Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Eli Stone and Star Trek

Whoever is casting Eli Stone apparently has a soft spot for Star Trek actors…first, I spotted Voyager’s “Neelix” a few episodes back, and yesterday I could not figure out why the earthquake scientist was so darn familiar…until I realized it was “Dr. Phlox” from Star Trek: Enterprise!

Minor trivia: I met “Neelix” once…long story, but he appeared to be one of those old school Broadway actor types who calls you “sweetie” and “honey” a lot…very funny, really.

Star Trek Generations

I’m digging through my VCR vault…and finally watching and donating my old VCR tapes. And what did I find? Star Trek Generations, the first of the “Next Generation” movies.

Watching it some 10 years later (yikes, has it been that long?), I’m a bit more forgiving. Maybe it’s the years of disappointing Trek on television, but Generations is actually a pretty decent movie, Trek-wise. (Never mind that it’s an odd-number Trek film!)

Highlights:

Captain Kirk (though we need to see more of him).
Some great lines from Scotty at the beginning of the film.
Data and his new emotion chip (nothing like a tricorder puppet to liven up an away team mission!).
Guinan looking incredibly worried with her big cool hat.
Gordi’s stupid-ass visor finally getting the obvious critique from Malcolm MacDowall’s character…and then being used as a security risk.
The Enterprise-D biting it in a fantastic, spectacular planetary wipe-out (I always hated that model).
Data’s big four-letter swear as the Enterprise-D is about to bite it.

Cons:

Not enough from the original cast, and no Uhura, Bones, or Sulu.
Yet another ridiculous time paradox that does not make any sense.
Kirk’s somewhat ignominious and controversial death.
A bit gloomy with the constant death talk.

Mostly, however, Star Trek Generations stands out as a good Trek movie because of Data. He steals the show. In case you forgot, here is the highlight of the film, Data singing his “tiny little lifeforms” song:

Gotta love it!

Why Enterprise Was Just Kinda…Ehhhh…

I caught an episode of Enterprise on SciFi yesterday. The crew stops at a mysterious space station that magically repairs their ship, with our captain wondering “What’s the catch?”

I had checked out Enterprise when it first “launched” and just didn’t find the show interesting enough to continue. In viewing the show again with fresh eyes, I was left with these thoughts on why the show was just mediocre at best:

It’s not just that Enterprise was formulaic, it completely lacked personality and spark.

I really do like Scott Bakula, but as a starship captain riding the new frontier, he’s about as exciting as a piece of dry toast. Even our quirky alien doctor in sickbay (who provides some sort of relief from the monotonous voices of the rest of the cast) isn’t enough to make this show come to life.

If I were to recreate Enterprise, I’d want to see a swashbuckling, dynamic, crazy-ass captain who was willing to do whatever it took to protect his crew. I want to see a captain bristling with so much spark and sexual energy, he’s seducing aliens across the galaxy. Oh, wait, that was Captain Kirk!

I want the other characters to be just as memorable and interesting. Even though Scotty was a terrible caricature of a Scotsman, we all remember his soundbites. Can you say that about anything uttered on Enterprise?

Enterprise…you blew it. I shed no tears for your demise.

As McCoy would say: “He’s dead, Jim.”

Can J.J. Abrams Save Star Trek?

As I’ve already commented here briefly, my answer is no.

Mark A. Altman at the Trek Movie Report thinks differently. As he says in his editorial “Star Trek Lives!“:

Indeed, it was Kirk himself who reminded us that galloping the cosmos is a game for the young and while I don’t envy J.J. Abrams task in re-casting one of the most iconic characters of the 20th century (and certainly most distinctive), I wish him well. After his brilliant work on Alias and Lost, I can’t imagine anyone (other than the Free Enterprise creative team of Mssrs. Burnett and Altman) that could possibly do better justice to the legacy of the original series which is more relevant today than ever.

Well, yes, but Trek isn’t Lost nor is it Alias. I’m going to stick to my original assertion - let Trek die a dignified death, at least for now. Maybe in time, a new generation will be open for a complete reinterpretation of Star Trek (much like Battlestar Galactica). But the franchise is old and tired. To me, the franchise peaked with The Wrath of Khan.

