JC's Trek Talk

The Worst of Star Trek Voyager Threshold Threshold.  For about 10 years this episode held to dubious honor of being considered the worst episode of Trek ever (until Enterprise ended in 2005 with "These are the Voyages" which actually stole Threshold's shit crown).  The crew equip a shuttlecraft with a new form of dilithium and Tom Paris breaks the Warp 10 barrier (read: infinite speed).  After returning to the ship he mutates into a lizard creature.  He then kidnaps captain Janeway, takes her to warp 10 and they both mutate into salamander creatures.  And have salamander babies on a planet.  Even Brannon Braga has admitted this episode was a "royal steaming stinker". Virtuoso Voyager meets the Qomar, a species who have never heard music.  They then go totally googoo fan girl over the Doctors opera singing.  Boring premise.  Also the Qomar come across as jerks for fangirling over the Doctor, then just as quickly replacing him with a "superior,...

The Worst of Star Trek Deep Space Nine Profit and Lace A potentially progressive episode in the tradition of trek, using Ferengi society to talk about gender inequality, the "glass ceiling" and women in business, totally wasted by playing the "Quark in drag" plot device as the butt of a joke.  What could have been a good "deeper message/moral lesson" episode was instead turned into a cringeworthy crossdressing comedy.   Let He Who is Without Sin… DS9's Risa episode.  Jadzia takes Worf on a vacation to Risa.  And he's miserable the whole time.  Which should have been obvious before they left.  And he bitches and complains the whole episode.  Yawn.  The episode was supposed to explore the topic of sex, but it wasn't able to deliver on that due to tv restrictions at the time.  The only thing we got resembling that was Terry Ferrell and Vanessa Williams in one piece swimsuits with their legs around each other. The Muse Bad boring A-plot abou...

Starfleet Academy Series Premiere Review Addendum: The Title Sequence Although not seen in the pilot episode "Kids These Days", the Star Trek Starfleet Academy title sequence (first seen in episode 2 "Beta Test") deserves a close look and reaction.  These are my opinions. The Sequence Heavy on the theme of growing: the seed sprouting, growing into the plant, and eventually the tree, the buildings being built.  And of course the area around the buildings is the shape of the Star Trek delta-yawn.  The tree sprouting flowers, the flower petals flying through the Academy campus/USS Athena corridors and the atrium/courtyard.  And then the show's title over a skylight window conveniently shaped like the delta.  Ending over a wide shot of the Athena landed on Earth at San Francisco.  Fade to black. The Visuals As I mentioned above, heavy of the themes of growing and building.  But that doesn't really fully tell the series story.  It doesn't really say wh...

Starfleet Academy Series Premiere Review "Kids These Days" Following a special Star Trek 60th Anniversary Intro, the episode opens with a main character giving a speech, clearly a callback to the 'Space, the Final Frontier' speeches, as well as Una's speech at the beginning of Strange New Worlds eponymous pilot.  We get a little flashback to Caleb Mir as a child that establishes Nus Braka (Paul Giamatti), a half Tellarite-Half Klingon as the bad guy and Nahla Ake (Holly Hunter) in a DIS season 3 uniform and badge.  The stardate on screen 853724.6, gives the year of approximately 3177.  Ake delivers starfleet's ruling that Caleb's mother Anisha Mir (Tatiana Maslany) is to be imprisoned, separated from her son.  Ake seems to have very little empathy for the situation at hand.  Nahla mentions Caleb going to Bajor.  Caleb escapes the "facility" by stealing Nahla's badge.  Next we see Caleb (Sandro Rosta) as a young adult with a rap sheet.  After ...

