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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise The Rick Berman Era

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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise The Rick Berman Era Star Trek: The Next Generation In 1987, riding on the success of the movie franchise Star trek made its return to the small screen with Star Trek: The Next Generation, a new series following a new crew on a new Starship Enterprise a century after the adventures of Kirk and co.  It is no secret that this is my personal favorite series. The ensemble cast including Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Johnathan Frakes as Commander William Riker, Brent Spiner as the android Lieutenant Commander Data, Michael Dorn as Lieutenant Worf, Levar Burton as Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher, Marina Sirtis as Counsellor Deanna Troi, Denise Crosby as security chief Tasha Yar and Wil Wheaton and Wesley Crusher.  Despite a grueling first season (due in no small part to interference by Gene Roddenberry's lawyer Leonard Maizlish) and the departure of Denise Crosby, the show ...
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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 9

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 9 Once La'an a Time After returning to the Enterprise from a Benzite dignitary's wedding (which La'an saved by exposing an Orion diplomat as a spy) the crew encounter an artificially created flat planet.  Beaming down the crew find themselves in a medieval fairytale land, based on as it turs out, the storybook Dr. M'Benga used to read to his daughter.  Only M'Benga remembers the events of the original encounter.  The planet is populated by doppelgängers of the crew.  The Bolzman Brain entity original helped M'Benga deal with difficult issues he was going through, now it is doing the same with La'an who has been dealing with some personal issues.  The crew dress up as their doppelgängers to see the story out.  La'an poses as her doppelgänger, Princess Talia.  Prince Dashing appears in the likeness of James Kirk.  While the away team are imprisoned in a dungeon, Pike and Spock's counterparts be...
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Admiral Leyton's Coup: The Aftermath

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Admiral Leyton's Coup: The Aftermath On stardate 49334.6 Admiral James Leyton, along with a group of other mostly high ranking officers attempted amplify Dominion cold war, Founder infiltration fears as an excuse to declare martial law on Earth and plane Earth under Starfleet military control (effectively a Starfleet coup).  The coup would fortunately fail when Captain Sisko forced Leyton to stand down and Captain Erika Benteen, Leyton's closest loyalist turned against him.  On stardate 49372.4 a full investigation would be carried out by the Starfleet Command Judge Advocate Generals office, spearheaded by recently appointed Judge Advocate General for Starfleet Command Captain Phillipa Louvois.  The investigation would result in the courts-martial and dismissal from Starfleet of Leyton and several others:  Admiral James Robert Leyton, Chief of Starfleet Operations After being taken into custody by Captain Benjamin Sisko, Admiral Leyton would be court-martialed on cha...
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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise Trek Goes to the Movies

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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise Trek Goes to the Movies Star Trek: The Motion Picture In 1979 Star Trek would return, this time to the big screen with Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Born out of Star Trek: Phase II, a failed attempt at a sequel to the original series, and Paramount's desire to compete with Star Wars, The Motion Picture saw the return of the original crew aboard a newly refit starship Enterprise commanded by now Admiral Kirk to investigate the threat of the mysterious cloud entity V'Ger, later revealed to be the long lost NASA space probe Voyager VI.  Joining the cast were Stephen Collins as Captain Willard Decker and Persis Khambatta as Lieutenant Ilia.  Although some people criticize the movie for it's slow pace, I personally enjoy TMP. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan featured the return of Ricardo Montalban as the titular Khan from TOS "Space Seed", and sees some really good character develo...
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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 8

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  Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 8 Orders of Magnitude James Kirk visits the Enterprise.  He gets a checkup from Dr. M'Benga while Pike and an away team beam down to a planet to investigate a distress signal.  Pike, Uhura, Una, A'sha and Chapel enter some caves and lose contact with the ship.  Meanwhile a shuttle with Admiral Simon Reeger rendezvous with the Enterprise.  As a captain Reeger commanded the USS Constellation during the Klingon war.  Meeting with the senior staff Reeger gives the crew a mission to investigate the attack on a Federation base.  Kirk as the ranking officer aboard is made first officer under Reeger.  Following a gamma ray trail the Enterprise leaves orbit to pursue the attacker.  In the ready room Kirk and Reeger have a tense talk, Kirk's father George was XO under Reeger during the war.  Reeger says that George Kirk was not a combat capable officer and was afraid of command, but that Ji...
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Department of Temporal Investigations Report: "Valles Marineris"

