Category: Star Trek

Posted in Star Trek, Television shows, tv reviews

TV Review: The Orville 1×01

Posted on by sokorra

So, I decided to actually watch and review a TV series that is ongoing.  Usually my TV reviews end up being long franchise shows, or cult favorites.  This time however, its a new show, less then a season (currently at 6 episodes).  I will do a post for each episode, which will be frequent till I catch up to the airing.  I may schedule these once a week and then use by weeks to catch up.

For those wondering: SPOILERS BE HERE

Episode Title: Old Wounds (1×01)

Notable Guest Stars: 

Victor Garber – Admiral Halsey.  I can’t remember if he was on Trek or not, but to be fair, He appears in alot of good shows.  This makes me want to watch Alias now
Penny Johnson Jerald – Not a guest star, but she is notable as Trek Alum (She played Kassidy Yates on DS9).
Brian George – As Dr. Aronov  Also a Trek Alum.  He played Julian Bashir’s father Richard Bashir.

This show of course brings back memories of Star Trek but I love how right off the bat they point themselves in their own direction with making the seat of Operations in New York.  Also pretty sure Trek never had infidelity as a major plot point.  Except in Will/Deanna’s weird relationship over the years when they were on-and-off.  Which doesn’t’ really count.  This seems to be more grounded in the reality.  While I hate JJ Abrams commentary on Star Trek, I will admit they were a tad idealistic at times.  Which is probably why Enterprise remains my favorite. Less idealistic, a bit rougher around the edges.

The characters have good chemistry in this first episode, which is good.  Some of the dialogue is a bit stiff, but its the first episode, so I think I can give them that.  It should be interesting how this continues.

I have to admit I was surprised at how much I liked this.  I was not a big fan of Seth MacFarlane, finding his humor not to my tastes.  But so far its been super toned down, though I hope the penis jokery will not be their only jokes.   This being said, you should probably not let your toddlers watch this.

Pros:
Funny, good chemistry between the characters.  Realistic reactions to stuff that they do at the science lab.  Multitude of species, not all humanoid in appearance.

Cons:

If a species has no gender, how can they be male.  Or is this just assuming that their entire species is like the male species of most humanoid species??
The Krill make me think of small marine life.  I would have laughed my butt off if they really did end up being these tiny creatures, but instead they kind of look like various other villains I have seen on Trek shows.

Notable Quotes:

“Can I have one of these mints?”

“Those are marbles.”

~*~

“Happy Arbor Day”.  (I liked that one better than Kelly’s suggestion, but then maybe I just like the fact it wasn’t obvious)

Final Grade:  A-.  Not bad for a pilot episode.

Posted in celebrity news, Star Trek

In Memory: Anton Yelchin

Posted on by sokorra

 

I actually had a different post written here when I first heard the news yesterday abut Anton dying in a car accident.  There wasn’t much to add to it, but I decided it would be better to rewrite it all.

Anton Yelchin is an actor best known for his recent role as Pavel Chekov, in the reboot series of Star Trek.  He also has been in several smaller movies. I have seen only a few but enjoyed his acting in what I did see. Charlie Bartlet was an odd movie but I liked him in it.

He was only 27 years old, so unlike some of the other tributes I’ve done this year (and I’ve done more then I expected only 6 months into the year)  There is not alot to say.  He died just when his career was getting more recognition.

Thank you Anton for what you have provided for us as entertainment.  Star Trek won’t be the same without you.

I will end this with a link to a wonderful bit of fanart done in tribute to Anton

 

Posted in Star Trek, Television shows

Star Trek: Enterprise 15th Anniversary.

Posted on by sokorra

Today and yesterday marks the 15th anniversary of Star Trek: Enterprise being announced.  Star Trek Enterprise is my favorite of the franchises.  Not a completely common thought, but there is a group of us who really enjoy the show and have active interaction together.

It also gave me some of my greatest friendships.

I grew up watching Star Trek.  My father was a fan of the original (TOS), my mother of The Next Generation (TNG).  There were marathons on Saturdays from a WV channel that just happened to manage to get far enough that we could catch it on our TV.  They would tape it, and years later my sister and I would enjoy the commercials with brick sized cell phones and news about Boris Yeltsin making a trip to DC.

But I didn’t really get into Star Trek till I was in high school.  I had started to get into sci-fi when I found a box with my mom’s old books by Anne McCaffrey, and so when I found the old marathon tapes I decided I might as well.  So I watched, and enjoyed.

So I decided then that I should netflix Enterprise, as it was available as it had only recently gone off the air (so about the time I graduated high school).  I had heard odd reviews about it.  About how the finale made no sense (Which admittedly it does not, but that is a post for another day), how there was this weird cannon couple no one liked  (Not so true) and in general it wasn’t as good (also not true).