The Worst of Star Trek The Next Generation Code of Honor The poster child for the issues in TNG season 1.  Poor casting decisions and a bad story resulted in this racist and sexist episode.  The aliens of the week being Hollywood stereotypical, tribal African caricatures all played by African American actors and the sexism throughout the episode ("a woman? Your chief of security?") make this episode nearly unwatchable.  When asked about TNGs worst episode at a convention, Jonathan Frakes famously once said "One of our worst, and the one even Gene [Roddenberry] was ashamed of, was that horrible, racist piece of shit from the first season "Code of Honor". Oh my god in heaven!" Shades of Grey The clip show.  A boring, skippable episode.  I'll give this one a slight break, seeing that the 88-89 season was shortened by a writers strike, and the writers on TNG were exhausted by end of the season despite only producing 22 episodes down from 26.  That does not...

The Worst of Star Trek The Original Series Turnabout Intruder The finale episode of The Original Series.  Kirk's old flame is jealous of his success as a starship captain, so she steals his body to become captain of the Enterprise.  Miserably bad acting, a tired boring gimmick (the body swap trope), and a premise (Lester's motivation being that women can't be starship captains) that is sexist and insulting to what the franchise stands for (and wrong: see captains Hernandez, Georgiou, Batel and Janeway among others).  It boggles the mind that Gene Roddenberry's name is in the credits as the writer of this episode.  With this episode TOS ended with a deafening whimper. Spock’s Brain "Brain and Brain!  What is Brain?!"  This episode.  The long ridiculed, goofy third season premiere.  A goofy story filled with silly, absurd, nonsensical, cringeworthy moments like McCoy remote controlling brain-less Spock and being able to perform brain surgery after g...

Episode Spotlight TOS's Where No Man Has Gone Before The second pilot.  The first episode to star William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk (also James Doohan as Scotty and George Takei as Sulu).  I will be a bit biased here since this is one of my all time favorite episodes of all of Star Trek.  I have always loved this episode.  The story is great, the Enterprise discovered a recorder marker from an old Earth ship, the S.S. Valiant which disappeared over two hundred years earlier.  The episode opens with Captain Kirk's first log entry and the first scenes with Kirk and Spock together (also the introduction of 3-D chess).  You can already feel the history and friendship between Kirk and Spock.  After bringing the recorder aboard Spock listens to the recorded logs and we learn more about the fate of the Valiant: a magnetic space storm had pulled them in this direction, the ship was swept outside the Milky Way Galaxy, they then attempted to re-enter the ...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 10: A Quality of Mercy A Quality of Mercy An interesting what-if alternate timeline episode, in this episode what if...Pike never left the Enterprise and was still captain during the events of TOS Balance of Terror instead of Kirk?  Because of this much of the episode plays as a beat-for-beat, word-for-word recreation of Balance of Terror, with Ortegas in Lt. Stiles place (even given Stiles lines).  Interesting to build a little backstory for Commander Hanson at Outpost 4, also connecting him and his son to Pike's fate.  Nide touch to have Hanson wearing the outpost badge first seen on the same character in Balance of Terror (and also later seen in Arena).  And that brings me to Kirk.  James Kirk.  Here we see for the first time Paul Wesley as James T. Kirk, captain of the Farragut in this timeline instead of the Enterprise.   RANT INCOMING We also see future Admiral Pike in a bad attempt at a TOS mo...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 9: All Those Who Wander All Those Who Wander Uhura finishes her training and officially becomes an Ensign.  We get to see another Starfleet ship for the first time in this series.  The USS Peregrine is a Sombra class ship, supposedly a variant of the constitution class (although it looks like a constitution class).  M'Bengas statement the the Sombra class is made from Constitution class parts is a weak handwave to be honest.  I liked Hemmer likening the cold to Andoria-nice touch.  The baddie turns out to be the Gorn, which the recap at the beginning of the episode kinda spoiled.  Also not surprising regardless.  We get some more good Uhura-Hemmer scenes, which makes the ending of the episode that much more gut wrenching.  This episode does have a lot of blood and gore for Star Trek.  La'ans past with the Gorn definitely helped in this episode, and we really got some good La'an scenes.  I'v...

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...

