Welcome To The 24th Century

Holy crap! Holy crap! Did you know about this? I didn't until yesterday! Holy crap!! If I'd known about this earlier, I wouldn't have bought the last dozen or so CDs I did buy (well, not necessarily the last consecutive dozen, but a dozen) and would have saved up for this instead! But I still bought it anyway, 'cause I just gotta have it. Seriously, I honestly don't know how I would be able to go on living without having this in my possession as soon as humanly possible. Want to know what it is? Maybe you'd better sit down, 'cause I myself had a geek-out on a transphasic level when I found out about this.

It's a limited-edition box set of not four, not six ... no, not even eight ... no, keep going ... would you believe a whopping 14 -- yes -- FOURTEEN CDs jam-packed with never-before-released music from dozens of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation! Devoted solely to the work of Ron Jones, who traded off scoring duties with Dennis McCarthy through the first four seasons of TNG, "Star Trek: The Next Generation -- The Ron Jones Project" includes nearly every note written and recorded for 42 of the series' first 94 episodes (the score for "The Best of Both Worlds" two-parter is already available on the GNP Crescendo label, so just some bonus tracks from it are included here) plus numerous outtakes, as well as a disc devoted to his work for a pair of Trek video games released later.

The panicked evacuation of the Enterprise in "11001001" ... the tearful farewell of Tasha Yar in "Skin of Evil" ... the appearance of the Romulans in "The Neutral Zone" ... Riker's escape from the Mintakans in "Who Watches The Watchers" ... the terrorist attack on the ship in "The High Ground" ... Lal's tragic demise in "The Offspring" ... the perilous journey across the arid wasteland in "Final Mission" ... they're all cues that I've been waiting 20 years to hear unobscured by dialogue and sound effects, and now's my chance! With this doozy of a package being limited to a production run of just 5,000, I couldn't waste any time in seizing the opportunity to add it to my collection, since the price is certain to only start going up on the aftermarket.

Widely regarded as the best composer that Star Trek: The Next Generation ever had, Ron Jones was known for delivering sweeping, attention-grabbing, feature-film-worthy scores for countless episodes. The problem was that TNG's producers didn't want attention-grabbing music; they wanted the episodes' scores to lay quietly in the background. So after almost four full years of flying in the face of the producers' demands, Jones was fired and replaced by Jay Chattaway (quite a dandy composer in his own right, to give credit where it's due). But I always thought the Trek producers were not only making their episodes just a bit less memorable by taming down the music, but they were also forsaking a perfectly good merchandising outlet. Fans have been clamoring for Ron Jones' scores to be commercially available for years, and I have to wonder how many CD sales they missed out on by missing that opportunity and never licensing retail releases until all these years later.

If you can't live without it, like I couldn't, this incomparably amazing Trek-a-thon of music will set you back a healthy $150 (plus shipping), but at 14 CDs that ends up coming out to less than $11 per disc, which is a great price, especially for something that's a limited-edition collectible like this. It's available for purchase now at SAE and at Intrada, and further information is available from the Film Score Monthly website (and thanks to them for the links to the audio clips!). A friend of mine has all but challenged me to bundle it up in giftwrap when it arrives and not open it until Christmas morning ... but that's gonna be a really tough test of my will.

It's Been a Long Road, Getting From There To Here

As I mentioned in a previous entry, by the time Star Trek: Voyager went off the air in 2001 I'd had my fill of the Trek Universe for awhile ... something that just a few years earlier was inconceivable. So when Paramount chose to crank out yet another series so closely on the heels of Voyager, I was understandably unenthused ... kind-of like being asked to walk another mile after I'd already walked two (even if there were a record store when I got there). Indeed, if Enterprise hadn't starred Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap is one of my all-time favorite shows), I probably wouldn't have even given it a try. But try I did, and boy did I ever try. The pilot episode was entertaining enough, but all too soon boredom set in, and I mustered all the interest I could until I gave up about two-thirds of the way through the first season.

Fast-forward eight and a half years, and I'm on vacation in California. Several times over the previous few months, I'd started to feel tempted to give Enterprise another chance (apparently unconvinced deep down that I could get bored with a Trek show), and had been checking out the prices of the used DVD season box-sets. By the time I'd arrived at Amoeba Records in L.A., I'd decided to go ahead and pick up season 1 if I saw it at a decent price. I still kind-of balked at $35, but took the plunge anyway. (Good move, 'cause the disc trays inside were still shrink-wrapped and ended up being brand new!) I've now re-watched the first nine episodes so far, and must have been really bored back in the day 'cause I didn't remember jack about most of them.

