Wednesday, July 24, 2013
"Open
a Channel, Lt Uhura", is the famous line spoken by Captain Kirk in the
old Star Trek Television series to communicate with anyone and everyone
during the run of the show which now can only be heard in reruns and fan
driven productions.
I hope by now everyone (the two of you who read this blog) know I love fan
driven projects that are well made. One example is Bat in the Sun’s “Batman…City
of Scars and Felicia Day’s Dragon Age: Redemption Series to name a few. I
have been following Star Trek: The Original Series fan projects for many years. I
appreciate their vision and hard work. Needless to say, you get accustom to the
quality of the work which for the most part is pretty good. I was satisfied
with most of the attempts made to bring back the original until now. Holy mackerel,
I could not believe my eyes. A new fan based Star Trek: TOS that has the look
and feel of the old Star Trek and the cast is pretty good as well. However, do not listen to
me, here is Dan Roth’s article on Blastr…the online magazine for SYFY and his opinion on this new fan series.
Side Note: Dan Roth is SYFY’s local
expert on funny books and campy, classic sci-fi. He has also had the good fortune to
write for Doctor
Who
and Angel.
He also writes a web comic.
Blastr
This new Star Trek fan series is the closest we've ever seen to the original.
Lots of people try to make fan versions of Trek. None of them look like this.Friday, July 12, 2013 - 12:37pm
To be totally honest, whenever there's another attempt by a fan group to continue the adventures of Kirk, Spock, et al., my eyes instantly glaze over. Maybe I'll give the trailer a look, but I'm usually out in under a minute. Fan efforts just never really approach the campy goodness of the original.
But Star Trek Continues? Friend, its warp nacelles are a cut above the rest. And if you're wondering why it's so good, here's your answer -- pedigree.
Montgomery Scott is played by Christopher Doohan. Name sound familiar? That's original Scotty, Jimmy Doohan's son! How cool is that? And the ship's computer? Why, it's only played by Counselor Deanna Troi, Marina Sirtis, herself!
Then there's the pilot episode, wherein the producers decided, "Hey, let's do a sequel to Who Mourns for Adonais?" Oh, and while we're at it, let's get the actor who played Apollo in that classic episode to come back and reprise the role.
If this sounds like overselling, so be it. But, man, this just feels like Star Trek in a way I've never seen from a fan series before. The only thing? The first episode's a whopping 50 minutes long. So here's what I recommend -- do what I normally do, throw it on for a minute and see how the show strikes you.
And then let us know in the comments if you were as taken with it as I was.
