Star Trek | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Enemy (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Darren

This January and February, we’ll be finishing up our look at the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and moving on to the third year of the show, both recently and lovingly remastered for high definition. Check back daily for the latest review.

The Enemy is just a fantastic piece of television. The third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation has maintained an impressive consistency up to this point, despite all the difficulties bubbling away behind the scenes. However, The Enemy is the point where everything seems to have finally settled down and the show is truly comfortable churning out episodes of this sort of quality.

It’s a very typical Star Trek plot, with one of our leads trapped on the planet surface and forced to team up with an enemy soldier in order to survive. It’s a very standard morality tale about how the enemy is not as different as we might like to think; it’s an exploration – in a very Star Trek style – of how two people can overcome their differences in order to survive a suitably desperate situation.

The Enemy is a demonstration of just how well-oiled The Next Generation had become at this point in time, and how even the most standard of plots could be executed with considerable skill.

The show’s quality is climbing…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Brannon Braga, David Carson, Defiant Ones, Enemy, Geordi La Forge, Next Generation, picard, Relativism, Rick Berman, Romulan, Star Trek Next Generation, StarTrek, William Riker, Worf, Yesterday's Enterprise | 6 Comments »

Star Trek – The Romulan Way by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood (Review)

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

The Romulan Way is the second book in Diane Duane’s “Rihannsu” cycle – although the first book in the series, My Enemy, My Ally was only retroactively distinguished from standard Star Trek tie-ins. Much like My Enemy, My Ally had been roughly contemporaneous with John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection, Duane’s follow-up was published around the same time as Ford’s own sequel to his earlier work, How Much for Just the Planet? Expanding on My Enemy, My Ally, The Romulan Way sees Duane delving more thoroughly into Romulan history and culture.

The Romulan Way was published amid a sea of change at Paramount and Pocket Books in the late eighties, with shifting mandates and objectives for these tie-in books that represented a conscious effort to hem in some of the more creative tendencies of mid-eighties Star Trek novelist. To demonstrate how rapidly things were changing, both The Romulan Way and How Much for Just the Planet? were both published within three years of their predecessors. After this point, it would take Duane another thirteen years to write the third volume in her saga, and John M. Ford would never write another Star Trek tie-in again.

It’s very hard to condone any publishing philosophy that leads to results like that.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: canon, continuity, Diane Duane, gene roddenberry, peter moorcock, peter morwood, richard arnold, Rihannsu, romulans, star trek, star trek: the next generation, the romulan way | 10 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Booby Trap (Review)

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Darren

Booby Trap is a bit of a mess. The writing credits for the episode, featuring four different writers credited with getting the idea from basic story to finished script. This wasn’t at all unusual in the show’s third season – consider the writing credits for Yesterday’s Enterprise – but it gives an indication of the chaos unfolding behind the scenes on the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

It’s Michael Piller’s second credited script, and his first writing credit since he took over the writers’ room. (Although he did, along with Melinda Snodgrass, do a pass on Ronald D. Moore’s script for The Bonding.) As such, it is written with a very clear idea of where Piller wants to take the show, one that shines through a somewhat uneven and all-over-the-place plot, which often feels like several different scripts blended into one.

Building on what came before…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Arsenal of Freedom, Bonding, Booby Trap, games, gene roddenberry, Geordi, Geordi La Forge, List of minor recurring characters in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Michael Piller, picard, ronald d. moore, SFX, star trek, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, StarTrek, Television and Movies | 5 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC Comics, 1989) #19 – The Lesson (Review)

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

One of the biggest problems that the writing staff had on Star Trek: The Next Generation was the insistence that the show was episodic. Themes and characters were rarely carried from week to week. Occasionally, a plot point or character might recur, but the bulk of the show was intentionally designed to be readily accessible in just about any order imaginable. In the era of HBO and “televisual novels”, this approach seems quite quaint, but it was very much the reality of late eighties and early nineties television.

However, there were no such restrictions on comic book story telling. Far from downplaying continuity and long-term plotting, mainstream American comics pride themselves on their serialised nature. It’s quite common for characters to suddenly reappear after absences of considerable time, and for writers to make callbacks to events that occurred decades ago. Publishing twelve issues a year, typically from the same author, The Next Generation comic book did afford the opportunity for a slightly different type of storytelling.