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...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 4: Momento Mori Momento Mori Starfleet Remembrance Day is a cool idea for a Starfleet day of celebration.  Also the memorial pins worn by the crew are kinda neat.  The massacre aftermath on the planet is quite bloody, but no more graphic than other modern trek.  The Enterprise connects to the colony ship with a docking tube.  A similar one was seen in Discovery season 2.  This episode introduces the Gorn as the "big baddie" of this series, which is interesting but also questionable as far as keeping with established canon.  We get to see a lot of the Enterprise in combat in this episode, essentially for the entire episode.  Uhura and Hemmer trapped in engineering gives the opportunity for plenty of character growth for both characters.  The strategizing by the crew, the "hide and seek" submarine warfare in the gas giant and later the black hole between the Enterprise and the Gorn is reminiscent of TO...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 3: Ghosts of Illyria Ghosts of Illyria This is something we haven't seen in Trek in a looonnnggg time: a "ship is infected, the crew is incapacitated, only the medical department can save us" episode.  I am reminded of episodes like TNG "Genesis", DS9 "Babel" and Voyager "Microcosm" among others.  Also I love the building Una's background and establishing her as an Illyrian not human (beta canon sources had already gone this direction).  The Illyrians were established in an episode of Enterprise, their being genetically engineered is a nice addition and the whole being genetically engineered and genetic engineering being illegal in the Federation is call back to Khan, the Eugenics wars and also Bashir in DS9.  It's fun to see Hemmer in action for the first time.  For the first time we get to see engineering, which is part set and part AR wall.  The planetside scenes give us some good Pik...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 2: Children of the Comet Children of the Comet Interesting to start out with an Uhura log entry.  Also this episode establishes the kitchen inside Pike's enormous quarters.  Pike cooking for the crew is a fun something different for trek, although I'm not sure how exactly that fits in with what we know of him from The Cage and Discovery season 2.  Also this episode buids on characters like Ortegas and establishes the character of chief engineer Commander Hemmer, an Aenar.  The Aenar were established in the eponymous season 4 episode of Enterprise as a blind, albino subspecies of Andorians.  The actor who plays Hemmer, Bruce Horak is in fact legally blind.  Uhura being young and unsure is a cool angle to take for the episode and the character.  More references to Pike's vision of his fate (the accident).  Personally I think it is best that the series does not continue to dwell on this (especially as d...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season One Episode 1: Strange New Worlds Strange New Worlds Cool intro with Number One's voiceover.  The episode also introduced Captain Batel, Pike's love interest.  Pike riding on the horse is a great callback to The Cage (Pike said to Dr. Boyce that he had two horses).  Understandable to see Pike struggling with the events of Discovery season 2 (the vision of his future, the accident 7 years from now, bein radiation burned, paralyzed in the wheelchair that can only beep once for yes and two for no), and the fact that he can't talk about it with anyone except Spock because it's all classified.  The title sequence is cool.  Prior to the series coming out Paramount released a preview of the intro sequence and theme music (with out the text or voiceover).  When the pilot released and I saw it for the first time, I was blown away by Anson Mount as Pike doing the "Space the Final Frontier" speech.  Not expecting to but glad to...

Strange New Worlds Season 3 Season Review Overall Impressions Uneven would be one word to describe this season, especially the first half, with a serious episode, followed by a lighthearted episode, followed by a serious episode, followed by a lighthearted episode, followed by a serious episode.  The back half of the season is more consistently serious (except of course for the Vulcan episode).  On the whole though, some pretty decent trek.  This season seemingly ended the Spock-Chapel arc and replaced it with the Spock-La'An arc, mainly to put Chapel with Roger Korby (originally established in TOS "What are Little Girls Made of". the season also expanded on and eventually wrapped up the Pike-Batel arc by adding a Batel-Gorn subplot first established in season 2's finale Hegemony, in this seasons finale New Life and New Civilizations.  As an audience member and having seen TOS, the foreknowledge that Pike will end up with Vina in TOS "The Menagerie part 2" m...