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TOS Season 1

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The first season of Star Trek: The Original Series was produced and filmed from May 1966 to February 1967 by Desilu . It began airing in the fall season on NBC , running new episodes until the spring of 1967 , and continuing in repeats until the premiere of TOS Season 2 in the fall of 1967. In the United Kingdom, the season premiered on the ITV network on Sunday, September 6, 1981 , and ended on Sunday, March 21, 1982 .

• 1.1 First pilot
• 1.2 Season 1
• 3 Background information
• 4.2.1 Uncredited crew
• 6 External links

Episodes [ ]

First pilot [ ], season 1 [ ], summary [ ].

The Starfleet vessel USS Enterprise sets out on a five-year mission to explore new worlds and seek out new lifeforms in the Alpha Quadrant of the Galaxy . Under the command of Human Captain James T. Kirk and the Vulcan Spock , the Enterprise comes across many strange lifeforms in the first year of its mission – including shapeshifters , androids , and even more bizarre creatures . Elsewhere, there are run-ins with several prominent species, including the warrior race of the Klingons , the Romulan Star Empire , and the Gorn .

The rest of the crew develop close bonds on the long journey, and even as each one experiences the joys of the brave new world of space, they all experience grief and sacrifices. Amongst those who grow close as part of the senior staff are one of the ship's nurses, Christine Chapel , the ship's doctor Leonard McCoy , Kirk's yeoman Janice Rand , helmsman Hikaru Sulu and communications officer Uhura .

Background information [ ]

• Production for the initial season of Star Trek cost an average of US$190,635 per episode. (Some episodes went largely over budget, such as " The City on the Edge of Forever ", which cost $250,396, the most expensive of all episodes except the two pilots). But this figure would gradually decrease in the two seasons to come. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story )
• Each episode was scheduled to be filmed in six days; however, many of them went over schedule, resulting in one or two extra days of shooting. When Paramount Pictures took over Desilu in mid-season 2, schedules became much more strict, and episodes had to be completed in six days (closer to five and half days actually).
• The first season of TOS was nominated for two Emmy Awards in 1967 as "Outstanding Dramatic Series" and "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama – Leonard Nimoy ".
• The episodes " The Menagerie, Part I ", " The Menagerie, Part II ", and " The City on the Edge of Forever " won Hugo Awards as "Best Dramatic Presentation". " The Corbomite Maneuver " and " The Naked Time " were also nominated.

Credits [ ]

• Jeffrey Hunter as Capt. Pike ("The Cage")
• William Shatner as Capt. Kirk ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Leonard Nimoy as " Mr. Spock "
• DeForest Kelley as " Dr. McCoy "
• James Doohan as " Scott "
• George Takei as " Sulu "
• Nichelle Nichols as " Uhura "
• Grace Lee Whitney as " Yeoman Rand "
• Majel Barrett as " Christine Chapel "
• See : TOS Season 1 performers
• " The Cage "
• " Mudd's Women " (story)
• " Charlie X " (story)
• " The Menagerie, Part I "
• " The Menagerie, Part II "
• " The Return of the Archons " (story)
• " Where No Man Has Gone Before "
• " The Corbomite Maneuver "
• " This Side of Paradise " (story)
• " Mudd's Women " (teleplay)
• " The Enemy Within "
• " The Man Trap "
• " The Naked Time "
• " Charlie X " (teleplay)
• " Tomorrow is Yesterday "
• " This Side of Paradise " (teleplay/story)
• " Balance of Terror "
• " The Squire of Gothos "
• " What Are Little Girls Made Of? "
• " Dagger of the Mind "
• " The Galileo Seven " (teleplay)
• " The Conscience of the King "
• " The Galileo Seven " (teleplay/story)
• " Court Martial " (teleplay/story)
• " Court Martial " (teleplay)
• " Operation -- Annihilate! "
• " Shore Leave "
• " Arena " (teleplay)
• " A Taste of Armageddon " (teleplay)
• " Space Seed " (teleplay)
• " The Devil in the Dark "
• " Errand of Mercy "
• " Arena " (story)
• " The Alternative Factor "
• " The Return of the Archons " (teleplay)
• " A Taste of Armageddon " (teleplay/story)
• " Space Seed " (teleplay/story)
• " The City on the Edge of Forever "
• " Mudd's Women "
• " Court Martial "
• " Space Seed "
• " Charlie X "
• " The Galileo Seven "
• " A Taste of Armageddon "
• " This Side of Paradise "
• Gene Roddenberry
• Gene Roddenberry ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Dagger of the Mind", "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Gene L. Coon ("The Conscious of the King", "The Menagerie, Part I")
• Gene Roddenberry ("The Conscious of the King", "The Menagerie, Part I")
• Robert H. Justman ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• John D.F. Black ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Miri")
• Byron Haskin ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Steven W. Carabatsos ("The Conscience of the King" – "A Taste of Armageddon") (not credited for "The Menagerie, Part II")
• D.C. Fontana ("This Side of Paradise" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Ernest Haller , ASC ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Jerry Finnerman (all episodes, except "The Menagerie, Part II")
• William E. Snyder , ASC ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Walter M. Jefferies ("Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Mudd's Women", "The Man Trap", "The Naked Time" and "Charlie X")
• Roland M. Brooks ("The Corbomite Maneuver")
• Walter M. Jefferies
• Franz Bachelin ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Alexander Courage
• Alexander Courage ("Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Man Trap", "The Naked Time", "Dagger of the Mind", "Miri", "The Galileo Seven" – "The Menagerie, Part II", "The Squire of Gothos" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Fred Steiner ("The Corbomite Maneuver", "Mudd's Women", "Charlie X" – "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")
• Sol Kaplan ("The Enemy Within")
• Mullendore ("The Conscience of the King")
• Gerald Fried ("Shore Leave")
• John Foley , ACE ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Robert L. Swanson ("The Corbomite Maneuver", "The Man Trap", "Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "The Menagerie, Part I")
• Bruce Schoengarth ("Mudd's Women", "The Naked Time", "Dagger of the Mind", "Court Martial", "The Squire of Gothos", "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", "A Taste of Armageddon", "Errand of Mercy")
• Fabien Tordjmann ("The Enemy Within", "Charlie X", "Miri", "Shore Leave", "Arena", "Return of the Archons", "The Devil in the Dark", "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Frank P. Keller , A.C.E. ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "The Conscience of the King")
• Leo Shreve ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• James D. Ballas , ACE ("The Alternative Factor", "Space Seed", "This Side of Paradise", "City on the Edge of Forever")
• Edward K. Milkis ("The Corbomite Maneuver", "The Enemy Within", "The Conscience of the King" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Robert H. Justman ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Gregg Peters (odd-numbered episodes from "The Corbomite Maneuver" through "Arena", "Return of the Archons", "A Taste of Armageddon", "The Devil in the Dark", "City on the Edge of Forever")
• Michael S. Glick (even-numbered episodes from "Mudd's Women" through "The Alternative Factor", "Charlie X", "The Menagerie, Part I", "The Menagerie, Part II", "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", "Space Seed", "This Side of Paradise", "Errand of Mercy", "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Tiger Shapiro (Second Assistant Director)
• Ross Dowd ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Carl F. Biddiscombe ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "What Are Little Girls Made Of?")
• Marvin March ("Dagger of the Mind" – "Operation -- Annihilate!") (uncredited for "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Edward M. Parker ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• William Theiss ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Bill Heath ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Jack Hunsaker ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Robert H. Raff ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "The Conscience of the King", "Court Martial" – "Shore Leave")
• Jim Henrikson ("The Galileo Seven", "The Squire of Gothos" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Joseph G. Sorokin ("Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Charlie X", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" – "The Conscience of the King", "The Menagerie, Part I", "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Douglas H. Grindstaff ("Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven", "Court Martial", "Shore Leave" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Cam McCulloch ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Jack F. Lilly ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "The Return of the Archons", "Space Seed") (uncredited for "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Stanford G. Haughton ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Cameron McCulloch ("A Taste of Armageddon")
• Carl W. Daniels ("This Side of Paradise" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Howard Anderson Co. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before, "The Corbomite Maneuver", "The Man Trap", "The Enemy Within" – "Charlie X", "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Westheimer Company ("Mudd's Women", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Dagger of the Mind", "The Conscience of the King", "Shore Leave", "Arena", "Tomorrow Is Yesterday", "Space Seed", "This Side of Paradise", "Errand of Mercy", "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Film Effects of Hollywood ("Balance of Terror", "The Galileo Seven" – "The Menagerie, Part I", "The Squire of Gothos", "The Alternative Factor", "Return of the Archons", "A Taste of Armageddon", "The Devil in the Dark", "The City on the Edge of Forever")
• Cinema Research Corporation ("Miri")
• George A. Rutter ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Arena", "Return of the Archons" – "This Side of Paradise")
• Billy Vernon ("The Alternative Factor", "Tomorrow Is Yesterday")
• Wilbur Hatch ("Where No Man Has Gone Before – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Julian Davidson ("Where No Man Has Gone Before – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Bob Overbeck ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Jim Rugg ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!"; except "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Joe Lombardi ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Irving A. Feinberg (all episodes; uncredited for "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Jack Briggs ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• George H. Merhoff (all episodes; uncredited for "The Menagerie, Part II")
• Bob Campbell ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• George Rader ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• James A. Paisley ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Bernard A. Widin ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Robert Dawn ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Fred B. Phillips , SMA ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Hazel Keats ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Virginia Darcy , CHS ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Gertrude Reade ("The Menagerie, Part II")
• Paul McCardle ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Margaret Makau ("The Corbomite Maneuver" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Joseph D'Agosta ("The Enemy Within", "The Naked Time", "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "The Conscience of the King")
• Glen Glenn Sound Co. ("Where No Man Has Gone Before" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")
• Norway Corporation
• Herbert F. Solow ("The Corbomite Manuever" – "Operation -- Annihilate!")

