JC's Trek Talk

 Starfleet Captains Greatest Quotes "Up until about a hundred years ago, there was one question that burned in every human, that made us study the stars and dream of traveling to them: are we alone?  Our generation is privileged to know the answer to that question.  We are all explorers, driven to know what's over the horizon, what's beyond our own shores.  And yet, the more I've experienced, the more I've learned that no matter how far we travel, or how fast we get there, the most profound discoveries are not necessarily beyond that next star.  They're within us, woven into the threads that bind us, all of us, to each other.  The final frontier begins in this hall. Let's explore it together." -Captain Jonathan Archer, Enterprise NX-01 "Universal law is for lackeys; context is for kings." -Captain Gabriel Lorca, USS Discovery "The real world doesn't always adhere to logic.  Sometimes down is up.  Sometimes up is down.  Sometimes when...

Star Trek 60th Anniversary Reflecting on the Franchise Trek at 60: Current Series and the Franchises' Future Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Spinning off of Discoverys second season and created in no small part because of the fan response to Anson Mount's Captain Pike, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the adventures of the USS Enterprise (as previously seen in Discovery) on the second five year mission under Captain Pike, in the years leading up to the events of the Original Series.  Joining Anson Mount as Christopher Pike, Ethan Peck as Spock and Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley (Number One) are Celia Rose Gooding as Cadet/Ensign/Lieutenant Uhura, Jess Bush as Nurse Chapel, Babs Olusunmokun as Dr. M'Benga, Christina Chong as Lieutenant La'an Noonien-Singh, Melissa Navia as Lieutenant Erica Ortegas, and in later seasons Carol Kane as Pelia, Martin Quinn as Montgomery Scott and Paul Wesley as Commander James T. Kirk.  The first two seasons were produced back to back i...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 10 Tomorrows Enterprise Uhura has returned to the Enterprise from a refresher course while the Enterprise is examining a white hole.  Uhura detects a signal right before an energy wave hits the Enterprise-music.  After being treated for minor injuries in sickbay Uhura returns to her quarters.  She continues to hear voices-Scotty yelling.  She consults with La'an who believes the Uhura may be experiencing something time travel related.  In the science lab she traces the source of the message she detected on the bridge and ends up making contact with herself.  On the other side, The Enterprise is examining a newly formed black hole.  This enterprise is about a year in the future.  Kirk is in command, Dr. Boyce is acting chief medical officer.  Uhura and Scotty are in a relationship.  Uhura, Scotty and a visiting Ortegas take a shuttle into the black hole.  Uhura detects a signal-...

Nutrek's Characterization of James T. Kirk: Kelvin Movies vs. SNW I've observed an interesting pattern with the way Nutrek characterizes and depicts one of the most iconic characters in the franchise, James T. Kirk.  To preface this (and get it out of the way first), I know that Kelvin Kirk has a majorly different history and backstory than classic prime timeline Kirk, mainly due to Kelvin Kirk's childhood and upbringing being so radically different than prime Kirk's (see Star Trek 2009), and as such they are essentially different characters.   The Kelvin timeline Kirk's character (this also applies to many of the Kelvin timeline characters, but mainly Kirk) is heavily based on the cultural stereotypes of James T. Kirk, many off which come primarily from the Star Trek movies not The Original Series.  The primary characterizations of Kirk in the Kelvin movies is of Kirk as a maverick, loose-cannon, womanizer, cowboy captain.  While this is not wholly inaccurate t...

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...

  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...

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...