While I’ve enjoyed the spin-off shows, none of them come even vaguely close to the original. Believe it or not, I’d place Deep Space Nine behind TOS as far as quality goes - while there were a lot of boring episodes to begin with, the final war with the Dominion was some of the best sci-fi I’ve ever seen on television. Voyager and the Next Generation are tied for me, and Enterprise - I didn’t watch it past a few episodes.

If someone like me, a fan of Star Trek since high school, can get bored with the franchise, I don’t have high hopes that a mainstream audience will be interested just because J.J. Abrams is at the helm.

Why not put creative energies into creating the next new thing in space epics? Firefly didn’t quite cut it, but Stargate has lasted 10 years and BSG is doing reasonably well. Let’s stop recycling and come up with some new stuff. Or in the least, if you’re going to do a new Trek, do something really out there. Set the series on Klingon or Vulcan. Make the Borg the anti-heroes of the show. Think out of the box, people.

Star Trek: The Original Series - “Errand of Mercy″

Kirk and Spock travel to the planet Organia to convince them to let the Federation take on their planet as a base instead of the Klingons. The episode consists of Kirk arguing a lot with the Organians, who are peace-loving and do not intend (or ultimately need) to fight the Klingons.

This is an important episode, as it is our first introduction to the Klingons. John Colicos of the original Battlestar Galactica plays the lead Klingon. He was sooo good at playing well-mannered bad guys.

Of course, in the original series, the Klingons didn’t have those special ridges on their heads. The discrepancy was joked about in the Deep Space Nine episode “Trials and Tribble-ations,” where the DS9 crew travels back into the past and sees the old-style Klingons.

Since that episode, an entire canonical explanation has been developed over the discrepancy, involving a genetic mutation and virus. If you ask me, going to such ridiculous lengths to explain what is obviously a costuming issue is a bit extreme. Though, I suppose it’s just as well. If they hadn’t made up a fictional explanation for it, someone would have tried to go back in and digitally add head ridges onto the old Klingon actors.

Remastered Trek Photos

From the episode “Miri.” Old:

New:

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Menagerie Parts 1 & 2″

The Menagerie is an interesting two-part episode because it is the first episode in Star Trek that alludes to the Enterprise ever belonging to another Captain, as well as helps create a rich back-story for the series. It is also the only two-partner in the three seasons.

That Gene Roddenberry did this with the failed original pilot, “The Cage,” is even more impressive. The events in this episode are supposed to be 13 years prior, and it really does seem this way; when in fact it was only a couple of years in real time. Even the overly-emotional Spock from the original pilot seems appropriately youthfully exhuberant. Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Menagerie Parts 1 & 2″…

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Enemy Within”

What’s better than one Captain Kirk? Two! And how about if one of them is totally horndog? Woo-hoo! Thus the episode, “The Enemy Within” begins with a transporter malfunction that splits kirk into the Good Kirk and the Bad Kirk.

How can you tell which is which? Well, the Bad Kirk wants Saurian brandy and to molest Yeoman Rand. Oh and he has on dark eye-liner that makes him look…well…hot.

The Good Kirk is a little paler than usual and very reticent as the Bad Kirk is the one who got the cojones. Fortunately the Good Kirk keeps his intellect otherwise fusing and merging them back into one whole appropriately frisky Kirk would not be a possibility.

This episode is well-regarded as some of Bill Shatner’s best acting in the series. The Good Kirk is brilliantly understated - as if the air has been let out of his tires (or his balls are missing since the Bad Kirk has them). The Bad Kirk in contrast is over the top - hysterical, violent, filled with ego and rage and lust. In all not a half-bad guy (half, get it?).

This is also a great episode for Spock and McCoy, who are very sensitive to the Captain’s needs as well as being strong support for the ship and the crew during this crisis. They shoulder the responsibility well and work terrific as a team. Spock has a few great lines too, such as speaking of being half-human and half-Vulcan:

Spock: “Being split into two halves is no theory with me, doctor. I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half…submerged, constantly at war with each other. I survive it because my intelligence wins out over both, makes them live together.”

Once again, Yeoman Rand (who fortunately will not be around on the Enterprise much longer) is the object of someone’s lust. I mean DEAR GOD, has anyone noticed that her hairdo actually contains an enormous beehive? Or a small alien civilization? Or the Who’s from Horton Hears a Who? I mean, seriously. Would Captain Kirk have to unweave the basket that is on top of her head before he even got down to the funky stuff? Could take a while.

