfectly suited to the needs of the Federation. Zorn is evasive, refusing to answer questions, but when Riker has left he seems annoyed and berates something above him, almost as if he is talking to the ceiling. He talks of "arousing their suspicion", and it's clear that something here does not meet the eye. Riker meets up with the ship's doctor, Beverley Crusher, who is also awaiting the arrival of the ship. He tells her and her son, Wesley, that he has noticed odd things about this station. Just now, he had wanted an apple and though there was none in the bowl proffered him by Zorn, a moment later there was another bowl which he could swear had not been there, and yes, it had apples in it. Similarly, Crusher looks at some cloth and notes it would be nice if there were a gold pattern on it, and suddenly there is. She of course thinks he's seeing conspiracies where none exist, and looking for ways to impress his new captain, but he is sure it's more than just an overactive imagination.

Riker is somewhat surprised to learn that Crusher is on first-name terms with the new captain, but Wesley advises him that it was Picard who brought the body of his father home, when he fell in an away mission, some years ago. Geordi LaForge, navigator aboard the ship and also awaiting its arrival so that he can take his position, reports to Riker that the ship has reached orbit but is missing the saucer section. Picard has ordered Riker to beam aboard immediately, as he does. Almost right away he is shown footage of what has transpired with The Q, and then Picard receives news that the saucer section is ready to reunite with the main ship. Seeing this as an early test of his first officer's competence and his ability to work under pressure, the captain orders Riker to conduct the reintegration of the ship, manually, a task he carries out perfectly. Picard grudgingly congratulates him on his prowess, though calls it "a fairly routine manoeuvre." He does however take issue with his new second-in-command's determination to second-guess the captain when he deems he is putting himself in unnecessary danger.

Here though the mask slips a little and Picard allows himself a moment of weakness, as he admits he is not good with children, and asks, well orders I suppose, Riker to help him in that area. LaForge shows Crusher his visor, a computer implant that allows him to see, even though he is blind. Usage of the implant does cause him pain, but he suffers it in order to be able to see, even if he does not see the same way we do: his visor detects electromagnetic waves, colour spectrums etc. Riker is looking for Data, but Worf tells him that the android is on "special assignment", ferrying a special guest, an admiral, to the Enterprise by shuttlecraft. This turns out to be McCoy, in what's a pretty shamefully self-indulgent cameo that last about a minute. As they prepare to leave Farpoint, The Q appears again on the viewscreen, advising them that if they do not solve the problem in twenty-four hours they risk summary judgement against them.

Riker is reintroduced to Deanna Troi, the Ship's Counsellor, but Picard is unaware they are ex-lovers. Troi is half Betazoid and therefore telepathic, and she and Riker share an uncomfortable, though private moment when she speaks to his mind only. They keep their relationship from the captain, admitting only that they know each other. All three beam down to the station and meet with Zorn, who is less than happy at Deanna's presence, she being a telepath. He is also annoyed at Picard's attempts to get him to agree to build other starbases for them, or to trade for the materials and knowledge that allowed them to build Farpoint. He makes it clear he is interested in entertaining neither suggestion, and just wants to sell the rights to use this station alone. While there, Troi experiences powerful emotions --- negative, painful ones, ones of loss and despair, but she can't say from where these feelings are emanating. As the exchanges get more heated, and all their questions continue to be evaded, the trio leave a fuming Zorn, unsure of what is going on.

Riker gets his first taste of the brand new Holodeck, a holographic projection room on the ship which can be programmed for any environment, scene or fantasy. He is looking for Data and finds him here, as well as Wesley Crusher. Data shows how superhumanly strong he is when he lifts Wesley with one hand when the kid falls into a holographically-created, but very real and very wet, stream. Riker also finds out, to his amusement, that the one thing Data wishes is to be human. He has not the software to accomplish this, but is trying to add to his programme by trying things like whistling, and hopes that by better studying humans and coming to understand them, he may one day emulate them. In the tunnel below Farpoint Station, Geordi is unable to identify the material the walls are constructed from, and Deanna receives even harsher images and emotions, making her sink to her knees in despair.

A strange alien vessel arrives and begins to attack the planet, firing unknown weapons down at the city below. It does however appear to be avoiding hitting the station itself. It refuses to respond to hails, and Zorn professes to know nothing about it, though Picard is loath to believe him. He knows, all right: it's in his voice. He's hiding something, and the arrival of the alien vessel has thrown him into almost a panic. Picard orders Riker, still on the planet, to bring him to the Enterprise where they will get what information he has out of him. However, before they can do so someone else teleports him away. Troi begins to sense a new emotion: satisfaction, but it is not from the same source. The Q reappears, gloating over Picard's inability to solve the conundrum, goading him that he has not the brains to figure it out. Q, tiring of their efforts and looking to be amused, gives them a clue: beam over to the alien vessel, he advises them, and though Picard is against it Riker volunteers to go, which impresses the seemingly-omnipotent alien.

Picard goes to Crusher, to apologise for his stiff and overly formal welcome to her: she is an old friend, or at least the wife of an old friend, and he should have been more forthcoming. He tells her that serving aboard the Enterprise may be hard for her, being constantly reminded of her husband through him, and suggests a transfer, which he will approve, but she turns him down, saying she is where she needs and wants to be. In fact, she tells him, she requested the post. On the alien vessel, Troi Data and Riker find Zorn held captive and in pain, while the empath feels anger, revenge, satisfaction from a much closer source than before.

As they rescue Zorn, Q reappears on the bridge, sneering at Picard's efforts to unravel the mystery, but when the away team returns, sent back by the alien vessel, he begins to see it. The vessel is not a ship but a living being, and it is trying to help --- rescue --- one of its own kind which has been trapped on the planet surface below. Creatures who can convert energy into matter, the second alien was pressed into service by Zorn and his people, forced to assume the shape of Farpoint Station, and allowed only enough energy to survive but not to break free. Picard has the Enterprise beam energy down to it, allowing it to break free and join its mate. Farpoint Station is no more, the duplicity has been uncovered, Q is disappointed that the humans solved the puzzle and vanishes in a huff. Picard leans forward and declares "Let's see what's out there!"


Parallels
There's a very distinct similarity here in what Q is doing to what Squire Trelayne made Kirk undergo in "The Squire of Gothos." He, too, was a judge and accused Kirk, whom he then hunted.

There are also slightly less similar, but still alike, parallels to be drawn with "Devil n the dark", in which the killer of miners on a planet is found to be a creature that can burrow through solid rock, and which is killing in revenge for the destruction of its eggs, cracked when the miners broke into a shaft which was in fact the creature's nursery.

It wasn't meant to be this way!
Sometimes ideas were barely pencilled in and fleshed out later, so that things changed over the course of the series, many of them taking on totally different aspects and meanings than they were originally intended to have.

Q, presented here as a dark, evil, all-powerful enemy, would soon become the butt of jokes, a nuisance, an annoyance and at one point, an unwilling member of the crew. He would become a source of comic relief, but one thing that would always be true was that, like Mister Burns in any episode of The Simpsons, you could be guaranteed a good story if he was in it.

Data, the android officer, quickly loses his stilted syntax, where he prefaces each statement with a qualifier, such as "Inqury: blah blah" or "Supposition: blah bah." This would probably have got old very quickly, and was in fact dispensed with by the end of this episode.

The Ferengi are here mentioned only, and painted as a deeply unlikeable race who seem quite savage. When we actually meet them, in "The last outpost", for the first time, and later, in "The battle", this image will be kept up to an extent. But fairly quickly it becomes obvious that the Ferengi, small with huge ears and an abiding passion for wealth and its creation, and retention, are more comic relief than anything. In fact, of all the many characters and races throughout all four series and incarnations of the programme, none would come to be more loved and give us more amusement than the Ferengi, especially when we get to Deep Space 9 and meet Quark. But that's for the next article. For now, all I can say is that whatever they were meant to start out as, the Ferengi became something totally different, a real and true example perhaps of a character or type taking over its own destiny, and writing itself as it wanted to be written.

[Trollheart]

Ch-ch-ch-changes

There were of course many changes from the original series, the first and most evident in the opening titles. Whereas Kirk spoke of a "five year mission" - no doubt in the hopes that the series would get five seasons, no such luck! - Picard talks of an "ongoing mission". Ironic really, as TNG ended up running for seven full seasons, so he could theoretically have said "her seven year mission". Also, the ship is not anthropomorphised, neither in the credits nor in the show. It is always "it" or "the ship", never "she", that I can remember. Speaking of gender neutrality, the original voiceover had declared that the mission was "to boldly go where no man has gone before", but now it was "to boldly go where no-one has gone before", so they kept the tagline but updated it for the more PC 1980s. Mind you, given Picard's lack of hair, it could have been rather unkindly changed to "To baldly go..."

