A Farewell To Farms

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (A Farewell To Farms)

Each season they like to do an episode that breaks the format, in other words something completely different, opening titles over a more thoughtful version of the theme music, an alien point of view, that sort of thing. That can work, but for every 'wej Duj' there's 'A Mathematically Perfect Redemption,' whose stench is hard to remove. Fortunately this falls more in the former category as a fairly enjoyable stab at Klingon culture, but it's also another episode where I feel the series isn't quite working as it should be, and as I know it can. There are some fun, minor wisecracks about Trek lore, there is some exploration of Klingon culture or subculture, and it is nice to continue the story of Ma'ah, the Klingon we first met in 'wej Duj,' and who's had an arc weaving here and there through the series ever since. I like that kind of continuity, it's missing from most of modern Trek where even the main characters don't get much of the kind of development Trek used to be so good at. Even with all that it does leave a sense of... not wasting time, that would be too harsh, but treading water a little, the season's 'main' arc (which at the moment gets as little exposure as Boimler's beard-growing 'subplot,' which does at least show in more than mere face follicles as he tries to embrace pain and the way of the warrior like his more confident and successful alternate universe counterpart), of mysterious 'space holes' as Ma'ah succinctly describes them, is really just thrown in at the end as a reminder of the growing instances of these anomalies.

Not that I'm saying they're doing badly by not focusing episodes on the arc, and I do quite like that they introduced it into this episode which at first seems as if it would have nothing to do with anything else, Mariner's pretext for being in the area good enough. The real focus is on Ma'ah and the dejected life he's leading having disgraced the family honour from his crew mutinying (I don't quite believe his brother, Malor, when he says the whole family being shamed was 'hilarious,' but maybe he was being ironic, or perhaps he really is as lacking in Klingon ways as his slovenly appearance and motivation by money suggests - what is he, a Ferengi?!), reduced to working on a farm on Qo'noS, surely a most lowly occupation among a warrior race. We do get an idea of what life outside the warrior caste might be like, and by extension the kind of life Martok may have had before he rose to prominence - the Chancellor of the Empire gets a couple of mentions here, once as Boimler thinks the bar is where he took on some opponents, while Ma'ah corrects him that it took place in the Ketha Lowlands, and then at the end when Ma'ah takes to his duty as Captain of a rust-bucket, saying proudly that this is the kind of ship Martok started out on, so they're definitely trying to draw parallels, and who knows, maybe Ma'ah is destined to lead the Empire as well!

In the old days (in other words, a few short years ago, maybe four!), we could have speculated on whether Ma'ah may indeed be Chancellor by the time of 'Picard,' and perhaps we'll see him in live action? Or maybe there'll be some reference to him somewhere else in current Trek, but while it's possible he could be remembered a millennium hence (in 'Starfleet Academy'), we no longer get that impression of an unfolding Trek universe that we were clinging onto amongst all the dross produced in the last decade, even possibilities seem dead at this point. Martok's absence is a bit of a gaping hole, which is strange since this series has made use of both J.G. Hertzler and even Martok, but also true to this series is that they gave us a 'cartoon' version of Martok (I don't mean animated, the whole series is in that format, but in that it wasn't the real one, just a mock-up Martok), so it is a shame not to finally see him sitting on some throne somewhere overseeing the High Council. But then this story doesn't deal with anything so high and mighty, merely the 'Oversight Council' which apparently oversees the fleet, a bit like a Klingon version of Starfleet, and of course it's run by a big, burly bully without honour, in keeping with the general trend of Klingons to worship honour while yet somehow the majority of them are cowardly and conniving.

Mary Chieffo's role as K'Elarra was a nice bone to throw at us (and her), after she was unceremoniously dumped out of 'DSC' when it zipped into the future, as she seemed like one of those potential recurring characters that would continue, and was at least more interesting than the bland, undeveloped Bridge crew I could barely remember the names of for most of that series. For one thing, while I dislike 'DSC' a lot and put so much of the problems and mistakes of modern Trek at its door, like it or loathe it, it is part of the lore (any future Trek producers: feel free to alter the ridiculous canon from that series at every opportunity to somehow smooth over the bumps!), and I appreciate when there's some connection to other series', even the worst ones. In this case it's not a connection to lore, merely bringing back an actress, which is fine, but it's telling that even though I knew she was going to be in an episode this season I'd forgotten it was this one, and this character as I didn't recognise her voice (checking back I find she wasn't even the character I thought she was, actually the woman in the bar!). When I heard she was going to be in it I naturally assumed she was going to be the character she'd played before and somehow L'Rell would appear, either as a very elderly Klingon, or in holographic form, flashback, or one of the numerous other sci-fi ways they can always use to bring back someone. As it is it's merely a minor role.

