Warp Section

Season: 5 Episode: 14
Original Air Date: 17 February 1992

Captain Picard always likes to be as non-confrontational as possible when dealing with an unrecognized ship. Unfortunately, this leaves him and his ship open to many problems. In the latest episode I watched, a wave of energy left the whole crew with amnesia, an annoying plot scenario, done as best as possible by the actors of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Conundrum watches people who don’t remember their identities, but they can still operate the complex equipment that controls and comprises the Enterprise-D.

Worf sitting in the command chair is amusing, and so is Picard sitting at the engineering station. There is a nameless commander who interacts with the people on the bridge. Of course, using his Klingon instincts, Worf wants weapons and shields.

Jean-luc’s natural command talents shine through over and over despite not knowing who he is, and needing to report to “captain” Worf.

My favourite scene in the episode is Data as the bartender. What a waste of talent that would be, despite how perfect a drink he could whip up.

The nameless man ends up somehow being the executive officer, commander McDuff, making William Riker, third in command. Slowly details appear, and it looks like the Federation is at war with the Lysian Alliance. Not only that, but their current mission is to destroy the Lysian central command.

Ro Laren decides to take it upon herself to be a bit forward and is waiting in Riker’s quarters for him. They the begin to make out. Funny since they don’t really like each other. Odd how forgetting a thing or two changes your perspective on people.

In their first battle with a Lysian warship, the Enterprise totally outmatches the little vessel. It then quickly becomes apparent that if the Federation totally outclasses them in weapons, shields and ship size, how could they be maintaining a war with the race?

Of course Riker is not phased by the whole memory loss ordeal, and then tries to make out with Troi, but Ro Laren comes to interrupt and takes Riker for herself.

“I have the feeling that I used to be the jealous type.”

To slow down the Doctor from figuring out how to restore the crew’s memories, the new commander, McDuff, volunteers to have his memory restored. With no effect of course.

The Enterprise makes it to the command center easily. I know I have seen the model for the Lysian central command before. As some sort of interdimentional phased ship or something. Finally they come to their senses, and decide that something is wrong. McDuff tries to take over the ship and they stop him from shooting at the Lysians and the phaser blast reveals he is not human. Another happy ending.

This is one of those episodes that you could put at basically any point in the show, as it is totally self-contained and does not effect any other episode. Star Trek mastered the self-contained episodic plot system.

In the end I give Conundrum a 2.5 out of 5.

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Season: 5 Episode: 5
Original Air Date: 19 October 1991

When I was a bit younger, I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation all the time. I did not see the first season or two until it was in re-runs, as I was pretty young then, but from about the third season on, I was hooked.

At the start of Disaster, there are a few people in ten forward discussing Keiko’s unborn child. William O’Brien is Riker’s suggestion for the child’s name. Chief O’Brien wants it to be Michael. It is a little sad to me, as they end up having a girl, and you’d think that Star Trek technology would be able to tell really quickly what sex the child would be.

Picard has to deal with children that won the science fair. The Captain hates dealing with kids. Even Wesley as a young man was still a child in Picard’s eyes. Of course a plot twist early on gets him stuck with the children in a turbolift leaving Diana Troi as Captain of the ship in the emergency.

Troi wears her ugly purple one piece suit that was supposed to be sexy or something, and looks almost clueless as the bridge is cut off from the rest of the ship.

Picard deals with crying children, and basically commands them as though they were adults, rather than annoying children. His words only lead to more crying. Children really can’t act.

Troi is horrible as a command officer, as she muddles about dealing with her newfound responsibility. Chief O’Brien is great at helping her by giving suggestions, but she looks like a deer in the headlights.

The plot tries to focus on many of the main characters in different areas of the ship trying to get out of their various problems. It makes it too much to write about here as the episode is very compartmentalized and fragmented.

Star Trek wouldn’t be Star Trek without imposing some time line on getting things fixed though. So of course some field is losing power and the ship will blow up if the Councilor does not get it fixed.

So Geordi and the Doctor are in the cargo bay. They have to open the cargo bay door to let the air out to stop a fire and some cargo containers from exploding. And someone has to walk over to another console to close the doors after the air is gone. How ridiculous is this? Have they never heard of timers?

By the end of the episode Data’s head saves the day, and Keiko has her daughter thanks to Worf playing doctor. Definitely one of the stranger episodes I have seen.

