Star Trek Discovery Trailer Breakdown

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As I write this, it’s been a little over 10 years since Star Trek disappeared from our TV screens.  In that time, the franchise and the cultural landscape it inhabits have undergone a serious change.  The franchise got reinvented as a slick action vehicle 2009, which is only now starting to find a genuine identity in the likes of Star Trek Beyond.  Meanwhile, the TV landscape has been completely transformed by material like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, Supergirl, Mad Men, American Horror Story, and countless others. 

Outside the realms of TV, technology is quickly advancing on the heels of Star Trek through VR and 3D printers, while also growing into directions the shows couldn’t have imagined such as social media or streaming video.  Meanwhile, on the political scale, the world is gripped by the tendrils of xenophobia and fascism as the gap between wealthy and poor grows ever wider.  Suffice it to say, it’s a different world now than it was 10 years ago and one that needs a different Star Trek and, this fall, CBS is going to give it to us with Star Trek Discovery. 

Star Trek: Discovery Trailer & Logo Revealed, Setting Speculation

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Edited by Robert Beach 

Over 11 years ago, Star Trek: Enterprise went off the air and ended the era of Trek on TV. Even though the franchise would be rescued from oblivion four years later with the J.J. Abrams reboot series, Star Trek as a sci-fi series of genuine renown, import, and intelligence wouldn’t reassert itself till this year.  

Thanks to a double barrel strategy, Star Trek has marked its 50^th anniversary with a major return to prominence thanks to a quality movie and an upcoming new TV show helmed by Hannibal show runner Bryan Fuller.  

Now, we’ve finally got a title and imagery. The first short teaser for the new series debuts the lead ship and gives some cryptic clues about the setting. So let’s dive into our first major look at Star Trek: Discovery. 

Week of Review - Why I Love Voyager

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As I continue to celebrate Star Trek’s 50^th anniversary and the release of the new film, we come now to Star Trek: Voyager.  This is the series where most hardcore Trek fans consider the franchise to have stumbled, citing Voyager and Enterprise, along with the last 2 TNG films, as the collapse of the franchise in its final years before the reboot.  Personally I can’t say I agree with that. 

Certainly, the two final films of the TNG series are awful but having gone through all of Voyager and Enterprise they are not bad Star Trek, in fact I’d rank them well above Next Generation and, most pertinent to this conversation, I’d actually say Voyager is my favorite Star Trek show of the entire franchise.  Not necessarily the best, that’s probably still reserved for Deep Space 9 or the original series, but definitely the one I liked the most, the one I tend to revisit most often, and the big reason for that is, bizarrely, that everyone on the ship seems like horrible people. 

Week of Review - In Defense of Star Trek The Animated Series

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Edited by Robert Beach

For day two of my celebration of Star Trek, I thought I’d focus on an obscure and somewhat forgotten chapter in Trek’s history. In 1969, Star Trek concluded its three-season run after budgetary restrictions and dwindling audience interest forced it off the air. Even though the show was a prestigious series in its time, garnering a lot of admiration from doctors and scientist, the ‘60s just wasn’t the age of genre shows on TV. That all changed in the ‘70s when TV took over as the outlet for disposable, high-concept viewing. 

While movies spent the ‘70s getting more challenging and more adult, TV doubled down on the stranger genre elements, giving us major series like Wonder Woman, 6 Million Dollar Man, and The Incredible Hulk as well as forgotten gems like Logan’s Run and the Planet of the Apes series. Seeking to capitalize on this trend, Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry pushed for a new series, yet was met with some resistance due to the cost of creating sets and costumes. Given how much of this new genre television was aimed at younger audience, Rodenberry went to one of the biggest names in cheap, younger entertainment: Hanna-Barbera. Thus, Star Trek: the Animated Series was born. 

Sulu to Be Gay in Star Trek Beyond

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Edited by Robert Beach

As we continue our drive towards the release of Star Trek Beyond, Paramount continues to worry over whether or not they’ll have another viable franchise beyond Transformers.  In addition to that, or possibly because of it, the people behind Star Trek Beyond are ramping up the build up to it, and their latest bid for audience attention in a summer that’s been notoriously lacking in it is announcing that Hikaru Sulu is gay in the new film.  The framing of the statement is a little strange, but that’s the big news, that Star Trek Beyond will feature a scene confirming original crewmember and helmsman Sulu is gay.  Apparently, this comes with a lot of fallout and lot to go over what this means.

 

Static Thoughts - Dino Riders

As it’s still June and I’m still celebrating all things dinosaur I thought it’d be fun to look at some dinosaur T.V. shows, specifically shows of the animated variety.  Here’s the thing though, the preponderance of animated dinosaur shows range from awful to mediocre.  There’s the well remembered but in actuality terrible Dinosaucers, rightfully forgotten mediocrity like Denver the Last Dinosaur or The Land Before Time animated series, and the decent if not terribly interesting installments like Extreme Dinosaurs.  There is however one animated dinosaur show that not only holds up it holds up incredibly well thanks to a huge amount of non-narrative subtext.  That show, as you may have guessed from the title, is Dino-Riders.