Let me get this out of the way from the outset. I don't like Star Trek. If ever there was a television programme that was determined to smack the entire world in the face with the American flag, this one's it. Look out universe, if you're in trouble here comes Earth...it's flagship bearing the suggestive initials USS. Does anyone, aside from those pointy-ear-sporting, Starfleet-uniform-wearing Trekkers actually know what USS means? No. Of course not.
And as for the supposed mixing of races and sexes, I mean come on! The original series was manned by a group of white men. One black woman sat at the back of the bridge with a wine cork in her ear, and the helmsman was Asian. Neither of them spent a lot of time doing anything other than saying yes to William Shatner. The Next Generation was no better - of it's three female leads, one was killed off before the end of the first season and the other two rarely left the ship. The black guy was blind!!! And don't even get me started on Voyager and Enterprise...
And yet...for reasons I can't quite put my finger on (but I'm willing to bet have something to do with the impending new Star Trek film which (and let's be fair here) looks pretty bloody cool) I had a sudden urge to watch some Trek. A few years ago I had the same urge and purchased those magazines with the free Star Trek DVDs (you know the ones...first issue costs 37 cents, from then on they are $138.76). I got to watch the first two seasons of TNG, and by god was it shit.
Then I stumbled on the "Captain's Log" DVD boxed set - three stories from the five series. Well, I thought, I'll buy that and watch it. Now, on each disc was an interview with the captain of the particular series the disc was of. I'm going to review that all together before I attack each episode, and don't worry - even I'm not tough enough to review an entire television series on three episodes. Although given that these are the fan picks and the lead actor's pick, maybe it's not entirely unfair.
So we kick off with mad Bill babbling something about changing time and could we? Should we? Then he proceeds to lust over Joan Collins, which is a little embarrassing. Patrick Stewart brings some gravitas to proceedings before admitting he made his choice of episode because he directed it. Thanks for the effort, Pat. Avery Brooks is relatively entertaining aside from his "black men unite and rise up" (I'm assuming there must be still a huge amount of racism in America), while Kate Mulgrew is desperately trying to be a female Bill Shatner, mumbling about men within men within men. Finally Scott Bakula essentially tries to justify Enterprise (try apologising for it!). What struck me about this is how po-faced the actors are about Star Trek. I'm a Doctor Who fan, and the cast of that are aware of the drawbacks of each production, but are clearly affectionate for it. In Star Trek the actors seem to think that Star Trek was what was going to bring world peace. Television series, people!! Deal with it. So onto the episodes.
The Original Series: Bill's choice is "City On The Edge Of Forever" which is a fairly standard time travel episode where the crew (surprise, surprise) choose to make the ultimate sacrifice but save time in the process. We then get "The Enterprise Incident" in which we are expected to believe Kirk has gone mad and a Romulan commander will fall in love willy-nilly with a the Vulcan Spock because they have similar DNA backgrounds (so do horses and donkeys, but you don't seem them getting it on do you? You do?...Riiighhtt...). I had always recalled TOS being a bit bollocks, and frankly it seemed I was right. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find that "Balance Of Terror" was actually pretty bloody good, and I enjoyed it immensely. Mark Lenard was great (give that man a recurring role!) and Shatner rose to the occasion. Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad, I suppose.
The Next Generation: I remember thinking TNG was fantastic, but my recent viewing had burned me somewhat, so I approached this with some wariness. Pat's choice - "In Theory" - is not too bad, but a pretty standard "Data explores his human emotions" episode. What is suprising is that it has a fairly downbeat, melancholy ending which impressed. "Chains Of Command" is a two-parter and, let's not beat around the bush here, it's fucking awesome. David Warner guest stars and the scenes between him and Stewart are electric. Finally, "Darmok" shows the writers providing some real inventiveness as the crew are faced with a race whose language is so fundamentally different to ours it is virtually impossible to communicate. It's fantastic the way this is handled, and an absolute winner. Great disc.
