Untitled Star Trek Project

“Terrible beyond terrible.”

“Here lies a colossal mess of a show, mixing serious (albeit unrealized) science fiction with broad, less-than-funny comedy.”

“Sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.”

“That was fun.”

“Yeah, I thought that was great.”

This week on Deep Space Nine, Dukat (Kathy Bates) and Sisko (James Caan) crash land on one of Star Trek’s less convincing standing sets, and then have a proper talk about their Feelings and Values. (Antipathy, and for one of them, Racism.)

This week in Star Trek: Slow-Witted White Men, no one turns into a salamander, gets trapped in a board game or has sex with a ghost. In fact, no one does much of anything at all — at least not anything that anyone will remember 23 years later.

This week, we are properly introduced to Voyager’s latest Intransigent Alien Antagonist, in preparation for a thrilling two-part epic in a couple of weeks’ time. And things go pretty well, on the whole, despite (or perhaps because of) some interpersonal conflict between two important cast members and their characters.

An unexpected but not unprecedented miracle turns water into booze on board the Enterprise-D, and soon the entire crew is horny, depressed, or facing an awkward meeting with HR on Monday. After all this, Joe can’t see how this show becomes a hit, but Nathan thinks he can. Bottoms up, everyone!