Uncredited crew [ ]

• Darrell Anderson – Transporter Effects ("The Cage")
• John Chambers – Special Makeup Creator (for Leonard Nimoy) ("The Cage")
• Morris Chapnick – Assistant to the Producer ("The Cage")
• Jim Danforth – Prop Maker ("The Cage")
• Richard C. Datin – Model Maker ("The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "The Galileo Seven", et.al. )
• Kellam de Forest ( de Forest Research ) – Researcher ("The Cage")
• Roger Duchowny – Second Assistant Director ("The Cage")
• Linwood G. Dunn – Visual Effects Cinematographer
• Pato Guzman – Production Designer ("The Cage")
• Oscar Katz – Executive in Charge of Production ("The Cage")
• Richard A. Kelley – Camera Operator ("The Cage")
• Thomas Kellogg – Production Illustrator ("The Galileo Seven")
• Reuben Klamer – Prop Maker ("Where No Man Has Gone Before")
• Harvey P. Lynn – Researcher ("The Cage")
• Bill McGovern – Clapper/Loader
• Donald R. Rode – Assistant Film Editor (also responsible for editing the episode trailers)
• Penny Romans – Choreographer (Susan Oliver's dance) ("The Cage")
• Denis Russell – Scenic Artist ("The Cage")
• Leo Shreve – Film Editor ("The Cage")
• Speed & Custom Shop ("The Galileo Seven")
• Craig Thompson – Office Manager Post-Production
• Penny Unger – Gene Roddenberry's secretary
• Charles Washburn – DGA Trainee
• Gene Winfield – Model and Set Maker ("The Galileo Seven")
• Albert Whitlock – Matte Painter ("The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before")

See also [ ]

• Star Trek: The Original Series (VHS)
• TOS Season 1 Blu-ray
• TOS Season 1 DVD
• TOS Season 1 HD DVD
• TOS Season 1 performers

External links [ ]

• Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• The Original Series Season 1 episode reviews  at Ex Astris Scientia
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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Series / Star Trek: The Original Series

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"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise . Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before!" — Captain James T. Kirk , the legendary Opening Narration

Star Trek is the first show in the Star Trek franchise. After the release of multiple spinoff series and movies, it has been retroactively called Star Trek: The Original Series to differentiate it from the franchise as a whole.

The origin of the show came when Gene Roddenberry was looking to write hard-hitting political and moral commentary and could not do so with the regular dramas of the time. He deduced that by creating a science fiction show borrowing heavily from the film Forbidden Planet , he could slip in such commentary disguised as metaphors for the various current events. As such he pitched Star Trek to the networks as a merging of the two most popular genres of the time, science fiction anthologies and Westerns . note  Notably, he pitched it as " Wagon Train in space ", not " Wagon Train To The Stars ".

While troublesome to produce, the show was a major Trope Maker , especially in Science Fiction (each of the three main characters has a trope named after them, and that's just for starters!). The cast was a dynamic mix of ethnicities and cultures, and while the focus was nearly always on Kirk , Spock and McCoy , they still had a Russian , an Asian and a black African woman in positions of responsibility, authority and respect , despite recent , brewing or ongoing conflicts concerning people of those ethnicities in Real Life . According to the cast members, near everyone in Hollywood wanted to be a part of Star Trek because of the steps forward it was making. In particular, George Takei said that almost every Asian actor wanted to be Sulu because they wouldn't be required to use an Asian accent or engage in Asian martial arts, instead breaking cultural stigma by being a practitioner of European fencing. note  Takei facetiously put down fencing on his resume so he wouldn't be given a katana; once it came up in the script, he got a crash course the weekend before filming. He remains an avid fencer to this day. This also resulted in attracting multiple high-profile guest stars and guest writers, including Harlan Ellison , Theodore Sturgeon and Richard Matheson . Plots varied widely in quality from episode to episode and from season to season, depending upon who was writing and/or directing. An episode chosen at random can be anything from high camp to geopolitical allegory to genuinely intelligent drama, and is likely to be at least two out of those three .

In some ways the show was way ahead of its time ; in other ways, it is a product of its time . The women usually (but not always) appeared in the roles of assistants and secretaries , wearing go-go boots and miniskirts. note  At least some of that was due to Executive Meddling ; additionally, Grace Lee Whitney has mentioned that the female regulars objected to initial efforts to have them wear pants because they preferred showing off their legs . Whitney and Nichelle Nichols were both professional dancers, and Nichols used to whipstitch her skirt shorter in between takes because she thought it was too long, leading to a few shots where you can see her matching panties . While the visual design of the show was ambitious, the actual production quality has not aged well.

The show did have some developmental history before it came to air. The original Trek pilot featured Captain Pike played by Jeffrey Hunter , and Majel Barrett as his first officer . The pilot was praised by the network as great science fiction, but was considered " too cerebral " for the target audience and not as action-packed as the network wanted to market it . This resulted in a near entire-cast replacement for a second pilot episode, except for Spock. In fact, Doctor McCoy didn't appear until after the second pilot was filmed. However, that first pilot has remained as part of the franchise canon and did not go to waste—Roddenberry used a lot of it for the series' only two-parter, " The Menagerie ," which proved a Hugo science fiction award winner, and the pilot has been included in various releases of the series. Captain Pike himself was recast in Star Trek (2009) by Bruce Greenwood , and played by Anson Mount in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery (with Rebecca Romijn as Number One, Ethan Peck as Spock, and the Enterprise herself), wherein afterwards Pike received his own show called Star Trek: Strange New Worlds , coming full circle.

While the show was considered popular with general audiences note  the actors and studio were flooded with mail, and there was a huge amount of tie-in merchandise almost immediately and plenty of demand for more , the Nielsen ratings branded it a flop . Star Trek barely managed three seasons before being officially canceled, with a close call on the second season . Within a few weeks of its cancellation was the monumental first Moon Landing , and as a result the subsequent reruns of Star Trek were more popular than the original run . Television was also changing at the time, starting to account for demographics along with overall ratings, and found that Star Trek had snagged the most coveted 18–35 male group that nearly every show was aiming for. Star Trek conventions were jammed with thousands of dedicated fans, and seeing the potential for a revisit led into production for a new TV series. The first attempt was Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973, which suffered from Filmation 's cheap production values, but more than compensated by having most of the original cast, note  Of the main seven, only Walter Koenig did not appear, although he wrote an episode , and some of the writers, producing a great series that earned the franchise's first Emmy Award. Later in the decade, in the hope of creating a Paramount television network, a new Star Trek series was developed, dubbed Star Trek: Phase II . After Paramount's owner ditched the network plan, the intended pilot was reworked into the first Star Trek feature film , Star Trek: The Motion Picture , in 1979, after the monumental success of Star Wars . This led to an ongoing film series, the success of which led to the Sequel Series in 1987, Star Trek: The Next Generation , and another 18 straight years of Star Trek on television.

The subtitle "The Original Series" is a Retronym used solely for commercial clarification once Star Trek: The Next Generation came out. It has always been referred to as Star Trek in its own opening sequence.

Shatner returned to Paramount Television (which succeeded Desilu Studios as the show's production company during the second season) in 1975 for the series Barbary Coast , which was not nearly as successful as Star Trek , lasting only one season. Nimoy also continued with PTV after Star Trek ended, joining the cast of Mission: Impossible , which also began under Desilu.

Common plots:

• Something will threaten the ship and wreak havoc with the crew, either by harming them directly , manipulating laws of physics/reality or screwing with people's minds .
• Kirk leads a landing party to a planet with a single major defining element in their culture . Commonly, it will be a society that perfectly mirrors one from Earth's history . note  No need to build new sets for an alien planet when you can just shoot a local city street and reuse props designed for the Roman Empire! Their hosts rudely steal their communicators and phasers, usually because they just can't bear to let them leave . Lots of running around and fistfights ensue. Expect at least one Red Shirt to bite the dust. At the end, Kirk gives a speech to point out what's wrong with the planet's culture . Alternatively, the people on the planet will be a worshipping a " god " who turns out to be a computer that controls every aspect of its citizens’ lives . Kirk will then destroy it to emancipate them, acknowledging that while their new life may become equally dangerous , freedom is a right that should never be sacrificed .

Character profiles and roles in the script:

• Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ): The ship's exec and Science Officer , in charge of all scientific departments. His Human-Vulcan heritage was intended as an emphasis that we are out in space and alien people are common. While he is very emotionally reserved as a matter of Vulcan cultural tradition , in truth, he is as human as much as he is Vulcan . As a child, he was bullied for his mixed heritage , causing him to occasionally act in rejection of his human half (Thus, calling him "cold-blooded" or "unfeeling" will result in him thanking you for the "compliment"). But he is not as cold as he seems .
• Leonard "Bones" McCoy ( DeForest Kelley ): Chief Medical Officer , The Heart , and The Watson . The least "military" person on the ship. Given a Promotion to Opening Titles in the second season.
• Montgomery "Scotty" Scott ( James Doohan ): The Chief Engineer from Scotland , both a reliable officer and daring in battle .
• Hikaru Sulu ( George Takei ): A compulsive hobbyist (botany, gun collecting, fencing) and a Fan of the Past . The ship's helmsman , again an almost unthinkable position then for a minority, especially an Asian .

• Christine Chapel ( Majel Barrett ): Ship's nurse in Mad Love with Spock. Given The Cameo in a couple of the films.
• Yeoman Janice Rand ( Grace Lee Whitney ): Ms. Fanservice with a Beehive Hairdo . The original Bridge Bunny literally — early reviews of the series called her a "Playboy Bunny–type waitress." She was supposed to be one of numerous yeomen, a "succession of young actresses, always lovely". The yeomen served Kirk as an executive secretary, valet and military aide and were supposed to be treated as completely equal with men of the same rank. Rand and Kirk had Unresolved Sexual Tension until she fell victim to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome . note  By her own account, she was raped by an "executive" attached to the show — her description fits Roddenberry himself — and subsequently fired. Given The Cameo in a few of the films.
• Harcourt Fenton "Harry" Mudd (Roger C. Carmel): The Trickster , Con Man , and all-around scoundrel, Mudd was the focus of two episodes, and another in the animated series .
• Cyrano Jones: A more affable, less competent Trickster than Harry, who likewise reappears in an episode of the animated series .
• Khan Noonien Singh: An Affably Evil Human Popsicle and Designer Baby Übermensch who was once an Evil Overlord . Though he only appeared in one episode , he later became The Unfettered of the second movie .

This series provides examples of the following tropes:

Video example(s):.

The Church of Trek

In Futurama, the Star Trek fandom grew from easy-to-punch nerds to a religious cult that influenced countries, eventually getting to the point that world leaders executed Trekkies en mass and scrubbed every known existence of Star Trek from public knowlege.

Example of: Parody Religion

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A Whole Differe...

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Alternative Title(s): Star Trek 1966

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Star Trek: The Original Series

An Introduction to Reviewing TOS

By Jamahl Epsicokhan

September 17, 1998

Article Text

I wonder: How many times have I said it when people ask me?

"No, I have no intention of going back to review The Original Series or The Next Generation ."

I'm not even sure. Many times.

But now, here I am, reviewing TOS . (I still have no plans for reviewing the 180-some episodes of TNG , but the lesson to be learned here is to never say never.) The reason why I'm doing TOS is pretty simple: because it's something that I can do relatively easily right now. The Sci-Fi Channel cable network is airing all of the episodes in order (see my comments below about this project), giving me a chance to see them again and in a new light.

Because of where I live and what the TV stations in my area carry, I haven't seen these episodes for about 10 years. Ten years ago I was 12.