What a difference eight years makes! There I was, putting the blame on what I saw as imperfections in the show -- the way the crew seemed to fall too soon into treating the supposedly new experience of space exploration with an everyday nonchalance ... the writers sneaking in what were essentially phasers by jury-rigging the established continuity and calling them "phase pistols" ... the confusing concept of the "Temporal Cold War", which to this day even a time-travel geek like me doesn't quite get -- when it really was mostly my boredom after all. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite a ways from being "in love" with Enterprise just yet, but it turns out not to have been the dog (sorry, Porthos) I'd written it off as back in '01.

Prequel shows can be a very tricky endeavour, of course. How do you put a fresh spin on a "been-there done-that" concept that we've already seen? Not to mention that audiences today want faster-paced shows, which means you can't slow things down with all the exposition that, with the unfamiliar environment the characters are in, probably ought to be taking place. So in a way we really can't blame the creators and writers for all their sneaky retconning. I mean, having plain old laser pistols, which we now know aren't very powerful, would be kind-of boring, right? And we all know about Captain Pike and the first Federation Starship Enterprise -- not to mention the furor that can boil up amongst fans with the mere mention of the notion that their cherished characters might be re-cast -- and besides, who says there wasn't a Starship Enterprise before the Federation actually came along? I'm hoping that they let up a bit on the use of the transporter, though, 'cause I don't want things to get too convenient for "ye olde tyme crewe" ... besides, shuttlepods are a kind of cool all their own.

Well, anyway, suffice to say that I'm enjoying Enterprise significantly more the second time around, and I might even think about picking up the subsequent seasons when the time comes. I always enjoy watching Scott Bakula, Porthos is just cute as all-get-out, Anthony Montgomery ain't all that bad-lookin' either, and I'm enjoying watching the budding friendships between T'Pol and Tucker, and between Phlox and Sato. And Heaven help me, I'm even pretty-much okay with the schmaltzy theme song. It makes me wonder how many other fans out there just needed a bit of a break from Star Trek, and if it might have run longer than the abbreviated four years it did, had Paramount simply put off its launch for a few years.

A Fan By Any Other Name

Yup, here it comes, like a Romulan interceptor on an attack trajectory ... the ages-old question: "Trekkie" or "Trekker"? The way the question is handled in the two Trekkies documentary films is amusing and (as much as it can be) enlightening. The vastly differing opinions on the applicability and meaning of the two terms all seem logical (pun intended) ... that it's a generational thing, with the older ones labeling themselves as "Trekkies" and the younger as "Trekkers"; that "Trekkies" are the get-a-lifers while "Trekkers" know it's just a TV show; and, funny as it seems, the opposite -- that "Trekkies" are the casually fanatic viewers while "Trekkers" are the snobs who take it seriously.

Which am I? Well, I'm something of an "agnostic" in that regard ... I've never felt the need to pigeonhole myself into either category, even though I've fit nearly every criteria described in the paragraph above at some point in my history of Trek fandom. Nowadays I fancy myself somewhere in the middle: I'm enough of a Trekkie that it feels like I have a lump in my sock whenever there's a stardate out of whack, but I'm also level-headed enough that I can just roll my eyes and laugh about it. I take my Trek fandom seriously ... but at the same time, I don't take myself terribly seriously.

So, rather than a "Trekkie" or a "Trekker" (or a "Trekken", whatever the hell that is ... don't even get me started on how nerdy that sounds), I like to think of myself as a "Trekkah" ... mostly 'cause the "ah" comes close to the multi-lingual interjection of ambivalence, "ehh". I think that's a tag that fits my fandom quotient perfectly.

Beaming Back from Southern California

Here's one of many reasons why I love my sister ... she totally sprang this on me by surprise! While I was on vacation down in Southern California, she informed me that a museum within driving distance was running a Star Trek exhibition, with actual costumes and props and stuff from the TV series and movies! It might not have been the most impressive exhibit -- no interactive kinds of displays or presentations, no guided tours, and it was kind-of small in size -- but I had a whole lot of fun anyway. I got to see the gorgeously elaborate dress that Whoopi Goldberg wore in "Time's Arrow", Ricardo Montalban's outfit from The Wrath of Khan, the costume some lady wore in "Spock's Brain", as well as the uniforms of Janeway, Picard, and Data, and Kirk's uniform from the later films! There were also bunches of props -- some original and some recreations -- from the various shows and movies ... oh, would I have loved to take home the bat'leth they had on display!