The ship has gone from being a Constitution-class vessel with about 400 crew to having a complement of over a thousand and being upgraded to "Galaxy"-class. It's still powered, however, by the humble dilithium crystals that provided engine power to NCC-1701, and indeed, speaking of that, it retains the construction number but with an extra letter, so that it is now NCC-1701D. Some things are not open to that much change.

Whereas the original Enterprise was essentially a warship, an exploratory but primarily military vessel, with only the crew aboard essential to its operation, the new incarnation is more of a floating city, or at least floating apartment block, with families living there, shops and schools and recreational facilities all provided. Plus of course the Holodeck, of which more later. The primary goal of NCC-1701D is not combat, but exploration, and though it's armed as well as any warship in the fleet --- and is in fact the flagship --- Picard tries to rely more on diplomacy than brute strength in any negotiation. Of course, if that fails then the ship is more than able to hold its own.

Expanding on the multi-cultural idea central to the franchise, NCC-1701D has as part of its crew not only an android and a telepath, but one of the traditional enemies of the Federation, a Klingon, though we will find later on that the age-old "cold war" that had been raging between the two races over the run of TOS has come to an end, and they are now uneasy allies.

Oh, those uniforms! Seems for the Counsellor at any rate, the idea that drove the Original Series was still in vogue, and Deanna wears a quite short minidress, which quickly disappeared to be replaced by, um, a tight catsuit affair? Eventually her clothing would become more flattering and respectable, and her hair, down here but which will be for much of the first season stuck up in a very unbecoming bun, would soon flow loosely about her shoulders, allowing her to reveal the sexy woman who hid behind the sometimes cold mask of the half-Betazoid Counsellor.

The captain, too, is far from the genial, easy manner of James Kirk. Here, he's a tough authoritarian, a disciplinarian, a stickler for the rules. Slow to smile or see a joke, keeping himself aloof and unapproachable, he's almost a throwback in personality to Captain Pike. The difference here, and it's an important one, is that he is surrounded by interesting, likeable characters who, while they will certainly include the captain in their circle if and when he requires or demands it, are perfectly capable of socialising with each other and building their own strong bonds and relationships among one another. So although the captain might seem to be cold and unforgiving, his crew are quite the opposite, and though he will be the central figure in the series, there will be episodes which will take place around or even without him, and they will generally not suffer from his being the figure in the frame.

This is also the first time Star Trek will feature actors other than American ones (Sulu and Chekov excepted): the man in charge is English, something of a cosmic shift for US science-fiction, and portrayed as being of French descent, another first.

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek: Deep Space 9
Season: 1
Episode: 1 and 2
Episode title: "Emissary"
Original transmission date: January 4 1993
Total seasons (to date if current): 7
Span: 1993 - 1999
Writer(s): Rick Berman, Michael Piller
Director: David Carson
Basic premise: Benjamin Sisko is reassigned to the Federation space station Deep Space 9, and quickly becomes entangled in politics and power as the station suddenly becomes the most important in the quadrant when a stable wormhole is discovered.
Setting(s): Battle of Wolf 359, Deep Space 9, Starfleet Command on Earth, The wormhole (entailing various dream/vision sequences including a beach, a baseball pitch and others)
Themes: Faith, war, reconciliation, travel, destiny, acceptance
Things I liked: The new idea (shut up, Babylon 5 fans including me!) of using a space station, the Cardassians, the idea of a black man in charge, Wolf 359, Odo, lots of things.
Things I didn't like: Too much religion; I never enjoyed the religious aspect of this show, and though I'll give it its due, for me it made the storylines overly intricate, though of course it does play a huge part in the unfolding story arc later. I didn't like Kira at first. That's a lie. I never liked Kira, right to the end. The scene in the wormhole/celestial temple is stretched out too far, and did they have to bring bloody baseball into it?
Timeline: 24th century
Stardate: ?
Vessel: None; space station Deep Space 9
Class: n/a
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): n/a
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Commander Benjamin Sisko
Major Kira Nerys, a Bajoran ex-freedom fighter/rebel
Chief Engineer Miles O'Brien
Lieutenant Jadzia Dax, a trill
Doctor Julian Bashir, CMO
Quark, Ferengi owner of a bar and casino
Odo, Head of security, some sort of shapeshifting alien
Supporting:
Kai Opaka, supreme Bajoran spiritual leader
Ancillary:
Admiral Jean-Luc Picard
Locutus of Borg
Gul Dukat
Rom, Quark's brother
Nog, Rom's son
Jennifer Sisko, the commander's late wife
Starring: (Main cast) Avery Brooks, Nana Visitor, Colm Meany, Siddig el Fadil, Terry Farrell, Armin Shimerman, Rene Auberjonois, Cirroc Lofton
With: Camille Saviola, Aron Eisenberg, Max Grodenchik, Marc Alaimo, J.G. Hertzler, Majel Barret (Roddenberry) (RIP)
Guest Star(s):
Patrick Stewart

Synopsis

Beginning as it does with the battle at Wolf 359, if you have not already seen TNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" before embarking on your adventure into this series, it is highly recommended, otherwise the opening scene will confound you. Assuming you're conversant with those episodes though (if not, read no further: you have been warned), we see the battle being directed against the Federation by Locutus of Borg, none other than Captain Jean-Luc Picard in his Borg persona. Starfleet is losing the battle, and will suffer heavy losses before retreating against the marauding invaders, making this a watershed moment in Trek history. Never before has such a massive fleet been assembled, the very cream of Starfleet, to be brushed aside like insects as the Borg carve their way through the galaxy towards Earth.

The USS Saratoga is just one of the ships trying to stem the advance of the Borg, but they are as ineffectual as any of the others, and the ship takes a direct hit. Benjamin Sisko, serving aboard the ship, sees his wife, Jennifer, dead, pinned beneath a metal stanchion as the ship goes up in flames and he is forced to leave her there, taking his young son Jake as they escape, moments before the ship tears itself apart. Three years later, he is given command of the Federation space station, Deep Space Nine, which is in orbit around a planet called Bajor. This planet has just emerged from a long war of attrition with the Cardassian Empire, and they have requested a Federation presence in the sector, to discourage their old enemy from returning. The station the Federation are to take control of is an old Cardassian outpost known as Terak Nor, but Starfleet have renamed it.

Joining Sisko there is his new chief of operations, Miles O'Brien, whom we met in TNG previously. As it is the Enterprise that brings him and the station's doctor, Julian Bashir, to the station, it's not that surprising that we see a guest cameo for Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Sisko however is in no mood to be friendly: this is not a posting he requested and truth to tell, he is thinking of resigning his commission. He has a young son to bring up now, on his own, and a space station does not seem the best of places for him to grow up. He meets his new attache, Major Kira Nerys, who is less than overjoyed to see him. She is a Bajoran, fought against the Cardassians and is not happy to see the Federation, as she sees it, taking the place of the old oppressor. He also meets his chief of security, an alien called Odo, who can shift his shape into any form he wishes, and treats Sisko (and everyone really, bar Kira) with a sort of gruff tolerance. He was also chief of security when the Cardassians occupied this station, a fact that will not sit well with many now that the enemy has been overthrown.

After the nephew of Quark, the Ferengi who was running the local casino and bar but is now preparing to leave in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by the defeated, departing Cardassians, is caught stealing, Sisko offers him a choice. He will release the boy if Quark stays and reopens the casino. He wants someone to make a stand, put down roots and rebuild. Quark, with a tacit assurance of little or no interference from Starfleet in his gaming tables, grudgingly agrees. Odo begins to have a new respect for Sisko. Kira explains that she believes the provisional government set up to rule in the wake of the fall of the Cardassian occupation will itself fail, as factions develop and old scores are reignited. She says the only one who can reunite the planet is the spiritual leader, Kai Opaca, but she has secluded herself away. Just then, the vedek Sisko spoke to soon after his arrival advises him "it is time" and he goes to meet Opaca, who has sent for him. She shows him what she calls "a Tear of the Prophets", a celestial orb of which she says there are nine, which appeared "mysteriously in the sky over the last ten thousand years." She opens the casing and a blinding light suffuses him, and he is shown a most amazing vision.