Enterprise has the disadvantage of being a prequel.  Prequels are harder to manage because you have to make sure it doesn’t change the story already out there.  Enterprise managed to do this, though it had some growing pains.  It also had the disadvantage of 30 years of technological development which meant that to look futuristic to the time they were airing, they also had a problem with looking more advanced than the ships that came after them.  And there was 9/11 to deal with, which also caused the theme of season 3, which was a bit more heavy-handed on the social commentary then perhaps other shows went.

I also think it suffered from a sense of crew exhaustion.  Some of these writers and crewmen had been working on the franchise for almost 20 years.  TV viewers had been watching Trek for as long.

Enterprise is a good show.  I believe if it had been given a fifth season we would have seen more connections to TOS, and later shows.  Season 4 is probably their best, yet many had already given up on it, especially TPTB.  So the show only got 4 seasons (oddly, still more seasons the TOS, which my father uses as the golden standard).

Again, we won’t go into the awful finale.

If you are a Trek fan, or sci-fi in general, I recommend you watch Enterprise.  Its a fun show, although like any it has its high and low moments.  I personally love it.

 

Posted in film, movie reviews, Star Trek, Television shows, tv reviews

May the Fourth be With You

Posted on by sokorra

Today is May Fourth, which has been adopted by Star Wars fans as a bit a punned holiday.

I first watched Star Wars in sixth grade.  I walked in during a viewing of Return of the Jedi, and was so confused as to what was going on.  I thought that there was some strange thing going on that every time that blond kid hit the machine man, he gained a maniacal part.

Well, my friends decided that was not going to stand, and eventually I watched all of Star Wars (well, until recently.  Still need to watch VII).  I watched Phantom Menace first, then the original trilogy.  I think this set me up for an interesting look at the trilogy.  Many of my friends grew up with the originals.  They had time to build expectations for the Prequels.  Thus they hated the prequels a little bit and I actually was able to enjoy them.

Not that I don’t see the flaws (and quite a few point to Lucas himself as a cause despite the blame I see cast towards characters and casting).  The original trilogy was made in a 7 year period.  They were right along side one another, and limited in the same ways by technology.  The Prequels had 30 years of tech advancement.  It gave Lucas & Company the chance to widen the scope of the universe they were playing in.  Only I think Lucas decided this was his chance to take to the editing pen again and made too many small changes that make the fan who watched the original trilogy first and grew up with it go “Wait…that doesn’t fit.”

Prequels in general have this problem.  Star Trek Enterprise had this problem, though not nearly as badly as Star Wars.  Enterprise was filmed 32 years or so after the original series.  The average person had more technology around them, and in some way the sets looked more advanced then the sets of what was supposed to take place 100 years later.  Simply because they had to update it to be compatible with the reality.

It also had problems because it was new history and had to fit in with the older series, which didn’t always prove to be easy.  And many people with the power to effect the show’s ability to stay floating quit long before the show started making strides in connecting it to the older series.

Of course, going back to Star Wars,  I’ll have to see what almost 20 years with the Prequels  (Phantom Menace came out in 1999)has settled in and biased me against (or for) the new movie.

Posted in essay, Star Trek

A Letter to Writers of Long Term Franchises

Posted on by sokorra

Note:  This was written back in 2013 and originally posted on a website called Bubblews.  Since the site has been taken down, I feel free to repost it here.  I re-read it and sadly despite the time alot of it is still valid for several TV and film writers/directors/producers when it comes to long term projects like Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who and Game of Thrones.  JJ Abrams is no longer part of Star Trek, but has moved on to a franchise he did enjoy (Star Wars), but Steven Moffat is still head writer on Doctor Who, although it seems to be close to the end of his run.

Also as an update, I have seen Into Darkness since I wrote this, but that is a rant for another day and mostly focuses around the character of Christine Chapel.

Continue reading “A Letter to Writers of Long Term Franchises” →

Posted in Star Trek, tv reviews

New Project

Posted on by sokorra

This summer I am starting a new project for this blog.  The project will be watching and reviewing the entire Star Trek series. This will include Enterprise, The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager.  I have yet to conclude if I consider the Animated series as canon or not.  I might stick that in there somewhere, as it is available on Netflix.

I will be going in order verse-wise, which means that I will start with Captain Archer. I have yet to decide if I will go by show or try to watch the DS9 episode amongst the TNG and VOY episodes they belong with.  It might be too complicated to do that.  But I shall worry about that when I get to it (as I have two full series plus five seasons of TNG before I have to worry about that).

This means I should be posting more often.  I will also be posting other book related things, but it will be primarily the reviews.

You can join in with me while I view. I shall post the episode I am watching on Twitter.