So, for me, seeing these episodes again is really only seeing them for the second time, in a mindset that is bound to be radically different from when I originally saw them. In a sense, I'm the perfect target audience for this rebroadcast project. I'm the kid who now gets to see them as an adult.

A lot of these episodes are surprisingly fresh in my mind. After watching them over the past two weeks, it's funny to realize how easily scenes and lines so vividly snap back into my memory as I see them. I can remember watching some of these shows on a battery-operated 3-inch TV in my dark, quiet bedroom—so that I wouldn't get caught staying up after my bedtime. I apologize for being nostalgic for what was only a mere 10 years in the past. Hell ... no, I don't apologize—a big part of the experience in watching these episodes is in opening yourself up to the nostalgia factor.

Now the question is: Just how can I review these three-decade-old shows? The answer: As best I can. Like when I went back to review seasons one and two of DS9 a little more than a year ago, I've opted to review TOS in a "capsule review" format, which means I'll provide a few sentences of plot summary, followed by a few more sentences of general analysis. I'm going to try to avoid saying what's been said a million times about these shows, but I understand that may be very difficult, if not impossible; a lot has been written about these episodes in the last 32 years. Whatever I say here is mostly for me, and anyone else who cares what this one fan thinks. I'll try to keep my thoughts as original and as true to my own feelings as possible.

The Original Series was, of course, a product of its time: often bold and sometimes brash, which generally cannot be said about the cautious, conservative, and politically correct 1990s. It was also a pioneer for television science fiction considered as serious drama, whereas now you can find sci-fi aimed at mature audiences almost anywhere and everywhere.

Since I'm a product of the 1980s and 1990s, my take on some of these shows is bound to differ from opinions held 30 years ago, and those opinions still held by people today who may have been watching when the series originally aired, or even those who were watching 20 years ago when the series was in reruns. I will always keep that in mind as I'm writing. But I will also be remembering that the best science fiction and character stories are those that withstand the passage of time and remain relevant and entertaining, even after three decades.

Thumbs up to the Sci-Fi Channel

Turning to the project itself, I find the "Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition" of Star Trek: The Original Series to be very worthwhile. With all the new TV Trek that's been in production for the past 11 years, TOS has, at least from where I stand, essentially stepped back to make way for the newer projects, even if in an unconscious way. The Special Edition is for me exceptional timing, and it offers benefits that should make this revisit worthwhile for all sorts of Trekkers.

First of all is the touted "digitally remastered" benefit—a true benefit if I've ever seen one. These episodes look and sound great. The color is brighter and sharper, and noise and film grain has been substantially reduced as compared to what you could find in typical syndication or even on the videocassette releases. It's truly is like watching the episode as it originally was filmed and intended—except probably on a bigger and better TV set.

The episodes are also uncut, unlike in syndication where snips would be made to fit the episode into an hour with extra commercial breaks. The Sci-Fi Channel achieves the uncut status by airing the episodes in a 90-minute format. This has its pros and cons. On the pro side, this does allow us to see the entire uncut episode, along with supplemental commentary (which I'll discuss momentarily). On the con side: 90 minutes is a long time to watch 45 or 50 minutes of actual episode, and there are so many commercial breaks during the Sci-Fi Channel broadcasts that it seems we only go about five minutes from one break to the next. My recommendation is that you tape an episode and watch it later so you can bypass the commercials; it's much less painful that way. Of course, the problem is that doing so really eats into your tapes—and if you're saving them, you're going to be mowing through tapes like crazy. (Still, it's cheaper than buying the videocassette collection.)

The episodes are all hosted by William Shatner, who discusses story themes and behind-the-scenes trivia, and offers anecdotes, all of which can be fun even if not always inspired. There are also brief segments held during the breaks called "Star Trek Insights," where cast members, guest stars, and crew members talk about the episodes they worked on. Sometimes these "insights" are worth hearing about, and sometimes they're not. (You can tell they're hurting for something relevant to say when Grace Lee Whitney talks about hairstyles, costumes, and makeup more than once in a single show.) True, it's all slanted in favor of making Star Trek look good and important (you won't find anything approaching negativity or animosity here, which of course leaves out some pieces of the behind-the-scenes story), but that's not really the point, is it? This is about making the series look good.

Most of all, this project is worthwhile because it offers a national market for airing TOS in the order they were originally shown on NBC. This allows people who want to talk about the shows in national or international circles (like out here on the Internet) to maintain common ground with everyone else who is watching. It is, after all, the reason I'm doing this in the first place.

Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee .

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Comment Section

2 comments on this post, genre-buster.

My girlfriend and I came across Jammer's site shortly after CBS.com put up the entire old series on their website. We were looking to weed out the duds, and Jammer performed marvellously. Of course, we became hooked on the show (my girlfriend for the first time, me for the fourth or fifth), and are almost finished watching the whole series. For us, watching an episode just isn't complete until we've seen what Jammer had to say. We agree with him about ninety percent of the time, taking exception only when Jammer glows about a particularly action-packed episode; we don't go much for the action thing. Needless to say, we are grateful that Jammer took the time to review these old chestnuts, and we sincerely hope, Jammer, that you're going to finish the TNG reviews soon. Prognosis?

This Intro is one of the more fun reads on the site, due to its mentions of taping a show, the TOS videocassette releases (possibly even worse than the 2-episode per disc DVDs!,) and of course..."Thumbs up to the Sci-Fi Channel." That phrase no longer applies on so many levels, from "SyFy" to BSG writing directives, scheduling, etc...at least they were able to handle those just fine for a series aired in the 60s, other than the absurd amount of commercials, which I remember. Shatner's hosting was always fun, too, but like you say, filled with fluff. It reminds me of the "official" Beatles interviews and documentaries from Apple Records, where everything was fun, perfect, and golden.

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Star Trek Confirms the Harsh Reality of Seven of Nine's Life After Starfleet

Seven of nine just delivered star trek's sickest burn, star trek confirms captain shaw's story isn't over.

Star Trek: The Next Generation   and  Star Trek : The Original Series  are often how fans of the franchise divide themselves, with groups of fans preferring one of the series over the other. Both series have withstood the test of time, received spin-off television shows such as Picard   and The Animated Series , and produced a vast assortment of movies featuring the central casts of characters.

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Clearly, both series have done well and have created well-deserved and large fanbases. This does not stop critics and fans alike from comparing and contrasting the two series and their respective movies, but the movies are more similar in quality than these people may realize, as indicated by their ratings from sites such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Here is a look at the best movies across both series, ranked according to IMDb.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (5.5)

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier  is the fifth installment of  The Original Series   films and the first and only  Star Trek  film to be directed by William Shatner, who also reprised his role as Captain Kirk for the film. The film itself follows Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) who are called back early from shore leave to deal with a hostage situation on the neutral planet Nimbus III only to find Spock's long-lost brother Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill) looking to hijack a ship and confront a God-like creator at the center of the galaxy.

This is the worst-received  Star Trek   film to date. The production company and the producers predicted as much, thinking that the premise would offend audiences.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (6.4)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture  is the first feature-length  Star Trek  film and features Kirk, who is now an Admiral, reuniting with the Enterprise and its crew, which consists of both new faces such as the Enterprise's new commanding officer Willard Decker (Stephen Collins), who is briefly demoted so that Kirk can command the ship, and old faces such as Dr. McCoy and later Spock, who assumes the role of Science Officer once again. The ship is tasked with intercepting unknown energy approaching Earth from the depths of space.

While the film did do well, it did not do as well in the box office as the production company had hoped. It still gave way for five sequels, though, so there was definitely still merit for the film.

Star Trek: Insurrection (6.4)

Star Trek: Insurrection  is the third  The Next Generation  movie and the ninth film overall in the  Star Trek  franchise. In the film, Data (Brent Spiner), due to a malfunction, reveals to the rest of the Enterprise crew that Admiral Matthew Dougherty of the Federation is conspiring with the Son'a to steal energy particles from the Ba'ku people and therefore poison the Ba'ku's home planet. This causes Captain Picard (Sir Patrick Stewart) to openly rebel against the Federation in order to save the Ba'ku people.

Insurrection  was the highest-grossing film released its opening weekend but still did not do as well as the preceding films,  First Contact and  Generations .

Star Trek: Nemesis (6.4)

Star Trek: Nemesis  is the fourth film featuring  The Next Generation  cast and the last. It is about the Enterprise crew being called to the planet Romulus to help with a peace treaty between the Romulans and the Remans, the latter of whom had a history of being treated as slaves by the Romulans. The peace treaty turns out to be a ruse conducted by the Reman Shinzon, who also happens to be a clone of Picard (but is portrayed by Tom Hardy, not Sir Patrick Stewart) and has plans to attack Earth.

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Upon its initial release, the film at first scored 5.2 stars on IMDb and obviously has since gained an increased score.

Star Trek: Generations (6.6)

Star Trek: Generations  features the casts from  The Original Series  and  The Next Generation.  It is the seventh film in the franchise and acted as a transition film from  TOS  to  TNG . In the film Captain Picard teams up with Captain Kirk, the latter of whom was presumed dead, to stop Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) from murdering planets with the intention of making a space matrix.

Generations  is one of the better films featuring  The Next Generation  cast but is definitely not the best. It did act as a good and safe transition for the films to feature a different cast of characters, meaning it ultimately did its job.

Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (6.7)

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock  takes place directly after the events of  Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , during which Spock was killed and a device known as the Genesis was introduced. The Genesis was deployed into space and formed a planet, where Spock's body happened to land. Because of the properties of the device, Spock's katra (Vulcan spirit) lived on. Kirk and his crew were alerted of this and stole the Enterprise to get Spock back.

This third film was created after the success of  The Wrath of Khan.  In spite of this, it was not heavily marketed and was released in competition with movies such as  Gremlins  and  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom . Because of these factors,  The Search for Spock  did not do as well.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (7.2)

In the sixth  Star Trek  film, the crew of the Enterprise is tasked with negotiating a peace treaty with the Klingons. However, the High Chancellor of the Klingons is assassinated and Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy are charged with the crime even though they were trying to save his life. Spock takes over as captain of the Enterprise and investigates the murder himself while still trying to continue negotiating peace with the Klingons.

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The Undiscovered Country  was better received than the preceding film,  The Final Frontier . Critics and audiences enjoyed the story and the humor used in this film over what was used by its predecessor.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (7.3)

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home  chronicles the consequences of the Enterprise crew's actions from the previous two films. While they await trial, a probe appears from the depths of space, seeking to communicate through strange noises. Spock deduces that these noises are the same as the long-extinct humpback whale. The crew then goes back in time in search of a whale to bring back to the probe.