Deep Space Nine: Again, I remember enjoying this a lot, and I have to say I was definitely not disappointed. Avery chooses "Far Beyond The Stars" which is an episode about racism, but it is handled very well, and the regular cast get the chance to shine in completely different roles. "What You Leave Behind" is the series finale, and proves just how far DS9 came over seven years. In the other series you could be forgiven for thinking nothing had happened between the first and last episodes, but with this story I was wondering what the hell had gone on while I was away. Sadly the solution to the prophets story arc seems a little tacked on. Finally "In The Pale Moonlight" is a fantastic story showing just how far the good guys will go in order to get a win. This is the episode where Avery Brooks really shines and it is very disturbing given today's political climate. This disc, to my surprise, is the best of the five.
Voyager: I remembered Voyager as being pretty bloody ordinary, and sadly I was proved correct with the fourth disc. It's so bad that I'm not even going to bother to look at each episode individually, suffice to say that the episodes are trite, the acting is woeful and I couldn't care less about the crew. However, two things stood out for me: firstly, it is embarrassingly obvious that Jeri Ryan was brought in to be sexy. She spends every episode in a skintight catsuit (despite being a Borg) and just stands around thrusting her boobs out. This is a good thing. The other thing that struck me is how the crew are all so conservative, even the apparently "rebellious" Marquis. All of them are slaves to the Federation's rulebook and none of them have the daring of Kirk, Riker or Sisko. No wonder this series was bollocks.
Enterprise: I never watched this after the turd that was Voyager, and quite frankly this disc didn't impress me very much. I will admit that it was better than Voyager, and the storylines were workman-like. Nothing stood out, although once again Jolene Blalock, despite being a Vulcan, wears a skintight catsuit all the time. Another model-turned-actor. What surprised me about this disc was the final episode of Enterprise and Star Trek to date; "These Are The Voyages...". I actually had a bit of a lump in my throat at the end when the three Enterprises took off, with the three captains reciting the iconic opening spiel. This left me feeling quite positive towards Enterprise.
All in all, the box set did little to dispel my initial feelings about Star Trek, but it did give a fix. I'm looking forward to the movie even more now.
"C+"
And as for the supposed mixing of races and sexes, I mean come on! The original series was manned by a group of white men. One black woman sat at the back of the bridge with a wine cork in her ear, and the helmsman was Asian. Neither of them spent a lot of time doing anything other than saying yes to William Shatner. The Next Generation was no better - of it's three female leads, one was killed off before the end of the first season and the other two rarely left the ship. The black guy was blind!!! And don't even get me started on Voyager and Enterprise...
And yet...for reasons I can't quite put my finger on (but I'm willing to bet have something to do with the impending new Star Trek film which (and let's be fair here) looks pretty bloody cool) I had a sudden urge to watch some Trek. A few years ago I had the same urge and purchased those magazines with the free Star Trek DVDs (you know the ones...first issue costs 37 cents, from then on they are $138.76). I got to watch the first two seasons of TNG, and by god was it shit.
Then I stumbled on the "Captain's Log" DVD boxed set - three stories from the five series. Well, I thought, I'll buy that and watch it. Now, on each disc was an interview with the captain of the particular series the disc was of. I'm going to review that all together before I attack each episode, and don't worry - even I'm not tough enough to review an entire television series on three episodes. Although given that these are the fan picks and the lead actor's pick, maybe it's not entirely unfair.
So we kick off with mad Bill babbling something about changing time and could we? Should we? Then he proceeds to lust over Joan Collins, which is a little embarrassing. Patrick Stewart brings some gravitas to proceedings before admitting he made his choice of episode because he directed it. Thanks for the effort, Pat. Avery Brooks is relatively entertaining aside from his "black men unite and rise up" (I'm assuming there must be still a huge amount of racism in America), while Kate Mulgrew is desperately trying to be a female Bill Shatner, mumbling about men within men within men. Finally Scott Bakula essentially tries to justify Enterprise (try apologising for it!). What struck me about this is how po-faced the actors are about Star Trek. I'm a Doctor Who fan, and the cast of that are aware of the drawbacks of each production, but are clearly affectionate for it. In Star Trek the actors seem to think that Star Trek was what was going to bring world peace. Television series, people!! Deal with it. So onto the episodes.