The other role, whom I thought was played by Chieffo, was actually Enaj ('Jane' backwards?), which I'm not even sure fits with Klingon culture where women aren't allowed to serve on the High Council and whose rights are curtailed in leading their House, etc. Nowadays I'm sure some would decry this as Trek not living up to its themes of equality and betraying itself, but then they'd be forgetting 'diversity' - not all cultures are going to be the same, and while the Federation would be happy to have females in positions of power, the Klingons aren't (or weren't - L'Rell's position itself was a reversal of what we knew of Klingon canon, but like most things, 'DSC' mostly just ruined any Trek concepts it toyed with). Leaving aside all that, after all the lore-meisters would no doubt say it wasn't ever stated in canon they couldn't serve on this Oversight Council, mainly because I don't think we'd ever heard of it before, even though it's not in keeping with the spirit of Klingon culture, but leaving it aside, it's only a tiny role anyway. We get to see more of the race's culture in the farming operations (once again it's important to note how Replicators can't recreate the 'liveliness' of Klingon dishes and foods, which is why farms would exist at all when they can simply turn energy into edible matter), its music (can we call that 'Thrash lute-playing,' etc, Klingon folk music?), we learn of another animal species on the planet called a 'Brush Devil' which must be huge judging by the bones with which Malor decorates their transport ship (though apparently Targs can grow to the size of a small elephant if Bargh's pet is anything to go by), and connecting to our time, they can expect Ferengi calling to scam them on their Communicators just like junk mail or phone scams now, since that's an excuse Ma'ah uses not to talk to Mariner.

There was some beautiful imagery in the opening titles with dawn or dusk shots of Ma'ah's farm (and as ever the Cerritos looks superb on Blu-ray, the little we see of it), but my favourite moment was a brief establishing shot of the Oversight Council Chambers where a couple of hover-bikes have an altercation and one shouts "Experience bIj!" and the other replies "You experience bIj!" a deep-cut if ever there was one that even I, a decades-long viewer and ponderer on Trek lore, would never have known about if not for a podcast about this interactive video board game from the 90s - the ridiculousness of the situation, its brevity and the obscurity of the Trekference all combine to craft a perfect moment of humour. I can't really say the episode was particularly funny in the main - they did get that formalised way of speaking Klingons always had, epitomised by Ma'ah, but then they undercut it with his brother who has none of the ways of Klingons about him in dress, speech or attitude (Malor played by Sam Witwer, a genre veteran of such things as 'Battlestar Galactica' and 'Smallville,' whom had played a Xindi Sloth on 'Enterprise' and has dual roles here since he's also Legnog the honoured taster in Migleemo's story). I wonder if they meant to make the brothers look like Matt and Jeff Hardy, the famous wrestlers, or it's a coincidence? Ma'ah is the most Klingon of Klingons, very much a Worf type, though one who has lost his sense of direction and purpose thanks to previous events, so it's nice he succeeds, that's the Trek way: showing a problem and having characters work through it to inspire and impress. Also something too often lost in grim and miserable dystopian approaches seen in so much of modern Trek - that's one reason why this series works and feels more like good Trek.

