For months now, Star Trek fans have been eagerly awaiting the next installment in the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk, Science Officer Spock and company. But they haven't been waiting for the feature film by J.J. Abrams, which revisits the earliest days of the Enter-prise and how Kirk and his friends met, and which is due out next year
...no, they've set their sights on a smaller screen, their own computer monitors, to watch as a brilliant new team of actors and craftsmen have taken it upon themselves to bear the standard of Gene Roddenberry's legacy.
...no, they've set their sights on a smaller screen, their own computer monitors, to watch as a brilliant new team of actors and craftsmen have taken it upon themselves to bear the standard of Gene Roddenberry's legacy.
Star Trek: New Voyages, created by James Cawley, is a series made by him and fellow lovers of Trek lore. Due to ownership rights by Paramount television, it is an honest labor of love for all involved. Cawley and his crew of actors, writers, directors, grips and other talent work whenever they can, however they can to make each episode for free. They pool their own funds to lovingly and deligently craft each episode, since for legal reasons, no one on the production can ever make a dime off the episodes produced. In an earlier article on this site, I lamented the fact that fans--the devoted followers whose love and money gives networks and studio executives their reason for being able to keep their jobs week after week--aren't able to make back the hundreds or thousands of dollars they spend to show their love and affection for the product put out by said execs. I also offered a solution for this problem. If ever there was a fan-made production which des-erved to recoup its cost, it is New Voyages. In the same manner that Pierce Brosnan was Sean Connery's legitimate successor to the role of Bond, so has Star Trek: New Voyages finally cemented its place as the true heir to Roddenberry's venerable original series.
Their newest episode, "World Enough and Time" proves this.
First of all, let's be clear about something: "World Enough and Time" both is and is not their best episode. It isn't because if you're looking for pure action, there's not much to be found past the opening act, which has the Enterprise facing off against three Romulan ships on the enemy's side of the Neutral Zone. There are a couple of scenes which feel just slightly like padding in order to fulfill the needs of a sixty minute script. However, Star Trek has always been about story and character first, and on this point, WEAT is a rousing success. It is also a very personal episode, which deals with fulfillment, loss, and the lengths a man will go to in order to save his friends and family--and what consequences manifest when he must choose between them.
The episode opens not with the Enterprise, but with the starship Excelsior, set in a time just after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Coun-try, the last film with the entire original cast. Captain Hikaru Sulu(George Takei, returning in the role he made famous) is about to rendezvous with a shuttlecraft which is bringing aboard some visitors. First Officer Janice Rand(original series staple Grace Lee Whitney) makes an off-the-cuff remark which brings a bittersweet memory unbid-den to Sulu's mind. Through a well done stylized transition, we are then aboard the original Enterprise, under the command of then-Captain James T. Kirk(Cawley). The ship receives a distress signal from a Fed-eration vessel which is inexplicably on the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone. Consequences be damned, Kirk knows his first duty is to save lives, and so orders Lieutenant Sulu(John Lim) to set course directly into the Zone, hoping to beam the transport's crew out before the Romulans arrive.
The Romulans show up sooner than expected however, and using a prototype weapon, annihilate the transport completely. Analyzing the weapon's energies, Spock posits the deadly rays separate the strong and weak forces which bind atoms, resulting in complete discorporation of anything they strike. Realizing that even the Enterprise would not be immune to such an attack, Kirk orders Chekov to target the vessels and strike first. The Enterprise's phasers soundly destroys them all, but the destruction of the weapon causes a disruption in the gravimetric field of the local space-time continuum(if you don't understand this part, you haven't watched enough Trek. I promise, I'll refrain from the techno-babble as much as possible from here on out). With a limited timeframe in which to escape before the Enterprise itself is destroyed by the field in which they are trapped, Kirk orders Sulu and Dr. Chan-dris(Lia Johnson) a specialist in Romulan linguistics and technology, to take a shuttlecraft to one of the ruined vessels and attempt to find info on the weapon's design, which might be the key to the Enterprise's escape.
The gravimetric forces shift severely while Sulu and Chandris are aboard the Romulan vessel, and their shuttle is lost. The only way back is by transporter, but the gravity/time shifts interfere during beaming. Sulu's pattern is lost for a micro-second then reclaimed...but when he appears in the transporter room, he has aged thirty years, and is dressed in a pseudo-Conan the Barbarian warrior garb. Another pattern is detected in the transporter buffer(yeah I know, I promised... sorry!) but the person that beams back isn't Dr. Chandris...it's a beautiful young woman named Alana(Christina Moses in her debut), Sulu and Chandris' daughter! All which has come before is merely setup; this is where the real story begins...
"World Enough and Time" only marginally focuses on the Enter-
prise's escape attempts, shifting the A story more into the background as it brings the B story forward. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is a vital point that we find out what happened to Dr. Chandris, how Sulu came to be in this state, and just who their daughter is. WEAT is a very poignant episode, especially in scenes where Sulu explains what his aspirations as a young officer used to be, as contrasted to how his life altered in the time he was lost and his daughter came to be.
prise's escape attempts, shifting the A story more into the background as it brings the B story forward. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is a vital point that we find out what happened to Dr. Chandris, how Sulu came to be in this state, and just who their daughter is. WEAT is a very poignant episode, especially in scenes where Sulu explains what his aspirations as a young officer used to be, as contrasted to how his life altered in the time he was lost and his daughter came to be.