The film is hilarious, featuring the Enterprise crew adjusting to the vastly different culture that is the 1980s, showcasing just how out of touch they are such as with Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) asking around about "nuclear wessels."

Star Trek: First Contact (7.6)

Star Trek: First Contact  is the best film featuring  The Next Generation  cast. The film chronicles the Borg going back in time in an attempt to prevent Earth's first contact with aliens and therefore prevent Zefram Cochrane (a character introduced in  The Original Series ), played by James Cromwell, from reaching warp speed for the first time. Picard and the Enterprise crew are tasked with stopping the Borg.

First Contact  was released when the franchise itself was struggling. The film ended up being more heavily marketed than the recently preceding films and was ultimately successful. It was positively received by audiences and critics and was the highest-grossing  Star Trek  film ever until the release of J.J. Abrams's rebooted films over a decade later.

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (7.7)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan  was a follow-up to the storyline introduced in  The Original Series  episode "Space Seed." In the film, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) seeks revenge on the crew of the Enterprise and intends to use the newly-developed Genesis Device as a weapon against the Federation.

The film is one of the best-received  Star Trek  films of all time, garnering favor from viewers and critics. Furthermore, it is the source of many iconic and quotable moments from the franchise, such as Kirk shouting Khan's name upon Spock's death.

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• May 31, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Says Farewell To ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ With “Life, Itself”

Preview ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Season (And Series) Finale With New Images, Trailer, And Clip From “Life, Itself”

| May 27, 2024 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 125 comments so far

The final episode of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday with the tenth episode, and we have details, new photos, and a clip WITH SPOILERS .

Episode 10: “Life, Itself”

The season finale, “Life, Itself”, was written by Kyle Jarrow & Michelle Paradise and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi. The episode debuts on Paramount+ on Thursday, May 30.

Trapped inside a mysterious alien portal that defies familiar rules of time, space, and gravity, Captain Burnham must fight Moll – and the environment itself – in order to locate the Progenitors’ technology and secure it for the Federation. Meanwhile, Book puts himself in harm’s way to help Burnham survive and Rayner leads the U.S.S. Discovery in an epic winner-takes-all battle against Breen forces.

Co-showrunner Michelle Paradise previously teased this episode saying, “Part of me wants to say the end of an era. But that just sounds so sad. I don’t wanna say that! Hopefully it’s all the things that  Discovery  has always been. Action, adventure, heart, family, love, sci-fi wonderfulness, beautifully acted, beautifully directed, production values, gorgeous VFX. It’s everything we have always had in  Discovery  in one episode.”

The episode includes additional footage shot after Paramount+ decided to make season 5 the last. This has been described as an “epilogue” to bring “closure” to the series, added on to the originally shot season finale.

Just 2 preview photos:

Doug Jones as Saru and Rachael Ancheril as Commander Nhan (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham (Michael Gibson/Paramount+)

Episode trailer

You can see a clip from “Life, Itself” from the latest episode of The Ready Room below …

The fifth and final season of  Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+  in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria.  Discovery also premiered on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuted on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Find more stories on the  Star Trek Universe

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It looks like a big finish! I feel bad for all the fans for who DSC is THEIR Star Trek… We all know the pain when our fav show is off the air…

DSC is by far not my favorite Trek and sometimes aggravates me no end, but I recognize that it has qualities that make it worth watching and I will miss it. I’m thinking to re-watch it from S1…

I don’t know if I will miss it personally but fully agree with your assessment.

There are definitely qualities about the show I truly liked and it was probably the show that took the most risks since DS9.

And while I haven’t been overly happy with the direction the show has been taking since season 3 I still think going into the 32nd century is the best idea it had and could simply be it’s own show without the constant TOS comparisons in its early days and set the universe however it wanted.

For fans like me, that’s really what makes Trek the most exciting–to boldly go!

I firmly believe that jump into the future essentially bought Discovery 3 more seasons.

Ya know for me it’s sad if for no other reason that not since Enterprise have we had to deal with losing a Trek show. I hope SNW and others stay on for a while.

It is a little depressing that four out of the five shows have been cancelled within the last two years. Yes I know Picard was only meant to go three seasons, but still the same outcome regardless.

But yeah streaming is just a different animal and with Paramount+ woes, it’s probably not too different from what UPN was going through and just hoping it sticks around. It’s pretty incredible UPN even survived 11 years given everything. I seriously don’t see Paramount+ lasting that long without a major paradigm shift. But that’s probably true of a lot of these services.

I think SNW will be safe for a while and it probably will get to five seasons at least but I’m still not sure that’s a guarantee if things go south with P+. But it will probably be fine for the next few seasons. And hopefully SFA will be a hit too.

Ya streaming is a totally different beast and the days of 7 year long shows on traditional network television are just over. Honestly 5 years in this new era is pretty impressive. I can think of way more popular shows that didn’t last that long.

In the end like you said everything depends on what happens with P+ and Paramount as a whole. Till then I take absolutely nothing as a certainty.

I realize you probably mean seasons but Discovery has been running for seven years. Series premiere to series finale will be just about the same as TNG.

Generations, PLEASE!

Taking the most risks is a good assessment.

Yeah I don’t know if people can really argue against that even if you still hate the show. It’s the only one that completely upended its entire premise and put it in another time period completely after just two seasons in.

Plus leaning in on exploring emotional intelligence and connection above all else. It’s a big departure from other Trek shows that tend to focus on the quest for knowledge first.

I did a Se 1 & 2 rewatch recently, really enjoyed it more the second time around (and knowing it gave us SNW as well).

Agree completely, for the following reasons: it always felt more like a very ham-fisted way to make contemporary social-commentary than a Star Trek drama. Yes I know… ST has always been about reflecting the ills of contemporary society… but they were incorporated more subtly.

I never liked that way existing cannon was thrown out the window, especially in the early seasons.

I never bought into the conceit that people from the 23rd century could land hundreds of years in their future, and fit in so easily. The time-jump was not to a society that should have been almost unrecognizable but to one that was Discovery-like but with cooler star ships and transporters.

So many times the show changed focus and direction – it was dizzying. BUT, like you I will probably re-watch from the beginning, now knowing (almost) the conclusion.

As much as people hated it, without Discovery Star Trek would still be dormant/dead.

Discovery heralded the Star Trek renaissance.

I for one am glad that the Academy series will be spun-off from DIS rather than take place in the past. That said, if it had taken place at the time of Kirk and Spock it likely would have done the same things people hated about the first season of DIS, yet people would have ignored it.

I think the main reason I’m glad that Starfleet Academy is set in the 32nd century is because it feels less like we’re leaving behind Discovery itself, and more like we’re continuing alongside it. That, to me, has helped considerably.

Yeah. I do hope some characters carry over. If members of the Voyager crew could become instructors at the academy in Endgame, the same could be true of members of the DIS crew.

I for one expect the series to be like Wrath of Khan, focused on final year cadets on their first shakedown cruise like was done with Scotty’s nephew and Savik rather than a series set entirely in a college campus like in TNG’s The First Duty.

The former would be truer to the spirit of Star Trek while the latter would be indistinguishable from series like Gen V and the like.

For me, I’d like the academy series to be about cadets on their final shakedown cruise who crash land and become stranded on a strange new world with new life and new civilization becomes their academy setting, you know? Rather than a familiar and safe campus, they instead learn by doing while trying to survive in an inhospitable place.

I ‘believe’ it’s going to be campus. They said this is the largest set ever constructed.

I’d expect something like what we saw in Voyager with Species whats-its-number.

Wow, bigger than the Promenade on DS9??

The series will start filming in Toronto later this summer. It will feature the largest contiguous set ever built for a “Star Trek” series, including an academic atrium with an amphitheater, classrooms, a mess hall, and a tree-lined walkway.

Wow. That’s impressive and shows they have a lot of faith in the show.

Cool beans. Sounds like P+ is putting a lot of faith in the new kid in the family.

Yeah it really sounds impressive. The irony is many thought the were making an Academy show to save money but hearing how grand the set is and now has hired a big name actor like Holly Hunter to lead it is proving the very opposite.

Nitpick: Saavik wasn’t an Academy cadet. She was a commissioned officer (Lieutenant.) She was probably in Command School.

That’s the way I always thought too. In fact I think that’s what they should have done with Kelvin Kirk in ST 2009 to explain how he should be older than others minus Spock and Bones and more importantly how he became Captain so fast. He should have already served on the Farragut and Republic by then.

Not necessarily. There were a bunch of uniform errors- that is, what we saw on screen didn’t really match the guide the designer made up- in the “monster maroon” era (WOK through TUC), and some of them involve Saavik.

Comparing her WOK uniform to her SFS one may confirm your point, but it’s still a bit confusing.

She was referred to as “Lieutenant” several times. Lieutenants are commissioned officers, not cadets. Graduating from the Academy, you get your commission and become an Ensign. So Saavik has presumably been commissioned for a few years.

Right, and she wore lieutenant JG’s insignia. But her branch color was red, which is for cadets and trainees. (There are cadet lieutenants, by the way.)

Problem is, in the next movie, which takes place basically a few days later, she’s already in command white. (It should have been at least partly grey, but that was another goof.)

If she is in Command School — which makes the most sense — that’s why she’d be wearing red.

Right, I had that thought- that you keep wearing red into post-graduate studies. That makes the most sense.

“without Discovery Star Trek would still be dormant/dead.”

I find this to be such an odd sentiment. If it wasn’t Discovery, it would be something else that got shows running again. Star Trek is far too strong of a franchise to be completely dormant, it just needed time and money to get going.

I admit I never understood what this means exactly. I know what people are TRYING to say but it just doesn’t make sense.

The fact they put out multiple big budget global Star Trek movies a few years prior with the first two profitable and a lot of fanfare already made clear the franchise was never close to dead or dormant; it simply needed a break after nearly 20 years of nonstop content.

And I’m guessing if they decided to make Picard first instead of Discovery the fanbase would’ve been even more receptive getting back one of the most iconic characters in the franchise while going back to the prime universe again and more importantly, just going forward again which the majority of fans were craving for after Enterprise and the Kelvin movies.

The Kelvin movies didn’t really do much to revive the franchise, though.

To be clear, given the setting of Discovery (just a decade before The Original Series) it COULD have been a prequel to Star Trek 09, but even the people that made it didn’t want that, choosing to instead make it canonical to the previously-existing series and completely ignoring the Abrams trilogy.

I would say the Kelvin movies were weird in that they introduced a whole new generation to Star Trek, some of which didn’t even like the Kirk or Picard eras. But many of the hardcore fans seemed turned off. It was like a complete reversal of what you would expect.

Yeah that was always the main problem with Star Trek. If you keep it to its nerdy/philosophical/science roots it attracts the fans but lose most of the mass audience. That’s been the case literally since TOS and I don’t think it has changed at all.