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...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 6 Off Hour In a new twist for trek, the episode takes place in real time, complete with a chronometer count down on the screen.  Also a reference to Dr. Boyce.  Interesting.  We see the crew getting ready for some downtime aboard ship.  The ship gets pulled into a slipstream wormhole.  Everything get's electrified until Pike manages to get the shields up.  The ship is damaged, Scotty is stuck in the turbolift, engineering has to evacuate, Pike an co are trapped on the bridge, M'Benga and Chapel are stuck in sickbay.  Una, La'an and Spock are down in the port galley.  The split screens are an interesting choice.  The Vulcan cadet is featured in this episode, this time working with Scotty.  M'Benga is pinned against the wall by a lab table, his back injured.  If the lab table is moved he will die.  Stakes.  TNG/DS9/VOY alum Brian Markinson plays Dr. Boyce, the CMO from ...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 5 Level-Five Transporter Accident Scotty wants to carry out the longest distance transport ever, and use it to get back at his academy rival.  Pike has a new captains chair, which becomes a plot point later.  Spock contacts T'Pring and invites her to Enterprise.  Spock takes a shuttle to deploy transporter buoys.  Scotty attempts his transport, an accident seemingly beams away every crewmember, then the Enterprise itself.  The Enterprise reappears, Spock goes aboard to find everyone turned into puppets.  After the crew try to determine what happened and after some overly done bickering they contact Admiral April and advise him of the situation.  Spock being the only one capable of running the ship is busy between the bridge, trying to restore the crew, and T'Pring, is overwhelmed.  An encounter with an Orion ship goes awry when the Orions see the crew in puppet form.  The Orions attack t...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 4 A Case of Chiaroscuro The episode is entirely in black and white.  Interesting.  The black and white is immediately explained as part of the plot and not just a gimmick. Una leads a mission to retrieve a malfunctioning probe from inside Klingon space.  The shuttle is nearly detected by the Klingons and is forced to land on a nearby planet to hide.  They find the planet under Klingon occupation.  Much of the episode is very TOS-esque: the crew incognito on a "parallel earth" planet, the planet modelled after a specific Earth region or period (in this case 1940s-esque movie noir), the crew in native/period attire among the natives, and the planet affected by outside influence.  The message at the end-that in life things are not black and white, but many shades of grey is an interesting, vey TOS introspective look at humanity, nicely set against the episode being completely in black and white.  Dem...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 3 Human Best Friend The episode starts with cutting between Ortegas and Scotty's personal logs, followed by Una and Pike discussing the upcoming mission and the stress the crew has been under (previously mentioned in "Valles Marineris").  The crew decides to stop at a shore leave planet where the atmosphere causes you to become drunk.  The crew's shore leave antics include Ortegas (not feeling the effects of the atmosphere) stuck with Scotty and trying to find Pike, Spock hallucinating Jim Kirk, Una singing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Klingon (likely selected because of Bonnie Tyler's recent passing), Dr. M'Benga playing bartender ("It's green" apparently a TOS reference" and Pike getting a tattoo.  Add the ticking clock of the alien delegation the crew was to meet in two weeks coming to meet the Enterprise in two hours and the missing shuttle and you've got a typical ...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 2 The Griffin Incident Jim Kirk (Paul Wesley) makes an appearance, as he, Spock and La'an are in a shuttlecraft on the way back to the Enterprise from a conference when the detect a distress call.  Following it they find the dead, derelict USS Griffin which disappeared 9 years ago.  After sending a message to the Enterprise they beam over to find the ship powerless but gravity still working.  The three examine the ship and find the crew all long dead, the bodies missing.  After reviewing messages left by the ships' security officer reporting the crew acting strangely the three themselves begin acting strangely and hallucinating.  Spock's T'Pring, Kirk sees his brother Sam and hears the crying of his infant son David, and La'an sees what they first believe to be a survivor, later seen as a "ghost" or "zombie" version of USS Griffin security chief Harper.  The dark derelict ship with out crew ...

Star Trek Strange New Worlds Season 4 Reaction: Episode 1 Valles Marineris Fun intro sequence, Pike on horseback is a fun callback to not only the opening scenes of the series pilot "Strange New Worlds" but the Original Series pilot "The Cage" which established Pike's fondness for and ownership of horses.  Uhura gets to mentor a trainee cadet, a Vulcan.  This is cool since three seasons ago the shoe was on the other foot, with Uhura being mentored by the late Commander Hemmer.  Pike's reticence to take a promotion echoes Riker's resistance to take the captain's chair and Picard's resistance to leave it in TNG and the TNG movies.  According to Una, six months has passed since the end of season 3.  The story proper starts when a space storm phenomenon throws the Enterprise back in time to prehistoric Earth.  Earth 6 million years in the past.  The Sol System apparently had an additional M-class planet at that time.  La'An, Una and Ortegas deal ...

