Menu
STC is pretty great
A show by fans, for fans.
This one meanders a bit, but I assure you that I'm recommending that you watch Star Trek: Continues. If you don't want to wade through my mental flotsam then let me just break it down for you. STC is a really well made show that feels authentic, but brings new stories into the TOS era and completes loose ends in a satisfying but unpredictable way.
Here's their Site.
Here's their Youtube Page.
You can watch the whole thing on either. 11 episodes that are nearly all great. Enjoy.
Here's their Site.
Here's their Youtube Page.
You can watch the whole thing on either. 11 episodes that are nearly all great. Enjoy.
Just a couple things.
So I feel like I need the preface this whole rant by covering a couple things. I don't particularly enjoy The Original Series and I tend to hate fan productions.
When I was young, my first introduction to Star Trek was an episode of TNG, "The Wounded". It happens to still be one of my favourites to this day. When I say I was young, I mean I was 5 or thereabouts. My older brother was already into Star Trek and he was watching TNG like a fanatic, so that's how I ended up watching the show. TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all on the TV around the same time when I was growing up. I really liked the 3 shows and I've hence poured far too much of my free time into thinking about them, playing Trek games and arguing with strangers on the internet about whether or not Starfleet is a military. (The answer is it's both)
TOS was also on, sporadically. Late nights on the Beeb and Sky, no fear of RTÉ or TG4 ever having it. As I got older and had more autonomy, I'd stay up to watch these episodes. I had loved the original cast movies and I thought TOS would be more of the same. It was not. I could count off with my fingers the number of TOS episodes I actually enjoyed. You won't be surprised to hear that they're basically the episodes that everybody loves anyway. But the rest of it was just... I mean... it was garbage. Some of it was watchable, I guess, but there was some real, grade-A dogshit in there. I want to stress that I was a teen who was enjoying the fact that I could go to bed whenever the fuck I wanted, and I regularly turned off TOS to go to bed, because this show drained me of my enthusiasm for something I love unconditionally. For every "Balance of Terror" and "City on the Edge of Forever" there were 5 "Spock's Brain" and "Miri" episodes. Maybe that sort of thing tracked better with American audiences. But, for me, TOS was a huge letdown.
Then we have the much vaunted "Fan Film". I think, barring a few exceptions, fan films are pretty terrible. Just because a thing is made with enthusiasm and passion does not make it inherently good. A lot of these projects are sloppy and poorly written. This is usually forgiven because "it's a fan film" but I don't much go in for the notion that I should watch something that's bad just because the people behind it were enthusiastic. I'm sure they had fun making it. Hell, I hope the did. But I have no interest in watching something like that and I wouldn't recommend them to other people.
I guess there's something to be said for these project keeping the community alive until a new show, or something good comes along. And if you enjoy them, then great, I'm glad that someone does. But I think, from my vaunted position of random asshole on the internet, that most of these fan films are crap.
I mean, I'm being pretty unfair here, because the lion's share of these things are made by teenagers or total amateurs. And some of them do lead to great things. As you may know, I like the Orville. It turns out that, as a seemingly ageless being, Seth Macfarlane made a Trek Fan film as a kid. So there are certainly arguments for making these things. I just don't intend to watch them unless they're actually good.