I give Disaster a 1.5 out of 5.

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Over on TV Squad Wil Wheaton reviews some Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. It is interesting to see it all from his point of view as he was Wesley Crusher, a super smart prodigy child that was quickly given duties on the bridge of the flagship of the Federation.

Recently, he reviewed Where No One Has Gone before. He reviews it in such a way that I can barely tell what the heck he is talking about, but if nothing else, it is humorous to read.

Kosinski whizzes on Riker’s leg a little bit to mark his territory, sniffs at Argyles butt, and goes to engineering to work his totally awesome brand of warp drive magic. When he leaves, Troi tells us that he’s loud and arrogant. (Riker must be so happy he brought her along for that deep and difficult to observe insight.) But she then adds that she doesn’t feel anything from the mysterious assistant, like he isn’t even there. (This theme is widely repeated in Troi and Riker fan fiction on Usenet.) Eerie music swells up, so the slower kids in the audience know to be worried, and for the really slow kids in the audience, Riker says that the safety of the Enterprise is in their hands.

His reviews are also a bit on the long side, so if you don’t want to read all afternoon, you might want to skip it, but if you need some humour in your day, give it a read.

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Season 5 Episode: 1
Air Date: September 30th, 1996

Turning on the television I saw an old episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

The first thing of note is that Odo does not have his shape shifting ability. It was an interesting twist in the story line that I enjoyed. It was one of those things that reminded me of how easy it is to humanize his character.

We watch as he drinks alcohol and deals with the shift in perspective he has had.

The mission for this episode is trying to expose Gowron, a prominent Klingon leader, who may be a Changeling.

I was never a big fan of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It was not because it was stuck on a station for most of the seasons. I originally thought that was the problem, but I really enjoyed Babylon 5, and it was mostly surrounding the station.

Of course Starfleet has some great technology to help them expose the probably Changeling. A grenade-like device that supposedly stops a Changeling from holding his form.

I love when O’Brien turns around and is dressed up like a Klingon. Sisko, O’Brien, and Odo all look like Klingons and its ridiculous. I’m surprised in Star trek’s era that there are not more cosmetically modified spies.

They get a Klingon Bird of Prey from the Cardassians. Gul Dukat looks absolutely pleased that they are attempting to pretend to be Klingons.

Worf tries to give them all lessons on acting like Klingons. Probably the most hilarious scene in Star Trek history. Commander Sisko is the only one that can even come close to acting like a passable Klingon.

Of course before the episode ends they are discovered because that is what happens when you send well known people into a mission that requires being close to those that may recognize you, no matter how much makeup you wear. They are imprisoned by the Klingons. They find they have an ally in the Klingon empire who thinks that Gowron might be a Changeling.

They ally tries to help the Federation in killing Gowron, and Odo realizes it is not Gowron that is the changeling, but instead the person they thought was an ally: Martok.

Hundreds of Klingon disruptor shots later, the Changeling is destroyed.

The episode was a little slow going, but it moved the Dominion versus everyone else plot forward. Worf really was not given much play time, event hough he was in almost every scene. Just filling out the mission team I suppose.

I give Apocalypse Rising a 3 out of 5, thanks to the comedy in the episode.

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Bethesda Softworks is currently working on getting Star Trek: Legacy out the door. It is being called an epic real time strategy game, as it spans the entire timeline of the Star Trek television shows and movies. With ships ranging from the NX-01 Class all the way to the Sovereign Class.

As the Admiral of the Fleet you choose the ships, equipment, and captains that you will lead into battle. The game is designed to provide dramatic large-scale battles with easy-to use controls.

Not only do you get to partake in missions ranging in the Star Trek timeline from Enterprise, The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, but you also get a storyline written by the D.C. Fontana with her partner Derek Chester. And if that is not cool enough as it is, they also got all five captains to do voice overs for the game.

One of the things that got me excited about the game is the damage modeling. This means you can blow off pieces of an enemy ship. The only downside of that, is that they will probably be able to carve off hunks of your ship as well, but never the less, it will make for some great gameplay realism.

If you think you would get bored only playing the Federation, don’t worry, Bethesda has got you covered as you can command the Klingon, Romulan, and Borg races as well.

The system requirements for the PC version are a little steep. It looks like I am going to have to upgrade, as my processor does not mean their requirements. Maybe I will be lucky and my video card as well as my RAM will take some of the load, so that I can run it without too many problems.