All set…

And, to be fair, that was one of the strengths of Michael Jan Friedman’s approach to The Next Generation comic book. He was fond of focusing on supporting characters, or giving page space to characterisation, or even basking in the show’s continuity in a way that wasn’t possible on television. Sure, Friedman could occasionally get a little obsessive in his continuity references, and could occasionally have difficulty tying everything into a cohesive story, but this was one way the author capitalised on the shift in the medium.

The Lesson is a single-issue story that is all the more intriguing for essentially existing as a series of character moments, with little in the way of an over-arching plot. The writing is a little clumsy and on-the-nose, with the comic earnestly offering its readers a rather ham-fisted message of the week, but it’s notable for the way that Friedman seems to bask in the freedom afforded to him by virtue of the fact that he’s writing a comic book (rather than an episode) of The Next Generation.

They’ve really bonded…

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Filed under: Comics, The Next Generation | Tagged: comic books, Comics, dc comics, Michael Jan Friedman, star trek, star trek: the next generation, the next generation | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Bonding (Review)

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Darren

The Bonding is a pretty pivotal and momentous episode for Star Trek: The Next Generation. On one hand, it’s the first episode overseen by incoming executive producer Michael Piller. Piller would go on to become one of the most influential producers to work on Star Trek. Aside from steering The Next Generation towards success, he also created Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as overseeing the production of the first three Next Generation films.

However, The Bonding is also the first script written by Ronald D. Moore. Obviously, the version that made it to screen had been revised and tweaked by Melinda Snodgrass and Michael Piller, but The Bonding still feels like a Moore script. Ronald D. Moore would go on to be one of the more influential writers on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. He also worked (very) briefly on Voyager, before departing and heading up his own reboot of Battlestar Galactica.

So The Bonding is the beginning of something new, an original direction for The Next Generation. Featuring a powerful and wonderful opening half, The Bonding suffers a bit from falling into conventional Star Trek tropes towards the end of the episode. However, it’s still a clever and powerful piece of television.

A bit of shadowplay…

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Bonding, Data, Deanna Troi, gene roddenberry, kirk, Michael Piller, Neutral Zone, Next Generation, ronald d. moore, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, star trek: enterprise, star trek: the next generation, StarTrek, Trekkie, Troi, William Riker, Worf | Leave a comment »

Star Trek (DC Comics, 1989) #19 – Once a Hero… (Review)

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

Once a Hero… is a notable story for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that it’s Peter David’s last issue of DC’s monthly Star Trek comic, departing the comic book after a pretty bitter disagreement with Richard Arnold, who was overseeing Star Trek licensing at the time. Given that David wrote The Incredible Hulk for twelve years and remains a prolific and well-liked comic book creator among the comic community, as well as a guiding light in Star Trek tie-in fiction, that’s a pretty damning indictment of Richard Arnold right there.

However, Once a Hero… is also notable for being an in-depth exploration and reflection on the “red shirt” narrative convention that the franchise loved so dearly.

A grave adventure…

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Filed under: Comics, The Original Series | Tagged: anonymous, drama, gordon purcell, Guilt, james t. kirk, kirk, nineties, once a hero, peter david, red shirt, redshirt, richard arnold, stakes, star trek, tension | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Who Watches the Watchers? (Review)

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Darren

Who Watches the Watchers? continues a strong start to the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is the last episode of the third season produced by Michael Wagner. He would depart the show and leave Michael Piller in charge of the scripts for the rest of the season. It’s also the third-to-last credit for writers Hans Beimler and Richard Manning, who had both been around from the first season.

The writing duo would work on Yesterday’s Enterprise with Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore, but also finish Allegiance before departing the show at the end of the third season. (They were rather enraged by Piller’s tactless “writing 101” memo, sent later in the season.) Manning and Beimler would go on to write Paradise for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Behr would convince Beimler to return to the franchise for the fourth season of Deep Space Nine. Beimler would be Behr’s most faithful writing partner on that spin-off, teaming with Behr throughout the sixth and seventh seasons in particular.

