JC's Trek Talk

Star Trek TOS Episode Tier List Season 2 30 Catspaw Investigating the death of an away team member Kirk Spock and McCoy beam down to find witches, a castle and a black cat.   In the castle the crew are captured by Scott and Sulu under mind control by two beings named Korob and Sylvia who turn out to be extragalactic explorers.   Star Trek’s first and only “Halloween episode”.   Also the episode introduces Pavel Chekov as a new regular character.   Overall it’s ok, albeit heavy on the scary (and sometimes campy) spooky imagery.   C tier   31 Metamorphosis While transporting a Federation diplomat by shuttlecraft Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the diplomat crash on an asteroid where they discover Dr. Zefram Cochrane, the human inventor of warp drive, who disappeared over a century ago.   They come to learn that Cochrane is being kept alive by a noncorporeal being known as the companion.   The companion takes over the body of the mortally wounded dipl...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 5 Level-Five Transporter Accident Scotty wants to carry out the longest distance transport ever, and use it to get back at his academy rival.  Pike has a new captains chair, which becomes a plot point later.  Spock contacts T'Pring and invites her to Enterprise.  Spock takes a shuttle to deploy transporter buoys.  Scotty attempts his transport, an accident seemingly beams away every crewmember, then the Enterprise itself.  The Enterprise reappears, Spock goes aboard to find everyone turned into puppets.  After the crew try to determine what happened and after some overly done bickering they contact Admiral April and advise him of the situation.  Spock being the only one capable of running the ship is busy between the bridge, trying to restore the crew, and T'Pring, is overwhelmed.  An encounter with an Orion ship goes awry when the Orions see the crew in puppet form.  The Orions attack t...

The Voyager Crew Compliment Question Something that has long been debated and discussed at length by fans and something I wonder about is the crew of USS Voyager.  Specifically how many crew members were lost in the ships 7 years in the Delta Quadrant and how many made it back to Earth.  I have decided thus to deep dive this.  Some caveats: there are some big uncertainties which make determining a true count impossible, and for the most part the numbers given throughout the series cannot all be reconciled with each other due to continuity issues.   That said, I'm going to go season by season, noting the losses and gains to the crew and the effect of the count of the crew compliment.  I will not be mentioning changes that reverse in the same episode (i.e. Harry Kim and Naomi Wildman dying in "Deadlock" and being replaced by their duplicates, etc.) as these are inconsequential.  Without further ado...  Season 1 In the pilot "Caretaker", Stadi mentio...

Star Trek TOS Episode Tier List Season 1 1 The Cage The original pilot.   Since this episode is so different from the rest of the series, I will not be rating it.   2 Where No Man Has Gone Before The second pilot, introducing Kirk, Scotty and Sulu.   Great writing, great storyline, I personally love the Galactic Barrier.   Great guest stars too (Sally Kellerman and Gary Lockwood).   S   3 The Corbomite Maneuver The first regular episode of the series.   A really good Kirk episode, showcasing his skills as a captain (and his skills at the art of the bluff).   Also the introduction of Uhura and Dr. McCoy.   Most of the regulars get some good lines in this episode, as does the one off character of Lt. Bailey.   Also young child actor Clint Howard.   A   4 Mudd’s Women The episode that introduces recurring conman, rogue and general PITA Harcourt Fenton “Harry” Mudd.   Space pimp Mudd ends up on the Enterpri...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 4 A Case of Chiaroscuro The episode is entirely in black and white.  Interesting.  The black and white is immediately explained as part of the plot and not just a gimmick. Una leads a mission to retrieve a malfunctioning probe from inside Klingon space.  The shuttle is nearly detected by the Klingons and is forced to land on a nearby planet to hide.  They find the planet under Klingon occupation.  Much of the episode is very TOS-esque: the crew incognito on a "parallel earth" planet, the planet modelled after a specific Earth region or period (in this case 1940s-esque movie noir), the crew in native/period attire among the natives, and the planet affected by outside influence.  The message at the end-that in life things are not black and white, but many shades of grey is an interesting, vey TOS introspective look at humanity, nicely set against the episode being completely in black and white.  Dem...

Opinions on Star Trek's Starfleet Uniforms Part 4: Nu Trek: the 23rd (and 32nd) centuries Discovery season 1-3 For Star Trek Discovery costume designer Gersha Phillips created uniforms that were a major departure from previous designs.  The blue main color was definitely a call back to Enterprise, while the department colors were now metallic accents (gold for command, silver for sciences, bronze for operations) which really are not as easily identifiable as the bright primary colors.  The boots also had matching metallic department colors which honestly just looks gaudy and tacky.  Also the uniforms feature a strange asymmetric collar for some reason. Discovery USS Enterprise uniforms For Discovery's second season (and several Short Treks) Captain Pike and the crew of the Enterprise appeared wearing a different uniform style than what was seen on USS Discovery.  The Enterprise crew uniforms were basically the same pattern and cut as the Discovery costumes but with s...

TOS Episode Tier Lists In the style and spirit of the TNG episode tier lists I will also be doing tier lists for the 3 seasons of TOS. Engage! 

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 3 Human Best Friend The episode starts with cutting between Ortegas and Scotty's personal logs, followed by Una and Pike discussing the upcoming mission and the stress the crew has been under (previously mentioned in "Valles Marineris").  The crew decides to stop at a shore leave planet where the atmosphere causes you to become drunk.  The crew's shore leave antics include Ortegas (not feeling the effects of the atmosphere) stuck with Scotty and trying to find Pike, Spock hallucinating Jim Kirk, Una singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Klingon (likely selected because of Bonnie Tyler's recent passing), Dr. M'Benga playing bartender ("It's green" apparently a TOS reference" and Pike getting a tattoo.  Add the ticking clock of the alien delegation the crew was to meet in two weeks coming to meet the Enterprise in two hours and the missing shuttle and you've got a typical ...

Star Trek The Animated Series The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, to use its full title, was a revival/continuation of sorts of the original series in Saturday morning cartoon form.  Produced by Filmation the series ran for 22 episodes, airing on NBC's Saturday morning lineup from 1973 to 1974.  Being a Filmation show it was an exceedingly low budget production, although what it lacked in budget and perceived visual quality (see pink tribbles and purple Klingon uniforms) it more than made up for in writing quality.  A big part of this writing quality is due to the writing staff, which included TOS alum D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold.  Most of the original cast returned to voice their characters, although budget restrictions resulted in the notable absence of Walter Koenig as Chekov.  The animated nature of the series allowed for a number of imaginative, non-humanoid characters and creatures that would have been impossible in live action....