JC's Trek Talk

    Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 Reaction: Episode 4 A Space Adventure Hour The music in the opening is very TOS-esqe.  Also the alternate opening us obviously based on TOS famous opening.  Star Trek Discovery played around with holographic technologies (waaay before they should have existed in the Star Trek Universe...), and yes, The Animated Series had one episode with a "recreation room" that was essentially a proto-holodeck.  The yellow empty holodeck grid is a nice callback to TNG's holodeck (the actual first holodeck), as is characters becoming trapped in the holodeck and out of communication with the ship (TNG's "The Big Goodbye" and "Ship in a Bottle".  Creating a holodeck mystery based on a period novel is very much derivative of TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data" (my all-time favorite holodeck episode BTW).  Also, using the main actors to play alternate characters as well as their own characters (partly as a  cost-cuttin...

  Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 Reaction: Episode 3 Shuttle to Kenfori The whole concept of the captain taking on a personal "off the books" mission to obtain thing needed to save someone close to them is very classic Star Trek.  It was also nice to see some more Pike/M'Benga scenes, as well as some background on M'Benga.  The zombies elements is a bit cliche at this point, but it serves to plot fine.  It was a fun twist that the female Klingon leading the "hunting party" was the daughter of Dak'Rah from season 2's "Under the Cloak of War".  Also Klingon discommendation is a nice lore reference callback to TNG and Worf's discommendation to protect the house of Duras.  I have to say, I thought the scene at the end with Una dressing down Ortegas could have been better, especially seeing as the timing of their arrival at the planet was actually critical in getting Pike and M'Benga out.  Also, if the mission to Kenfori was off t...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 3 Reactions: Episodes 1 and 2 Hegemony Part II Finally picking up where part 1 left off, we get some more intense action, interspersed with good character beats.  More Spock/Chapel, more Scotty!, more Pike/Batel, and (hopefully) an end to Gorn stuff for a while.  Me personally I'm kinda "meh" on the whole Gorn thing, especially knowing that TOS "first contacted" them in Arena nearly 6 years later.  Also the way they're depicted in SNW is honestly a little...flat.  Arena did a better job.  I guess I'm personally ready to be done with it.  Season 3 introduces a new title sequence with new visuals including a Klingon D7 battlecruiser AND a new name in the title credits, Martin Quinn (playing Scotty).  This is encouraging, that Scotty will be staying aboard the Enterprise for the rest of the series and presumably at some point taking the chief engineer baton from Pelia.  If anything it already feels like Pelia is me...

Thoughts on the Future of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds I've been hesitating on addressing this, but it's time.  When Paramount recently announced the official release date for Strange New Worlds season 3 they simultaneously confirmed season 4 being in production AND the renewal of the series for season 5.  They also announced that season 5 would be the final season, and that it would be shortened from the normal 10 episodes to 6 episodes.   While I am sad that the series will be ending, I am not surprised.  With the series premise being a five year mission under captain Pike it is only logical that the fifth season would be the last.  Also this follows the trend of Star Trek streaming series running for 5 years (Discovery, Lower Decks). Looking forward I can only hope that TPTB continue to steer the show toward the buildup to the handover of the Enterprise from Pike to Kirk.  I mused on this in a previous post  Here .  I personally would lik...

Strange New Worlds Season 3 Episode Reviews With Strange New Worlds season 3 set to release next week (Thursday July 17 with TWO episodes), I have decided that I will do mini reviews of the episodes in groups of probably 2-3 episodes as time allows.  I will definitely be doing a review of the first two episodes probably the weekend after they release as time allows.  The reviews will probably mostly release on the weekends (subject to change). This post will be updated with any changes. Stay Tuned.