A bit disappointing was the souvenir shop they had in the back ... sure, they had an assortment of the long-ago-deleted Playmates figures on sale, but otherwise it was the stuff you'd find in most catalogs and toy/hobby stores -- model kits, keychains, etc. I couldn't leave without buying something, so I picked up a T-shirt styled after the gold command tunics from The Original Series ... maybe I'll wear it for Halloween. They did have a room where customers could get their pictures taken in the captain's chair and whatnot, but that didn't seem to interest me. All in all, though, it was a fun way to spend the afternoon, and I'm glad I spent the $15 price for admission! It might have been nice to come away with a DVD of the program they had playing on the monitors, though....

Talkin' 'Bout Trek Generations

In the midst of my "ongoing mission" to watch all of my Star Trek DVDs in order of production, I had finished off The Next Generation, was in the third season of Deep Space Nine, and was apparently so focused on gearing up to start in on Voyager (yes, I've been interspersing them just like the series had originally overlapped), that I almost completely forgot about the 1994 feature film, Star Trek Generations. That surprised me, since I've always loved that movie, despite the fact that it served as a further reminder that my beloved crew's TV voyages were a thing of the past. I'll admit that my attachment to it may partly stem from the fact that there was nothing else to do in the podunk town I was living in at the time than to go see it at the theatre each weekend ... plus you might recall that I have something of a soft spot for movies that are not highly thought of by anyone else. Hey, Generations may not be a perfect movie, but it's a sentimental favorite of mine.

Why is Generations looked down upon so harshly? Okay, maybe it doesn't have as strong or choesive a story as most other Trek features, but it's not completely devoid of plot like some amateur critics (including the loudly opinionated woman at the Trek convention I went to shortly afterward) claim it to be. And perhaps the destruction of the Enterprise-D was none-too-gracefully shoved into the story, but in a way it did go along with the overall "love, loss, and mortality" theme of the film. But by far the biggest gripe about the movie, at least from old-school Trek fans, had to do with the way that Kirk died (or, depending on who you ask, the mere fact that he even died at all). They say he was treated shabbily and that his death wasn't heroic. "The man who beat the Kobayashi Maru and defeated the Gorn on Cestus III got killed by falling off a rickety old bridge!?!?!"

Maybe it's just the fact that I'm more a fan of TNG than TOS, but to me that sounds like plain old whining. First of all, forget the circumstance of a busted bridge being his undoing; the simple fact is that not everyone can have a graceful death. Secondly, anyone who says his death wasn't heroic obviously wasn't paying attention. Besides, in a way, Kirk "died" twice in the movie, each time heroic: at the beginning, he marched down into the bowels of the ship and put himself in harm's way to save the Enterprise-B and everyone on board; and at the end he gave his all to save not just the crew of the Enterprise-D, but all the 230 million inhabitants of a neighboring planet!! Not only that, but in between he opened up a can of whoop-ass on Soran in one of those good old-fashioned fistfights of his.

I could keep going on and on in defense of Star Trek Generations -- I also liked the humor in it, and the music was pretty good, too -- but I'll have mercy on you and stop here. But in "commemoration" of this movie, I thought I'd share with you one of the most curious pieces of Trek memorabilia in my collection, which just so happens to have been released in conjunction with that very movie. It was a promotional CD-single of a cute little techno-esque tune entitled "Make It So". A pen-pal from Central America sent me the music video on a VHS tape back in the day, and it was kind-of cool (how I wish it'd been included on this disc!), so I know it was popular down there, as well as in Europe, where the CD was produced. Its connection to Generations is questionable -- the music is a remix of the TNG theme rather than Dennis McCarthy's music from the movie, and the sample of Patrick Stewart saying "Make It So" isn't from the movie either -- but, nevertheless, it's a fun little ditty. Enjoy! (Click here for the song, and click the cover image below to enlarge it.)

These Are the Voyages of the Starship Endocrine...

Does anyone else remember the Star Wreck books, written by Leah Rewolinski? It was a series of seven parody novels, published by St. Martin's Press in the early '90s, based on both The Original Star Trek Series and The Next Generation, and later incorporating the Deep Space Nine characters. (The series ended shortly before Voyager came into being.)

Sure, the name Star Wreck has been used countless times as a Trek parody title, but otherwise this series was quite funny and entertaining. The author had fun with the names of the characters (my favorites being "Jean-Lucy Ricardo", "Georgie LaForgery", "Julio Brassiere" [Julian Bashir], and "Guano" [Guinan]), as well as with the stories of course. Chief Engineer Snot, for instance, coached Georgie on the use of technobabble, leading Georgie to become an expert with lines like, "the fratzenjammer molecules in this quadrant are making the sprucer inducer run really hard!" In this twisted universe, the transporter was called the UltraFax, and the Klingons were known as the Kringles.