But when you try to make it less of those things and just more a popcorn action franchise with the other stuff more in the background you can grab more of a general audience but you lose the people who made it the success that it was in the first place.

It’s just so tricky and it seems to be a hard balance to nail. And it probably tells you why the movies have stalled because they have no idea how to find that right balance and why so many ideas have come and gone.

Exactly because Star Trek is philosophical in nature and it is hard to make a pew pew action movie where everyone on the bridge is saying let’s negotiate! Honestly with the exception of First Contact I think the TOS movies were ever the ones to find the proper balance. ST IV didn’t even have a bad guy and ignored all the physical action in favor of a more comedic tone. ST VI did the reverse and said this is dead serious and we are trying to negotiate and have piece but there will always be outliners that are against it and will fight to the end.

Yeah the TOS movies did it the best even though they never really attracted a new audience, but probably had the best formula in general with TVH being the best example as you stated.

Once we got to TNG and the JJ movies, suddenly it just became these heavy villain action movies and little else. Insurrection felt more Trek-y and TNG but it was still essentially an action movie, just one with other elements to appeal to TNG fans.

We’ve mentioned this to each other before but Trek is at its best when it is not trying to be everything to everyone. It will never be Star Wars or the MCU. The best part about movies like TVH is they did very well (for the audience) in theaters and their budgets were tiny by comparison. ST 2009 costs 100+ million to make and while it did recoup and then some, it’s not the # Paramount needs to keep doing it.

Maybe I will be proven wrong on this but I think the days of $150+ million Trek movies are probably over now.

They never should’ve been more than that in the first place but with the movie climate these days these movies should be $120-130 million TOPS. $100 million being the most ideal.

Look what just happened with the new Mad Max movie. That movie is going to flop big time now because some genius gave it a $170 million budget even though the last movie just broke even making $380 million… from 9 years ago. And that budget was around $150 million.

I remember arguing back then on IMDB the budget was ridiculous because LIKE Star Trek the Mad Max movies have never been a huge money maker. Strong movies for their budgets back in the day but not Star Wars either. They were made less than TOS movies back in the 80s.

But someone got in their head let’s turn it into some big tent pole franchise instead of a middle tier property they always been. But Fury Road was able to break even with an already ludicrous budget then maybe the next one will double it. It will be lucky if it even makes it to $300 million now. It’s more than likely to finish at $250 million.

You heard me say this about the next Trek movie making $300 million tops and I have little faith it will do any better than what Furiosa did.

When the big boys are bringing in a fraction of what they brought in a few years ago, lower tier franchises like Mad Max and Star Trek isn’t going to just make half a billion dollars no matter how many explosions, fist fights and FX you throw in.

Especially for a movie franchise that hasn’t produced a movie in over a decade. Make it smaller, gear it to your audience without trying to put in China or appeal to 10 year olds and they can still make a profitable movie with a more modest budget. It’s just not going to be as profitable as the big boys. Period.

And how many of these big budget movies have to flop or become massive disappointments before they realize the movie audience is shrinking and people are staying home more?

They need creatives in the driver’s seat who want to give each film something special – something for the audience to hang on to. Narratives redressed from other IP will fail in theaters.

the way its looking Furiosa will be lucky to finish with 150m total worldwide

I dread to think what a 190m budget ST4 would bring in these days! (id still want to see it tho lol)

Yeah you could be right and it ends up that low. But I do like to think word of mouth will carry it to a bigger number at least since oddly both the critic and audience scores are very high. And that must be very frustrating for everyone who made the movie or any movie who really put out a quality product and spent years making it as perfectly as they can for not enough people to care.

Same thing with the Kelvin movies. In reality looking at the RT both critics and audiences scores they really should’ve just made way more money than they did. Despite how divided they are in the fanbase they are very popular for the general audience which was the point.

But sadly it just proves these franchises are still more niche outside the true believers and no matter what you do it will always be a ceiling of some kind and why making $200 million movies are a complete waste for things like Star Trek or Mad Max when the demand is simply NOT there.

In terms of running the franchise, there’s a reason Paramount is looking to the guy who (more or less) was guiding hand at the X-Men franchise. Quality aside, they turned out profitable flicks on a pretty consistent basis. Godzilla Minus one and Godzilla x Kong were both effects heavy and made bank on modest budgets. Just not billion-dollar bank. So, it can be done.

Agreed. And I’m neutral on Kinberg He seem to be responsible for just as many good films as bad ones so I have no issues with him. But of course the Internet being what it is everyone just focus on the stuff he screwed up on lol.

But if they actually get the prequel movie made (very skeptical of that at the moment ;)) and it actually makes money then yeah maybe we will start seeing movies again and maybe the final Kelvin movie will happen.

But if it crashes and burns after waiting 10 years for another one, then wave goodbye to another movie for a long long long time.

Hopefully this movie is in the $100 million or less category to even have a shot of making a decent profit.

How do you know this? It seems very likely that the financial success of the first two Kelvin movies showed the powers that be that there is still a viable audience for Trek.

I think the fact that they chose not to continue the Kelvin-verse speaks volumes.

As I pointed out, Discovery COULD have taken place during the events of Star Trek ’09, when Kirk was at the academy or whatever, but the people that made it decided not to do that and instead set it in prime canon.

Discovery’s ties to Enterprise in the first season were stronger than any ties it had to the Kelvin timeline.

I think more people enjoyed the reference to Archer’s visit to Qo’nos than they would have any reference to Star Trek ’09.

I agree with some of this but not all of it.

A. They were still planning to make Kelvin movies but yes sadly Beyond stalled everything after that. But they still saw that universe very viable and important to the franchise. It’s not like they were just cancelled once they announced a new TV show.

B. Paramount wasn’t making Discovery, CBS essentially was and they had NO ties to the Kelvin movies at the time. All the money they were making was solely from the prime universe, ie, merchandise, distribution and licensing rights, etc. So it only made sense for them to go back to that universe because that’s basically was CBS domain and not the Kelvin movies. If we want to get technical, the Kelvin movies were basically like Fox owning the X Men and Disney owning the MCU. They were essentially very separate entities, but were still considered canon to each other story wise because it was still under the same corporation.

C. Of course Discovery had more ties to Enterprise than the Kelvin universe because from Discovery POV (and any of the shows POV) they didn’t even know about the Kelvin universe existence, and technically it didn’t exist until a hundred years later after Nemesis; so there was really no way to tie it to those movies even if they wanted to. We had to wait until Discovery landed in the 32nd century just to get a single reference from Kovich they knew the other universe even existed by then and only became aware of it due to the Temporal Wars.

Now ALL that said, yes I agree, it made way more sense to go back to the Prime universe anyway because that’s what the fandom wanted and they clearly knew that. And the fact that we’ve had five, soon to be six, new TV shows and not ONE of them takes place in the Kelvin universe even though now technically they can make them does tell you that the Kelvin movies probably never caught on to the level that they were hoping unfortunately.

Again huge irony considering people were predicting the prime universe was going to go the way of the Dodo and basically forgotten by the time the Kelvin reached its fifth movie and all the spin off possibilities people had in their heads.

That said I do think we may get something from the Kelvin universe on Paramount+ if another movie is never made. I think it would be great if they pulled a Picard season 3 and just did a limited season with the cast as their final swan song. It would be a great thing to do for fans of those movies to tie up their story and it could be much cheaper option which is probably the reason the movies are still DOA.

B: But if CBS had wanted to make a Kelvin series they would have found a way to do it, even if it meant licensing it from Paramount. The fact that they got Kurtzman to make DIS for them shows that they wanted to work with people involved with the Kelvin-verse.

C: The Kelvin universe began when Kirk was born in 2233. In 2255, he enlisted in Starfleet, which is a year before the first season of Discovery set in 2256. If they had wanted to, they could have certainly set the series in that timeframe.

As I said though CBS didn’t have the rights to those movies, Paramount did INCLUDING merchandise sales. We have to keep things like that in perspective. In the prime universe it’s 100% all theirs and it was not a question which universe brought in more either since the Kelvin movies merchandise dried up after the first movie. I honestly can’t remember a single product they even made for Beyond. I’m sure they had some merchandise for it, I just can’t remember anything personally.

And let’s also remember a big reason they were in another universe because then Paramount didn’t have to worry about anything that happened in a future TV show or vice versa. I think both sides were just happy to keep things separate since they were under different companies.

As for your other point that would’ve just confused things more because then it would’ve meant Discovery would’ve been aware of the timeline changes a century before they were supposed to happen. Yeah it’s all timey whiney stuff but that’s the problem because from their POV it’s not supposed to have happen yet and would’ve confused people And why it was easier to reference in the third season because it already happened centuries ago.

But look I’m not disagreeing with you that much. I already said it made way more sense to go back to the prime universe because simply put that’s the universe most of the fans cared about and wanted to go back to. And when they saw the poor box office Beyond brought in, that probably confirmed they made the right choice in the end

It’s not to say people didn’t care about the Kelvin movies, but they never made the universe compelling enough that would get old fans to care more when the Kirk, Janeway and Picard they knew and grew up with was in the original and more developed universe.

But I’m going to say it again, if this was a decade ago it would’ve been the opposite argument for some. The idea that people cares more about Enterprise than these movies would’ve seemed ludicrous to others at the time. Certainly back in 2009.

Now there is nothing ludicrous about it.

Beyond just had the usual Trek items. official film magazine, coffee table book, and many 50th anniversary magazines. But no comic adaptation (neither did ID) or even a IDW ‘Countdown’ or novel (maybe due to the late script/Orci ST3? then after it underperformed maybe Paramount just figured why bother..)

Yeah it is pretty wild Trek went from the kelvinverse back to prime (including a full on TNG sequel and with 7of9 no less), a complete reversal with questions now as to if the kelvinverse will ever return (like there was about prime in 2009-16), doesn’t seem that long ago the kelvin/JJ verse was all that mattered/cool and was attracting younger audiences, and primeverse was a relic from a time long past..

It’s crazy that the movie came out for the 50th anniversary and there was basically jack all nothing for both the movie and anniversary itself. You would think they would’ve went all out that year and have both a ton of movie and anniversary tie ins.

But nope! It really spoke volumes just how much the ‘hype’ had all but disappeared by then. I know we spoke about this way too many times but it tells you how badly both the studio squandered the chance to make these movies a must see entity after the second one and the people making them not being imaginative enough sticking to the same formula three movies in a row. By then too many people just stopped caring.

And yes maybe we will still get another movie since they keep saying we will lol. But I think people would rather have a Legacy movie than another Kelvin movie because that’s the universe, time period and characters a lot of fans want.