It's not universal, however, there are still reasons why I wouldn't call this a good episode: as is so often the case on the series they continually annoy with the casual, contemporary speech, bleeped-out swearing and general lack of things making sense - somehow, joining together as four people means the 30,000 volts of electricity coursing through them will be 'equally spread'? I don't think that's how it works - anyone touching anyone else would be fried, and while the message of combining to defeat the task was Trekky, the scientific silliness doesn't work. In the same way, Captain Freeman claiming Starfleet lighting aboard its starships has been scientifically attuned to suit all living beings was unlikely at best, since with so many different races aboard there's no way they could anticipate everyone's exact needs and be able to match it. It's like if she claimed the temperature was designed to suit everyone, while Cardassians like it hot and Bajorans like it cool (or whatever). Of course she could have been making up stories to defend her ship against such objectionable guests, but then that makes her look weak if she feels the need to lie to counter people she dislikes. The worst thing was visual with Malor's burly Klingon chest quite visible yet not having the exoskeletal ridges we'd seen before (most famously on another brother: Kurn), something I'm sure I've complained about before on this series. The fact that even this series just won't be 100% pure Trek remains my irritation with it.

The B-story of Migleemo being visited by famous food critics of his race was a nice way to explore his culture since he's largely an unknown even five seasons in. I wasn't even aware his people were called the Klowahkans, for example, I'm not sure it had ever been mentioned before, but that's another example of this series at least trying to be Trek: you have a member of a 'new' species we've never encountered before and over time you explore them little by little, the cultures part of the interest instead of all aliens sounding and behaving like humans which happens far too often in modern Trek (another area where 'LD' tends to do a little better, for all its faults). This series is skewed comedically so the other races tend to be over the top, such as Dr. T'Ana looking exactly like a moth-eaten cat rather than the more noble example of M'Ress from 'TAS,' Shaxs as a very extreme version of a Bajoran who also has very tender feelings, Tendi as an example of an Orion (even in a bit role here her culture is nicely integrated: assassin skills mean she's expert at chopping veg!), and Migleemo who appears to be a humanoid budgie, so it's usually feather jokes or birdseed, the kind of simple, obvious humour that can work because we're immediately in on it, having the same conception of birds or whatever they can play on, but which used to come from our accumulated knowledge of Trek's worlds and races, something which encouraged the audience to invest in the more they saw, in turn giving them an insider perspective, too often lost in modern Trek as it tried so hard to appeal to casual viewers who'd never become the collectors and avid followers of a devoted fanbase (but I could go on for hours about the wrongheaded approach to most genre attempts to appeal instead of having a vision and believing its high quality and uniqueness would ensure viewership).

Migleemo's story is basic, he's feeling like an outsider to his own, partly due to his lack of certainty about his chosen path, and partly down to the visiting dignitaries' snobbery, which seems to be a trait of his kind, though he's always been different - again, a great Trek trope that the outsiders in a group tend to get drawn to Starfleet where their uniqueness will be added to the rich pot of stew (so they do have more in common with the Borg than we think - both want biological and technological distinctiveness to be added to their own, only in the Federation's case it's so they can excel, while in the Borg's it's about falling into faceless line). Migleemo's just a nice guy whom they've used quite nicely over the course of the series, often representing positivity, so we're automatically on his side against these unpleasant visitors, and it's a treat to go to his homeworld (or nestworld as the caption has it for Klowahka), and of course his insight and training in psychology comes into play to earn the respect of these tasters who were only really covering up their own defects - there's a deft connection between the two stories when Boimler reads that these tasters had given the Cerritos' Replicators two stars (ironically what I'm giving this episode, but it's not because I've lost my sense of taste regarding Trek, quite the opposite!), not strictly necessary, but appreciated - I always loved it when the various subplots matched up or paralleled in some way, and since this is only a 27-minute production it's about all they could do in the time they had to wrap up.

I'll say it again: this isn't a bad episode, one of the better ones so far this season I'd say, which a few years ago I'd be celebrating just for not being bad as I found it hard to like the series in Season 1, but I've seen a lot better. I don't need it to be funny, and I like the Trekferences that are done well (Malor thinking he's dying and claims he sees Kahless, the original one - there was a whole 'TNG' episode about there being a clone version created to further Klingon religious beliefs, and I couldn't quite hear his last line, but it sounded something like not the one who did impressions, so a reference back to 'TOS' and the Excalbian recreation?), but I've never really thought much of the wackiness - Mariner striding in and throwing out swearwords, Boimler screaming or being thrown about, that kind of thing. I like the characters, but I like them when they're being serious. Boimler's line about loving Klingon bureaucratic minutiae works, as does the various rituals they use to challenge Ma'ah's position or that are used against them. It doesn't make much sense that someone could conscript someone of high rank, like Bargh, but the idea of Klingons reeling out obscure precedents like legal traps is amusing since they're usually so dismissive of words and documents, but is also so true to their conflicted culture. The way they get out of their difficulty at the end wasn't so clever, nor was the gory killing of Bargh - true as it is to their ways we didn't need to see so much blood (pink as it was!), and while you can see they're just following the logical trope that Klingon problems = solved by killing, it does remind us the series didn't have pretensions much beyond replaying tropes and making us point and chuckle when they could do good, original stuff when they wanted to.