Considering that many of the actors are not professionals, it's very impressive that each one nails their part completely. Jeff Quinn gives Spock a depth and empathy not entirely present in previous episodes. He truly hits his stride here, which makes it that much more of a shame that WEAT is his last outing. He's replaced in the upcoming "Blood and Fire" by Ben Tolpin, who now unexpectedly has big shoes to fill. John Kelly echoes the late DeForest Kelly decently, Charles Root performs well as Scotty, while Julienne Irons recaptures all the intelligence and sexiness Nichelle Nichols brought to the role of Uhura. She's another one that will be missed, as "Blood and Fire" will also mark the debut of Kim Stinger as everyone's favorite comm officer.
It's almost terrifying to watch John Lim and especially Andy Bray as Sulu and Chekov respectively; neither Takei or Walter Koenig have passed away, yet these two young men are somehow channeling their spirits in these roles. And while Jim Cawley is completely believable as Kirk--and a leader of men in general--truth be told, he needs to ease up on some Kirk mannerisms and poses a little, and allow just a bit more of himself to shine through. It's the same mistake Brandon Routh made in attempting to ape Christopher Reeve in Superman Returns, and we all know what I thought about that.
The effects for New Voyages have improved in leaps and bounds, which is really saying something considering that they were pretty damn impressive from the get-go. More than 600 visual effects were created specifically for WEAT, the chores being carried out primarily by students of The Dave School, a visual effects learning center in Flori-da. Dave School graduates have gone on to work on some major Hollywood pictures, and the effects they've carried out for WEAT clear-ly rival anything currently on television, certainly in the world of sci-fi. I've said it before, and I'll reiterate: Paramount needs to pay closer attention to what fans like Cawley are managing to pull off. If the studio truly wants to reinvigorate the Trek franchise, then give money to Caw-ley and his partners, and they'll receive a return on the investment well worth what was put in.
It's hard to report on the rest of "World Enough and Time" without giving anything away. What I can tell you is that there is a scene of genuine heartbreak for the younger Sulu, wherein Kirk and Spock stand beside him--not as officers, but as true friends. All Trek fans know that the relationship of Kirk, Spock and McCoy is the holy trinity of the original series, with Scotty, Uhura and the others on the periphery... minor seraphim of a type. Over the course of forty years of tv, books and movies, the relationships between all the characters has gelled together so that one knows(perhaps a better word would be supposes) that Kirk would do as much for Uhura as he would for Spock, were she somehow in jeopardy. But here, in "World Enough and Time", we finally get to see a new bond of friendship form between these senior officers and their junior. It is a heartfelt, tearjerking moment. It is a personal moment...and this is what makes the best of Trek.
Star Trek: New Voyages is about more than just a bunch of fans getting together and playing dress-up to fulfill some inner need to reconnect with something pure and innocent from their youth. It's been said that any science fiction which takes place in a future world is inherently optimistic, because it shows the human race has survived. Yet the original Star Trek did it first, and is the progenitor of them all. And New Voyages offers the same thing Gene Roddenberry's original vision did all those years ago: hope. "World Enough and Time", written by Michael Reaves & Marc Scott Zicree, with excellent direction from the latter gentleman, offers hope that these are the kind of tales which Star Trek can tell(with just a little tiny bit more action thrown in)...tales which examine all aspects of the human condition; the joy, the anger, the sorrow and of course the hope, as we seek to evolve into some-thing better than what we are now. New Voyages opens the path to finding out how the original five year mission would have truly contin-ued, had Desilu not waylaid it. The teaser for the next episode, "Blood and Fire" seems to confirm that Cawley and crew will boldly explore all these aspects, not shy away from them.
Science fiction has always been the first and last courageous medi-um in which to explore the human condition, and seeing the territory which Star Trek: New Voyages is beginning to explore, makes me definitely want to come along for the ride.
I can't wait to see where we go next.
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True Trek Believers
(A new series boldly goes further into the final frontier...)
Child of legend: New Voyages has finally solidified it-self as the legitimate heir to the Star Trek legacy.
Fans enough and time: Left to right are Jeff Quinn, Jim Cawley and John Kelly. They bear the standard of the roles' originators well.
Back in the fold: George Takei returns as a Sulu ripped out of his proper timeline in "World Enough and Time".
Trapped in star-amber: The Enterprise fights to emerge from a multi-dimensional temporal rift in "World Enough and Time".
George Takei isn't the first original Treker to sign aboard NV. Walter Koenig(right) reprised the role of Ensign Chekov in "To Serve All My Days"..
Charles Root(Scotty) reads a NV script in between takes. Some of the original series' writers have signed on to write episodes for this breakout show.
New worlds to explore: The scope of NV is such that any era of Trek lore can be explored...even the future exploits of the Excelsior.
The New Voyage effects by students of The Dave School rival anything seen on tv or in recent movies.
The next NV episode "Blood and Fire" will reintroduce Kirk's nephew Peter(Bobby Rice) to audiences. It also promises surprising revelations about this character!
With amazing visuals and solid storytelling, hopefully the New Voyages of the starship Enterprise will continue for a long time.