He sees his future wife, Jennifer, now dead three years, as she was when he first met her. The vision does not last long, and when it is over Opaca tells him he has been chosen by the Prophets, her people's gods, to find the Celestial Temple before the Cardassians can. He has no idea what this temple is, but she tells him she cannot reunite her people until the Prophets have been warned. His pah --- the lifeforce or spiritual energy the Bajorans believe is in all beings --- is strong, and has helped her come to this conclusion. A little nonplussed, Sisko is nevertheless delighted later that night to see the promenade come alive as Quark keeps his end of the bargain and reopens the bar. The next day he greets his medical officer and his new science officer, the latter of whom is an old friend of his. Dax is a Trill, a symbiotic lifeform introduced in TNG which bonds to a host body and can live many hundreds of years. The relationship is totally benign, and neither is in control of the other, but when Sisko knew Dax he was in an old man named Curzon. Now he is in a young, pretty female called Jadzia, and Sisko is amused, still calling him "old man" despite the obvious curves.

The MO, Julian Bashir, is smitten with Jadzia, even though he knows about the Trill inside her, and is like a blushing schoolboy around her, which again affords Sisko and Dax much amusement. Sisko is less amused however when the former Cardassian Prefect of Bajor, and the man in whose office he is now sitting, drops by. Gul Dukat makes it plain that he is not happy to have been ousted, and tries to wring information from the commander about the orb he has seen, but Sisko feigns ignorance. A veiled threat that the station is "far from the protection of the Federation, with poor defences" does nothing to settle Sisko's mood of foreboding, and the two men take an instant dislike to each other, an air of mutual distrust and suspicion descending almost immediately.

Dax has been researching possible locations for this so-called "Celestial Temple", and they now have an area they need to check out, a locus for all the sightings and navigational errors that lead them to believe this may be the place they're looking for. With Odo managing to disable the Cardassian ship berthed at the station they are free to launch unchallenged, and head off in one of the small "Runabout"-class shuttles to explore. What they find, against all logic, is the first stable wormhole known to exist, and more, within that wormhole, a planet! Or an asteroid. Both see something different when, again against all logic, they find they land on ... something. Sisko sees a desolate, windswept, storm-lashed planetoid, while Dax see a vision of a beautiful garden; trees, flowers, rolling hills, blues sky and sun. Then they both see it: an orb, floating in the air. It shoots energy beams at them, and Dax is transported back to the station. When she relates what has happened, Major Kira realises the enormous strategic importance of the wormhole and comes to perhaps an odd decision: Deep Space Nine must be moved, somehow, to the mouth of the new wormhole, so that the Bajorans (and the Federation) can lay claim to it before the Cardassians do.

Sisko however remains behind and seems to have another vision, in which he contacts the aliens inside the wormhole, and finds that they have no conception whatever of time. For them, there is no "now", "later", "soon", no "past" and no "future": everything happens to them at the same moment. They test him, calling him adversarial, violent (sound familiar?) but he wins them over and they agree to anoint him as their emissary. They also bring him face-to-face with his own guilt and pain, and allow him to say goodbye properly to Jennifer. Meanwhile, Gul Dukat has not been idle in wake of the appearance of the wormhole and sets course for it, despite the warnings of Kira and Odo. Just as his ship enters it it collapses, and soon three Cardassian warships arrive in search of Dukat. Dismissing this story of a wormhole they can neither see nor detect, they surround the station, believing that the Bajorans have somehow destroyed their ship. They demand the total surrender of the space station, but Kira and O'Brien manage to make it look as if they are well armed and would not be an easy target. Nevertheless, mindful of the approach of the Enterprise, less than a day away, Jasad orders the attack.

As the station begins to sustain heavy damage, and after holding out as long as she can Kira prepares to surrender, the wormhole suddenly reappears. Jasad is dumbfounded, the moreso as the Rio Grande comes through, towing Dukat's stricken ship! The attack is of course broken off and Sisko returns to Deep Space Nine. With the wormhole now a major attraction, both for commerce, tourists and scientific research, to say nothing of the strategic importance it has suddenly acquired in a military sense, Bajor is on the map in a way it never was before. The wormhole aliens, or Prophets as the Bajorans refer to them, have agreed to allow safe access for all through the wormhole, affording a quick and easy passage to the Gamma Quadrant, seventy thousand light-years away. His initial doubts about the post now vanished, and knowing he is where he is supposed to be, Sisko asks Picard to rescind his request for replacement, and takes his place at the helm of what will be one of the most exciting and challenging posts in Starfleet.


Houston, we have a problem!

I find it odd, unlikely in the extreme that the Cardassians are allowed back on the station off which they were ejected but two weeks ago. Admittedly, there is a reason for their visit and it is no coincidence that they wait until the Enterprise has left before approaching, but the ease with which Sisko allows them to "enjoy the facilities" is unsettling. It's like the SS coming back into Auschwitz after it's been liberated, or Al Quadea perhaps walking up to Ground Zero. Is there no tension here, no hostility? It's a Bajoran station after all; surely the locals are upset about this? But nobody seems to say anything, even raise an eyebrow. They're just accepted back. Granted, they're big heavy military types and nobody would want to mess with them, but you would think Sisko might have raised some objections, yet he doesn't. Odd, I feel.

Also, how is it that this wormhole has existed for approximately ten thousand years and yet Sisko and Dax are the first ones to ever locate it? Surely that's too massive a coincidence to ignore? Ten millennia: think about that. All right, man has only had space travel at this point for maybe two hundred years or less, but what about all the alien races passing through this sector? Did the Cardassians, in surely many supply runs to or even attacks on Bajor, never stumble across this? Is that in any way believable, that it's just been here, all this time, waiting for Sisko to discover it?

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Season: 1
Episode: 1 and 2
Episode title: "Caretaker"
Original transmission date:  January 16 1995
Total seasons (to date if current): 5
Span: 1995 - 2001
Writer(s): Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Basic premise: In pursuit of the Federation's enemies, the experimental ship, USS Voyager finds itself in another quadrant of the galaxy, and its crew will have to try to find their way home.
Setting(s): Earth, Federation prison, USS Voyager, The Caretaker's array, Gamma Quadrant
Themes: Loss, duty, pursuit, choice, responsibility
Things I liked: The Doctor. Yeah, that's it. And Kes.
Things I didn't like: As below, how after hating each other's guts the Maquis meekly agree to become part of a Starfleet crew; how Janeway makes the decision for all of them to strand them millions of light years from home, without bothering to ask anyone's opinion, showing her arrogance for the first, but by no means the last time.
Timeline: 24th century
Stardate: Unknown and unknowable
Vessel: USS Voyager
Class: Intrepid
Registry: NCC-74656
Location: Alpha, then Gamma Quadrant
Mission(s): To recover stolen shuttlecraft taken by Maquis and return the rebels to face Federation justice. This later changes to protecting/destroying the Caretaker's array and finally trying to survive long enough to get back to the Alpha Quadrant.
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
(Note: because of the way this pilot episode goes, the original crew of Voyager is different, with some of those who end up serving on her having been the target of Janeway's pursuit, such as ex-Maquis officers Chakotay and Torres, and others, well, shall we say indisposed, Tom Paris? But as the original crew only lasts a short time and has no impact whatever on the rest of the series I'm going to be treating them like I did "The Cage", which is to say, ignoring them. Therefore the "main cast" and the crew of Voyager are only shown below relative to the ones who became the regulars.

Captain Kathryn Janeway
First Officer Chakotay
Ensign Harry Kim
Lieutenant Tom Paris, helmsman
Security Chief Tuvok, a Vulcan
B'elanna Torres, Chief Engineer, a human/Klingon hybrid
The Doctor, hologram, CMO
Neelix, a Terrlurian, waste of space
Supporting:
Kes, an Ocampa, girlfriend of Neelix, god help her

Ancillary:
Quark
Starring: (Main cast): Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Dawson, Robert Picardo, Robert Duncan McNeill (what, was there a casting call for men named Robert or something?), Tim Russ, Garret Wang, Ethan Philips, Jennifer Lien
Guest Star(s):
Armin Shimerman

Synopsis

Like most Star Trek series, this begins with a two-part episode. After the Federation strike a treaty with the Cardassian Empire, certain territories settled by Federation citizens are ceded to the Cardassians. All Federaton colonists are told to leave, as they are now in breach of the new treaty. Many do leave, but unwilling to be uprooted from their homes, many band together and refuse to leave, defying the orders of both governments, and so becoming outlaws, wanted on both sides. They are the Maquis. Why? I have no idea: never explained.  One of their ships has on board a spy, a Vulcan called Tuvok who is working for Starfleet, and when the ship he is on disappears into the plasma fields of the area known as the Badlands, Starfleet's newest ship, the USS Voyager, is tasked with locating it.

