Star Trek Ruminations

Never-before-seen features of the Enterprise pop up in the TOS and TNG movies like the proverbial Vulcan third eyelid. Usually plot-driven, rarely seen or spoken of again, here are my ratings of surprising “new” features of the move-era ships called Enterprise . Manual Steering Column ( Star Trek: Insurrection ) "Computer, access manual steering column!" And with that, Riker summons...a joystick. Out of the floor. Somewhere between ops and the conn. That you have to use from a heroic standing position. Did I mention the Sovereign Class starship has a joystick? I get it, it fits the movie's theme of youth and playfulness, but it's one of the silliest plot-driven features of any ship called Enterprise .  Plausibility: 1/10 Story Telling Value: 4/10 Overall Rating: 2/10 Service Corridors ( Star Trek V: The Final Frontier ) The service corridors on the Enterprise-A, with their colorful pipes and trip hazards, primarily serve as a set up for Scotty to say “I know this shi...

I can't personally comment on how "I, Mudd" compares to the first episode featuring Harry Mudd, but the comic overtones in this episode seem right on target. Not only is there some great banter between Mudd and Kirk, but the solution to overload the androids involves some all-out silliness that's plain entertaining. (In fact this episode contributes some great footage to the " Python's Camelot interlude, by Kirk and crew, " which I also happened upon recently.) But aside from all the silliness, it struck me that this episode lays the groundwork for a lot of modern Trek . What I mean is this: The androids in this episode have a kind of collective consciousness that almost anticipates the Borg collective. Norman is basically the Borg Queen of his day. He processes and controls the other "drones." If you can put all the silliness aside and consider the implications of what the androids were attempting to do, their objective to control biological l...

Reviews of stories from Strange New Worlds 9 may contain minor spoilers. At least three stories deal with Earth's formative years that paved the way for Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. The Enterprise episode "Carbon Creek" introduced the character Mestral, a Vulcan science officer who elected to stay on Earth in 1957. "Mestral" by Ben Guilfoy takes place a century later. The long-lived Vulcan has a significant impact on the events that paved the way for Star Trek:First Contact . It's a great use of the character and won third place in the collection. "The Rules of War" by Kevin Lauderdale opens with the line "A spray of bullets sent chips of cement flying from the building's wall across Archer's face." That very gritty opening leads into a story about the start of the Eugenics War and Jonathan Archer's grandfather. Archer described this incident briefly in the episode "Hatchery." Now we get to s...