Star Trek Musings

Finally… Some Good Fucking Star Trek

It took us a while, but Strange New Worlds finally gave us compelling Star Trek last week with its “Orders Of Magnitude” episode.

The premise? James T. Kirk – alleged first officer of the USS Farragut – is back on the Enterprise for reasons and suddenly finds himself as temporary first officer to a badmiral who assumes command on a mission to wipe out a planet while Captain Pike and a handful of crew are on a planet responding to a distress call. Kirk, however, thinks that this mission is not on the up and up because Badmiral is badmouthing his dad for reasons that go unspoiled here and he ends up teaming with brother Sam to find out the truth while also preventing the Enterprise from doing something incredibly bad.

It’s a bit of a cliche plot within classic Star Trek, but fuck that. This episode’s big swing is that it’s going to be an episode of Star Trek. Something that has been severely and painfully lacking this season with maybe one or two exceptions at most, Orders Of Magnitude felt like vintage Trek fare with a new coat of paint. Now did we need this to be another Jim Kirk story when Sam Kirk was right there? No, not when Sam was and still is severely underutilized if we’re being honest – it seems like as soon as we had Jim Kirk cast, we didn’t need Sam anymore and that’s a shame because he’s the more interesting Kirk on this show.

I’ve long since given up on any pretense that this is anything but a TOS origin story… which is partly a lie because I’m thinking this whole exercise is an attempt to sell people on that Year One concept that the showrunners of this thing really, really, REALLY want to make… but I’m not sure who would want that, especially if the numbers for THIS show are fairly weak to the point where they’re not even getting a “full” final season. The really sad thing is that when these writers aren’t playing with themselves coming up with inane concepts such as puppet shows, musical episodes, or soap opera themed shows, they can pull off some decent – not great, but decent – Star Trek storytelling. I go back and watch some of the earlier episodes… mostly the first season and there was some potential there that this could have been a great show. This was a favorite of mine, early on… but of course, we gotta have BIG SWINGS.

Well, look what happened there, right?

I should be a bit more positive on this post because it’s a good Star Trek show on a series that desperately needed more Star Trek in it, but good Star Trek wasn’t a once in a lifetime moment; it was a regular thing during a season for twenty-plus weeks. Now we’re lucky if we get one of those every two years… eh.

And for the record, no, I still have not watched Academy. Teen drama is not something I’m willing to put up with for the sake of “some” good Star Trek. This franchise has been around for sixty years. I’m not lowering standards of what makes for good, compelling television just because everyone else has.

Only two more episodes of this show before we can all it a season. I’m pretty sure there will be thoughts at the end of it all and then I can cancel my P+ sub. For the best, I suppose.

Star Trek Turns 60 Today… anyway.

And for those Trekkies clamoring for a Star Trek: Legacy, our ol’ buddy and former Xbox head Don Mattrick has some sage advice for you folks.

“Buy an Xbox 360.”

Star Trek: Legacy was also available for Windows, but I can’t find that one… and I’m not sure if it’ll still work today given that it uses Games For Windows DRM that is never good.

In the meantime, go watch some old Trek to celebrate… and try to avoid tonight’s BIG SWING!

On The 31st Day… No One Sent Me A Copy Of Section 31

It is the 31st of August in the year of our lord 2026… and it’s the time-honoured tradition of my declaration of not having watched the Section 31 streaming motion picture starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh.

Yep, we’re still doing this.

For what it’s worth, the only “physical” gift I got this year were a couple boxes of Magic: The Gathering cards that are TMNT-themed. Never played Magic before, but the cards look neat. Nobody sent me a DVD or Blu-Ray of this thing yet, so the movie remains unwatched.

I haven’t even touched Prime Video and will be letting my Paramount+ sub expire. Part of me is hopeful that it expires before Star Trek turns 60, so that I can see what BIG SWING the show has for the occasion. Hopefully, they’ll do a Star Trek episode; could sure use one of those.

Felt That… Nobody Is Going To Get That…

Statler: Wake up you old fool. You slept through the show.
Waldorf: Who’s a fool? You watched it.

So Strange New World’s puppet episode aired last night and… that was kind of pointless. I ended up watching a compilation of Statler And Waldorf clips online to wash the taste. I mean, if you’re going to do something with the concept, do something. Instead, it was just another “comedy” episode that ends on a sour note. And again, Statler And Waldorf (the “And” is capitalized for emphasis) seem very applicable here.

This was the first look at Season 4 that they showcased. This was their supposed highlight. I can’t say that it was bad because I’ve seen far, FAR worse… but honestly, they put more effort into their fucking MUSICAL episode than this did this.

And then people wonder why this show is cancelled…

There Is A Golden Axe Cartoon Coming… And It’s A Thing…

Believe me when I say that calling this “a thing” is probably the nicest thing I have to say about this. And once I knew Mike McMahan was one of the dudes behind this – he of Lower Decks fame – I had a feeling on where this was headed.

For what it’s worth, I did like Lower Decks. It took a while to grow on me, but it did, eventually… but that doesn’t necessarily mean I want another cartoon in that vein. That brand of comedy starts to wear itself thing. Small doses, I can accept. Series after series of this stuff, however? No thanks.

Oh well… we’ll see how the diehards react, point and laugh accordingly, and move on with our lives.