I have said I never believed the prime universe was dead just like I never believed Star Trek in general was dead after Enterprise was cancelled. It was all going to come back eventually. It’s no way you abandon a 40 year old universe with 700 hours of shows and movies that millions of fans grew up with and was still very much devoted to. Especially for a set of popcorn action movies that many of those same fans thought missed the mark of what made Star Trek special in the first place.

Looking at that other current article thread of people citing their favorite TNG episodes and it’s a lot of stuff like Inner Light, Drumhead, Yesterday Enterprise, Measure of a Man etc. That tells you the kinds of stories that have gravitated fans to this franchise for decades now and very little has to do with killing off vengeful ubervillains with big ships carrying bioweapons trying to take out the universe.

I just realized I been making Michael Sacal’s argument for him lol.

Again he’s not wrong, it was Star Trek return to TV and the prime universe that excited fans again but it’s also wrong to just completely discount the Kelvin movies as well: especially the immense excitement there was for that first movie. A big budget TOS movie rebooting everything really felt like we were moving in the next phase of Star Trek that was going to reenergize the franchise and it did. But it was never going to appeal to everyone in the long term either after the shine wore off on the new toy and fans just wanted a return to the basics which we now have today thankfully, even others still hate all of it lol.

The problem with that IMHO is ST 2009 and STID may have had the Star Trek name but they weren’t billed as Star Trek. Everything about them screamed blockbuster summer movie and such. It even had the slogan this isn’t your father’s Star Trek. I guess what I am trying to say is nothing “Star Trek” related sold those movies to general audiences.

But your argument was that Star Trek was dead and dormant, not just the prime universe itself. The success of those movies (even if we can argue exactly how successful they were in the end) proved that Star Trek as a franchise still had tons of life and vigor in it. It was never ‘dead’ just needed to take a break and/or go in a new direction (at least for a little while).

And to this day it’s really the only thing in NuTrek that was successful enough to bring in masses of new fans. I don’t think Discovery or any of the other new shows have brought in many new fans beyond just the peripheral. I can’t tell you any person in real life who has watched it that was completely green to Star Trek versus the Kelvin movies that I literally went with people who’ve never seen Star Trek before. As much as some people (not you) want to put down the Kelvin movies today, the reality is they did both revived fan interest who was tired of the old formula and got newer and younger fans invested in the franchise. There were actually teenagers excited about Star Trek again…who knew that was possible lol.

But yes it is very ironic having these discussions today because the argument then was the prime universe was dead and buried forever and anything new that will come out of Star Trek would be from the Kelvin universe for the next 20 years. Yeah, didn’t quite work out that way.

And more proof how strong nostalgia is, especially for something that was around for 40 years and had over 700 hours of Trek content fans were missing and wanted back.

They reestablished Star Trek as a major franchise. The films went from $70-95 million grosses to $220+ million in North America alone. The films got the best reviews for a Star Trek film in over a decade. The revival proved the franchise could have mass appeal again.

The budgets were too high, but clearly there’s a way forward to be more than a minor hit with a small budget. That means we’ll still be getting more films once Paramount’s future becomes clearer.

We may, but they won’t necessarily be set in the Kelvin timeline, which makes it redundant.

They grossed over a billion dollars and had the general public and media talking about Star Trek for a decade when there were no TV shows. They’re only redundant when looked at through the narrowest of lenses, one which might view -any- alternative timeline story as such!

And what got it going was Discovery. Discovery led to everything else that followed. Without, there is no indication any of it would have been made.

Discovery had a bit of a convoluted origin, though. Didn’t it begin life when Netflix approached CBS/Viacom about re-launching Enterprise back around 2010-11? CBS/Viacom declined but that started the ball rolling for an original streaming show on their own CBS All Access service. What became Discovery was originally pitched as an anthology series taking place in different times on different ships named Discovery. So yes, Discovery did launch all the other streaming Treks, but it didn’t necessarily have to be Discovery. Netflix would have been happy with Enterprise 2.0.

How it began isn’t all that relevant, though, other than in none of the scenarios you bring up was a new Trek series connected to the Kelvin universe.

Sure it is. The first streaming Trek show was Discovery , but basically any new streaming Trek show would almost certainly have had the same effect. Look at Picard and all the fanbase talk about wanting a Legacy spinoff. And I’m not all that sold on Picard only happening because of Discovery , I think it has more to do with Stewart wanting Logan -like closure for the character that Nemesis and the Berman-era movies failed to provide.

Discovery gets credit for sustaining and reiterating Star Trek’s appeal on the small screen as a big budget streaming draw. It’s success did make it easier to greenlight all the other shows, and SNW is the most direct beneficiary as a direct spin-off.

I do raise an eyebrow as to your speculation about what naysayers would have let slide if the show hadn’t been a prequel to TOS. No need to get into that kind of supposition.

True, but sometimes I wonder how much the Abrams movies helped us get to Discovery.

Edited: Oh, I see this is discussed below.

What heralded the return was the budget and discussions beforehand. Discovery wouldn’t have existed without those. We could have had a much better show, and a much better ‘new era’, rather than the patchy one we’ve had. Some massive highs, some massive lows. None of the consistency of Classic Trek, which trundled along nicely.

The producers’ mistake was in changing the series to appease those that hated the first season. They should have never done that.

The first season was a train wreck, though. It was all over the place due to the revolving door at the producer’s office. Too many missteps in the beginning that took too long to correct. Season 2 was far better, but the jump to the 32nd Century was another major misstep, and I don’t think the show ever really recovered. The COVID-crippled fourth season probably doomed it.

By missteps I take it you mean how the Klingons look, the advacements in technology, etc.

Those were not missteps, they were improvements on the poor production values of The Original Series.

SNW did the same thing to the Gorn that DIS did to the Klingons, but somehow the former is acceptable whereas the latter is not.

SNW is also as guilty of making improvements to the Enterprise that contradict how the ship was portrayed in the ’60s just like DIS showed more advanced starships than TOS did.

Of course, you may also be referring to Michael being Spock’s sister.

That, too, was not a misstep, just like Sybok or Sulu’s unseen wife who gave birth to their daughter were missteps.

These characters can have extended families they never talk about. That is not a misstep.

“SNW did the same thing to the Gorn that DIS did to the Klingons, but somehow the former is acceptable whereas the latter is not.”

Many many people have been complaining about the Gorn as well lol. They haven’t gotten off scout free to the point people working on the show have commented on the complaints. But the difference is the Gorn was a very little seen species until now. Always referenced here and there but basically bigger in name than actual presence.

But the Klingons are probably the biggest and most known species in Star Trek and has been in over 100 episodes and 7 movies. So of course when you change them so dramatically people were going to have a deep opinion about it, especially when they were just too different to the point of distraction for many fans.

The Klingons had to be changed, though. Portraying them using white actors in blackface and Fu Manchu makeup might have “worked” in the ’60s, but it doesn’t work in the 21st Century. Specially when part of the plot involved one of them altering their facial features to make themselves look human.

The actor that played Ash Tyler didn’t need makeup to make himself look like a TOS-era Klingon, he just needed to grow a beard to make himself look like one.

Um, yeah they were changed back in the 80s that people accepted right away. Who suggested we were only talking about the TOS variety?

You literally skipped over 30 years lol.

And I always say the problem with the Discovery Klingons wasn’t that they were changed, but it was a BAD change to many people that was mostly the issue. It’s been pointed out other species like the Romulans and Trill were changed as well but it was much more subtle so most people just didn’t care.

What they did with the Klingons were just too distracting. And because they were so prominent in the first season you couldn’t ignore them at all

What they did to the Klingons had to be done because of the time frame Discovery took place in, in which Klingons were portrayed by white actors in blackface and Fu Manchu makeup as established in The Original Series and Enterprise on account of the cure to the Augment virus altering their genome.

Portraying they way they looked before the virus infected them as depicted in Enterprise or after they got cured as depicted in The Motion Picture would have gone against canon.

Picard established on screen why certain Romulans looked different (they’re northerners).

That would not have worked in Discovery because of the plot with VoQ and Ash Tyler.

DIS could NOT show pre and post Augment virus Klingons on screen. If it had, then Tyler would have just looked like a post Augment virus Klingon and no one would have bought the subterfuge that he was a human.

I like to think that had the series continued on its intended path rather than changed things during the second season we might have gotten to learn more about the in-between type of Klingons from season one, just like Picard did with the Romulans.

I see them as a step in the direction toward cleaning their DNA of the vestiges of Phlox’ cure that changed their appearance, resulting in the return of the pre-virus Klingons in TMP decades after DIS and TOS.

Well more power to you but I think it was just an all around mistake to do it. And obviously the producers agreed because not only were they changed in the very next season but every show after it just want back to the TOS movies/TNG look including SNW which is literally in the same time period as Discovery was. And they haven’t been seen on Discovery since which is clearly deliberate because no show has gone more than a season without showing them until now. Even Picard snuck in a Worf photo in season 1 and that was probably done to let people know Worf will still look like Worf so don’t panic lol..

But I will go halfway on this and say I didn’t have a problem if they kept them either, people just wanted to see the originals too. Again this was the entire problem with Discovery and it basically acted as a reboot and not really a continuation of what we knew before.

If they found a creative way to explain them, fine. But they didn’t. And there were so many theories about these Klingons, one I really liked that they were an ancient klan from thousands of years ago and we would eventually see them mix it up with the traditional Klingons. Basically how they treated the Romulans in Picard as you said and a mixture of the two. That would’ve been a much better idea. But once we were told these were supposed to be the same Klingons as before then it lost people.

As far as Tyler my answer to that is just don’t do it at all because it was already completely ridiculous how it was done anyway.

They went halfway back to the original design by giving them long hair as part of their appeasement of people that hated the first season.

That was a true first misstep, a betrayal of the worldbuilding they were laying out. Saying that they cut their hair during time of war was one of the most imbecilic things they ever came up with.

TNG and DS9 both showed them at war and in neither instance did they do such a thing because it wasn’t a thing.

Of course Klingons like Worf in Picard, Prodigy and Lower Decks should look like they did in TMP, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT before the Augment virus infected them. Those series and cartoons take place after they were cured sometime between the end of TOS and TMP.

SNW shows that version to keep fanboys happy, not because it makes sense.

Again, it’s the very betrayal of canon people accused DIS of committing because it showed holograms on Starships.

To be true to canon, Klingons on SNW should be played by white actors in blackface and Fu Manchu makeup as was done in TOS and ENT.

If I could, I’d post a picture of the three Klingons from TOS that appeared on DS9 that shows both versions of the makeup they wore on the two series.

Clearly it shows that at some point something was done to restore their original appearance. The idea that that something included what we saw in DIS is not that far-fetched. It’s a process getting from one point to the other. Klingons aren’t scientists or prone to asking others for help (specially since they are not part of the Federation), so it makes sense that it would have taken them a long time to fix themselves, and a lot of trial and error.