However, they get caught by some sort of tetrion warp wave or something and are hurled 70,000 light years from their destination. They see a huge array, apparently firing some sort of blast into space at regular intervals. Shortly afterwards, all the crew are transported off the ship and find themselves in some sort of rural setting, though Captain Janeway confirms they are in fact inside the array. Lots of people greet them. Hillbilly Hell indeed. Things of course are not what they seem though --- are they ever, in any Star Trek? --- and the yokels soon turn nasty when Paris and Kim find evidence of the missing Maquis in a barn that seems to have a holographic projector. What? You don't have a holographic projector in your barn? What century you livin' in boy? The twenty-first? Ah well that there explains it, don't it?

Of course, it then turns out that they're not on some rustic farm, but in some sort of laboratory. Sent back to the ship, they find they have a common goal with the Maquis, who have lost one of their crew, as has Voyager. A truce is arranged as they begin to search for their missing crewmen. Turns out there's only one entity on the array, and he is searching for something, anxious to "honour a debt that can never be repaid". He sends the crew back to their ship, and as Janeway tries to figure out what the entity is looking for, Harry Kim and B'Elanna Torres, the missing crewmembers, seem to be undergoing some sort of medical procedure.

Voyager locates a ship in the debris field, which (rather sadly for them, and us) introduces them to Neelix, a Tellaxian who tells them that he knows of other people who have been pulled here against their will. He tells them the Ocampa, who live on the fifth planet, at which the pulses from the array are being directed, believe they are being watched over by a being called the Caretaker. As he knows the area well, they enlist Neelix's help to try to solve the mystery and retrieve their crewmembers. Meanwhile we learn that the very Ocampa of whom Neelix speaks are in fact looking after Kim and Torres, telling them that they have been asked to do so by the Caretaker. They are also not the first ones he has asked this favour for. Kim and Torres are told they are suffering from some disease, which may not be treatable. Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, Paris and Neelix beam down to the Ocampa's planet, in search of their missing crew, and run afoul of the Kazon, who will become one of Voyager's enemies in the first season. Basically, dumbed-down Klingons. Turns out ol' Neelix has not been quite truthful with the captain! The Ocampa live underground, and all he really wants to do is rescue his lover Kes, an Ocampa who has been taken prisoner by the Kazon. Janeway is not happy!

Down below the planet, a sympathetic Ocampa helps Kim and Torres escape to the surface, while Janeway and co., with the help of Kes, beam down below the surface. Tuvok forms a hypothesis that the Caretaker is dying, and that the debt he owes is to the Ocampa. Janeway worries what will happen to her crew if the only entitly capable of sending them back kicks the bucket? With everyone back together and on Voyager, they encounter two Kazon ships which attack the array, fearful that Janeway will gain access to the technology within. Janeway is therefore placed in the position of taking them on, as she and Tuvok beam over to the structure. There they again meet the Caretaker, who explains that he is responsible for the surface of the Ocampa's world being the desert it is. He is now trying to father a successor, who will carry on the work of caring for them when he is gone. Suddenly, one of the Kazon ships collides with the array, killing the Caretaker, who, before he dies, begs Janeway to destroy the array, lest it fall into the hands of the Kazon, who would use its power to destroy the Ocampa.

Janeway is now faced with a terrible decision. She can use the array to send them back, or destroy it and accept being stranded here, 70,000 light years from home. She decides to destroy it, making a permanent enemy of the Kazon, and enemies onboard her own ship, as she has taken away the only chance everyone had of getting home. Now they will have to find "another way", as she says.

Houston, we have a problem!
Many, and large ones. But the first, and most pressing of these is the ease with which the Maquis and the Federation crews bond. How can two opposing forces, trapped toegther by circumstance, suddenly become friends? A few days ago the Maquis were being hunted by Voyager, one of its crew was spying on them and now, through the interference of Captain Janeway they are all trapped seventy thousand light-years from their homes. How is there no resentment? How is there no fu[COLOR="Black"]c[/COLOR]king rebellion? How can it be that, on Chakotay's edict, they all decide to "be a Federation crew", and having done that, they all stayed in line? Nobody objected to the Federation taking over and nobody rebelled or even pulled a sulky face?

This should have been a gilt-edged opportunity for ready-made conflict between the ex-Maquis and the Starfleet officers, with Janeway having to maintain some sort of order among the fighting factions, perhaps even putting down attempts at mutiny or sabotage. After all, she and her crew wanted to get home, but all that awaited the Maquis was a prison stockade, so maybe they preferred to take their chances, make a new life out here in the Delta Quadrant, where nobody had even heard of their so-called crimes and they could begin anew. Notions like that could have led to attempts to slow the progress home, alliances could have been made and broken, perhaps even those who had "gone over to the Starfleet side" might have been looked on as traitors... the possibilites were limitless, and would have provided for some edge-of-the-seat drama.

But no. The writers decided that everyone would be one big happy family and from episode two onwards, with a very odd bump along the road, there was no internal conflict. I mean, come on: surely a fiery half-Klingon like Torres should have been torn between her love for Chakotay and her loyalty to the cause she signed up for? Did Tuvok not think it illogical of his captain to sacrifice her people for an alien race she hardly knew? Why was there no backlash? But nothing happened, and all the potential for heartstopping betrayal, intrigue, murder and blackmail went out the window, along with any hope of this ever being a series anyone could take seriously.

The Prime Directive
Each captain in each series has approached this most prized and revered first tenet of the Federation in his or her own way. Kirk regularly found ways around it, Picard rigidly obeyed it, Sisko often danced on the head of its pin. Janeway made it suit her. When the occasion, in her opinion, warranted it, or when it served her purposes, she would blithely ignore the Prime Directive. I suppose in a way you can't blame her: who was going to report her, and to whom?

And surely, in blowing up the array she right away breaks that law? For the Prime Directive states that, quote, "As the right of each sentient species to live in accordance with its normal cultural evolution is considered sacred, no Star Fleet personnel may interfere with the normal and healthy development of alien life and culture. Such interference includes introducing superior knowledge, strength, or technology to a world whose society is incapable of handling such advantages wisely. Star Fleet personnel may not violate this Prime Directive, even to save their lives and/or their ship, unless they are acting to right an earlier violation or an accidental contamination of said culture. This directive takes precedence over any and all other considerations, and carries with it the highest moral obligation" (Taken from Wiki article Prime Directive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia). Captain Picard put it in more flowery language when he said, again quoted from the same article, "The Prime Directive is not just a set of rules. It is a philosophy, and a very correct one. History has proven again and again that whenever mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."

So surely then, destroying the array which has been protecting the Ocampa is in itself a violation of the Prime Directive? Is Janeway not directly interfering in matters which do not concern her, have little or no impact upon her ship, her crew or her mission, and have nothing to do with the Federation, as they have no jurisdiction here? But that's Janeway: the Prime Directive may be sacred, but only when it suits her.

To be fair, most captains (Picard excepted) have tried to twist and turn to find a way to defeat the letter of the law with the spirit of the law, and have mosly been successful. It is not to my knowledge recorded that any captain we know of has been brought to trial or even reprimanded for breaking this Directive. I believe a tacit, unspoken agreement exists whereby Starfleet know that the Prime Directive is impossible to enforce literally and always, and are prepared to turn a blind eye if the ends justify the means.

The Doctor is in
Although Voyager is a series that permits little if any character development, one does slip through the loop. To my  mind there is only one decent character, certainly in the first few seasons, who changes and develops over the course of the show. When we first meet him, The Doctor (he never has any other name, perhaps in a nod to another famous sci-fi series with a doctor...) is irritating, irritated, curt, snobby, elitist and even downright rude. As the episodes go on and he gains more experience this will change vastly. He is of course not a real person; he is a hologram, a computer representation of a person. His actual designation is EMH for Emergency Medical Hologram; he is meant only to be called upon when or if the living doctor on the ship is killed or otherwise unable to carry out his duties. A backup system, essentially. But here in the depths of the Delta Quadrant there is no doctor, no replacement, no person who can take over. Nobody on the ship has anything like the medical knowledge that has been programmed into him, and so he must serve as the primary physician, even though he's not really meant to be left running for any real length of time.

His extended periods of activity naturally become boring when there is no emergecy ---- he's meant to be turned off but cannot do it himself, so if someone forgets he has no choice but to remain active ---and so he becomes interested in things like reading, music and other pastimes, while also taking the opportunity to add to his knowledge of the humans and aliens with whom he serves, learning about them, learning from them, trying to be like them. In some ways, he is like Data in TNG, a not-quite-real person struggling to emulate humans and pass as one of them, knowing himself vastly superior but inwardly wishing he was as they are.

Aliens!
Well, there are aliens on board Voyager if you include the likes of Neelix, Tuvok and Torres, but here I'm talking about the aliens they meet. After all, they're in a whole new quadrant of the galaxy: surely there are as yet undreamed of species here?