If you've never picked up any of these books, and you take the Trek universe lightly enough to enjoy a totally zany parody that ignores the obvious incongruities like Kirk's crew being alive and well during the time of Picard's crew, then I urge you to seek them out and give them a read. They're not very long, they're pretty easy reads, and they'll tickle your funny bone. I'm sure Doc McCaw, Dr. Cape Pragmatski, and Dr. Beverage Flusher, would all agree that laughter really is the best medicine.

Here are Amazon links to each title in the series:

• Star Wreck: The Generation Gap
• Star Wreck II: The Attack of the Jargonites
• Star Wreck III: Time Warped
• Star Wreck IV: Live Long and Profit
• Star Wreck V: The Undiscovered Nursing Home
• Star Wreck 6: Geek Space Nine
• Star Wreck 7: Space: The Fido Frontier

Andrew Koenig Missing

Some worrisome news I've just run across ... it appears that actor Andrew Koenig has been missing for several days. He lives in Venice, California, but had been visiting friends in Vancouver, Canada. He was set to return home on February 16, but never boarded his flight. He was last seen at a bakery in the Stanley Park area of Vancouver on Valentine's Day, February 14.

The 41-year-old son of Walter ("Chekov") Koenig, he is best known for playing Mike Seaver's friend "Boner" on the '80s sitcom Growing Pains, but has made numerous guest appearances in other shows, notably the second-season DS9 episode "Sanctuary" as one of the Skrreean refugees.

Koenig had reportedly been despondent lately, so his family and friends are especially worried for his well-being. If you should happen to see Andrew Koenig, you are urged to call Detective Raymond Payette of the Vancouver PD at 604-717-2534. More information is available from Walter Koenig's website.

Pilot Errors

While poking aimlessly through my bookshelves the other day, I leafed through an unassuming title I've had for many years now, "Unsold Television Pilots: 1955 through 1989" by Lee Goldberg. As the title implies, this is an exhaustive reference book of all those pilot projects that are written, cast, filmed, offered to the networks, and sometimes shown on the air, but that the networks ultimately decided to turn down. How many of you out there are old and/or geeky enough to remember I-Man, the sci-fi special (aired as an installment of The Disney Sunday Movie) from 1986 featuring Scott Bakula as a cab driver turned indestructible secret agent after he's exposed to a strange vapor while rescuing a man from a truck crash (and John Anderson -- Kevin Uxbridge from the Star Trek: TNG episode "The Survivors" and Abraham Lincoln from the Voyagers! episode "The Day The Rebs Took Lincoln" -- as the evil madman whose plans he's tasked with foiling)?

Anyway, I happened upon a very interesting coincidence, just a couple of pages past the I-Man entry. There were two sitcom pilots made for CBS during the 1986-87 season, whose entries appear back-to-back in this book (on page 450 for those of you who just might happen to have this tome yourselves) ... and whose casts have not one, but two Trek connections each:

The Family Martinez (airdate 08/02/86) -- Robert Beltran (Star Trek: Voyager's Chakotay) portrays a former gang member who becomes a lawyer and returns to his East L.A. home to live with his wacky artist mother and his 16-year-old sister. Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from ST:TNG) also starred as a character named Rachael McCann, though it doesn't say how she was involved in the story. If all that weren't enough, this show was created by Tommy Chong (of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong ... and, of course, Leo from That '70s Show).

Home Improvements (never aired) -- Not to be confused with the similarly-titled classic Tim Allen/Patricia Richardson sitcom, this one starred Tony LoBianco as a widower with three kids who marries a divorcée (Tricia O'Neil, the Enterprise-C's Captain Garrett from the ST:TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise") with one. Also in the cast, as the widower's eldest daughter who's married and lives next door, was ST:TNG's second-season bright-spot, ensign Sonya Gomez herself, Lycia Naff!

Imagine that ... four actors, all of whom would become involved in Trek, working on sitcom pilots in the same year for the same network! Quite a co-inky-dink, eh? One has to wonder -- especially if The Family Martinez had taken off -- who might have ended up playing Tasha Yar...!

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 11

Well, it's been a wonderfully fun journey, taking you through all the Peter Pan/Power Records Star Trek audio adventures ... and, sadly, we've reached the last one. Fortunately, though, the series goes out on a relatively high note with "The Human Factor" (author unknown). In this episode, a new species, who appear genial and harmless on the outside, shock the Enterprise crew by abducting Lieutenant Uhura for some strange, sinister purpose. What could it be? Listen and find out!