Thoughts on the upcoming Strange New Worlds season 3 I've been holding off on this post for a while, but I'm finally deciding to do it.  My thoughts on the upcoming 3rd season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Following their standard modus operandi these days Paramount has released a couple of trailers, a set of pictures and the episode name for season 3.  The much delayed season 3 (thanks to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023).  I for one have been waiting for season 3 to see the conclusion of season 2's cliffhanger ending (Hegemony) with the Gorn.  I for one raise a serious eyebrow at the series whole use of the Gorn, as the TOS episode Arena as much as screamed that that incident was first contact between the Federation and the Gorn.  I'm not going to die on that hill, we all know how much TPTB don't care about canon.  Moving on. From the trailers and pictures it definitely looks like we're getting more Scotty (cool) and more Kirk-it'll be interestin...

Worst Starfleet Starship Designs: A Rant In 2009 we were introduced to the Kelvin timeline and JJ Abrams version of the classic NCC-1701: Yeah... Dude! It's not a hot rod! It's the Starship Enterprise.  It doesn't need all the aerodynamic fins and sh*#, it's in space.  The supposed scale is ridiculous (and doesn't work), the nacelles look totally stupid, the overall color scheme is more TMP than TOS, and I don't even know what the f*$# is going on with the neck sitting way back on the drive section. In Star Trek Beyond, it had apparently gone through a refit (IRL the ship's neck and pylons were slimmed down to make the destruction by Krall's swarm more plausible).  And it actually looks worse.  A lot worse. Into Darkness gave us this hot mess: The USS Vengeance.  When I first saw it I was like "what is this? Really? Is this a joke???" For a Star Trek ship: NO.  Just no. When Star Trek Discovery was first announced and anticipation was hig...

Temporal Investigations Incursion Report Filed Stardate 58624.3 Commander JT Stern, DTI Analyst Transmitted over secured channel Alpha 236 Zeta 2 I. SUMMARY OF INCURSION Stardate 58460.1 The USS Cerritos NCC-75567 was assigned to conduct updated scans of the time portal on planet Krulmuth-B, first discovered by an Orion science ship in the 23rd century. An away team of 4 junior officers led by Ensign Beckett Mariner were sent to the surface to conduct the scans. During the away mission the portal was inadvertently activated and Ensign Bradward Boimler and later Ensign Beckett Mariner were thrown back in time from 2381 stardate 58460.1 to 2260 stardate 2291.6. At the time of their arrival in the past the portal was being analyzed by an away team from the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 under Captain Christopher Pike as part of a routine survey. With the assistance of Captain Pike and the crew of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 the two ensigns were later returned to their own time frame. Temp...

Strange New Worlds Season 3 Trailer Star Trek Strange New Worlds season 3 trailer just dropped. My initial impressions: Looks like a lot of quirky, one-off episodes, but I hope there's some actual exploring strange new worlds. Right now, I'm most interested in the conclusion of the Gorn cliffhanger season left us hanging on. (And we used to think that having to wait 3-4 months to for the conclusion of Best of Both Worlds, Redemption or Scorpion was bad...) Observations: 0:10: Maybe the "50's sci-fi" episode is a commentary on this being a sci-fi show? 0:15: Is that a holodeck? Ummm...Ok? 0:19: Why does that guy look like Trelane? Also the way he snaps his fingers is decidedly Q-ish... 0:24: A three armed edosian(?). Tying into TAS. MmmKay. 0:43: I'm liking Uhura's new 'do. Also, I'm glad to see we get more new Scotty. (granted, I'm a bit biased since Scotty (James Doohan) is one of my top favorite Star Trek characters. I usually don...

Federation Class Dreadnought class starship History 2259 In 2259 a group of engineers from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and strategists from Starfleet Tactical led by then Captain Jose Mendez introduced a proposal to the Federation Council for a new, more powerful, more heavily armed starship class, to serve as both a heavy combat vessel and a standard-bearer for Starfleet. The ship would be faster and much more heavily armed than anything that came before, even the jewel of the fleet, the Constitution Class. Many on the Federation Council were skeptical, the very idea of a dreadnought, essentially a battleship, being antithetical to Starfleet and the Federations core ideals. Within the ranks of Starfleet many officers who had served in the recently concluded Federation-Klingon war supported building the new ship while others, including Captains Pike and Wesley, Commodore Paris and Admiral April were strongly opposed to the dreadnought class ships, siding with the majority of t...