Credit must go to Jon Curry for being one of the most Klingon Klingons since 'DS9' (enjoyed his literal understanding of Mariner's invented human custom of 'unreturned favours' and how she'd be fed to a bear if she didn't follow through, to which his reply is it's better she trains to fight the bear - very Klingon!), and this wouldn't be his final appearance in the series. Colton Dunn as Bargh was also good, and he'd previously voiced Dorg in 'wej Duj' (Dorg and Bargh... are they secretly sending us the message that he was a... Borg?). Some of the main cast who didn't appear got to voice other characters, as is often the case, and I do believe it's sensible they don't feel the need to show every main cast member every episode just for the sake of it, and they also tend to reuse a lot of voice artists, so this time Jess Harnell reprised K'orin, the Klingon General from 'Envoys' and old friend of Mariner, and played a couple of other characters, too (and had done so before in that previous episode), and I already mentioned Trek guests Mary Chieffo and Sam Witwer. We just haven't had any big Trek characters returning yet this season, though that, too, would be remedied. At least the title was a literary reference this time rather than a strictly pop culture one (though I still think they could come up with better and more Trek-centric ones).

**

The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (The Best Exotic Nanite Hotel)

Going from some of the best episodes of not just 'DS9,' but Trek itself (the seven-episode station occupation serial), to... this... I know modern Trek wanted to be all things to all people, all flavours, etc, it does stick out how vastly dissimilar Trek made in this century, or at least this past decade, has been. And I know which I prefer. So while we can have absolute classic stories of great character and writing from all those years back, we also have this current stuff, or fluff, a bit like going from playing 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild' to some squarely average game, as I also did earlier in the year - whatever comes after is not going to hold up. But even if you take 'DS9' out of the equation this is not one of the starring instalments of the series. I have zero interest in the soapy Mariner subplot about her trials with Jennifer (it even irks me that an Andorian would be called Jennifer), although at least this story writes that character out of the series for good. And it's true that if you remove that C-plot from the episode there's some passable interplay in the other two subplots, but they're also pretty slight.

I think one thing that irritates, and has done throughout this era of Trek from the first season of 'DSC' where they had to mention The Beatles, to countless other examples, is their insistence in ingratiating themselves with whomever they assume is the audience these days by referencing pop culture rather than just Trek culture. The title itself is a play on the film(s), 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,' and I suppose you could draw some kind of parallel with the AWOL Admiral being an old man, and it does take place on an interstellar cruise ship which is basically a holiday resort, but otherwise it seems designed to make people point at the title with some kind of joyful recognition, and little else, whereas for me it takes me out of it. The bigger reference is obviously 'Apocalypse Now' (and perhaps if we're generous, 'Heart of Darkness,' the story it was based on - with a side order of 'The Blob'). It's not a film (or story), I love, so it doesn't win any points for that. I didn't think it quite made sense, either, since why would an Admiral have a ship in order to go and milk 'space whales' in the first place, that's not what Admirals do. Checking back on the line it could be inferred he was talking about earlier in his career when he was a Captain, but then why wait until he'd become Admiral to rebel? I also always find it such a typically modern attitude to Starfleet duty and life in general when a character complains of boredom. It's a state of mind, while Trek's supposed to be inspirational, full of the kind of exploration and joy of discovery that made it seem so optimistic and adventurous and why the best of the best applied in the first place!