Star Trek Trivia Quiz Gamma 1. On what ship did Liam Shaw serve as a junior officer during the Battle of Wolf 359? 2. What actor holds the record for playing the most different roles in Star Trek? 3. Before coming aboard the USS Enterprise, Montgomery Scott served aboard what ship, destroyed at Parnassus Beta, as a junior engineer? 4. Subcommander T'Pol and Michael Burnham were both practitioners of what Vulcan martial art? 5. On the USS Enterprise sets, some pipes and conduits are labelled "GNDN".  What does this stand for? 6. In Star Trek III, what command did Scotty tell the computer to activate the self destruct sequence? 7. In "The Outrageous Okona" Data created a holographic nightclub with a standup comedian to better explore humor.  Who played the holographic comedian? 8. Odo's name is a shortened form of a Cardassian word odo'ital.  What does odo'ital mean in Federation Standard? 9. Before he died on Veridian III, what were James Kirk's l...

Star Trek Trivia Quiz Beta 1. What was Emperor Philippa Georgiou's full name? 2. A participant in the Temporal Cold War, the Suliban Cabals mysterious benefactor was said by Agent Daniels to be from what century? 3. What was the title of the groundbreaking research paper penned by Dr. Katharine Pulaski early in her medical career? 4. What ship did James Kirk and Benjamin Finney serve on together as midshipmen? 5. After nearly 7 years in the Delta Quadrant USS Voyager was given it's first official assignment since becoming stranded: to track down an ancient UESPA probe.  What was the name of that probe?  6. On what planet were Michael Burnham's parents apparently killed during a Klingon attack? 7. Who said "before we can care for others, we must care for ourselves"? 8. La'an Noonien-Singh was the sole survivor of a Gorn attack on a colony ship.  What was the name of that ship? 9. What was D'Vana Tendi's title in the Orion Syndicate? 10. The derelict Bor...

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 Premiere Date Announced The release date for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 has been announced.  The 10 episode fourth season of the adventures of Captain Pike and crew on the USS Enterprise will premiere on Thursday, July 23, 2026, through Thursday, September 24, 2026.   As with season 3 I will watch each episode as it premieres and post my thoughts, reactions and ruminations.  Reactions should be posted the Sunday following the release day (subject to change). 

JC's Guide to the Final Frontier III The Search for Answers Another fistful of the Final Frontier's follies and failings General Order 1 And the award for the quickest violation of the prime directive (relative to the beginning of the ship's mission) goes to...Captain Christopher Pike.  On the first day of his second five year mission, Captain Pike revealed himself, his half-Vulcan science officer and the Enterprise itself to the natives of Kylie 279.  Granted he was sent there to rescue a captured Starfleet survey team, and granted the prime directive was already violated before that when the battle between Starfleet and the Control-controlled Section 31 forces near Xahea was observed by the Kylians (a classified event in and of itself) and granted it went peacefully and the Kylians would eventually become Federation members, and the classified nature of how the Kylians learned about warp technology let Pike off the hook anyway so... I guess all's well that ends well. ...

The Worst of Star Trek The Streaming Era Discovery: second half of season 1 – mirror universe arc Full disclosure: I am not the biggest fan of the Mirror Universe.  It's not a bad concept, and it is fun to bring up and explore once in a while.  That said, it REALLY didn't need to be brought into Discovery for several reasons.  It's anachronistic that anyone from Starfleet/the Federation would know about the Mirror Universe, since the first documented contact was in TOS a decade hence.  Also the way Discovery depicted it, the super dark, cruel, totalitarian Terran Empire where Emperor Georgiou 'space Hitler' eats sentient beings ( Kelpians ) and everyone tries to assassinate everyone else doesn't really fit with the charm of previous Trek series depictions of the Mirror Universe.  Even if Discovery was going to bring in the Mirror Universe at some point, one episode would have been enough, we really didn't need a half season long arc.  B ringing it in half a...

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 ...