The Ocampa
The first ones they meet are the Ocampa, after Neelix has come aboard, he himself a Tellaxian. The Ocampa seem to be a simple, agrarian race with little to distinguish them from humans other than slightly pointed ears, rather like Vulcans but smaller. Oh, and they live for three years or something. Other than Kes, who accompanies Neelix to the ship and stays as part of the crew, they don't really figure in the story again.

The Kazon
But these guys do. Basically, as I noted in the Voyager journal, a poor man's Klingon (they even look like them), they are a warrior race who take what they want, and become the enemies of the Federation --- or at least, Voyager --- when Janeway destroys the array. In case there's any doubt, the Kazon captain says as he turns away in anger, the debris of the destroyed array fading into space around him, "You have made an enemy today, Captain." Again though, they're badly thought out and they don't last too long before they're replaced with more interesting and deadlier enemies.

[Trollheart]

Series: Enterprise
Season: 1
Episode: 1 and 2
Episode title: "Broken Bow"
Original transmission date: September 26 2001
Total seasons (to date if current): 4
Span: 2001 - 2005
Writer(s): Rick Berman, Brannon Braga
Director: James L. Conway
Basic premise:
Setting(s): Earth, Transfer Station, Helix, Qu'o'noS
Themes: Conflict, deception, liberation, independence, trust
Things I liked: Really, not much at all
Things I didn't like: Too much old-tech and just really didn't strike a chord with me at all. A little too much copying from other series.
Timeline: 22nd century
Stardate: (Enterprise doesn't use stardates, as it predates the events in TOS when such a system was invented, so we're left with good old Earth dates) April 16 2151
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Class: Constitution
Registry: NX-01
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Return a Klingon to his homeworld with important information
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain  Jonathan Archer
T'Pol, a Vulcan Science Officer
Trip Tucker, Chief Engineer
Malcolm Reed, Tactical Officer
Hoshi Sato, Comms Officer
Travis Mayweather, Helmsman
Dr, Phlox, a Denobulan, CMO

Supporting:
Ancillary:
Starring: (Main Cast) Scott Bakula, John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Mongomery, Linda Park, Connor Trineer
Guest Star(s):

Introduction

While I myself never became a fan of the show, giving up after either season two or earlier, I do have to admire the courage displayed by the creators. Prior to this, various ideas had been floated as to how Star Trek could continue/come back, but most were concerned with, not surprisingly, the future as seen in the previous three series; one suggested a possible "Star Trek Academy" kind of deal, where we would meet a young Kirk, Scotty, McCoy etc as they studied to become Starfleet officers. This was later dropped, if it had ever been a real proposal. For Enterprise, the producers bravely removed the Star Trek prefix (though on the basis of its success this would be re-attached, like the saucer section to the battle bridge, from season three onwards) and set the show only a century after our own time. This allowed them to explore the idea behind first contact with humanity, mostly via the Vulcans, as seen in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, but also with Klingons and others.

It introduced us to the very first ever starship to carry the name Enterprise, its registry denoting both its experimental status and its being the first of its kind - NX-01 - and the technology used much more basic. No phasers, no transporter, no replicators, and an engine only capable of a maximum speed of Warp 5. It also introduced a simmering resentment between humans and Vulcans, as the latter, believing - almost certainly rightly - that humans were not yet ready for space travel, held back important technical knowledge from us and so delayed our entry into the galaxy as a space-faring civilisation. The idea of much of the show taking place on or around Earth, the chance to see humanity take its first steps into a larger galaxy, the development of the technology that would eventually lead to ships such as that captained by Picard and Janeway, all should have been tantalising enough to make this series a shoo-in for me, but somehow it just never clicked.

Synopsis

A Klingon craft has crashlanded in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and the pilot is being pursued by aliens who appear to have the ability to change their shape (not shapeshifters, I don't think: just that they can flatten and elongate their bodies, a little maybe like Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four). They chase him into a water tower but he jumps out, turns round and shoots it, blowing it and them up. As Captain Jonathan Archer tests the new spaceship he's due to fly soon, a call comes in from Starfleet for him to attend a meeting. There he finds the Klingon, not dead but wounded, and Soval, the Vulcan ambassador and his staff, who have been advising Earth on all interstellar/galactic matters, having been the first alien race to make contact with us. Archer does not trust the Vulcans, who he thinks are constantly delaying the launch of Earth's first space flight for reasons of their own.

The Vulcans want to pull the plug on the Klingon, citing the usual death-is-better-than-dishonour excuse, and return him home, as his people have demanded, but Archer convinces the admiral, against Soval's wishes, to allow him to take Klaang back as the maiden flight of the new Enterprise. On the way there though they are attacked and lose all power as aliens invade the ship. The object seems to have been to capture the Klingon, which they do. They capture one of the aliens, which the doctor tells them is a Suliban, but one that has been heavily genetically modified. Oh yeah: it's dead. Cut to the Suliban interrogating Klaang who, under the influence of truth drugs, reveals that he went to Rigel X to meet a Suliban named Sarin, but either refuses to say what she gave him, or does not remember. As the Enterprise arrives at Rigel X, they are attacked and taken prisoner by Suliban.

This does not turn out to be as simple as it sounds, as they have in fact been captured by what appears to be a rebel, who tells Archer that Klaang was carrying evidence that her people are staging attacks against Klingon worlds, in an attempt to make it look as if they are being carried out by other Klingon factions. She then mentions something called the temporal cold war, which of course means nothing to Archer, but before she can explain, they are attacked, this time by real Suliban. The rebel helps them get to their ship but in the process is shot and killed, her last words being that they must find the Klingon. In the battle to get to their shuttle and away Archer is shot and wounded; T'Pol assumes command of the Enterprise. Trip is not happy, especially as the Vulcan has no official rank, being only an observer.

What follows is a rather unnecessary, I would have thought, and clearly intended to titillate scene, where T'Pol and Trip, going through decontamination, rub a sort of oil onto each other's almost-naked bodies. It's, well, it's a bit disturbing, and I'm not so sure why it has to be there, unless it really was just to draw in the t&a brigade of both sexes. Weird. Anyway, Archer soon recovers and takes back command, but he does find that T'Pol has managed to track the Suliban vessel and they are now in orbit over what appears to be their base. Of course, on entering the atmosphere they're attacked, and the good old NX-01 has just baby teeth compared to these well-armed ships, so they manage to snag one of the attacking ships with, um, a grappling hook (?) and the pilot either ejects or gets thrown out. They take the Suliban ship onboard and work out how to fly it, and then Trip and Archer launch in it.

Their destination is a thing called the Helix, basically a structure to which hundreds of Suliban ships cling, kind of like barnacles on a ship's hull, or a really easy game of Tetris. All right, let's be honest here: it's Space Station Regula One, isn't it? How many more times are they going to use that model? Anyway, onto the thing they go, and into it, while the Enterprise hangs, Mutara Nebula-like, up in the atmosphere and tries to resist the attacks against it. Archer and Trip rescue Klaang but now Vulcan emotionless logic comes into play, and T'Pol, believing the captain may already be dead and that a rescue attempt would be foolish and would jeopardise the mission, is ready to return Klaang to Qu'o'noS and will not authorise going back to the Helix.

Meanwhile, Archer finds himself in a strange room where he appears to be out of phase, and a voice calls to him by name but its owner appears to be invisible, or hidden. He fights the Suliban - because of course it's one of them - and at the last moment Trip uses the - till then quite experimental and not really used before - transporter to beam him out of there, making this, historically I guess, the first transport on Star Trek. They deliver Klaang home with his evidence of interference in Klingon affairs, get the usual Klingon thanks, i.e., up wherever your species traditionally crams things, human - and head off on their mission.

Comments: Overall the feel is decent but I remember getting very bored quickly with this series. The idea of going back to scratch, where such things as phasers and photon torpedoes, holodecks and even transporters are all new inventions, just left me with a sense of impatience. I've never been a fan of Bakula either, and the casting of a Vulcan as science officer seems to me to be a lazy decision, basically copying the original. The Doctor could be an interesting character, and it's the first Trek series to have an Englishman on board, but I found it hard to empathise with any of the others. And as for the puppy? Well are they not just copying Data's cat here, as well as back-referencing Janeway's dogs?

Overall I remember thinking pretty negatively about this (though I see it won awards and the series went on to four seasons, so I guess it couldn't have been all bad) and just losing interest in it around the second season, which I'm not sure if I finished. I recall that for me it started badly with the first - and so far only - vocal theme, which I did not like. That was, for me, a step too far away from established Trek music. It's a good song and it fits in well, but I just couldn't get my head around it. I also feel it leaps too fast: one minute we're being told humans have to stay at home and the next they're out in space taking on the bad guys. In a single bound etc. It's also very dark, not only in tone but in lighting and colour; very dour and, well, dark. As for the name used for the aliens? Could they be more on the nose? I mean come on: Suli-ban? Really?