When I was young, my first introduction to Star Trek was an episode of TNG, "The Wounded". It happens to still be one of my favourites to this day. When I say I was young, I mean I was 5 or thereabouts. My older brother was already into Star Trek and he was watching TNG like a fanatic, so that's how I ended up watching the show. TNG, DS9 and Voyager were all on the TV around the same time when I was growing up. I really liked the 3 shows and I've hence poured far too much of my free time into thinking about them, playing Trek games and arguing with strangers on the internet about whether or not Starfleet is a military. (The answer is it's both)
TOS was also on, sporadically. Late nights on the Beeb and Sky, no fear of RTÉ or TG4 ever having it. As I got older and had more autonomy, I'd stay up to watch these episodes. I had loved the original cast movies and I thought TOS would be more of the same. It was not. I could count off with my fingers the number of TOS episodes I actually enjoyed. You won't be surprised to hear that they're basically the episodes that everybody loves anyway. But the rest of it was just... I mean... it was garbage. Some of it was watchable, I guess, but there was some real, grade-A dogshit in there. I want to stress that I was a teen who was enjoying the fact that I could go to bed whenever the fuck I wanted, and I regularly turned off TOS to go to bed, because this show drained me of my enthusiasm for something I love unconditionally. For every "Balance of Terror" and "City on the Edge of Forever" there were 5 "Spock's Brain" and "Miri" episodes. Maybe that sort of thing tracked better with American audiences. But, for me, TOS was a huge letdown.
Then we have the much vaunted "Fan Film". I think, barring a few exceptions, fan films are pretty terrible. Just because a thing is made with enthusiasm and passion does not make it inherently good. A lot of these projects are sloppy and poorly written. This is usually forgiven because "it's a fan film" but I don't much go in for the notion that I should watch something that's bad just because the people behind it were enthusiastic. I'm sure they had fun making it. Hell, I hope the did. But I have no interest in watching something like that and I wouldn't recommend them to other people.
I guess there's something to be said for these project keeping the community alive until a new show, or something good comes along. And if you enjoy them, then great, I'm glad that someone does. But I think, from my vaunted position of random asshole on the internet, that most of these fan films are crap.
I mean, I'm being pretty unfair here, because the lion's share of these things are made by teenagers or total amateurs. And some of them do lead to great things. As you may know, I like the Orville. It turns out that, as a seemingly ageless being, Seth Macfarlane made a Trek Fan film as a kid. So there are certainly arguments for making these things. I just don't intend to watch them unless they're actually good.
But...
There are rare gems in this sea of vainglory and technical insufficiency. I'll get onto STC itself in a minute but there's one particular, short-form pair of fan films that I want to talk about. They are hardly the only examples of good fan-film making out there but they stand out for me. The Derelict and Needs of the Many are a pair of Aussie-made fan-shorts, set in the Enterprise era, that tick nearly all the boxes for a great fan-film. The sound design needs a little work, but otherwise, these 2 are pretty fucking great. Good, concise stores, solid acting and really great attention to detail on the sets. See, I think if you're working with a severely limited budget on one of these things, you should try to limit your sets, script and visuals to what is absolutely necessary. And that's what these 2 do.
On to STC
So, as somebody that is lukewarm on TOS, at best, and fairly critical of fan-films, I think it's all the more telling that I love Star Trek: Continues.
STC is, as the name suggests, a continuation of The Original Series of Star Trek. Many of the themes of TOS are revisited and some stories, particularly memorable ones get the part-2 that the actual show never gave them. The cast is made up of an ensemble of known and unknown names. Vic Mignogna, the dude behind the production of the show and the guy playing Kirk, is a well know voice actor. His portrayal of Shatner's Kirk is eerily accurate, including a couple of duplicate scenes across the season. Mignogna's connections in the VO community pay dividends as Todd Haberkorn, Chuck Huber and Michele Specht join the cast as Spock, McCoy and the new Counsellor McKennah, respectively. Scotty's son, Chris Doohan play Scotty. The accent is a bit off, but otherwise a very faithful portrayal of the character. Grant Imahara, of Mythbusters fame, plays Sulu. Uhura and Chekov are played by relative unkowns, Stinger and Lenhart. But I'm getting into that black hole where I'm just reading out names you may or may not know and could just as easily get from an imdb page. So I'll just carry on rather than gushing. Suffice it to say that the performances in this show are all really good and mostly consistent to their original portrayals. The original trifecta of Kirk, Spock and McCoy are all stand-outs. The few cameos are from sci-fi actors are well done and fitting for the episodes they're in.
