JC's Trek Talk

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 1 Valles Marineris Fun intro sequence, Pike on horseback is a fun callback to not only the opening scenes of the series pilot "Strange New Worlds" but the Original Series pilot "The Cage" which established Pike's fondness for and ownership of horses.  Uhura gets to mentor a trainee cadet, a Vulcan.  This is cool since three seasons ago the shoe was on the other foot, with Uhura being mentored by the late Commander Hemmer.  Pike's reticence to take a promotion echoes Riker's resistance to take the captain's chair and Picard's resistance to leave it in TNG and the TNG movies.  According to Una, six months has passed since the end of season 3.  The story proper starts when a space storm phenomenon throws the Enterprise back in time to prehistoric Earth.  Earth 6 million years in the past.  The Sol System apparently had an additional M-class planet at that time.  La'An, Una and Ortegas deal ...

Thoughts on the Maquis In the buildup to Star Trek Voyager's premiere TNG and DS9 introduced and established the Maquis, a resistance movement founded by a group of disenfranchised Federation colonists whose planets were summarily turned over to the Cardassians by an ill-advised border treaty.  This created an interesting political situation: the Cardassians secretly arming their colonists to fight the Federation colonists and drive them out while the Federation, unwilling to risk a conflict with the Cardassians and ostensibly hiding behind the Prime Directive were unwilling to actively interfere in the situation in the Demilitarized Zone.  The Federation colonists were caught in the middle of this, in fear of the Cardassians and with no protection from the Federation.  What other option do they have?  They band together as a resistance (or terrorist depending on your point of view) called the Maquis (the name borrowed from the French resistance in WWII).  The C...

TNG Episode Tier List Season 5  101 Redemption part 2 Definitely A tier.    Denise Crosby is back as Sela, the daughter of Yesterday’s Enterprise Tasha Yar, plus the Duras Sisters and Data’s first time in command.    Good stuff. 102 Darmok Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.    Good episode, good premise.    A   103 Ensign Ro   Introducing Michelle Forbes as Ro Laren.    In a very non Roddenberry turn the writers worked in some conflict for our main characters, also building the backstory for DS9.    A   104 Silicon Avatar It’s ok.    Decent Data episode.    Dr. Marr was kinda mean toward Data, also the fact that she destroyed the Crystalline entity.    It was nice to see the Crystalline Entity again.    B   105 Disaster A fun episode.    Some good character stuff.    Picard stuck in the turbolift with the kids, Worf delivering Keiko’s baby, Troi in c...

Opinions on Star Trek Starfleet Uniforms Part 2: the Rick Berman era TNG season 1-2 William Ware Theiss returned to trek to create the original TNG uniforms.  A simple three color pallet (red for command, yellow operations, teal for sciences/medical) against a mostly black jumpsuit.  One drawback was that because these were jumpsuits to achieve the smooth, creaseless look the costumes were sized too small for the actors (something that would change for season 3-a change reportedly mandated by Patrick Stewarts doctor).  A good start.  As an aside, perhaps as a nod to the TOS uniforms TNG season 1 also featured a shirt (skant) version of the uniform worn by both male and female crewmembers (in some early TNG episodes there were some guys wearing them). TNG season 3-7 William Ware Theiss retired following TNGs first season.  His replacement Durinda Rice-Wood was not fond of the uniforms but did not have the ability or budget to replace them.  That task would f...

TNG Episode Tier List Season 4 75 The Best of Both Worlds part 2 The conclusion of possibly the greatest cliffhanger two-parter ever.   The battle of Wolf 359, Locutus, all of it.   S   76 Suddenly Human This one’s ok.   The human child raised among a former enemy.   An interesting concept.   The episode is nothing special.   B   77 Brothers   Lore again.   And Dr. Soong.   Because he’s playing 3 different characters, it’s really Brent Spiner’s episode.   Also established the emotion chip.   B   78 Family The aftermath of Best of Both Worlds.   It’s nice that we get to see a little bit of -if not serialization- then continuity.   Events as big as the Borg attack and Picard’s assimilation have lasting impacts.   A   79 Remember Me An interesting one.   The Traveler returns, also Crusher’s universe within the bubble. Good episode.   B   80 Legacy Tasha Yar’s sister (and homeworld). ...

Opinions on Star Trek's Starfleet Uniforms Part 1: TOS and the movies Something I have been wanting to do for some time is to run through every main uniform style (Starfleet uniforms) in the franchise and discuss the positives, negatives and my opinions.  Since this is the 60th anniversary year for the franchise, I decided that this would be the perfect time to take look at the haute couture of Starfleet across 60 years of shows and movies.  So without further ado: The pilot uniforms (The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before) William Ware Theiss originals.  Very simple, perhaps overly so.  The shirts with the ribbed collars are almost sweatshirt-like.  The gold and tan shirts are a bit close in color, sometimes they're hard to tell apart.  The women have more fitted shirts with larger, baggy collars. TOS uniforms The classic.  Gold, Red, Blue.  Simple and iconic.  And sometimes simpler is better.  The bell-bottomed pants are very sixties, ...

TNG Episode Tier List Season 3 49 The Ensigns of Command It’s an ok episode.   A decent Data-centric story, would not really be that memorable if not for the Sheliak.   B   50 Evolution Dr. Stubbs’ probe and the nanites.   It’s decent.   Some good Wesley stuff, also it’s good that we get an explanation for where Dr. Crusher was been.   Overall: B   51 The Survivors Ehh...is ok, not a bad episode, but not particularly memorable.   Mediocre really.   B   52 Who Watches the Watchers A good Prime Directive story.   Sets the mold for later stories like Star Trek Insurrection.   Underrated.   A   53 The Bonding Interesting, I kinda wish we had gotten some kind of follow up on Jeremy Aster, the boy who Worf bonded to his house.   A   54 Booby Trap People give this one a lot of crap for Geordi and Holo-Leah Brahms, I thought this one was ok.   An interesting take on the holodeck.   B   55 The Enemy A ...

Episode Spotlight The Best of Both Worlds Parts 1 and 2 Stardate 43989.1.  Responding to a distress call the USS Enterprise orbits Jouret IV, one of the Federations most distant colonies.  An away team consisting of Riker, Data, Geordi and Worf beam down to find the colony completely gone, only a giant crater remaining.  The Enterprise is joined by a ship carrying Admiral J.P. Hansen and Lt. Commander Shelby from Starfleet tactical.  Starfleet believes that the Borg are responsible for the disappearance of the colony.  Shelby points out the crater is almost identical to what the Enterprise detected on the planets in system J-25 (see Q Who?)  Shelbys job is to find any kind of defenses against the Borg.  Riker shows Shelby to her guest quarters.  Admiral Hansen tells Picard that the captaincy of the USS Melbourne is available and is being offered to Riker.  In Shelby's quarters Shelby tells Riker what she's looking for to confirm the Borg are ...