I know it ended up with legions of fans, and anyone reading here may be one, and so I'm not going to say it was terrible. I remember I watched it, but really only because it was on the telly and, well, it was Star Trek. But I quickly became disillusioned with it, and it just was not for me. Maybe at some point I may revisit it, but I don't feel any pressing need to. Certainly, in my opinion, if there's a runt in the Star Trek litter, Enterprise is it.


Ten things I hate about you

With the tension between the, let's be honest, smug and superior Vulcans and the humans, there are going to be a lot of rivalries in this series it would seem. Things are not helped when a Vulcan is assigned to the Enterprise, one in fact whom only days before Archer has informed he is doing his best to restrain himself from "knocking on her ass".

T'Pol and Archer

Archer of course believes T'Pol has been installed on the ship as a Vulcan spy, and he no doubt wishes she was not there, but as they're heading to Qu'o'nOs, the Klingon homeworld, and she is the only one  among them who has dealt with them, there's nothing for it. There's little real chance initially of them getting on; T'Pol is dismissive of humans, acting as an adult among children, totally sarcastic and condescending, while the crew fume at the fact that they have no choice but to trust to her, since these are their first steps into the greater galaxy. Her borderline contempt for humans is shown when Trip attempts to intervene in what he sees as a mother abusing her child, only to be told by the Vulcan that there is a racial reason for what he sees, and that the mother is doing what any mother would, helping her child. No doubt this shows him how little he actually knows, and it's a sobering lesson.

Archer makes no secret of his suspicions about T'Pol, who blandly denies them, but doesn't seem ruffled. In some ways, she probably expected such a reaction. To her, humans are savage and uncivilised and untried, and while they can't quite be compared to stone age man facing his gods (like maybe the sun or a bear or something) she kind of acts like that's the way she sees the relationship. Not that she considers herself a god (not sure Vulcans worship gods, and being totally logical you would imagine not) but she definitely sees herself on a much higher level than them. In time I imagine they'll become the best of friends. Possibly.

[Trollheart]

And that was it. After the cancellation of Enterprise (now renamed as Star Trek: Enterprise) at the close of its fourth season in 2005, there would be no more new official Star Trek for another twelve years. However, if Star Trek fans are known for one thing, it's being obsessive, and paying great attention to the tiniest details, to the point where they could make these series themselves. And with no new official show on the foreseeable horizon, that's exactly what they did.

Some were truly great, others were, well, not. Some garnered praise, and even support from cast members of the official shows, a few of whom actually made guest appearances on one or two. Some of the series folded after a short amount of episodes - it's hard to imagine the amount of money needed to bring even one episode to transmission, never mind seasons, and remember, none of these had any sort of studio backing, so it was the guys and girls' own money that got them made, and possibly that of investors and/or advertisers, but looming over all like some disapproving but lazy parent was the copyright holder, and as we'll learn as we go through these, many of the potential shows were slapped down by CBS in a "dog in a manger" idea. We're not doing it, so you can't either.

Some got around what became quite draconian rules in various inventive ways, one even dropping all references to the franchise (yet clearly a Star Trek show in all but name) and some, sadly, had to be cancelled as they would not be authorised. But good, bad or bloody awful, you have to hand it to the men and women who put their time, efforts, money and perhaps also family and job on the line to bring us even one episode of their vision of where the franchise could go, or their idea of expanding on an already-written show. They all deserve the highest praise, whether they succeeded in creating almost a rival to the official series, or whether they ended up with a camcorder-held film of guys in silly uniforms running through a forest for thirty minutes. To all of them, I say, ka'plah!

Because all of these shows are based on the originals, there are new categories I'm judging them by, including, perhaps most importantly, one which will measure how well, or badly, the series stands up against the official ones. Believe me, it varies wildly. Explanations, where needed, are given at the end.

For now, it's time to either engage, ahead warp factor whatever or, you know, just get the damn computer to stop rebooting so we can get this show started! Who bought this cheap piece of junk? And whose dog is that? Oh, right, it's mine. Okay. Off we go, crossing the not-quite-final frontier and going where a lot of people have gone before.

The Human Adventure stumbles on...



Introduction

Discounting movies (which I said I would) this appears to be the very first fan-made series, and indeed one of the most successful, running to 50 episodes and, as I noted in the list, giving rise to no less than four spin-off series. Okay well technically speaking it wasn't the first, as I read the series it span off from itself, Voyages of the USS Angeles, ran into those legal troubles I referred to earlier, and is not allowed to be available anywhere, so I guess for all intents and purposes it doesn't exist, leaving us with this as the first series we can actually watch. Set after VOY, it concerns the exploits of the USS Excelsior during the aftermath of the Dominion War seen in the fourth to seventh seasons of DS9. Another setting used for this series is Deep Space 12, which is located in the area of space known as The Briar Patch.

Series: Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
Season: 1
Episode: 1 and 2
Episode title: "Enemy Unknown"
Original transmission date:  n/a
Total seasons (to date if current): 7
Span: 2000 - 2007
Writer(s): Rob Caves
Director: Rob Caves
Basic premise: At the climactic Battle of Lapolis, the USS Devonshire encounters a new threat: an alien species who can control minds. And look like jawas.
Mood: Sombre, action
Setting(s): Space, Lapolis system
Themes: Power, survival, mind control, aliens, war
Things I liked: The CGI sequences
Things I didn't like: The acting
Timeline: 24th century
Stardate: ?
Vessel: USS Excelsior
Class: Galaxy
Registry: NCC-77246
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Originally, part of the Battle of Lapolis, driving back the Dominion in one final push. Later, to track down this new alien species and direct them to the new Star Wars movie stage.
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain Ian Quincey-Knapp
Commander Elizabeth Shelby**
Dr. Henglaar, a Tellerite, CMO
Lieutenant Commander Robin Lefler**
Mura Elbrey, Ship's Counsellor
Lieutenant William Martinez**
Lieutenant Toby Witczak**
Ensign Jenna McFarland**
Ensign Andrew Barret**
Rayvan**
Ensign Ro Nevin**
Ensign Brad Rawlins**
Lieutenant Commander Rodriguez*
Lieutenant Paul Brickey*
Ensign Abney*
Ensign Jason Williams**
* Part one only
** Part two only

Supporting:
Ancillary:
Starring: (Main cast) David W. Dial, Risha Denney, John Whiting, Joanne Busch, Barbara Clifford, Anthony Diaz, Matt Kruer, Adrianne Lange, Tyler Bosserman, Gregory Allen, Adrian Bosserman, Tristan Clark, John Wallis
Guest Star(s): Jeanne Carrington, Paul Brickey, Rob Caves

Synopsis

The episode borrows from the opening of DS9, with a desperate battle in progress, though this time it's the Dominion's last stand in the Battle of Lapolis. During the battle Captain Quincey-Knapp (seriously? They could have chosen any name for their captain and that's what they came up with?) of the USS Devonshire is ordered to pursue three Dominion ships which have broken away from the main formation. The Dominion get in a lucky shot however and disable the Starfleet vessel, which has to stop for repairs. Once these are effected, Quincey (look I'm just gonna call him Captain Knapp, everyone okay with that? Tough; I'm doing it anyway) takes his ship into the McAllister Nebula, into which one of the ships vanished, pursued by another Starfleet one.

Inside the nebula they confirm the other ship has been destroyed but there is as yet no sign of the Dominion vessel. Oh wait, the Starfleet ship, the Rutledge, is still intact, but with no life signs? Anyway they beam over and stick their noses in where they're not wanted in true Star Trek fashion, and find there is one member of the crew left, a Betazoid who tells them that the rest of the crew were captured, or rather went with, some alien species who seemed to be able to control their minds. The aliens destroyed the Cardassian ship the Rutledge had been chasing, took the crew of the Starfleet vessel, and ****ed off. The Betazoid was able to resist their mind control because, you know, she's not human.

While there, the mysterious aliens come back and try to take the away team, but the Betazoid, um, completely fails to save them, other than the doctor, who's also alien, a Tellerite apparently. Oh look! The mysterious aliens are Jawas! Sorry guys: wrong franchise! Is that someone's kid playing the part? Anyway, off the other two go and beam back to the Devonshire in order to raise the shields, as they realise the jawas sorry mysterious aliens are attacking there too. Dr. Henglaar shoots the jawa (sorry, sorry!) holding everyone in "psionic thrall" and the crew come back to themselves, preparing to defend the ship.