Besides the original characters, 3 new characters of note are added. The aforementioned Counsellor McKennah is self evident. She is the first in what Starfleet hopes will be a long line of mental health specialists aboard their ships. Drake... I checked, he seemingly has no first name. So Drake is the security chief. His does the normal Worf routine of grumbling about security problems and does a better job than most at surviving in the red shirt. And finally we have Lt. Smith, a returning one-shot character from TOS.
The storytelling of STC is a fusion of the serialised story telling of DS9 and the old episodic format of TOS. The Best of Both Worlds, you might say. (I'm sorry) It works quite well. Each episode, barring the 2-part finale, is a self-contained story that explores its own themes and quintessentially Trek overtones of preachiness. However there is something going on in the background. Another story that is alluded to in minor and major events across the season. So you can realistically sit down and watch an episode or 2 without any fear that you're missing something, but it does pay off to watch them all in order.
If you're not sold on the concept of STC: I suggest watching either Lolani or What Ships Are For. 2 good, stand alone episodes. Or even Fairest of Them All, a return to the Mirror Universe in an over the top style. The only problem with starting the show with the MU episode is that you won't get a good feel for what the show is actually like. The characters are totally different, as they should be.
The visuals and sound design are astoundingly faithful. If i showed you a still from a set on the production of TOS and STC side by side, I don't think you'd be able to spot the replica. They're that good. The weird, green-blue lighting, the featureless walls and even the bizarrely appointed quarters are all recreated to perfection. Similarly, each and every effect is faithful to TOS. From the sound of the sickbay bed to the audiovisuals of the transporter. There's also one actress that makes an appearance in the last episodes that is frighteningly similar to the original actress. I would go as far as to say that they're identical. That's the level of crazy that we're operating at here.
There are certainly arguments for updating the look and sound of this era of Star Trek. Some of them are good arguments too. However, given what this show is trying to be, I think that this faithful replication is probably the best thing they could have done. This isn't a re-imagining of Star Trek, it's another chapter.
I think what I like about this show is that it's basically TOS but without the more eccentric/dumb storylines that Rodenberry seemed to love. As much as Gene is responsible for creating Star Trek, he had some pretty fucked up world views and was very insistent on reinforcing some of the bad parts of Star Trek into his narratives. That is not to say that the stories here aren't a bit whimsical and on the nose, but they're more coherent. The only episode of the 11 that I don't like is The White Iris, and I would say that it's the most mad-cap of the lot. It's not really a bad episode, but I'm just not interested in the story it's trying to tell.
This is also a show that isn't wasting your time. Unlike more recent iterations of Trek, there was a very tight budget in the making of this show. So unnecessary, bloated scenes that add nothing to the story are few and far between. Each scene achieves some sort of objective. Character development, foreshadowing or progressing the plot. There is something to be said for "art through adversity". The people making this had to think about what they could and couldn't put in it. They didn't have a blank cheque. And events transpired to reduce the number of episodes they were able to make. So this is a show that tells exactly as much of a story as it wants to and nothing more.
To summarise. This show looks, sounds and feels like the real deal. In years to come I suspect that STC will be held up as a golden example of what a fan or crowd-sourced production should aim to be in years to come. If you're not sure where to start, then I suppose you might try the beginning.
