TOS - The Naked Time

This early episode of the original series is both interesting and weird for the same reason. It shows what the crew of the enterprise does when they are, for all intents and purposes drunk. Also of this same reason this episode can be slow moving at times as it gets bogged down in the drunken antics of some the enterprise crew or the carping of the rest of the crew about them. While some of these actions are meant to be annoying, all of them come across as such, just at varying degrees of intensity. This episode also marks the first time in which time travel is used in Star Trek episode. The Naked Time, though, is mostly about a drunken starship crew, which can be interesting, but is mostly just annoying.

Star Trek X - Nemesis

This Star Trek movie is not necessarily bad. However, it is not one of the best, either. Basically, it is about average. Nemesis definitely had its moments, like the Riker-Troi wedding, and Data’s heroic death at the end of the movie, as he concludes his existence, while at the same time, in a way, finally fulfilling his wish to be human. While parts of the movie were excellent, it seemed to be lacking as a whole. Partly due to the franchise’s choice of an incredibly pompous, arrogant director, who knew nothing about the Star Trek universe, and seemingly had no respect for it. As a result, many aspects of the film were “off.” The opening is not recognizably Star Trek; there is practically no theme, and the lettering on the film’s title more closely resembles Russian Cyrillic than anything ever used in star Trek. Also, as a result of this director’s bad attitude toward the franchise, different parts of the ship seem to be caught in different periods of the Star Trek timeline. The control panels on the bridge are a slightly off version of the TNG era, while the cybernetics lab more closely resembles something one would expect to find on the starship Excelsior. Also Stuart Baird apparently thought that the warp drive was nothing more than a glorified rocket as he insisted on having the Enterprise’s engines leave a trail of exhaust behind every time the ship went into warp. While the director did a very good job of conveying the dark nature of the story, he seemed to have no knowledge or regard of the Star Trek universe. If a director who was actually familiar with the Star Trek universe was hired to direct the tenth movie, it probably have been much better. The plot of this movie is actually excellent. However, this is not readily evident in the movie mostly because of the poor directing. As a result of this, the movie as a whole suffered, and what had the potential to become one of the best Trek movies, ended up being merely average. The fate of B-4 is left unaddressed at the end of the movie- he obviously has Data’s memories- but what will he do with them? We will never know, giving the whole TNG saga as sense of continuity and incompleteness at the same time. Star Trek Nemesis had a good deal of potential. However, this potential was never realized, sadly ending the Trek of the Next Generation crew on a rather average note.

The Remastered TOS

On the subject of Paramount’s remastering of the original series, I find myself in favor of the makeover. As I said in my last post it is my belief that it is the storyline that makes the show, and the special effects that serve to make it a little better. The Original Series already has excellent plots, and by enhancing the visual effects, the episodes can finally rise to their full potential. I have only one worry about this- while I am in favor of this remastering, I am only for it as long is the story is not changed in the process, while the studio has consistently promised that it will not do this, there is a slippery slope between updating the special effects, and fundamentally changing entire parts of the episode. As long as Paramount refrains from doing this, I think this will be a great thing for the revival of the Star Trek franchise.

ENT - Countdown

Countdown is one of the last episodes in the Xzindi arc of Enterprise’s third season. And it is actually one of the best episodes in this season of Enterprise that actually have to do with the Xzindi. There are a lot of incredible visual effects in this show that serve to draw one into and enhance the storyline. It was because of these effects that this episode won an Emmy for special effects. While this is quite an achievement, at the same time it illustrates one of the fundamental problems with Enterprise. Star Trek is first and foremost about the stories, the plot, not about how good things look when they blow up in space. While good visual effects do serve to enhance the story line they cannot carry the show alone. If the plot is one dimensional or just plain bad the effects are not going to make up for it. While the best case is for a Trek show to have both a good story line and great special effects, having only the latter will not make for a successful show, no matter how good the effects are. Those producing Enterprise seemed to have forgotten that, and I believe that it is one of the main reasons that the show was canceled. In addition to the excellent special effects, the storyline of the show was actually quite good – for Enterprise. Countdown was an excellent episode of Enterprise, however, insofar as its ranking in the entire franchise, it was rather average.