Meanwhile on Alfa 177 poor Sulu and the landing party are freezing to death, so something has to happen to get Kirk back together with his shadow-self and the transporter needs to be repaired.

I love these internal ship/character episodes. Brilliant. Take something as inocuous as the geologist who cuts his hand sliding down an ore-filled cliff and look what happens - two Kirks and a frozen landing party. Oh, and don’t forget the peach dyed unicorn dog. Every episode needs one of those.

This episode is the first time Bones says, “He’s dead, Jim” referring to the unicorn dog. And it is the first time Spock uses the Vulcan Nerve Pinch (on the Bad Kirk).

The Kirk Factor: This is all Kirk and double the pleasure at that. I can’t decide which I like better. The Bad Kirk is hotter certainly and I love the snarling and throaty way he asks for the brandy and then walks around drinking from the bottle. But then the Good Kirk is so compassionate. So kind. So dreamy. Ah, well put ‘em together, make one good one.

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Man Trap”

One of the early episodes, this one lays the groundwork for a romantic interest out of McCoy’s past. It’s a highly creative episode, with a message (don’t destroy all the buffalo, that kind of thing - hinting at the fact that as humans spread like a virus into the galaxy and start colonizing planets one of those risks is what happens to the creatures native to those planets.).

The salt-sucker creature was fairly scary to me as a kid. I can remember having bad dreams about it.

Now it looks slightly absurd. Although if I look too closely I could have bad dreams again. Shiver. However, the morphing effect when Nancy would take on (Nancy was McCoy’s ex-girlfriend who is really the creature) a new guise was neat even for then.

The acting is somewhat stilted and a little over the top in this one (imagine that - over the top!). Captain Kirk goes off on one of his moralistic tirades too at poor lonely Professor Crater:

Kirk: You bleed too much, Crater. You’re too pure and noble. Are you saving the last of its kind…or has this become Crater’s private heaven here? This thing becomes wife, lover, best friend…wise man, fool, idol, slave. It isn’t bad to have everyone in the universe…at your beck and call. You win all the arguments.

Jeez, Jim, whatever happened to walking a mile in a man’s moccasins before you condemn him?

Also in the climatic scene McCoy hesitates badly while the salt-sucker is trying to suck the salt out of Captain Kirk and Spock nearly goes hysterical telling him to shoot it but doesn’t even try to pull it off him, which is kind of bizarre, considering that he’s already told everyone that it doesn’t have a taste for him. The whole thing is a little awkward. Eventually Spock intercedes and tries to beat the stuffing out of Nancy. This is very humorous, watching Spock beat up this rather petite woman who is actually the salt-sucker creature.

Of course it all comes down to McCoy pulling the trigger on his ex-girlfriend which is a bit horrendous to watch. But she fortunately turns into the salt-sucker creature in her death throes, so he doesn’t feel so bad, though I bet he needed a nice big glass of Saurian brandy. I know I sure did.

The Kirk Factor: Is there anything my Captain can’t do? Though here he is not really a sensitive ecologist. I did feel a little bad about them killing the creature. They could have just sent her back to the planet with a five year supply of salt tablets. She did kill crew members but only by instinct and only to feed. They could have had a better plan. But I forgive you Captain Kirk.

Star Trek: The Original Series - “Charlie X”

Charlie Evans, the Charlie X of the title has an immensely odd-shaped head. I mean, really bizarre. For me, it has always been the thing about this episode that upset me other than Spock’s spontaneous poetry reading, Yeoman Rands nipples poking through her pink dressing gown, Uhura’s extemporaneous song about Mr. Spock and his “devil ears” and Captain Kirk shirtless in red tights that show he is in fact, of Jewish heritage. Ok, scratch that. I actually liked him in the red wrestling tights. So sue me.

This is one of those episodes where you have to wonder what they were smoking. It’s just all over the place with too much Yeoman Rand and Spock not sure of how Vulcan he is. He is almost smiling in the recreation area scene when Uhura sings to his Vulcan harp playing. They really needed to be wearing berets and smoking truth be told. Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series - “Charlie X”…