If given the choice between the stated fix from DIS season two that Klingons cut their hair during time of war OR having Phlox show up as part of a story arc showing that he is STILL working to cure the Klingons from the effect of the Augment virus, I’d have chosen the latter.

Again the problem with your argument is that you are bringing up something that was NEVER mentioned or implied on the show itself. There wasn’t even an offhand reference about the Augment virus JUST like there wasn’t any references about the Klingons shaving their heads for war time because neither one had to do with how they looked. They simply looked like that because Fuller wanted to change them up. Period.

And I already said IF there was some explanation why they looked different then OK I think people would’ve accepted that. You’re doing a better job then they ever did lol.

The fact is they had fifteen episodes to go into explanation but didn’t. And no one should be expected to remember the Klingon augment virus from a show that had already ended 12 years ago.

Because once again that was never part of their backstory. These were simply the new Klingons and why it bothered people.

The series was not given a chance to get to an explanation. One was not germane to the plot of season one, but could have been explored in season two.

C’mon man. ‘This is a show that the writers and producers spent countless interviews talking up the show and Klingons before the first episode aired. And they had plenty of time SINCE to talk about it.

It was never mentioned anywhere before or after. If they can suddenly tell us WHY Klingons shaved their heads after the fact, then I’m pretty sure they could highlight that tidbit too..

I get it, you really like the show and feel people dump on it too much. I understand. I have done quite of bit of dumping on it too lol. Yes, guilty. So It’s nothing wrong to defend the decisions you think people are being unfair or extreme about. That’s why message boards exist.

But you have to also just admit the obvious as well. For the record they didn’t need an explanation at all, it’s all fiction and they can present the show however they wanted. But they knew the Klingons just wasn’t working with most fans. They rolled the dice, it just wasn’t something a lot of people liked. But they had PLENTY of time to use that as a reason even if it wasn’t presented on the show itself.

Now I get it worked for you and other people as well and that’s of course great. But it’s all a business. Subs were probably dropping for a service few people barely watched or cared about and they heard the complaints the show didn’t feel Star Trek enough. And probably why we saw bigger changes in season 2, many I liked personally.

But I think if Discovery had to do it all over again there would be many things they do differently today.

But it was the first Trek show out of the gate in the modern era and they were trying to shake things up. Unfortunately they have a very devoted but also nostalgic fanbase who wanted something more comfort food and familiar. Maybe even a bit bland…hence SNW. 😉

No, I wasn’t even thinking of the new Klingon look. That doesn’t bother me much, although I think “improvement” is very much a matter of opinion. The TOS Klingons really need to be updated from the cheap Fu Manchu look of TOS to the movie era, but I don’t think they really needed to change again for Discovery, that just smelled of “we can, so we did” at the revolving door producer’s office. Michael Dorn’s look in Picard proves that the Berman-era look works just fine on 2020s TV.

I was thinking of starting the saga with a mutiny, killing off their most prominent actress and most interesting character in Episode 2 and then within half a season jumping into the Mirror Universe, where they kill off probably the second most interesting character (Lorca.) I get it, this show is supposed to be Star Trek: Burnham and not an ensemble show. But the problem with Star Trek: Burnham is that it got old really fast. So presto, the killed-off Georgiou is back! That gave Burnham someone to play off, and every time the two of them were on screen, I’d think “if they’d never killed off Prime Georgiou, this is what Discovery could have been: a traditional Trek show with Captain Georgiou and First Officer Burnham. And it would have been better.”

Burnham being Spock’s adoptive sister wasn’t the show’s best idea, but it didn’t ruin the show for me, either. It is just kinda there. Not much really came of that, in the end, did it? They even ignored the opportunity for Peck to play Mirror Spock a few episodes ago.

Dorn’s look works great in post TMP Trek, not in post ENT/pre TOS Trek, which is when the first season of DIS took place.

But they didn’t bring back Georgiou. The Emperor is not the same character as the captain. They’re variants of the same person from two alternate realities but that doesn’t make them the same person.

While I don’t love the look of the Klingons in Discovery (or Into Darkness, for that matter), I will say I thought their look was feeling a little dated even by the time of DS9. With Apocalypse Rising, once we had the crew in makeup and costume and then all the other Klingons, I started to think maybe they could do something to freshen up what at that point was already a nearly 20-year old design. At least the wigs and costumes could change.

Sadly agreed. I think in terms of fan reception the show has been a misfire for most of it’s run because it just felt too different and what was given just wasn’t very good on top of it.

This season the reception is better than last season for sure but it’s still not a home run either. There is still just as many complaints about it from others but overall at least feels more satisfying.

But I think Discovery will be an enigma for a long time. It can’t be denied it help spur the modern Star Trek era we have today being the first, but oddly enough most of the shows seem to have the opposite tone, feel and style what Discovery did. Now maybe a lot of that was just to have the shows feel different from one another which is a positive. But it’s very odd Discovery has been basically been ignored by the other shows minus SNW. And that show feels like a completely different show from Discovery as well.

There was a large portion of the fan base decrying that it was a prequel, sure.. But it’s a big assumption that changing the setting is what has affected the quality. The show gained a new showrunner and a different focus, one that had nothing to do with the new setting and felt very much like what she wanted to do, not what fans were demanding en mass. It’s her show, and she was exercising a good amount of creative freedom, I’d say.

I don’t really see much harm in the other overt changes like giving the Klingons a more familiar look or toning down the violence. I’d have to react to a list of anything else changed because of fan feedback. The rest just feels like a showrunner taking ownership.

That familiar look went against canon, though, which is what people complained DIS was doing when it changed the Klingons from looking like white guys in blackface and Fu Manchu makeup like they were portrayed in TOS.

I do think Paradise improved the series once she took over, and have no problem with the change of setting (I compare it to Voyager getting lost in space while DIS was lost in time), but, at the same time, it should not have gotten to that point.

That is not the direction the series should have gone in.

SNW is doing what DIS was intended to do, but because it has Spock, Kirk, Uhura, Pike, and Scotty and the Klingons look like they did in The Motion Picture instead of how they did in TOS and Enterprise people suddenly have no problem with it.

Klingons aside, SNW is as guilty of the same things people hated about the first season of DIS, but, for some reason, people turn a blind eye to it now.

I don’t know what to tell you. I only was hung up on the Klingons because the look wasn’t all that interesting to me and it interfered with every actors’ enunciation. Ever since TMP updated the Klingons and TNG updated the Romulans I haven’t cared about these incongruities. I love that Trials and Tribbleations and Enterprise leaned in and replicated the old look/explained continuity details, but I also appreciate a beautiful set in 2024.

What’s more important is what the showrunner does, and nothing apart from setting the show in the 32nd century seems to have been a direct influence of fandom on Michelle Paradise’s MO, and you say you prefer the show under her stewardship, so I’m not sure this particular argument about contonuity details affects things if we discuss issues with the show in seasons 3-5. We’re not speculating on a show led by Paradise that is still set in the 23rd century.

And it’s so weird hearing this bizarre argument that Paradise is just doing what fans were begging for when it feels like the complete opposite. Yes a lot of the changes were made to the show as a whole due to people complaining about it but all of that happened before she even took over and it wasn’t her idea to move the show to the 32nd century, it was Kurtzman’s. She said in interviews when she joined the show she knew the show was already going that direction.

Her stamp on it has been mostly negative when you look at third season on because she applies a more melodramatic and soap opera tone that just feels over done.

They have done less of it this season but still obviously there.

But season 3 and 4 also just felt like bore fests after the half way mark. The pacing was awful because it was clear there just wasn’t enough story to keep the seasons compelling enough. That’s one of the biggest positives about season 5, because it was shorter lol.

She has always put in these very grand ideas which is great but the execution of them has just been poor IMO.

And there are obviously people who vibe with her approach. I do think the quest theme and relative stability during production and where she’s positioned the characters has calmed the waters in season 5.

But if I were to criticize the melodrama or characters stopping everything to talk about self-care, getting in touch with their emotions, or their relationships (like in the middle of a time-sensitive heist onboard a Breen dreadnaught for example), that’s nothing to do with anything they did to placate the fans who were making a ruckus in season 1.

Anyone know how long this episode will be?

With everything they need to wrap up I would have assumed a 2 hr finale but I think it will be 1 as usual.

I have not seen any announcements that it is an extra-length episode.

It seems the extra stuff they filmed was about fifteen minutes. So maybe a bit over an hour total.

I just looked at the finale’s time slot for CTV Sci-Fi channel and they have it listed as a two hour episode (with commercials). So for P+ I assume it will be close to 90 mins. I think that may be the longest of the NuTrek episodes to date.

I don’t want the game to end.

Until I watched last week’s episode, I’d only watched one other episode this season (the one where the Trill scientist takes over Culber).

I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen — while there’s still some melodrama and a plot that could probably have been resolved in six episodes, the show seems to have finally found its stride.

I’ll try to catch up before Thursday. I’m surprised to say that I’d welcome another season of this show.

That looks good! I honestly hope this season ends well, and those two clips give me hope.

Yeah me too!

No smiling koala so far…

It’s over, finally :)

It’s been a long road…

I think this season has probably been the most popular overall for a lot of the fanbase judging by online responses and truly hopes it goes out with a bang.

End predictions:

Discovery goes back in time to 24th century, crashes into Ent E. Worf escapes, (it wasn’t his fault). Burnham goes back to the beginning of time, integrates her DNA into the The Chase thingy, she is responsible for all humanoid kind. Riker appears, says ‘end program’

And then Burnham says “belay that order.” Riker is escorted off-screen.

It sounds like the holodeck has gone all trippy again. 😂

Moriarty will stop both of them lol

Wish Disco had found it’s legs sooner, because (with a couple very minor, obligatory nitpicks) this has been a largely terrific season of Trek.

Someone traded a bunch of Star Trek uniforms for K.I.T.T.???? Seriously?!

LOL that was a great segment of The Ready Room.

HAHA the best part was Wil totally freaking out!

Trapped inside a mysterious alien portal that defies familiar rules of time, space, and gravity, Captain Burnham must fight Moll – and the environment itself – in order to locate the Progenitors’ technology and secure it for the Federation.

I predict that at the center of the alien portal Burnham finds…a crying Kelpian child.

I actually predicted (which means it won’t come true) is that Burnham somehow reverses the Burn with the Progenitor tech.

LOL don’t even joke about that.

Or this becomes a sort of Deadpool thing and she ends up resolving every single canon issue, even incorporating the Kelvinverse.

But probably not. :-)

Note to the editors: the built-in pyrotechnics on these bridge sets are not meant to be seen in wide shots. Save that for the custom one-offs with debris.