Okay, so the Admiral's point was he didn't get to do exciting missions, but it all reminded me of that stupid scene in 'Beyond' where 'Kirk' (or the modern facsimile of a character called Kirk), suggests every day blends together in space and is basically saying the same thing: it's a boring day job most of the time. Indulgent rubbish for the younger generation who expect to be stimulated at all times rather than putting their own minds to it. They could have pulled it back a bit by connecting with the trope of Admirals being behind a desk and emphasising that side, which can be valid (again, just having seen Sisko restricted to desk work with Admiral Ross and his yearning to go back into the field with his crew as opposed to the greater number of lives his decisions are having on the war effort is just one example of how much more complexity there was in that series), and we've seen so many of the rank behave badly that it's ripe ground for exploration, even on the surface-level jokey style of this series. I did quite enjoy the three 'bros,' Ransom, Billups and Boimler on a mission together, it's the kind of thing Trek would do as a series progressed, pairing up some characters you don't necessarily see together all that much. The gag about Billups wanting to be called 'Gilbert,' while Ransom says he should have a more 'normal' alias like Zandy, was fun, as was Boimler's reference to being a canary (from Manhaver's concern Ransom treats his subordinates cavalierly and experimentally, like sending the canary into the coal mine in case of poisonous gas or lack of oxygen), which was also used well, Billups assuming it's because it's hard to think of an animal that skis! (Later hilarious when Boimler pleads he's not the canary and they agree with him even though they haven't a clue what he's talking about).

They can always come up with the kind of lines you'd never find elsewhere in Trek (like one of the Admiral's acolytes who voices the fact they can't get hold of Boimler who'd rubbed suncream all over himself: "It's like trying to grab a string bean"), but it's also nice to see Boimler's perceived deficiencies (being skinny and hyper-prepared), as useful in certain situations, though the joke about them wanting him along for the undercover operation because he's good at crawling through ducts seems more like a 'Mission: Impossible' joke, even if Trek characters were forever crawling through such spaces. Ransom claiming Boimler's a capable, prepared officer to an unhealthy degree is too true, but the fact Boimler's so delighted he noticed says everything about the character! Just a shame he's looking so scruffy with his 'arc' of growing the alternate dimension Boimler's beard at an early stage. The true arc of the season is of course the inter-dimensional fissures, so I did enjoy the connection to the Nanites' story here, which made that more palatable - otherwise it didn't make sense that these computer creatures would dash around in a glob, sucking up everything, but you just put it down to the typical zaniness of the series and try not to take it too seriously.

At least there was some kind of rationale for it with this alternate dimension Intrepid-class starship from a microscopic reality, trapped within the glob and trying to get enough energy to create a portal back home. Obviously they're doing a lot of 'Voyager' callbacks with the ship trying to get home and saying it's been a 'month of Hell' (rather than the temporal year of Hell Voyager was trapped in), and it neatly tied up the other story with the Admiral's new mission to focus on getting this ship home (even if he should be court-martialled in reality!). 'Evolution,' the 'TNG' episode that introduced Nanites, wasn't one of the best (especially as a season opener - people often forget that the season the series found its footing and became good, began with such a dreary episode!), and Nanites certainly weren't required again, but it's exactly the kind of one-episode wonder concept 'LD' likes to toy with, so no surprises there.

In case anyone watching was concerned 'LD' only Trekferences the old series' (other than poking fun at the ridiculousness of such things as 'DSC' or the Kelvin Timeline films), they do throw in Boimler's mention of the Gormagander as an example of a 'space whale' (though he follows it up with a Trekference to 'those Galaxy's child things' - a bit too on the nose, as we've seen before when Mariner's mentioned actual episode titles, though at least you can rationalise it as either the official, or casual, designation given to the creatures in 'Galaxy's Child'), and he's clearly thinking of it joyfully, so 'LD' doesn't actually hate 'DSC' (how could they, it provided so much for the series to laugh at!). The big Trekference of the piece was finally showing us what Gallamites look like after all that talk from Jadzia in 'DS9' about Captain Boday and his transparent skull - I wasn't too impressed with the design. I know it's only a gag, but if you're going to show something that had existed only in the imagination of fans for decades you need to put some serious thought into it. I feel they should have considered how Michael Westmore might have achieved the look in makeup and prosthetics - I know it's only my imaginings, but I always felt they'd have quite long, skeletal, humanoid faces, but with pretty much entirely transparent heads, while here they were just grey, Clayface shark monsters with a little brain dome on top. But that's the thing, it's never going to satisfy everyone which makes you wonder if it was a good idea to even try, especially as it was merely a throwaway visual gag.