If you really want me to, I'll post the cover art for the two-disc CD collection I made of these adventures soon...!

Weird Gets Raw

For a short while now, William Shatner has been doing this one-on-one talk show called Shatner's Raw Nerve. It airs on the Biography channel, and is also sold on the U.S. iTunes store. The setting is almost artful in its simplicity: just Shatner and one guest -- in his 26 episodes (and counting), he's had people ranging from Scott Baio to Judge Judy to porn star Jenna Jameson to Meat Loaf to Whoopi Goldberg to, inevitably, his Star Trek compatriot Leonard Nimoy -- having an intimate chat with no studio audience.

Recently, his guest of honor was "Weird Al" Yankovic. As you might imagine, a conflux of two of my favorite pop-culture personalities in one place was too much of a temptation to resist. Knowing most of what there is to know about Al, I expected a rather uninformative, somewhat superficial half-hour of little interest. But you can imagine my surprise when I found myself watching something entirely different ... and unexpectedly riveting. I realized that while I know nearly all the facts, of any significance, about Al's life, he's never dropped his Weirdness long enough to let the world in for a real look, not that he's ever "owed" us one (after all, being Weird is his job!).

Shatner isn't afraid to use the title of his show quite literally and broach the touchy subjects -- and with Al it's no exception. He's begun to mellow with fatherhood and with age (though he can still tuck his ankle behind his neck!), and he rarely if ever sheds his "Weird" persona before the press or the cameras, so this is a rare glimpse into the real Al. Whether you have just a passing interest in Al, or have been a lifelong fan as I have, I can guarantee that you've never seen Al as truly human before as he is here, and it's really quite moving. You can buy this episode (and the whole series) on the U.S. iTunes store.

Mail It So

Wandering through the local bookstore a few weeks ago, I found an entire caddy of this "Fold-and-Mail" stationery. A very clever idea, I thought ... one side of the page is a ruled sheet with ample space for a letter, and the other side is formatted with room for an address on one half, and one of five beautiful, full-color Star Trek pictures on the other. Just write your letter, fold it in half, fold over the edges so it forms an envelope, seal it together (with its handy-dandy pre-licky-glued edges), and it's ready to be stamped and mailed! What will they think of next?

Nestled in the assortment of cartoon characters and whatnot (Superman, Wonder Woman, Pixar, Bewitched, Wallace & Gromit) was, of course, a Star Trek version which, of course, I simply had to buy. I certainly won't use them at all, not only because of the collectible potential of the item, but also because I lean toward using the more practical and conventional sort of stationery. If I'd had my wits about me (well, that, and a bit more cash), I probably would have picked up all three or four Star Trek pads I'd seen there, in anticipation of waiting patiently to place them on eBay once their value had begun to rise. But as it was, I only bought one for my own collection.

Fortunately, though, they still appear to be manufacturing this neat-o little bauble, which you can order yourself here. Not only is it an unconventional sort of memorabilia item, but it's handsomely designed ... and the sheer nature of the concept would make any "Treknologist" proud that such innovation came from the early 21st Century!

My Digital Companions

Since Memory Alpha didn't exist ten years ago -- and neither, for that matter, did its "father", Wikipedia -- this pair of digital volumes were quite a nifty and useful resource for us Trek geeks when they were released in 1999. The Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion and The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion CD-Roms contain roughly the same episode summaries, guest cast lists, and season overview essays that their trade paperback book counterparts do (which I have and also highly recommend), but these discs take things to a whole new level.

Not only do they have an assortment of color images as well as every episode's original shooting script (which, it should be noted, don't take into account the on-the-fly dialogue changes made by the director during filming -- but can include scenes that were never filmed, or filmed but cut from the final edit of the episode), but also QuickTime movies of the trailers from every episode! As a special treat, here are the trailers from the TNG episode and the DS9 episode I watched just last night.

As fun as they are, though, these pieces of software are showing their age ten years later ... a rarity amongst Star Trek products, but probably inevitable when it comes to the sort used with a computer. The fixed-size interface was made for smaller displays with a lower resolution, so on my 21" LCD it takes up the space of about a 7" diagonal display, and might make you lean in and/or squint in order to read the text. Also, the scrolling is very mouse-sensitive, so even a quick click can scroll five or six lines, they scroll at such a fast rate (apparently, the standard Windows mouse settings don't apply within the program).

Most inconveniently, the document files containing the scripts, although they seem to display like plain text files, are actually saved on the CD-Rom as "*.cxt" files -- and more aggravatingly, Windows doesn't know how to open the files, and neither do I. (Any ideas out there?) Curiously, though, the video files are in the conventional "*.mov" QuickTime format (as evidenced by the links above), and can be viewed outside of the interface. Granted, they're in an early QuickTime codec and as such don't have the smoothness or resolution that more recent codecs provide, but they're fun to watch regardless.