STC is, as the name suggests, a continuation of The Original Series of Star Trek. Many of the themes of TOS are revisited and some stories, particularly memorable ones get the part-2 that the actual show never gave them. The cast is made up of an ensemble of known and unknown names. Vic Mignogna, the dude behind the production of the show and the guy playing Kirk, is a well know voice actor. His portrayal of Shatner's Kirk is eerily accurate, including a couple of duplicate scenes across the season. Mignogna's connections in the VO community pay dividends as Todd Haberkorn, Chuck Huber and Michele Specht join the cast as Spock, McCoy and the new Counsellor McKennah, respectively. Scotty's son, Chris Doohan play Scotty. The accent is a bit off, but otherwise a very faithful portrayal of the character. Grant Imahara, of Mythbusters fame, plays Sulu. Uhura and Chekov are played by relative unkowns, Stinger and Lenhart. But I'm getting into that black hole where I'm just reading out names you may or may not know and could just as easily get from an imdb page. So I'll just carry on rather than gushing. Suffice it to say that the performances in this show are all really good and mostly consistent to their original portrayals. The original trifecta of Kirk, Spock and McCoy are all stand-outs. The few cameos are from sci-fi actors are well done and fitting for the episodes they're in.
Besides the original characters, 3 new characters of note are added. The aforementioned Counsellor McKennah is self evident. She is the first in what Starfleet hopes will be a long line of mental health specialists aboard their ships. Drake... I checked, he seemingly has no first name. So Drake is the security chief. His does the normal Worf routine of grumbling about security problems and does a better job than most at surviving in the red shirt. And finally we have Lt. Smith, a returning one-shot character from TOS.
The storytelling of STC is a fusion of the serialised story telling of DS9 and the old episodic format of TOS. The Best of Both Worlds, you might say. (I'm sorry) It works quite well. Each episode, barring the 2-part finale, is a self-contained story that explores its own themes and quintessentially Trek overtones of preachiness. However there is something going on in the background. Another story that is alluded to in minor and major events across the season. So you can realistically sit down and watch an episode or 2 without any fear that you're missing something, but it does pay off to watch them all in order.
If you're not sold on the concept of STC: I suggest watching either Lolani or What Ships Are For. 2 good, stand alone episodes. Or even Fairest of Them All, a return to the Mirror Universe in an over the top style. The only problem with starting the show with the MU episode is that you won't get a good feel for what the show is actually like. The characters are totally different, as they should be.
The visuals and sound design are astoundingly faithful. If i showed you a still from a set on the production of TOS and STC side by side, I don't think you'd be able to spot the replica. They're that good. The weird, green-blue lighting, the featureless walls and even the bizarrely appointed quarters are all recreated to perfection. Similarly, each and every effect is faithful to TOS. From the sound of the sickbay bed to the audiovisuals of the transporter. There's also one actress that makes an appearance in the last episodes that is frighteningly similar to the original actress. I would go as far as to say that they're identical. That's the level of crazy that we're operating at here.
There are certainly arguments for updating the look and sound of this era of Star Trek. Some of them are good arguments too. However, given what this show is trying to be, I think that this faithful replication is probably the best thing they could have done. This isn't a re-imagining of Star Trek, it's another chapter.
I think what I like about this show is that it's basically TOS but without the more eccentric/dumb storylines that Rodenberry seemed to love. As much as Gene is responsible for creating Star Trek, he had some pretty fucked up world views and was very insistent on reinforcing some of the bad parts of Star Trek into his narratives. That is not to say that the stories here aren't a bit whimsical and on the nose, but they're more coherent. The only episode of the 11 that I don't like is The White Iris, and I would say that it's the most mad-cap of the lot. It's not really a bad episode, but I'm just not interested in the story it's trying to tell.
This is also a show that isn't wasting your time. Unlike more recent iterations of Trek, there was a very tight budget in the making of this show. So unnecessary, bloated scenes that add nothing to the story are few and far between. Each scene achieves some sort of objective. Character development, foreshadowing or progressing the plot. There is something to be said for "art through adversity". The people making this had to think about what they could and couldn't put in it. They didn't have a blank cheque. And events transpired to reduce the number of episodes they were able to make. So this is a show that tells exactly as much of a story as it wants to and nothing more.
To summarise. This show looks, sounds and feels like the real deal. In years to come I suspect that STC will be held up as a golden example of what a fan or crowd-sourced production should aim to be in years to come. If you're not sure where to start, then I suppose you might try the beginning.