ST IV: The Voyage Home

The Voyage Home is nothing more than a romp. Despite the fact that Kirk and company just destroyed the Enterprise, and a seemingly hostile probe is threatening to destroy earth, this movie maintains a rather upbeat tone. It begins somewhat seriously, with Spock retraining his mind. Kirk and his crew decide to return to Starfleet command to face consequences of rescuing Captain Spock. On top of all that, a probe is trying to destroy the earth with a bunch of really bad weather, which induces Kirk and company to spring into action once again, slingshotting around the sun in an old Klingon bird of prey to find some humpback whales. This sequence starts out well, but then degenerates into a sequence of shots that were probably intended to be a dream sequence, but in reality make no sense. It would have been best if the producers had just left these shots out of the movie altogether. However, once the movie passes its initial bumps, the fun begins. As the crew of the “late Starship Enterprise” sets down in Golden Gate Park, disembarks and tries to make sense of the strange new world they set out into. Throughout the movie the antics of a very Vulcan Spock, attempting to understand everything from the 20th century vernacular to the basic social graces, are very entertaining. Kirk’s reactions set new standards for bad overacting, especially his reaction to Spock’s mind-melding with Gracie, a humpback whale. Other highlights include Gillian Taylor’s blatant patronizing confusion towards Kirk, Checkov and Uhura’s improvised scenes in which they are looking for “nuclear wessels” and Scotty’s showing a plexiglass plant manager the molecular formula for transparent aluminum via a 20th century computer. Also memorable is the entire hospital sequence in which Kirk and McCoy rescue Checkov from the hand of 20th century medicine. After that, the Klingon BOP USS Bounty takes off with a new passenger to find George and Gracie, and ends up rescuing them from Russian whale hunters before going back to the century in which they belong, in one of the biggest continuity errors of the Star Trek movies. Sulu engages the warp drive while still in the atmosphere, an action that should have torn the ship apart, but mysteriously doesn’t. Once back into the 23rd century, they quickly save the planet Earth, causing the charges against them to be, for the most part, dropped. And, in another great Trek moment, earning them a new starship Enterprise! Star Trek The Voyage Home was an all-around great and entertaining movie, it is even my second favorite Star Trek movie ever made.

TNG - Reunion

Reunion, was an important episode to the overall story of The Next Generation. It even had an impact on subsequent Star Trek series, namely DS9. It sets the stage of the upcoming Klingon civil war, and the ongoing feud between the houses of Duras and Mogh. The episode also introduces the character of Alexander, another often recurring (and annoying) role. However, in order to change the direction of the Star Trek franchise we had to sit through scene after scene of watching K’ehleyr, a really annoying version of B’lanna Torres, argue with Worf, a major aspect of the episode I could have done without. This was not the only bickering in this episode. The confrontation between Duras and Gowron is similar, but with Klingon chest-thumping overtones, right up until the point where Worf puts Duras in his place, on the floor with a Bat’leth sticking out of him. Reunion may have been a very important episode that set the stage for many better ones to come, however, that does not mean that stands out on its own as good.

DS9 - Explorers

The premise of this episode makes for a great Star Trek episode, at least at the outset.
Sisko’s building an exact replica of a Bajoran solar sail ship, in an attempt to prove, among other things, that the design could work. However, towards the end of the episode that ship gets launched into what must have been very, very high warp speed, taking it all the way to Cardassia in the space of about one minute. We get to see a rare Trek moment – Cardassians admitting they were wrong! This high speed, of course, could not be possible. What keeps most starships and their crews in one piece while accelerating and traveling at warp are the structural integrity field, main deflector, and the inertial dampeners. The Bajoran solar sail vessel had none of these systems, so, it should have been torn into a million peaces, but not before Jake and his father were turned into grease spots on the rear wall! While it may be possible that Sisko installed a gravity net that included a inertial dampening system, or that the tachyon particles accelerated the ship into warp very slowly, there is absolutely no reasonable explanation for why the shearing stresses and dust particles didn’t rip the ship to pieces, once it went into warp. Aside from the treknological difficulties, the main story is enjoyable but not outstanding. There is also a stupid sub-plot involving Dr. Bashir worrying about having to meet with the one person who was better than he was in medical school- this is interesting for all of two minutes. While the general premise of this episode sounded great, the specifics of it definitely bought it down in quality.

VOY - Juggernaut

Juggernaut builds a completely original Star Trek episode by using a plot device that has been used over and over and over again in Star Trek Voyager: B’lana is having trouble controlling her temper. (Well, tell me something I don’t know!) But this episode takes that device in a whole different direction, by taking B’lana to her wits end and then putting her in command of an away team. Once on the Malon garbage scow, the plot gets a little repetitive, involving a scunged-up crew making their way through irradiated corridors, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, without much success until the Vahar literally has belted 3 people across the face. Despite that fact, this part of the episode is also quite suspenseful. Some of the dialogue in Juggernaut, provides us with deeper insight into the Malon culture, including, that while economically motivated, like the Ferengi, they are also motivated by some emotions other than greed. The solutions finally proposed by Captain Janeway to solve the problem of the rogue garbage scow are similar to that used by used by the crew of the Enterprise-D in order to dispose of a similar craft in the TNG episode The Final Mission. This Voyager episode is interesting not only because of its suspenseful qualities, but also because of the new direction in which it took many previously used (or overused) Star Trek plot devices.

TOS - Elaan of Troyius

This is a most unusual episode of Star Trek, originally conceived as a money-saving “bottle show.” It turned out to be quite interesting because of the unusual plot, which seems to combine different elements from different “types” of Trek episodes in one 50 minute span of time. This show includes some new effects such as shots of the Klingon ship, a rarity for the original series. The battle between the Enterprise and the Klingons is also quite good, except for the repeated mentions by Scotty (among others) of the impossibility of firing the phasers without operating the warp engines. Tying the phasers into the warp drive was not a design element incorporated into the Enterprise until its refit following the five-year mission of that ship in the original series. However, since the warp core is sometimes referred to as the warp drive (or engine) that could have meant the phasers drew their power from the matter/anti-matter reaction in the warp core, as many systems on the ship do, but was later refitted to draw power from the warp drive itself in the nacelles. Other than this slight but confusing discrepancy, this episode is practically nothing but an enjoyable romp, but with some serious aspects added to it as well.