All that leads me to think about how amazing they could do this same sort of software program if they rewrote it for today's computers. Think about it: a single DVD-Rom disc could probably carry a similar program, but encompassing all five Star Trek television series ... greater screen resolutions would provide for easier-to-read text, and dynamic programming language would allow for resizing the interface to fit one's screen ... newer QuickTime codecs would give sharper, bigger pictures, and probably in even smaller file sizes than are on these discs ... not to mention the multitude of other advances in programming that would make for a smoother interactive experience overall.

And why not take it a step further? They could do the same thing with the Star Trek Omnipedia (the software inspired by the Star Trek Encyclopedia), which I now regret having gotten rid of. How about it, Simon & Schuster? What better time to cash in on the fresh wave of Star Trek nostalgia? You'd have one guaranteed sale right here.

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 10

Whew ... I almost thought I wasn't going to get an entry to you this weekend, since our broadband internet was out for two days and finally came back up just a few hours ago. Better late than never, eh?

Did I say that the previous Peter Pan/Power Records Star Trek audio adventure was the dopiest? Sorry, I meant this one. Not only does it boast (and I use that word lightly) a security officer who sounds like he's doing a crappy James Cagney impression, but the rest of the story ain't much better, as might seem to be indicated by its title, "Dinosaur Planet" (no writer credits again, and as was the case last time, it's probably for the best). Here goes nothin'...!

Happy Birthday, Voyager!

Are you ready to feel old? I sure wasn't, particularly when such a jarring realization came exploding out of the warm-and-fuzzy tidbit of nostalgia that it did, like some macabre jack-in-the-box from the nightmarish Mirror Universe. What am I talking about, specifically? Okay, I might as well at least try to get used to saying it: Today marks the 15th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: Voyager. Believe it or not, it's true ... January 16, 1995 saw the auspicious debut of the UPN television network, with its very first program being "Caretaker", the epic two-hour pilot episode of Voyager.

But I really have to stop making this sound like an occasion to mourn ... on the contrary, it's well worth celebrating! I can remember the setting vividly: we were staying in a hotel during our first visit to the Pacific Northwest to find ourselves a new home. My brother and I shared a room, and I had to plead with him to let me watch it since he wasn't, still isn't, and probably never will be, the least bit of a sci-fi or Star Trek fan. Out of the goodness of his heart (two nouns that I had never thought were applicable to him), he allowed me to be part of that landmark occasion in television history.

I can also remember how entertained I was. This was by far the best Star Trek pilot episode ever! It had an interesting premise, a compelling story, and likeable characters. And you know how The Next Generation finally seemed to find its groove in the third season, and Deep Space Nine also took about three years to get its mojo working? Well I felt, right from the beginning, that Voyager had hit the ground running. The cast seemed to fit together and be comfortable with their characters right from the start, and in retrospect that probably had quite a bit to do with how enjoyable the pilot episode was.

It wasn't perfect, of course -- the interpersonal conflict kind-of flew in the face of Gene Roddenberry's "everybody-gets-along-in-the-future" ideal; I wasn't totally keen on the whole sequence of events that brought about the Maquis in the first place; and then there was the biggest plot hole of them all, the idea that people believed a Vulcan (Tuvok) would forsake logic and join the Maquis -- but the greater overall dramatic potential of the show made those nits much less worth picking.

I'm really, really tempted to watch "Caretaker" this very evening, in a true anniversary celebration of its premiere, but I can't bring myself to do it. You see, I've been watching the Star Trek series DVDs in order for several months now, even going to the point of interspersing DS9 episodes at the same point where it originally began running concurrently with TNG, and I'm intent on doing the same with Voyager at the appropriate time. I've only gotten to TNG's early seventh season (DS9's early second season) at this point, so I still have roughly 30 episodes to get through (all the way up to DS9's "Past Tense" two-parter) before I can "legally" start watching Voyager. I want to re-experience the introduction of the Cardassian treaty, the creation of the Demilitarized Zone, and the introduction of the Maquis in the intended order ... it'll help me appreciate it more, as I've appreciated several other firsts in the TNG-era shows that I'd forgotten about in recent years.

As a special bonus on this oh-so-special day, here's a bonus feature from the Voyager Season One DVD set, which shines the spotlight on the unfortunate miscasting of Genevieve Bujold as Captain Janeway, including a real treat -- actual footage from the first two days of shooting, giving us a peek at the captain that almost was. Happy Voyager Day, one and all!