But their weapons are about as much use as the Enterprise's were against the Borg cube, so Knapp decides there's only one thing for it: engage the auto-destruct, head right for the alien ship and get the **** out of there. Abandon ship!

(You really can't fault the CGI...)

Eighteen months later, Knapp is given command of the USS Excelsior, though he seems to think his crew is far from up to it, as he explains to Jennifer Cole at Deep Space 12. From what I can gather, she's a captain too and looks to have been the wife or girlfriend of his brother, John, who was killed by the Dominion. The Excelsior has been tasked with checking out reports of unknown aliens in the area. Knapp goes to visit Rayvan (seriously? Raven?), an Iconian whose people were all wiped out by a secretive race he calls the Grey, who are very long-lived and tend to, he says, emerge from hiding only to attack and then vanish again. He believes these are the aliens Knapp saw when in command of the Devonshire.

He tells them that the Grey are not a race, but a confederacy of races, and that they are not interested in negotiating. They take what they want, and if you get in their way, as his people did 2000 years ago, you get wiped out. He notes that the metaphasic (I know, I know!) particles in the Briar Patch may be used by them to strengthen their hull armour, which may be why they stay in there, and Knapp realises he needs to find a way to lure them out. When he gets a message that a colony ship has been attacked and destroyed, it's time for the Excelsior's maiden voyage.



Possibly the only one who can actually act  - and he ain't even human!

I say this under a triple caveat: one, that fair play to them for trying something and in fact being almost the first to do so, two, that I could never do anything like this so who the **** am I and three, that I assume it will get better, I hope. But. And it's a big but. Overall, it's pretty awful. I mean, the CGI is excellent, but the acting? Well, I read that this was all filmed in one guy's house against green screens, so you can allow for that, but the woodenness of the actors is hard to ignore. The captain seems either totally smug or about to piss himself laughing all the time, the other actors vary between being too serious, stick-up-the-arse-like and seeming not to take it seriously enough. The only one I can really single out for any sort of praise is the doctor, John Whiting, who seems to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the cast.

It's early days, of course, and there are things I like. The connections to the official Star Trek universe, with things like Ensign Ro Laren's brother, Ensign Ro Nevin on board, a trill and an Iconian, even someone portraying Robin Leffler, from TNG's "The Game", and using her habit of making up rules and quoting them at people, all helps to make this more realistic and authentic. I do have an issue with how, most of the time, one actor talks on screen and then it switches to the next, so that it's quite clear they're taking turns in front of the green screen, and even when the ship is in battle all you can see is either the captain in his chair or the helmsman or the tactical station or insert position here, but obviously space is at a premium and they haven't the facilities of a Paramount soundstage, so I think they do well with what they have.

After a pretty action-packed first part (this being a two-part opener, following the tradition since TNG) the second part is not only slow and boring, but essentially a "meet the crew" deal, where the First Officer literally tours the ship and asks everyone who they are and what they do. I understand what they're doing, but I think it could have been done less clumsily. It also drags out a mere 18 minutes till it feels like an hour, and then just as they're about to get to the action, end of episode.

Overall though, for a first effort it's very impressive, but I expect there are better as we go through the fan series. As I say, I'm sure this gets better - I've seen one of the spinoffs and it's very good - but as an opener this is pretty shaky. The story's decent and there's a valiant attempt to set up character backstories, but I think they concentrate so much on ensuring everyone gets their screen time that there's no time left for action, which is, I think, a mistake.

Still, the USS Excelsior has launched: now let's see where she takes us.
Oh no, wait: we won't, as I'm only doing this episode. Still, you're free to check the entire seven seasons out courtesy of YouTube.

Script: 5/10
Acting: 2/10
CGI: 10/10
Mood: 5/10
Faithfulness: 2/10 (live action) 10/10 (CGI) giving an average of 6/10
Soundtrack/effects: 7/10
Costumes: 7/10
Probability of watching more: 5/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 2/10
Gender balance: 6/10

[Trollheart]

Series: Starship Exeter
Total seasons (to date if current): 2 episodes only
Span: 2002 - 2014
Writer(s): Jimm and Joshua Johnson
Director: Jimm and Joshua Johnson
Things I liked: The whole "homage to TOS" thing going on
Things I didn't like: The shots of the ship and space (very clunky) and the lack of a role for Commander Harris, whose scenes all entailed sitting in the captain's chair showing her legs.
Timeline: 23rd century
Vessel: USS Exeter
Class: Constitution
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Dramatis Personae: Captain John Garrowick, Lt. B'Fuselek, an Andorian, Cutty, Commander Jo Harris, D'Agosta
Starring: James Culhane (Jimm Johnson), Holly Guess, Michael Buford, Joshua Caleb (Joshua Johnson)


Comments
Two years after Hidden Frontier launched, and this looks ten years ahead of them. At least. Retaining the look and feel of TOS, this is far more authentic. People walk around corridors, doors open and close, they even use those blocky monitors that TOS used (I guess they're old computer monitors but they look well). Everything is far brighter compared to HF: there's a real sense of space here whereas on the other series it was pretty obvious everything was taking place in a limited area. The other was also much darker; this is cheerful and well-lit. I'm already impressed, and the title credits haven't even run yet.

Okay, and now they're running, and it's basically TOS, though they have changed the voiceover and the wording, probably at CBS's insistence. They have however kept the original score. Interesting. I would say that on first viewing, the animation is poor. Where HF loses on live-action and acting and sets, it looks like it may kick SE into a gaseous nebula in terms of animation. The movement of the ship over the credits is jerky and glitchy. Let's see where this goes. Proper communicators, tricorders, a decent transporter effect, and quite a clever little philosophy of life espoused by the Andorian crewmember, Mr. B'fuselek. Getting better. I see they stuck with the original costumes too, which means, um, very revealing skirts for the ladies. I wonder how that went down? Guess as long as they don't go up... sorry.

Cleverly avoiding having to CGI "nine-foot lizards" by the expedient of mentionign them and then running away. Oh okay no there's one now. Ah. A bad plastic toy I think, definitely not CGI. Looks very rubbery. Phaser effects are good though. Sound effects very true to the original, building structures faithful, and the Klingons, when they appear on the scene, conform to the type seen originally in TOS. Without question, animation aside, this is far better than Hidden Frontier, and far more enjoyable. The acting, too, is way superior, even if Captain Garrovick (why such an odd name I wonder?) more or less shrugs when one of his men is forced to do a good impersonation of a cinder. I know ENT used Andorians first, in a way TOS had not - in that series they had a best a minor role - so perhaps credit can't really be given to SE for featuring them as the bad guys, but what they do, so far, they do very well indeed.

I would say however that the guy playing the main Klingon seems to think he's in Sons of Anarchy or something. He speaks way too fast for a Klingon, without the slow drawl and wicked growl the TOS ones had, and also without the slightly foreign tilt to the accent. He's an American Klingon, and he's not hiding it, which is unfortunate because he's the first one who has not acted well. Ah look! In a real homage to Kirk, Garrowick also loses his shirt and exposes his manly chest. They also observe TYAT (Throw Yourself About Time), a mainstay of TOS, and even have a fist-fight between the captain and the Klingon, complete with ripped shirt. Sweet.

Yeah, overall I'd give this a big thumbs up. The animation is basic but to their credit they don't rely on it at all, preferring instead to act the thing out kind of like a LARP (Live Action Role Play) and do very well with it. They succeed exceptionally well in maintaining the feel and mood of the original, even down to the little comedy bit right at the end, and the flash display of scenes over the end credits. The font is perfect too, though green rather than blue or yellow. The acting is, to be fair, first class, and I could see these guys acting in the real thing, had they been young enough. All in all, an excellent production.

Ratings

Script: 10/10
Acting: 9/10
CGI: 3/10
Mood: 9/10
Faithfulness: 10/10
Soundtrack/effects: 10/10
Costumes: 10/10
Probability of watching more: 10/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 2/10
Gender balance: 3/10

[Trollheart]

All right then, so far we've had a pretty poor attempt that perhaps inexplicably went on to seven seasons (though it did get better) and one that was a great attempt but only had the chance to repeat that formula once. Which brings us to...