PC System Requirements

• Windows XP (Home, Media Center or Pro Editions) with Service Pack 2
• DirectX Version 9.0c
• Intel Pentium 4 (2.66ghz or higher) or AMD Athlon XP 2800+ or higher
• DX9 compatible AGP 8X or PCI Express video card, 128 MB VRAM, Pixel Shader 1.4
• 16-bit Direct Sound compatible sound card, speakers or headphones required for audio
• 512 MB RAM
• 5 GB free space
• LAN or Broadband connection (DSL or Cable Modem) for Multiplayer
• Windows compatible Keyboard & Mouse

If this game looks exciting, that is because it probably will be. By now you are probably wondering when you can pick it up. It was originally slated for sometime in September, but was pushed back to November 7th. The sad part is that it was recently pushed back again, but only to November 21st.

Hopefully, it will come out in the third week of November, so we can get some Star Trek gaming going on.

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Everyone thought that with the horrible box office results of Star Trek: Nemesis, that the Star Trek movie franchise would die off, but with so many of the different Star Trek shows not having their own feature film, everyone wondered if Star Trek: Voyager or maybe Star Trek: Enterprise would get a movie.

It looks though like Star Trek: XI will be a prequel movie, but not as far back in the Star Trek timeline as Enterprise was, instead going back to Kirk and crew, either with them in the Academy, or their first mission together.

I have to admit that I am not liking where the Star Trek universe is heading as Rick Berman continues to take Star Trek to the pre-TOS era.

The prequel film has not been given the official green light for production yet, but the word is that it will be getting a thumbs up from Paramount in December or January. If they do green light it, you can expect to see Star Trek: XI sometime in the summer of 2008.

The word online is that Abrams, one of the producers of the upcoming movie, is already interviewing potential cast members. The characters being portrayed apparently being a young Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty. I really hope they pick some unknowns to play the characters because if I see Matt Damon as Kirk, I will never watch any Star Trek again.

I am still hoping that something crazy happens and a storyline about cadet Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty is given the shaft. I am going to Keep my fingers crossed.

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I remember in early 2001, when I first heard that a new Star Trek series was coming out. I was very excited, until I heard what time period it was going to be in.

I had enjoyed the constant evolution of Star Trek, always going forward in time, and with the close proximity of the time periods of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager, I had high hopes for a new series to be set after Voyager’s return to Earth.

But alas, this was not to be, as Enterprise, was set to go back before even Star Trek: The Original Series, back to a time around ten years before the founding of the Federation. This was so far from what I had expected, but I tried to keep my hopes up. I assumed that much of the staff that created Star Trek: Voyager, which I had found to be decent, would be able to take such a backwards concept and do well with it.

I had wondered how they would deal with many of what Star Trek fans call canon, or “factual representation” of what we know to be happening in that time thanks to other episodes, books and literature.

Little did I know that the show they were producing would almost all but kill the Star Trek franchise. I can see what they were trying to do though, Paramount wanted a series that both Trekkies and more “regular” folk could enjoy, and by trying to remove the Star Trek from Enterprise, I think they might have pushed away more hard core Star Trek fans than they got in new viewers.

The next major turn-off for me was when I saw the ship they were planning on using, as well as some images of the production sets. The ship was an Akira class ship, that was slightly redesigned to look “older”, and the computer interfaces and whatnot all looked much more high-tech than anything seen in Star Trek: The Original Series. I know that The Original Series was made in the late-sixties, so they could not create the sets that we expect from shows today, but they could have tried to make it look a little less advanced in some respect, giving more tactile controls or something.

The saving grace for the show in my opinion was Scott Bakula, who played the Captain, Jonathan Archer. I remembered him from Quantum Leap, and so I knew he could act in a science fiction show.

While the show only lasted four seasons, it was four seasons too many for me. It looked for a while like the show was going to be cancelled in 2004, but unfortunately for some reason they decided to give it another shot. Then we got to watch as Star Trek: Enterprise basically gave all types of stories from the other previous shows, and redid them in Enterprise, basically saying that the NX-01 was the first to deal with genetically engineered people, even going as far as having Enterprise deal with the Borg.

The whole thing was rediculous in my mind. There were some great episodes, even I can’t say it was all horrible, but this show was not deserving of having Star Trek in its title.

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