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 9

Happy New Year! And what better way to kick off the new year than with the next quasi-exciting Peter Pan/Power Records Star Trek audio adventure!?! It's probably the dopiest of all of them, but that actually makes it bizarrely entertaining in its own special way. In "The Robot Masters" (author unknown, and I think it's best that he/she stay that way), the Romulans plot to overthrow the Federation with their own enormous robot army. Can Kirk and his crew thwart their dastardly plan? Well, duh.

Happy In Paraguay

Okay, if this doesn't give you an insight into my warped sense of humor, I don't know what will. I just found this YouTube channel this afternoon, and laughed myself silly watching these re-dubbed Star Trek: The Next Generation clips. I laughed so hard I started crying. I laughed so hard my face hurt. I laughed so hard that I came close to passing out. You get the point by now.

This is what I was laughing at. What's so hilarious about these clips is that they don't digitally alter the actors' mouth movements, so it looks like they're actually saying the ridiculous dialogue that's being voiced over the visuals! See for yourself ... and make sure you've peed first, otherwise you could be sorry. (WARNING: contains naughty language.)



I may end up posting more of their clips soon, or you can check out their YouTube channel for yourself. I hope you're all having a happy holiday. Live long and prosper (or, as they say in these clips, "f**k a fruit basket")!

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 8

Sorry I've let this blog linger for three weeks without any updates, but I've been consumed with a flurry of activity on my other blog lately, and that's probably going to continue at least through January. And then there's the whole getting Christmas presents ready to send thing, too. But I'll try my hardest to make my updates here more frequent. But for now....

Well, folks, we move from one of the best Peter Pan/Power Records Star Trek stories to one of the silliest. These last four are rather unimpressive entries (at least in any good ways), but they deserve to be heard as much as the others. This week we have "The Man Who Trained Meteors" (written by Alan Dean Foster, astonishingly enough), about a megalomaniacal alien who intends to rule the entire galaxy, or leave destruction in his wake. Here goes nothing...!

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 7

Here comes episode 7 in the series of Star Trek audio adventures produced by Peter Pan/Power Records. This is perhaps my favorite of the series, mainly because it's just not the kind of story that one would normally associate with the sort of stuff that regularly appears on story records made for children. There aren't any adult themes like sex or alcohol in it ... it's just that it's more drama than adventure. But, most importantly, it's a good story. "The Logistics of Stampede" (written by Alan Dean Foster) sees the Enterprise come to the aid of a Federation colony facing a natural disaster. Listen long and prosper!

Us versus Them

So, a friend and co-worker decided a couple of weeks ago to whimsically put on her computer, as her wallpaper, the picture shown here. Now, normally I would probably ignore the ages-old "Star Trek versus Star Wars" debate -- let's face it, we've all seen the "Why [this universe] is better than [that universe]" email lists circulating ad infinitum in all their various forms, and it really is an argument that has no definitive answer since it really can't be examined with complete objectiveness ... but my fingers have been itching ever since that image started taunting me. Sheesh, it's still taunting me even though she replaced it a week ago with a really cool American Revolution themed painting that's been altered to show both sides' soldiers armed with lightsabers, and even a half-finished Death Star in the sky above.

But anyway, back to the point. Here's my take on Star Trek versus Star Wars ... and I've deliberately tried to avoid looking at any of the existing lists so as to ensure as much as possible that I'm not re-hashing them. In other words: any similarity to any pre-existing lists is purely coincidental and unintentional. And I'll try to be as unbiased as I possibly can here ... but don't hold your breath.

Data vs. C-3PO -- Okay, sure, Threepio can interpret six million languages, but every comm-badge in Starfleet has a little chip in it that can do that instantaneously: it's called the Universal Translator. And maybe Data's components are a bit more fragile than Threepio's, but when the going gets tough, Data could dismantle Threepio and use half of him to power his phaser and the other half of him to enhance his tricorder's functionality, all without batting an eye. And just try and get Threepio to calculate the travel time to the nearest starbase at Warp 7. Advantage: Star Trek.

Chewbacca vs. Worf -- They're both big, hairy, and strong, no doubt about that. But if you gave me the option of going into battle alongside either a bat'leth-wielding Klingon or a Wookiee with a laser-crossbow, I wouldn't have to think twice. Wookiees are decent warriors, I'm sure, but I'd bet all the gold-pressed latinum, Republic credits, or wupiupi I had to my name on Kronos whipping ol' Kashyyyk's butt any day of the week. (And what's with all those friggin "y"s in the name of that planet, anyway?) Advantage: Star Trek.

