JC's Trek Talk

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Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 8: The Elysian Kingdom The Elysian Kingdom So we finally get the conclusion to the Dr. M'Bengas daughter storyline.  It's a fun, heartwarming storyline, but at the same time I personally am glad it ended at this point, as dragging it out further could have been a burden on the series.  So we get to see all the main cast playing alternate characters.  Trek has done this before, but never this soon in the series (see TOS Mirror, Mirror, DS9 Far Beyond The Stars and Our Man Bashir, VOY The Killing Game 1/2, et. al.)  Putting it all inside the fantasy world of the storybook M'Benga reads to his daughter is interesting.  This episode is one of the first times in the series Christina Chong really gets to flex her acting skills (and singing ability).  The somewhat cerebral nature of the plot is quite TOS at times, M'Bengas struggle with his daughter, trying to figure out (with Hemmer's help) how the ship and nebula a...

Thoughts on Starfleet Academy's Uniforms and Combadges The two trailers and small number of pictures released to date for the upcoming Starfleet Academy gives us a pretty good look at the series uniforms and combadge.  Some thoughts: Starting with Jett Reno (Tig Notaro) in the standard(?) instructor(?) uniform.  The asymmetric bottom is very much in keeping with Star Trek Discovery's 32nd century uniforms.  Not entirely sure why they didn't just use the Discovery season 4-5 uniforms.  Overall not a huge fan of this one.  The silver and black stripe just looks strange. Robert Picardo as The Doctor (EMH) from Voyager.  His special uniform (flag officer?) is mostly white, the color for medical in Star Trek Discovery.  It still has the weird asymmetric bottom (see above). Here we see Lura Thok in a special uniform with Discovery style gorgets showing her rank.  A dress uniform maybe? Holly Hunter as Nahla Ake in what I guess is an officers uniform....

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 7: The Serene Squall The Serene Squall Starting out with more Spock and T'Pring stuff.  Ok.  Gia Sandhu is pretty good as T'Pring.  And a little more Spock and Chapel.  Ok.  The pirate story is interesting, and not thing Trek as done in quite some time.  Spock's lines about his issues with hunches is similar to his making a guess in Star Trek IV.  The Enterprise being lure into the trap and captured is not the most original for trek, (see TNG Rascals, VOY Basics, among others) but still fun.  Jesse James Kaitel as Dr. Aspen/Angel is pretty good, the twist of her being the pirate captain and betraying the Enterprise crew is not wholly original.  Pike's "get the hell out of my chair" got a little chuckle from me.  Captain Angel escaped, leaving the door open for a possible return. Again, not unexpected.  Interesting including S'tonn from TOS Amok Time.  "Xaverius" being Sybok is an ...

The Kelvin Timeline In light of the recent announcement that there will most likely not be a 4th Kelvin Timeline JJ-Verse reboot movie I though I would give my opinions of the Kelvin reboot movies. Star Trek 2009 Officially just titled "Star Trek" this movie "rebooted" the Star Trek franchise after it's forced hiatus following the cancellation of Star Trek Enterprise 4 years earlier.  This in itself is not a bad thing.  The issues are in execution.  First, taking Star Trek, something that has always been more than a bit intellectual and focused primarily on problem solving and characters and making it into fully action "pew pew" shootemup summer action flicks.  This totally doesn't fit with the franchise.  The biggest explanation for this is that the creative powers and primarily director J.J. Abrams were more familiar with Star Wars and tried to make Trek more like Star Wars.  Star Trek is NOT Star Wars.  The result as I see it in Star Trek 2009 i...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 6: Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach A more serious episode after a light hearted episode.  The Enterprise arrives at a planet Pike previously visited 10 years ago when he was a lieutenant (before his time on the Enterprise).  That would put his visit in 2249, so Alora referring to Pike as Lieutenant (his rank at their last meeting) is a bit of a stretch.  Commander maybe?  More of M'Benga and his daughter.  The planet is called Majalis...no points for guessing the inspiration.  The floating cities on Majalis are more than a little like the floating city of Ardana in TOS The Cloudminders.  The child being the prophesized "First Servant" whether he consents or not is a bit dark.  Yes the boy tells Alora that he does it willing, but can a child that age really make that choice?  This is exactly the question of this episode.  In some ways this is reminis...

Episode Spotlight TNG's Yesterday's Enterprise A great episode and definitely a highlight of TNG season 3 (really one of the best episodes of the entire series).  The Enterprise-C gets established in canon, and we learn its fate and its important place in history.  The idea of the ship coming forward in time and creating a whole new timeline in which the Federation and Klingons have been at war for two decades, and the knowledge that even with the certainty of defeat in battle the Enterprise-C has to go back in time into the battle to ensure peace with the Klingons (at the cost of the ship and crews lives) is a powerful bit of storytelling.  Great time travel story.   The transition effect when the timeline changed was great, and the framing of the scene with Picard completely blocking Worf from view (before the change) and then addressing "Lieutenant" and turning to reveal Tasha Yar!!  Sooo great to see Tasha back, and to give her some good meaty scenes wi...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 5: Spock Amok Spock Amok Ok.  Interesting intro with the Kal-if-fee fight from Amok Time, but as a dream for Spock, Vulcan Spock fighting Human Spock used as a metaphor for Spock's inner conflict.  Nice continuity with the Enterprise being repaired at Starbase 1 after Momento Mori.  Also more Spock-T'Pring stuff.  And Pike has a green wraparound tunic like Kirk's.  We get some shore leave for the crew and some diplomacy, overall quite TOS.  Spock references I-Chaya, his pet sehlat from TAS Yesteryear.  The body swap thing is an old trope (Turnabout Intruder anyone), although they try to keep it fresh.  The acting is good though.  The "Enterprise Bingo" thing is a bit goofy.  Overall this whole episode is a bit goofy, although a fun, light-hearted episode is not unheard of in trek (The Trouble with Tribbles for example).  The Katra transfer obviously harkens back to Star Trek II/III (Sp...