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Temporal Investigations Incursion Report Filed Stardate 58772.5 Commander JT Stern, DTI Analyst Transmitted over secured channel Alpha 721 Zeta 15 Report CLASSIFIED Level 10 I. SUMMARY OF INCURSION On Earth date 25 May 2262, stardate 2491.5 the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 under Captain Christopher Pike was sent to Ithaxus observe and take detailed sensor readings of an interstellar squall, a rare space-time phenomenon.  Arriving at the phenomenon the Enterprise detected a distress call from within the phenomenon and moved to investigate.  Becoming trapped in the phenomenon the Enterprise was sent across nearly 100 lightyears and backwards in time 65 million years to the Sol System during Earth's Cretaceous period.  In this time period Mars was inhabited by a technologically advanced civilization, a ship from which locked a tractor web onto the damaged USS Enterprise.  An away team from Enterprise used phasers to burn several trees and Stun a dinosaur on prehistoric Earth...
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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise The Beginnings: The Pilots and TOS/TAS

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Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise The Beginnings: The Pilots/TOS/TAS The Pilots In 1964 the pilot episode "The Cage" was produced, starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike of the USS Enterprise, Majel Barret as Number One and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.  The episode was quite progressive for 1964, with a female first officer and an alien science officer.  The plot revolved around the Talosians, a species whose mental/telepathic powers were so great that they could fool the entire Enterprise crew into believing that illusions were real.  A good episode with an interesting story and compelling characters.  NBC however was less convinced, seeing the episode as being "too cerebral" for contemporary audiences.  The persuasive powers of one Lucille Ball convinced the network to give Star Trek a second chance, and in an unprecedented move a second pilot was ordered.  In 1965 "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was produced.  All but one...
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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 7

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 7 Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass Captain Pike wakes up in sickbay.  While checking him for a concussion M'Benga says he was in a shuttle accident.  The last thing Pike remembers is hosting a captain's table, that event according to M'Benga was 2 weeks ago.  M'Benga says he has amnesia.  Spock is also injured and in a coma.  M'Benga relieves Pike of duty.  In Pike's quarters he meets with Dr. Chivers, the ship's counsellor (wearing a blue outfit of similar style and color to those worn by Deanna Troi in TNG).  It turn out that this is all being orchestrated by Trelane (see "Wedding Bell Blues").  Trelane has the ship and crew stuck in his "soap opera world".  The crew speak in weird patterns with strange, dramatic pauses and act overly melodramatically.  Onboard a shuttle La'an is returning to the enterprise with a heart donor for Spock-his brother Sybok (also played by Eth...
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The Sisko is of Bajor

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The Sisko is of Bajor Benjamin Lafayette Sisko.  To the crew of DS9 he was their captain.  To Jake he was a father.  To Jennifer and later Kasidy he was a husband.  To the people of the Federation he was a soldier, a commander and a war hero.  To the Bajorans he was one of their most revered religious figures: the Emissary of the prophets.  Sisko's arc across the series is an intriguing one.  His journey from emotionally wounded widower and single father and reluctant officer following orders to religious figure, soldier, diplomat, statesman, decorated combat officer and eventually a god. Reluctant and Unsure Arriving at Deep Space Nine he was unsure and reluctant.  A widower after the death of his wife Jennifer at Wolf 359 he was a single father, raising his teenage son Jake alone.  After 3 years at Utopia Planitia he was assigned as commanding officer of Deep Space Nine, the recently abandoned Cardassian mining station at Bajor, formerly kn...
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Coming Soon

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Coming Soon For the franchise's 60th anniversary, I will be posting a seven part series of posts reflecting on the history of the entire Star Trek franchise, from the beginnings up through the present.  The first post will post on Tuesday, September 8 (Star Trek Day).  Make it so! 
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