Neelix vs. Jar-Jar Binks -- Okay, we've talked about some of the good parts of the two franchises, now let's take a look at one of the less flattering ones. Who would you rather be trapped in an elevator for three hours with? Tough call, I know. They can both be rather annoying little pricks, to be sure. But whereas Jar-Jar is by and large just a clumsy buffoon who speaks in irritating, probably-racially-offensive-but-nobody-knows-for-sure jabberwocky, Neelix is an optimistic, imaginative guy who honestly tries to make everyone feel better. Besides, that Talaxian can cook. Advantage: Star Trek.

Anakin Skywalker vs. Wesley Crusher -- I guess we could call this one "Battle of the Brats". Each one has been more annoying than the other at particular points, and when you think about it, they could both be dangerous if they threw enough of a hissy-fit: Anakin could seriously mess people up with The Force, and Wesley could get creative in Engineering and blow up the whole Enterprise. But really, folks, when it comes down to attitude, we really have to give this one to Anakin. And then there's the question of who I'd rather be trapped in an elevator for three hours with, but for an entirely different reason in this case. No contest: Anakin circa Attack of the Clones ... or, more to the point, Hayden Christensen ... oh yeah, baby. (But before he got the mechanical arm, 'cause that'd just be gross.) Advantage: Star Wars.

Khan vs. Darth Vader -- As much as I'd like to give this one to Khan, it just ain't that easy. Khan may have the charisma, but Vader has The Force. They've both mastered the art of their mere presence instilling fear in people, but Khan's exotic Latin accent is no match for that spooky mechanical breathing sound. Not to mention the fact that Vader can suffocate people just by thinking about it, but Khan can't be bothered to lift a finger to torture or kill his enemies and has to get one of his minions to do it. Khan gives great speeches (the "he tasks me" one from The Wrath of Khan is great), but that's his problem: he talks too much. And we all know what Vader would do to someone who talks too much ... it would probably involve his thumb and forefinger in a "pinching" motion. Advantage: Star Wars.

Star Destroyer vs. the Enterprise-D -- Of course, this is the one that's depicted in the picture that started this whole mess. My co-workers had their arguments (really, in a kamikaze run, enough damage is done to both ships that nobody wins), but here's mine: In The Empire Strikes Back, one puny asteroid lopped off the whole command tower section of the Star Destroyer (certainly crippling it), but the Enterprise's deflectors and shields could just bounce those meddlesome things out of its path. And what about the weapons? The Enterprise has both phasers and photon torpedoes, but the Star Destroyer only has "turbo-lasers". As has been established in Star Trek, lasers are a far inferior technology to phasers, and I rather suspect "turbo-lasers" are about as much of an improvement over the original technology as "light" cigarettes. Advantage: Star Trek.

Captain Kirk vs. Han Solo -- Far be it from me to reduce this to a contest of macho swagger (indeed, I've always found the scenario of men needing to behave "like men" quite amusing), but consider the following: Kirk "bagged a babe" (as Anthony Michael Hall's character in Sixteen Candles so poetically put it) nearly every week, but Han Solo pined away for nobody but Princess Leia halfway through the Classic Trilogy. Not only that, but while Solo was "captain" to a crew consisting of one solitary Wookiee, Kirk confidently commanded an unwavering crew of four hundred. Don't get me wrong, Harrison Ford is one of my all-time favorite actors, but Shatner minced no words in Free Enterprise, when told by a boy that his schoolyard tormentor said that Han Solo was cooler than Captain Kirk: "Kick that little f**ker's ass." That was all the motivation the little guy needed ... let's see Ford pull that off. Advantage: Star Trek.

Just to be a good sport here, I'm not even going to tally the scorecard in this post. Besides, I have the distinct impression that this topic will carry forward into a second post sometime in the near future, so I'll just say the race is too early to call. And anyway, though I am more of a Trek fan now, I've never stopped being a Star Wars fan, and probably never will. Each one has its advantages and its drawbacks, and is loved by different people (and in many cases the same people) for different reasons. But it's still fun to debate, though, isn't it?!

Star Trek: The Lost Missions - Episode 6

Well, here we go (boldly) with the next exciting episode in the Peter Pan/Power Records Star Trek audio adventures. "A Mirror For Futility" (written by Alan Dean Foster) tells the story of an ancient and long-forgotten interstellar conflict -- so ancient that Spock has to do some of his famous digging through the library-computer -- that the Enterprise suddenly finds not only alive and well, but itself stumbling into the middle of. Unfortunately, the two combatants aren't about to listen to reason. Beam on board and enjoy!