JC's Trek Talk

Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise NuTrek: New Medium, New Blood, New Beginnings Star Trek: Discovery In 2016, on the 50th anniversary year for the franchise CBS, in control of Star Trek since the 2006 CBS/Viacom split, announced a new Star Trek series, to both act as flagship show for the new CBS All Access streaming service and mark the franchise's return to the small screen. The series, Star Trek: Discovery was initially conceived by Trek alum Bryan Fuller, although Fuller would leave the production prior to the start of season 1 due to production delays and disagreements with CBS head Les Moonves, following which Alex Kurtzman, Executive Producer on Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Beyond would become head of the franchise. In fall of 2017 Star Trek Discovery would premiere on CBS All Access and CBS network with "The Vulcan Hello", starring Sonequa Martin-Green as Michael Burnham, Doug Jones as Saru and Michelle Yeoh as Philippa Georgiou.  Set in th...

Deep Space Nine: The Final Chapter 7: Extreme Measures After returning to the station Odo is in the infirmary, being treated by Dr. Bashir.  Bashir tells him that he is still working to find a cure for the disease and that he estimates that Odo has a week, maybe two to live.  Kira and Garak leave to rejoin Damar's resistance.  O'Brien tells Sisko that Starfleet engineering has the schematics of the captured Breen energy dampening weapon and are working on a defense.  Bashir transmits a report to Starfleet Medical, falsely claiming that he has found a cure.  He tells Sisko that he didn't inform him before because he didn't want Section 31 to cover their tracks.  He also says he plans to use Romulan mind probes on a Section 31 member.  Sisko allows them to proceed, overlooking the ethical and legal issues.  After a late night round of darts with O'Brien at Quarks Bashir goes to bed, only to be woken by Luther Sloan from Section 31.  Bashir acti...

Deep Space Nine: The Final Chapter 5: When It Rains... O'Brien briefs Sisko and Martok on the Breen energy-dampening weapon and the fact that one ship, a Klingon Bird of Prey, was immune to the weapon due to modifications to its reactor.  However this modification won't work on Federation or Romulan ships.  Martok agrees to have all Klingon ships modified and use them to keep the Dominion distracted.  After the attack on Rondac III Damar has gone into hiding.  Sisko and Admiral Ross agree that Damar's resistance could use some help in resistance fighting and guerrilla tactics, they decide to send Kira to help them, Kira agrees.  Garak and Odo will accompany her.  In the infirmary Bashir convinces Odo to give him a sample of his "goo" to study for medical research.  On Bajor Winn continues to read the Kosst Amojan.  Dukat offers to help but she refuses.  On DS9 Martok is to be inducted into the order of Kahless.  Kira and Garak inform Sis...

Dark Secrets: A Fan Story The Year 2488 Stardate 165422.7 USS Pike.  NCC-118929.  Eclipse Class long range deep space explorer. During a deep space long range exploration of the Beta Quadrant the USS Pike discovered a colony of humans on a planet called Terralysium approximately 51000 lightyears from Earth.  The crew began investigating, their away teams discovered that these humans ancestors were brought to this planet during WWIII in the 21st century.  They also discovered evidence of a previous visit to this planet by a Starfleet ship in the 23rd century, specifically a USS Discovery and Captain Christopher Pike visiting in 2258.  Being totally unable to reconcile this with historical records Captain Martin contacted Starfleet with this information.   In a nondescript office three people looked at the central holographic display showing the data sent back by the USS Pike regarding their discovery.  A dark skinned human with grey hair shook his ...

JC's Guide to the Final Frontier Volume II  More glib, blunt and possibly politically incorrect musings on the final frontier: Unluckiest in Love Possibly the unluckiest man in the Galaxy when it comes to women is a certain eternally mono-piped ops officer on the intrepid starship Voyager.  Out of politeness I won't say his name, but it rhymes with "Harry Kim".  Among his failed exploits: a holodeck character puppeted by an alien, an ex-Borg, the wrong Delaney twin, a women from a xenophobic species (including sex without medical clearance-he got reprimanded for that one) a resurrected dead crewmember, and a group of life-sucking Taresian bridezillas.  This guy has even less luck with the opposite sex than Geordi LaForge.  Stranger Things Sir Arthur Eddington (no relation to Maquis leader Michael-we hope) once said: "Not only is the Universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine".  True.  Look at the time women from Sigma Draconi...