The Original Series: Bill's choice is "City On The Edge Of Forever" which is a fairly standard time travel episode where the crew (surprise, surprise) choose to make the ultimate sacrifice but save time in the process. We then get "The Enterprise Incident" in which we are expected to believe Kirk has gone mad and a Romulan commander will fall in love willy-nilly with a the Vulcan Spock because they have similar DNA backgrounds (so do horses and donkeys, but you don't seem them getting it on do you? You do?...Riiighhtt...). I had always recalled TOS being a bit bollocks, and frankly it seemed I was right. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, to find that "Balance Of Terror" was actually pretty bloody good, and I enjoyed it immensely. Mark Lenard was great (give that man a recurring role!) and Shatner rose to the occasion. Well, 1 out of 3 ain't bad, I suppose.
The Next Generation: I remember thinking TNG was fantastic, but my recent viewing had burned me somewhat, so I approached this with some wariness. Pat's choice - "In Theory" - is not too bad, but a pretty standard "Data explores his human emotions" episode. What is suprising is that it has a fairly downbeat, melancholy ending which impressed. "Chains Of Command" is a two-parter and, let's not beat around the bush here, it's fucking awesome. David Warner guest stars and the scenes between him and Stewart are electric. Finally, "Darmok" shows the writers providing some real inventiveness as the crew are faced with a race whose language is so fundamentally different to ours it is virtually impossible to communicate. It's fantastic the way this is handled, and an absolute winner. Great disc.
Deep Space Nine: Again, I remember enjoying this a lot, and I have to say I was definitely not disappointed. Avery chooses "Far Beyond The Stars" which is an episode about racism, but it is handled very well, and the regular cast get the chance to shine in completely different roles. "What You Leave Behind" is the series finale, and proves just how far DS9 came over seven years. In the other series you could be forgiven for thinking nothing had happened between the first and last episodes, but with this story I was wondering what the hell had gone on while I was away. Sadly the solution to the prophets story arc seems a little tacked on. Finally "In The Pale Moonlight" is a fantastic story showing just how far the good guys will go in order to get a win. This is the episode where Avery Brooks really shines and it is very disturbing given today's political climate. This disc, to my surprise, is the best of the five.
Voyager: I remembered Voyager as being pretty bloody ordinary, and sadly I was proved correct with the fourth disc. It's so bad that I'm not even going to bother to look at each episode individually, suffice to say that the episodes are trite, the acting is woeful and I couldn't care less about the crew. However, two things stood out for me: firstly, it is embarrassingly obvious that Jeri Ryan was brought in to be sexy. She spends every episode in a skintight catsuit (despite being a Borg) and just stands around thrusting her boobs out. This is a good thing. The other thing that struck me is how the crew are all so conservative, even the apparently "rebellious" Marquis. All of them are slaves to the Federation's rulebook and none of them have the daring of Kirk, Riker or Sisko. No wonder this series was bollocks.
Enterprise: I never watched this after the turd that was Voyager, and quite frankly this disc didn't impress me very much. I will admit that it was better than Voyager, and the storylines were workman-like. Nothing stood out, although once again Jolene Blalock, despite being a Vulcan, wears a skintight catsuit all the time. Another model-turned-actor. What surprised me about this disc was the final episode of Enterprise and Star Trek to date; "These Are The Voyages...". I actually had a bit of a lump in my throat at the end when the three Enterprises took off, with the three captains reciting the iconic opening spiel. This left me feeling quite positive towards Enterprise.
All in all, the box set did little to dispel my initial feelings about Star Trek, but it did give a fix. I'm looking forward to the movie even more now.
"C+"
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