Series: Star Trek: New Voyages (previously known as Phase II)
Total seasons (to date if current): 1 (10 episodes)
Span: 2004 - 2016
Writer(s): James Cawley, Jack Marshall
Director: ?
Things I liked: Very faithful to the original, official cast members involved, obviously very well researched and with some financial backing they can make it look really authentic.
Things I didn't like: Kirk, and a general air of smugness and self-aggrandisement
Timeline: TOS
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Class: Constitution
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Dramatis Personae: All the usual TOS staff and crew
Starring: Brian Gross, Brandon Stacy, Jeff Bond

Well the graphics, CGI and sets are first-rate, as are the costumes, and this has the look of being a fan-made series which had much input from the official sources. I read that people like Walter Koenig and George Takei appeared in it, and that one of the episodes was written by D.C. Fontana, so it's obviously a cut above the rest.

And yet...

It kind of leaves me a little cold. I don't like the portrayal of Captain Kirk. James Cawley plays him with an arrogant attitude, almost a perpetual sneer, which to me says "Look at me! I'm doing something you always wanted to do all your life!" A bit up himself to be honest. None of the smile or the easy charm of the man we know as the captain of the Enterprise. And what's with the stupid quiff? Spock is okay, the girl playing Uhura almost has her voice down pat - close your eyes and it could be Nichelle Nichols. The guy playing Dr. McCoy is good, so is the actor playing Chekov. They're all good, but there's something a little... sterile? About it to me. I kind of don't like it. They're also rehashing a basic plot from the original series, or most of it, bringing in a woman who can become an Orion Slave Girl, a being of energy who kind of reminds me of a non-physical form or Nomad or maybe Sargon, and a ship that looks suspiciously like a Borg cube, twenty years before the Borg were ever known.

I'm not sure that having official sanction through cast members and obviously a large budget makes this any better than the one I just watched. That had charm, and the real feel of fans who were dedicated to their show, whereas this just looks like people who want to show how great they are. I'm probably in the minority here, but so far I really don't care for this. The montage of Kirk's future through the movies was good and was well done, but the story in the episode, to me, didn't make much sense, and personally, I find this very much a case of style over substance.

Script: 410
Acting: 8/10
CGI: 10/10
Mood: 9/10
Faithfulness: 10/10
Soundtrack/effects: 8/10
Costumes: 10/10
Probability of watching more: 0/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 8/10
Gender balance: 5/10

[Trollheart]

Approaching shuttle bay... arrival imminent.

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek: Dark Armada
Total seasons (to date if current): 1 (4 episodes)
Span: 2006 - 2016
Writer(s): ?
Director: ?
Things I liked: Great CGI, very faithful, behind-the-scenes looks were cool
Things I didn't like: Settings very unreal and fake-looking, dialogue leaves something to be desired.
Timeline: 24th Century
Vessel: USS Batavia
Class: Nova
Location: Alpha Quadrant

The only (?) Dutch effort, this series is based in the world of Star Trek: Nemesis and seems to involve the ship going back in time to save the future by preventing the destruction of Vulcan. The CGI is truly beautiful, though the sets themselves look a little like a cross between the plundering of an IKEA store and CGI scenes. Acting is a little off, but then I guess we should remember none of these people are professionals, or getting paid. The dialogue is pretty stilted, though again I suppose if you heard it in the original Dutch it might sound better. I wouldn't know. But yeah, the backgrounds all look computer-generated. They're too bright, too flat, and when people interact with most of them they look like they're in a computer game. Decent departure from the standard storylines to tackle an alternative timeline idea. I like the "behind-the-scenes" bits interspersed over the ending credits.

Script: 10/10
Acting: 7/10
CGI: 10/10
Mood: 9/10
Faithfulness: 10/10
Soundtrack/effects: 10/10
Costumes: 8/10
Probability of watching more: 10/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 8/10
Gender balance: 9/10

[Trollheart]

Series: Star Trek: Odyssey
Total seasons (to date if current): 1 (10 episodes)
Span: 2007 - 2011
Writer(s): Rob Caves
Director: Rob Caves
Things I liked: CGI (even if Babylon 5-lite), story, maturity, acting, music
Things I didn't like: Sets still quite dark, boring opening sequence
Timeline: Unsure, but after the end of Hidden Frontier
Vessel: USS Odyssey
Class: Allegiance
Location:  Andromeda Galaxy

Comments

The first spin-off from Hidden Frontier, Star Trek: Odyssey is the first and so far only Trek series of any kind to take place beyond our galaxy. As in its parent, the CGI is exceptional, though I do have a slight problem with them using the same effects that formed the jumpgates in Babylon 5. The sets are still too dark and we're still seeing only one person on screen at a time, mostly; given that this is a spin-off it seems all but essential that all of, or at least the finale of Hidden Frontier should have been watched; sort of like seeing the opening of DS9 without seeing TNG's "Best of Both Worlds", but no doubt there'll be some exposition to fill us in.

Seems in this iteration of the series there's a - presumably uneasy - alliance between the main powers, with the Romulans, Klingons and Federation all banding against a common enemy, the Archein (sounds a little like the Archons to me, but however) and an artificial wormhole they have created. Although the original series, mostly TNG, tentatively explored gay relations, this series (including its parent) is the first I see to have an openly gay character, and one in a position of authority, soon perhaps to be command.

Yeah, definitely using B5 as their CGI template, not only the way the ships hover and fly around the larger ones like Starfuries patrolling the station in JMS's masterpiece, but also the way the readouts are done - "X planet in Z sector, home of blah" - completely ripped off. Odyssey certainly becomes the first - unless HF did it - to feature a homosexual kiss and close-on sex scene, and the sequences in the slipstream drive are quite impressive. It's established itself as one of the more mature series, with a pretty good handle on what made both TOS and TNG so successful. I do wish though that one of these film makers would try something different for their opening sequence: they all more or less copy a version of VOY, except the one that completely copies TOS. I do like the music here, though, which seems to have been composed specially.

The conflict engendered in having races who have been traditional enemies working together out of necessity is handled well, particularly the abrasive, superior attitude of the Romulans, somewhat comparable to that of the Vulcans to humans in ENT, and seemingly far better than the way in which VOY dismissed it from episode one. I would say the lighting is still bad for the live-action scenes, makes everything murky and dark, but the acting has progressed considerably. In fact, comparing this to its parent, which only launched, as it were, seven years prior, this is, if you'll forgive the phrase, a quantum leap in both acting and storyline. Very very impressive.

Script: 10/10
Acting: 10/10
CGI: 10/10
Mood: 9/10
Faithfulness: 10/10
Soundtrack/effects: 10/10
Costumes: 10/10
Probability of watching more: 10/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 10/10
Gender balance: 10/10

[Trollheart]

Series: Starship Farragut
Total seasons (to date if current):  1 (8 episodes)
Span: 2007 - 2016
Sample episode: "The Captaincy"
Writer(s): ?
Director: ?
Things I liked: Great CGI, vrey faithful setup, links with another fan series
Things I didn't like: Too much talk, not enough action
Timeline: TOS
Vessel: USS Farragut
Class: Constitution
Location: Alpha Quadrant

Another series which looks to TOS for its inspiration, and has in fact won awards for its episodes. They've certainly remained true to the spirit of TOS with the sets (they even have the red doors) but I sort of wish they didn't all feel they have to have an Uhura clone at comms, in other words, a black girl. It seems a bit tokenish at this point. It was great for the time, but it's just paying lipservice now. I'm not enamoured of the acting of the guy playing the captain (John Carter? Really?) but I still like him better than yer man from NV. The music is very iffy though, however the CGI is excellent.

I would say though that these guys are leaning a little too much towards the easy, friendly, almost comedy angle, and chatting so much on a landing party that it's a relief when Klingons show up and there's some damn action! Mostly this is just three to five people walking around in a forest. It's a bit boring to be honest. No shots of the ship, inside or outside, for the last fifteen minutes or thereabouts. No check in, no nothing. If it wasn't for the uniforms this could be any LARP really. Unlike SE, I'm just sort of praying for this thing to end. It's pretty poor compared to the others I've seen. Not sure how this won any awards. The fight scenes can only be described as comical.

Okay that was good. Klingon comes in, disarms them, Carter says "You must be Krug." He says "Captain Krug. And you must be... oh, I nearly forgot: I don't care!" I also like when Krug says he will interrogate the weak female, who then slugs him from behind and snaps "Weak female my ass!" I'm glad to see they continue the old tradition of commodores being nothing but a pain in the hole for captains, and this one certainly is. They also use the old "phaser on overload" trick, which is good. The TYAT is cool too. Interesting to see how they got the NV crew in to do a cameo as they link up with the Enterprise.

Overall, not bad, but compared to others I've seen so far it falls a little short and needs work.

Script: 810
Acting: 6/10
CGI: 10/10
Mood: 9/10
Faithfulness: 8/10
Soundtrack/effects: 4/10
Costumes: 10/10
Probability of watching more: 4/10
Balance between animation and live-action: 1/10
Gender balance: 10/10