The Worst of Star Trek The Movies Section 31 Alex Kurtzman was seemingly hellbent on making a Discovery spinoff Section 31 tv series, based on the super secret black ops organization originated in DS9 and bastardized in Discovery.  COVID related production schedule issues and Michelle Yeohs best actress Oscar win for "Everything Everywhere All at Once" resulted in the series (unwanted by the fans) being reworked into a streaming movie.  What we ended up with was a dogshit Suicide Squad/Guardians of the Galaxy knockoff with a cast of characters that it's honestly hard to care about in a movie that barely has anything to do with Star Trek.  After watching it once, I wish I could take that hour and a half back.   Into Darkness The second Kelvin Timeline reboot movie.  J.J. Abrams and co's attempt to retell (and rip off) the Wrath of Khan story, while cramming in elements of Space Seed, Section 31 and the Klingons (also a gratuitous Alice Eve in underwear scene) res...

What is Star Trek About? A Reflective Essay What is Star Trek about?  This is an interesting and loaded question.  From it's beginning with the original series in the 1960's Star Trek is and always has been about deep, thoughtful, intellectual stories about an optimistic future for humanity.   The concept as conceived by Gene Roddenberry was a future in which humanity (a united humanity) works together with other races and species in common cause.  The cause being exploration, learning and personal betterment.  A future where humanity has overcome its internal struggles and provincial attitudes and prejudices and moved beyond national squabbles, beyond poverty, disease, war, into a more enlightened future.  In the original series this was often shown in the form of episodes that were in truth morality plays, set in a sci-fi concept and a future several hundred years hence. Episodes like "Let That be Your Last Battlefield" that took a very blunt look ...

A Hypothetical Scene Alex Kurtzman: May I help you sir? Scotty: Aye lad. Trek, neat. Kurtzman: (hands Scotty Section 31 movie)  There you go, sir. Scotty: Thank you.  (watches movie for two minutes, shuts it off) Scotty: What in blazes is this? Kurtzman: Didn't you order Trek? Scotty: "Laddie, I was watching Trek many years before you were born, and I can tell you that whatever this is, it is definitely NOT Trek." Data: I believe I may be of some assistance.  Captain Scott is unaware of the existence of NuTrek. Scotty: NuTrek? Data: It is a shallow, poor quality writing, low effort Trek substitute now being served to the fandom. Scotty: You're not quite human, are you? Data: No, sir. I am an android.  Lieutenant Commander Data. Scotty: Synthetic Trek, synthetic commanders.

The Star Trek Movies: A Ranking As the tile suggests, this is a ranking MY ranking, of the Star Trek movies, all of them, from 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture to 2025's Star Trek Section 31 streaming movie, from subjective best to worst.  Again, this is MY ranking, your mileage may and probably will vary. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Can anyone argue with this being at the top of the list?  Really?  The Star Trek movie of Star Trek Movies.  A riveting story, one of the best villains in the history of the franchise, a strong theme of life (Genesis, Kirk's son David, youth, the academy, young officers) juxtaposed by the theme of death (Spock's death, Kirk feeling old, the Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario and examining how one faces certain death, the idea that Genesis could be used to destroy life).  Also the themes of friendship and loyalty and sacrifice (Kirk and Spock), with some of the franchises most iconic Kirk and Spock lines "The needs of the many......

On Section 31... I have never been wild about the whole concept of Section 31, since it was first established in DS9's season 6 episode "Inquisition" in which the clandestine organization abducts Dr. Bashir and then tries to recruit him.  The organization was portrayed as rogue, operation outside the purview and even official knowledge of Starfleet and the Federation.  This is in contrast to the Cardassian Obsidian Order or Romulan Tal Shiar both of which are well known and operate with the tacit approval of their respective governments.  Although the concept of Section 31 is an intriguing one in the context of DS9s many shades of grey, I personally find it unnecessary and completely antithetical to Gene Roddenberry's original vision of Star Trek.  In season 7's "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges" Section 31 pops up again to meddle in Romulan Tal Shiar affairs, and then at season (and series) end it's revealed that Section 31 created a virus to commit gen...

The Lost Era An era in the Star Trek timeline I would personally really like to see explored is the Lost Era, the 70-odd years between Star Trek VI/first act of Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek TNG.  Very little has been told on screen of this period in trek history, and it seems to me that it is ripe for exploration.  And yes, I know the Section 31 streaming movie is set in the Lost Era, although honestly the only thing tying to that era specifically is the presence of Lt. Rachel Garrett, future captain of the USS Enterprise-C.  Everything else in Section 31 visually and storywise could have been set in any time period.  There is a lot of material that could be covered here to provide backstory or further development to characters/plots already established in Trek canon.   To name a few:  The Cardassian occupation of Bajor Lots to establish here.  We've seen a few flashbacks to the occupation on Terok Nor (DS9) in episodes of DS9 (Necessary E...