Otherwise it just looks like a little heavy metal concert.

Can you imagine having something like that on Voyager or the original Enterprise. It just looks really silly to me.

The random sparks and flying rocks rarely made sense during space battles, but you could kinda go with the flow. They don’t often take me out of the moment like these wide shots of a hilarious ball of fire coming out not the same spot every time. That’s all on the editors – when it’s just coming into a close shot it’s effective.

“Time, space, and gravity” is a bit weird. The vast majority of *normal* space has no gravity at all.

What are you talking? Every space has Gravity…. Or No space has Gravity.

Depends in how you look at it. However, every tiny Bit If space is influenced by Gravity.

Zero G only means that it has no pull effect to us humans.

You coukd say, that space itself has no Gravity, but than the “majority” Thing majes No Sense.

I read it in the sense of “weightless.”

I have to admit that DSC is my least favorite Trek Show, but I remember feeling sad when the final episode of TNG, Voy, DS) and ENT aired. It was like saying goodbye to good friends.

Even behind the scenes, there’s just something about the Captain’s Chair. I remember working at Paramount when First Contact was filming. I got to visit the sets with Penny Juday and one of the sets we went on was the bridge. (Which, of course, nobody outside of production had seen yet…) I was blown away by the details on it, including the Starfleet Delta being embroidered on the seat backs. She asked if I wanted to sit in the Captain’s Chair, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I kinda regret not sitting, but the fan in me just thought that it would somehow have been disrespectful to do so. I sat at Conn instead and looked back to the center which was still a pretty amazing thing to do.

I was so excited about this show when it premiered. I faithfully watched every ep of that first season. I eagerly gave CBSAA my money to support my franchise. And honestly, I really liked season 1. Yeah, it kinda flew off the rails towards the end, and it never lived up to its potential, but it was innovative and new Star Trek that at least had a lot going for it.

I couldn’t make it more than 3 episodes into season 2. I found so much of it so irritating, and I simply didn’t have enough time to dedicate to it. In reading all the reviews and fan discourse online, it seemed like I was never missing out, and I always reflect positively that I didn’t waste my time on a Star Trek that I simply was never going to fully enjoy.

Here we are at the end and it’s strange to know I have hardly watched any of this new era of my favorite show. I’ve seen Picard S1 and 3, LD S1, a few eps of SNW, and that’s it. I prefer rewatching the same eps of TOS. It’s sad to feel so disconnected to the new shows, but I’m glad they exist at any rate. Goodbye Disco – I can’t say you had a great run, but you did a lot for a lot of people and that’s what counts, I guess.

This breaks my heart a bit but you tried. I just know what a big fan you are and it’s never great to feel so disappointed in something. But it’s also OK to just say something isn’t for you and just move on

I wish I had that willpower lol. Hopefully there will be other shows that gets you excited again.

Den of Geek

Discovery Just Brought a Star Trek Enterprise Character to 32nd Century Canon

The Star Trek: Discovery finale reveals that the show has been a pseudo-continuation of the story of an infamous Enterprise character all along!

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This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers.

Since 2020, Star Trek: Discovery has harbored a strange sci-fi temporal anomaly. Starting with the episode “Die Trying,” in season 3, director David Cronenberg —the mastermind who gave us The Fly and more recently, Crimes of the Future —has appeared semi-regularly as a mysterious figure known only as “Dr. Kovich.” As Discovery’ s latter seasons have gone on, Kovich’s true purpose has become more clear, even if we don’t fully understand why he wears that all-black, somewhat contemporary-looking suit.

While it’s been tempting to say that David Cronenberg has just been playing David Cronenberg this entire time, the Discovery series finale actually fully answers the question of who Kovich really is and his larger role in Star Trek canon. In fact, Cronenberg’s strange character is revealed to be, perhaps, one of the most crucial people in the entire universe.

Kovich Is Actually Agent Daniels From Star Trek: Enterprise!

While Kovich has previously assisted the crew of Discovery with various pieces of information about the multiverse and time travel rules, his role in the recently concluded season 5 was significantly larger. Starting with “Red Directive”, he’s been calling the shots, sending Burnham and the crew on the treasure hunt across the universe to track down clues that lead to the elusive—and life-creating—technology of the ancient aliens known as the Progenitors. 

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Back in season 3, some fans theorized that Kovich was the leader of some future-tense version of Section 31 , which would have explained his interest in Georgiou. Before season 4’s introduction of Laira Rillak (Chelah Horsdal), there were even some who suggested he was the low-key President of the Federation. But, now, at the end of season 5, we know the truth: Kovich is actually a bit more important than any of those other guessed-at roles. He’s the guy who saved the entire timeline! 

As Burnham chats in Kovich’s office—which sports Geordi’s visor and Sisko’s baseball in places of honor—she playfully asks him to reveal his true name. Because Kovich has come to trust Burnham, he obliges, introducing himself as “Agent Daniels.” If you’re not a hardcore fan of the prequel series Enterprise , this probably meant nothing. But if you are, this was a fairly huge twist.

In the 2001 Enterprise episode “Cold Front,” Daniels (played then by Matt Winston) revealed to Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) that he was really a time-traveling agent from the 31st century, sent back to the 22nd century to prevent a ton of tampering with the timeline. Daniels then popped-up throughout all four seasons of Enterprise , and, in the events of “Storm Front Parts I and II,” Daniels aids the crew of the NX-01 in an alternate 1944, in which an alien species called the Na’kuhl have aided the Nazis with advanced technology. 

Although Archer isn’t thrilled with Daniels often popping in for some temporal shenanigans, in the end, it’s through Daniels’ help that the NX-01 Enterprise succeeds in restoring the timeline. That said, throughout the run of Enterprise , it seems like several tweaks to the timeline were happening, all along, because of the Temporal Cold War. And now, with the revelation that Kovich is Daniels, it seems possible we could all soon be looking at the Trek timeline in an entirely new light.

What Agent Daniel’s Return Could Mean for the Star Trek Timeline

Back in Discovery season 3, in the episode “Terra Firma Part 1,” Kovich broke new ground for the franchise by becoming the first person from the Prime Timeline to mention the existence of the Kelvin Timeline outright. In doing this, the modern TV shows more overtly acknowledged the permeance of a Star Trek multiverse over a single, linear timeline.

The revelation that Kovich is the same character who fought to preserve the 22nd Century in Enterprise could be even more useful for future timeline questions than it might seem at first. Yes, on the surface, this is a nice easter egg that neatly explains Kovich and his job in the 32nd century . But it also makes the entirety of Discovery a little more timey-wimey than ever before. At the end of Discovery season 2, the ship journeys to the future, to save the past, and all of creation from a rogue AI called Control. In season 3, Kovich was very interested in Georgiou’s connection to Control, which could indicate that, maybe, just maybe, Control wasn’t part of the “original” Prime Timeline.

In fact, since First Contact in 1996, it seems possible that the “original” Star Trek timeline has been modified, and tweaked by various temporal incursions, many, many times over. In Enterprise —the first province of Agent Daniels—Zefram Cochrane remembered the Borg, indicating that the “current” timeline is the one in which Picard and the crew helped restore the events of 2063. If Picard and the Enterprise-E crew weren’t part of a predestination paradox, and some version of First Contact occurred in another timeline without their intercession, then that means everything in Enterprise already exists in a separate timeline from all the canon that came before it.

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On top of this, Enterprise season 3 Daniels (Kovich) told Archer that the war with the Xindi and Starfleet in the 22nd century existed only because of temporal incursions. This, too, suggests that Enterprise was creating a slightly divergent timeline all along, one a bit different from whatever existed in TOS, TNG, DS9, and Voyager, prior to First Contact .

In the 2023 Strange New Worlds season 2 episode, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” there was even more evidence that the Prime Timeline is in flux. Now, Khan no longer rises to power on Earth in the 1990s, but later, in the early 21st century , due to continuing temporal changes. Clearly, whatever happened with the Temporal Wars that we first glimpse in Enterprise is still sending ripples through the entire canon.

By explicitly connecting Kovich to Enterprise though, what Discovery has done is create a kind of comprehensive handwave courtesy of one of the franchise’s foremost time travelers. But whether you choose to believe Daniels reintroduction in the 32nd Century means a lot more temporal shifts have occurred than we know of, revealing Kovich’s true identity was always part of the season 5 plan, as showrunner Michelle Paradise tells Den of Geek .

“Very early on, we knew we were going to have to answer the backstory of this character and who he is and that it had to be worthy of the character himself and the way David plays him,” Paradise says. “A couple of our writers who are very familiar with Star Trek: Enterprise suggested Daniels and the minute they did, all of our heads exploded a little bit because it just felt like that makes sense. We knew, coming into this season, that we wanted to answer that in what, at the time, we thought was the season finale.”

Assuming the Star Trek franchise can coax back Cronenberg for recurring roles on other shows or movies, the universe now has a character who knows more about the various chronologies than anyone else (other than maybe Q) and who can pop in whenever time shenanigans are going on. The great thing that makes Kovich/Daniels unique to Q is that he’s not superpowered or all knowing. He’s simply a guy who’s been around a long time, and some of that longevity is because of time travel.

After all, Kovich is only human. Or, as he told Captain Archer all those years ago, “more or less.”

Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Den of Geek! He is also the author of three non-fiction books: the Star Trek pop history book PHASERS…

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

...But to Connect

• Episode aired Dec 30, 2021

Tensions rise as representatives from across the galaxy gather to confront the threat of the Dark Matter Anomaly. Zora's new sentience raises difficult questions. Tensions rise as representatives from across the galaxy gather to confront the threat of the Dark Matter Anomaly. Zora's new sentience raises difficult questions. Tensions rise as representatives from across the galaxy gather to confront the threat of the Dark Matter Anomaly. Zora's new sentience raises difficult questions.

• Gene Roddenberry
• Bryan Fuller
• Alex Kurtzman
• Sonequa Martin-Green
• Anthony Rapp
• 64 User reviews
• 5 Critic reviews

• Michael Burnham

• Lt. Cmdr. Paul Stamets

• Dr. Hugh Culber

• Cleveland Booker

• Federation President Laira Rillak

• President T'Rina

• Capt. Ndoye

• Guardian Xi

• Orion Delegate

• Provost Sta'kiar

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia Booker describes himself as a 'Speaker for the dead'. Ender Wiggins from 'Enders Game' also describes himself thusly.
• Goofs At the end, Burnham could transport directly onto Booker's ship, which would be a much more effective way to intervene, but for some reason doesn't.
• Connections Referenced in Treksperts Briefing Room: ... But To Connect (2023)

User reviews 64

• sumtim3s00n
• Dec 29, 2021
• December 30, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official Site
• Pinewood Toronto Studios, Port Lands, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Studio)
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 47 minutes

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