Star Trek Crap

[Warbodog]

Sorry to lower the tone and for being so early in the morning. But if you’re a fan of ageing sci-fi franchises generally, or a fan of complaining about them, here are some things going on with Star Trek at the moment:

– Star Trek: Short Treks. Out Now! 4 x short episodes (10-15 mins) being released once a month before Discovery returns. Minimal and supplemental, but proper stories rather than DVD-padding minisodes. The second one (Calypso) is the most Trek has intrigued me since the 90s, written by Michael Chabon. I don’t know where you can watch these where you live.

– Discovery season 2 starts in January. Hope it’s good. I found S1 watchable and they’ve already concluded (abandoned) the war arc I didn’t like. Fan service tends to repel rather than attract me, but I have a soft spot for the ‘lost’ Captain Pike era (I probably watched ‘The Cage’ more than any other episode as a kid), so I’m more interested to see their take on that vaguely-defined crew than watching another reboot of Kirk & co.

– Star Trek: Lower Decks. An adult animated sitcom in development focusing on the humdrum lives of Starfleet technicians. Creator Mike McMahan explains, “I want to do a show about the people who put the yellow cartridge in the food replicator so a banana can come out the other end.” Where do they get their crazy ideas from? Maybe the same places Rob and Doug did, it’s not that similar really.

– Picard series in development starring Patrick Stewart. I didn’t find this announcement exciting, because I prefer new things, but I just found out Michael Chabon’s on the writing team, which will help. Excitement may come as details are released.

– Various rumours about other shows or miniseries invariably centred around existing characters and concepts, but I don’t think anything’s been confirmed and may all be uninteresting clickbait.

– Reboot Star Trek 4 is supposedly stuck in development hell, and something about a weird Tarantino proposal. I don’t care about the films any more.

But never mind that tot – best Trek film? I’d probably go with VI, because I love how timely its analogy is at the end of an era, but 1-IV are all classics or comfort watches in their own ways.

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

once you hit 2010s stuff like Series X of Red Dwarf you start seeing pitch shifting and other conversion artifacts.

I caught an episode of Chuck on British TV (S03E01 so it must have been at least post-2010) and it was all sped-up and higher pitch and I just thought, have you seriously not figured this shit out yet, in the year of our lord 2010/11/12/13? It cannot be that difficult.

[Warbodog]

Like slow Sonic 1, fast Star Trek wasn’t really noticeable at the time, though I did find Picard’s stardate numbers sounded really spat out. I was mainly fast-forwarding the opening titles and credits anyway.

Did anyone dip into the “proper” lit Trek EU (i.e. post-DS9)? The DS9 relaunch was okay, but it was like Babylon 5 season 5 in being a post-mortem after the closure, I stopped after a while. Wasn’t bothered about any future TNG or Voyager exploits.
I can still have a good time when reading a bland 90s don’t-upset-the-continuity TNG or DS9 book. I like the 80s DC movie-era comics which capture that vibe well, TNG comics were just dull, DS9’s were okay.

The best Trek books are The Art of Star Trek (which I used to browse enviously in the bookshop as a kid, not being able to afford its £32 price tag, but is a few pounds on eBay these days) and the DS9 companion, which I found fascinating but will have been usurped by wikis now. Still, in paperback. I found the Nitpicker’s Guides hilarious as a kid too, I can’t unsee all the errors when watching early TNG especially.

[sleepey]

I would like to get into the litverse at some point, but:

[Warbodog]

TNG’s ‘Timescape’ may be a Red Dwarf influencing episode too, with time flowing at different rates (Time Wand), “everything we say is being – bananas” edits, and background characters happening to be frozen while they were already posing unnaturally like mimes for some reason.

Also this:

(Psirens was already filmed but aired later)

[Technopeasant]

Strange: I’ve seen one episode, the musical one. I like that it tries to be Star Trek. Anson Mount is perfect recasting but the rest of the recasting is very shoddy.

Other than Spock and Chapel do the recasts matter that much? Given they were only in The Cage before (though I’ve heard Kirk and Scotty cameo too)? Admittedly must have been difficult to essentially turn Majel Barrett into two people though.

[Warbodog]

This was a fun Captain Pike book with space whales. It was a rare treat to get something this obscure in the 90s. I always found prototype Star Trek so compelling (treat yourself to Forbidden Planet if you haven’t watched it), yet consider Strange New Worlds an irrelevance that’s not for me. Just my brain or age. Maybe I’ll lighten up or run out of old things eventually.

 

[Technopeasant]

Speaking of dodgy recasts, anyone else see any Star Trek: New Voyages or Continues or anything else from the golden age of fan films?

[Ben Saunders]

I thought the casting for Continues was pretty good, nothing stood out as particularly egregious. I know the actor for Kirk is a sex pest or something but whatever. Or a MAGA guy. Same difference. Please don’t sue me for libel I’m talking out my arse.

Amazing how Walter Koenig will do anything.

[Rushy]

Speaking of dodgy recasts, anyone else see any Star Trek: New Voyages or Continues or anything else from the golden age of fan films?

Yes, I saw them both. I actually quite liked James Cawley’s take on Kirk, he was the only one who wasn’t just imitating Shatner. 

Continues was a much more professional production, and actually passed for real episodes of TOS (outside of the cast change). 

[Technopeasant]

I know the actor for Kirk is a sex pest or something but whatever.

Arguably perfect casting…

As for Grant Imahara as Sulu, still a bit bizarre that we have a dead Chekov and a dead Sulu and neither are the ones from the 1960s.

Poor Grant didn’t even get to go put in a blaze of mad scientist glory like Jessi Combs did, like you’d hope for a MythBuster.

[Author]

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