You know how it is: it’s your first spinoff — a cast of delightfully high-concept characters set against a colourful backdrop, with story possibilities around every corner. But then you find yourself limping towards the end of your first season. You’ve done the plague one, the weird alien fugitive one, the buddy comedy one with the CGI shaving cream, and the terrible boardgame one that everyone will have such fond memories of. So what’s left? How about a story where all of your beloved regulars play people no one cares about, embroiled in a conflict that no one has any interest in? We can do that, can’t we?
Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. It’s five-year mission: To explore Strange New Worlds. To remind us of our love the Original Series. To have a fun adventure every week. To look like nothing else on television. To boldly attempt — for a world exhausted by impending catastrophes — to be the most authentic expression of Star Trek since the 1960s.
meanwhile, Michael tries to work through her feelings for the tall and handsome new security officer Lieutenant Ash Tyler. After a catastrophic explosion destroys the ship, Harry Mudd sneaks on board Discovery, kills the captain, and searches for a way to sell the spore drive to the Klingons; meanwhile, Michael tries to work through her feelings for the tall and handsome new security officer Lieutenant Ash Tyler. After a catastrophic explosion destroys the ship, Harry Mudd sneaks on board Discovery, kills the captain, and searches for a way to sell the spore drive to the Klingons;
This week, Joe and Nathan are on the edge of our seats, wondering what insignificant event will tip the twenty-first century over the edge — turning it from a punishing ordeal into a shrieking hellscape of fascism and climatic disaster. Fortunately we’re able to distract ourselves from all this with a really enjoyable episode of Star Trek: Picard.
Exhausted from last week’s astonishingly brilliant performance, this week Bill Shatner is literally phoning it in — so bored with Star Trek that he can’t even be bothered to say all five digits of this week’s stardate. Meanwhile, the Enterprise is trapped in a thing, unable to escape until they do another thing. Or something. Whatever.
A nameless and unknowable monster which has destroyed whole star systems and wiped out an entire Starfleet crew is now heading towards the most populated part of the galaxy. The only things standing in its way: a dramatic soundtrack, a memorable guest actor, an incredibly confident production, and William Alan Shatner. It doesn’t stand a chance.
This week, on Untitled Star Trek Project, Joe and Nathan sit down to watch a sentimental sci-fi favourite from their youth, only to discover that it’s really just a police procedural where some of the regular cast get to do funny voices. Still, they get to see Marina menacing people with a gun, so there’s that, I guess.
This week, Star Trek takes its first ill-judged stab at the Gothic romance genre. Will Beverly fall for her dead grandmother’s lover (sorry), a rangily unattractive anaphasic ghost who encourages her to give up her job and to stand by helplessly while he attacks her friends? Or will she learn a valuable lesson about not dating sociopathic men? (Temporarily and no respectively, it turns out.)
Previously, on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Tired of being a supporting character in a thankless role, Michael Eddington leaves DS9 to star heroically in a TV show which we never see and which exists entirely in his own imagination. After most of the cast and crew are killed by Cardassians — which can happen — and he himself is imprisoned for treason, he is recruited by Sisko for one final mission — to stop a deadly attack on Cardassia that is also entirely imaginary. Hero, traitor, or just some asshole with bad hair and a penchant for lavish Broadway musicals? Let’s find out.
It’s a heartwarming rite of passage for our youngest Star Trek crew — their very first encounter with a baffling new kind of temporal anomaly. And it’s not just any temporal anomaly: it’s a metaphor for the difficulties they have co-operating as a crew and an opportunity to overcome those difficulties. Plus, it gives Rok-Tahk the chance to be sweet, vulnerable, clever and magnificent in turn. And who doesn’t want to see that?