In many ways, Who Watches the Watchers? returns to some of the themes that the duo had touched upon in their strongest script of the first season, Symbiosis. It’s a complicated morality tale about the ethics of Starfleet and the burden of the Prime Directive.

The answer, apparently, is Liko.

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Beverly Crusher, Bronze Age, Deanna Troi, Hans Beimler, High Ground, Hunted, Ira Steven Behr, Michael Piller, Pen Pals, picard, Prime Directive, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: deep space nine, Vulcans, Watchers, William Riker | 18 Comments »

Star Trek – Operation Assimilation (Review)

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

In many ways, Operation Assimilation feels like a cynical cash-in. It’s a one-shot Marvel comic book published in the wake of the release of Star Trek: First Contact that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, doesn’t seem to seed any story points that might pay off later and doesn’t seem like it has anything particularly insightful to say. It really feels like Marvel just wanted to reaffirm the fact that they had the license to publish Star Trek comics towards the end of First Contact‘s theatrical release cycle and before the film’s home media release.

The cover does little to help this impression. Several months before Star Trek: Voyager would introduce the world to a sexy Borg drone, the cover of Operation Assimilation features a female Borg drawn in a pose (and with a costume) intended to emphasise her cleavage. “Collector’s Item Issue!” the cover boasts, reminding the reader that it is a product of the late nineties comic speculation boom that almost destroyed the industry. The shiny “1” on the cover makes it feel like more of a marketing exercise, along with a fairly light interview with Jonathan Frakes on the last few pages.

It feels almost like Operation Assimilation says more about late nineties comic books than it does about Star Trek.

Cue cheap joke about implants…

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Filed under: Comics, The Next Generation | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Survivors (Review)

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Darren

Michael Wagner remains something of a forgotten figure among Star Trek fans. While anybody familiar with the behind-the-scenes workings on Star Trek: The Next Generation is aware of the contributions made by the wonderful Michael Piller, and quite a few would be familiar with the work of Maurice Hurley during the first two seasons, Wagner’s four-episode tenure as executive producer and head writer is something of a mystery.

Situated right in the middle of that four-episode run, and the only Star Trek script on which Wagner does not share a credit, The Survivors seems like the most obvious indicator of what Wagner’s version of The Next Generation might have looked like. Of course, it’s impossible to extrapolate from a single episode of television, let alone a single episode of an era that was over before it already began, but it is interesting to look at how Wagner’s work here differs from the style that would be imposed by Piller.

The Survivors is a decidedly high-concept science-fiction mystery, feeling almost like an episode of an anthology featuring the regular cast. Built around a guest star, The Survivors is very much radically opposed to Piller’s vision of character-driven Star Trek.

“Nice house. Can’t see much about the neighbourhood, though.”

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Filed under: The Next Generation | Tagged: Booby Trap, Deanna Troi, gene roddenberry, Hurley, Maurice Hurley, Michael Piller, Next Generation, Star Trek Next Generation, star trek: enterprise, StarTrek, survivors, Troi, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), Wesley Crusher, Worf | 7 Comments »

Star Trek: The Next Generation (DC) Annual #3 – The Broken Moon (Review)

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry. This is actually supplementary to the first season of the Next Generation, specifically the episode Conspiracy.

If you were to construct a list of the most niggling unresolved plot threads in the history of the Star Trek franchise, “what was up with those things from Conspiracy?” would likely rank up there alongside “so, did Bajor ever join the Federation?” Funnily enough, author S.D. Perry would tie those two dangling plot points up in her Deep Space Nine relaunch book, Unity.

However, several other writers have tried to figure out what exactly was going on with those mind-controlling parasites who appeared at the end of the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and were never heard from again. According to Ronald D. Moore on Inside the Writers’ Room on the third Next Generation blu ray box set, various writers for the show tried to revisit the idea, but Roddenberry hated that episode so much nothing was ever developed.

The Broken Moon, the third annual for DC’s Next Generation comic book series, offers its own take on the mind-controlling parasites. While writer Michael Jan Friedman wisely avoids revealing too much about these creatures, the story suffers because it never figures out anything interesting to do with them.