Swing And A Miss…

In the penultimate season of Strange New Worlds, which is confirmed to end after its final half-season next year, we have had a kooky vacation episode, a film noir-esque episode, a horror episode, and one not-so-gimmick episode that happened to be the season premiere. You would think that they’d spend more time crafting decent stories instead of more of their BIG SWINGS… but alas…

Here’s the thing with this show… that I’m watching via Prime Video because Amazon lets me sign up with Paramount Plus through that and use up my gift card funds… which is enough to last the next month… but I digress…

Look, I don’t want to say that the episodes have been “bad” per se. Yeah, the horror movie episode didn’t quite work for me, the vacation episode was a big swing and a miss, there’s way too much Kirk on this show, and we still haven’t made it to the puppet show… but honestly, I didn’t mind the noir episode. I didn’t think an explanation was necessary for the black & white visuals, but they did toss that in there. Maybe now they can explain why a certain character who appeared in TOS looks drastically different from their original appearance… if you’re gonna go to great lengths to explain the color choice, then you may as well as EXPLAIN THAT.

But other than that, it’s a perfectly fine Trek offering. A bit of a throwback of sorts in that we’ve reached a colony that emulates old Earth and is ruled by REDACTED. It almost comes across a rehash of a certain TOS episode and I didn’t mind it because it’s one of the few decent episodes of Trek where the noir doesn’t distract. (Honestly, you can all this a simulation of what it would have been like to watch Star Trek on a black and white screen… although some folks may have done that once upon a time and are still alive to tell that tale, so… eh.)

See, I want to say nice things about Strange New Worlds and there are bits and nuggets along the way that show some promise… but then there’s the rest of the show and suddenly, it loses me. And you would think that the one issue that most people watching this were complaining about – the focus on more BIG SWINGS and less on giving us something that’s up to the standards of what made for good Star Trek stories – would be ratified and addressed… but I guess there’s a reason why this era of Trek television is coming to an end.

Anyway, we’ll see how much this show improves and whether I’ll stick around for the rest of it. I might be able to catch the rest of the show with this one subscription, but if not… I guess we’ll see if this seasons’ run will convince me to keep the Paramount thing for another month.

If not… oh well.

On The 31st Day… I See Clearly… But Not Section 31

It is the 31st of July in the year of our lord 2026… and it’s the time-honoured tradition of my declaration of not having watched the Section 31 streaming motion picture starring Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh.

Yes, we are still doing this.

For how long?

As long as it takes…

As long as it takes what?

I don’t know. Until I feel like stopping.

Cool. And when will that be?

Fuck knows.

Oh.

All I know is that this amuses me.

Oh… fuck.

Yes.

I’m scared.

You should be, child.

The Final Frontier For Now Begins

As a courtesy and reminder, tonight marks the premiere of the fourth and penultimate season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, as we begin the long voyage towards what may very well be the final days of this current Trek era. When the opportunity permits itself, I shall endeavor to give the season a watch and offer some brief thoughts, but I will probably reserve judgment until the season is over.

For now, let us all just be fans and enjoy the show.

On a related note, if you haven’t gotten a chance to do so, I would suggest giving IDW’s Star Trek: The Last Starship a shot. The premise is a little wild for some people’s tastes, but it is genuinely one of the few pieces of Star Trek media produced in the past decade that’s pretty damned good. Tells a good story, has some interesting characters and plotpoints, the art has been a constant highlight, whether it was the original artist or the one they’ve got doing the issues now. Good stuff. Highly recommended. The one comic that’s keeping my interest throughout and not letting me down… which is a rarity these days.

Lap.

The Holodeck

Holodecks in Star Trek were kind of a cool technology where I first its debut on the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. A little room that lets you simulate entire worlds as if they were real. If you wanted to visit the streets of Paris during a certain period of time or if you want to explore a foreign world… hell, maybe you wanted to play a part in your favorite novel or watch old sportsball games from the best seats, all it took was a few parameters and there you go.

All of that information procedurally generated from knowledge banks stored in computer memory. To be able to recreate real things… even real people… having them act in a fair approximation of their true personalities or perhaps even in other ways outside their known personalities.

Holodeck seems like a pretty cool technology.

Sometimes, you have to ask yourself… that shit had to come from somewhere, doesn’t it?

And then you go online and what do you see? Procedurally generated video content featuring real people doing things you normally wouldn’t see them do because they wouldn’t be doing these things. We tend to frown on this things for various reasons, but what if it goes a step further and it becomes integrated in virtual reality? What if we improve that to a point where virtual reality can become actual reality? Instead of interacting with these things from a helmet or visor, we interact with these things in holographic form…

Like I said, that holodeck tech had to start somewhere.

Seemed like a fun thing back in the day… do we feel the same way now?

Just a random thought.

Strange New Worlds Season 4 Trailer

You notice that in all these teasers and trailers that they’ve put out since the first one… they never once mentioned the muppet?

Don’t think that I forgot about that, kid.

Beyond that, though? Looks promising enough… nice to see them explore some strange new worlds rather than explore some strange big swings that fail miserably. Bit of an issue having way too much Kirk here, but I guess that’s going to be inevitable in these closing hours of this five-year mission… if only it had been five years rather than… every once in a while when it’s convenient to the scheduling.

Season 4 premieres in July.