Fun to see the Kreetassens from 'Enterprise' again, though you'd have to wonder how they would even end up on a facility that contained other races when by this time they'd know every other race has no problem eating in public. The joke worked in 'Enterprise' because neither the Kreetassens nor humans had ever heard of the other, or met before, so such extreme cultural offence would be natural. Not so two hundred years later, you would think... While I'm nitpicking, I didn't understand Krog's admission he was a big fan when addressing T'Lyn's work. Did he mean Vulcans in general since he's taken on some of their philosophy? Otherwise it's a little hard to believe (even in an episode about a giant Nanite cluster barrelling around a resort, I like things to make sense!). I do find myself hearing the other actors when they do voices for guest characters, such as Marcus Henderson who returned as his usual Jet Manhaver, but also played Krog, or Dawnn Lewis as the Kreetassen woman - granted there's not a lot of Captain Freeman in the episode, so maybe that's why they give people a little something extra to do? I think on the whole the episode was rather disappointing, like they're not really using the little time they have left very well, and I come away feeling they're on a downward curve this final season.

**

GT64

 N64, GT64 (1998) game

Another game this year I found to be far too easy. I wasn't expecting much, it was from the early part of the console's lifespan, and I didn't get much! Not that it was terrible, it was functional, but it was only a small order of magnitude higher in technical proficiency than the Lotus games on the Amiga. They were only a few years previous, produced in the same decade ('Lotus Turbo Challenge II' and 'Lotus III,' at least), but there's the same kind of squealing turns and slide out of the turning circle at high speeds. The trackside architecture is far more advanced, but the reality is for most tracks it's easier to simply bash into the side barriers round hard corners than brake. Road racing tends to be more basic compared to the interest from rallying through bog and mire, spinning up mud and rainwater as you go, but it can also be purer - just the racing line and responsive tyres as you weave into the fastest route for the next corner on a hard surface. The game certainly gave the impression of hard simulation from the Set Up screen before each race which allowed various attributes of the car to be tweaked to suit road conditions, but I was glad to find there was an auto-adjust which selects the best setup for you as I have no interest in all those technical details. Same with the gears, I always go for Automatic.

It also feels sim-like with the insistence on Qualifying for your place in the starting lineup, and one thing about this game is it is trickier to overtake vehicles - you can knock into them and push them off line a bit, but equally they're adept at speeding past you if you head into any grass verges or take a corner too wide. Despite the simulation trappings it's definitely an arcade experience to the extent that I usually prefer an in-car view in racing games, but found this easier with an external view (just like the old Lotus games!). Not that I needed anything to make it easier, as aside from the early tracks featuring grassy roadsides which slowed me down significantly, I had no trouble beating the game in short order on the Normal difficulty. Hard mode took a few more attempts, but once you know the tracks you can win most even on that difficulty (and the ability to save between each race helps), so it was a very short-lived experience. I got it as part of a bundle on ebay, so this was just a bonus, I've always loved the racing genre, but the N64 had plenty of contenders from the two 'Top Gear Rally' games, 'World Driver Championship,' 'V-Rally Edition 99' and 'F1 World Grand Prix,' to all kinds of other racing types in the real world ('Excitebike,' '1080º,' 'Wave Race' ), to sci-fi ('F-Zero X,' 'Extreme G,' 'Wipeout,' 'Star Wars Racer'), to fun runs ('Mario Kart,' 'Diddy Kong Racing,' 'Top Gear Overdrive'), so this one would have had to stand out to be counted. In a word, it was fine, but there was nothing to it.

**

Shades of Green

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Shades of Green)

Whoops. The kind of episode that makes me think maybe it's actually a good thing that Trek is no longer in production any more if this is the kind of extreme ideological stuff and weak plotting they were knocking out... It seems identifying the title with the weakest episode of 'TNG' may have been portentous! Where to start, then? I actually didn't have much to think about during this story, it just seemed to have so little of interest. Start with the good, I suppose: T'Lyn trying to keep Rutherford occupied since she's noticed he hasn't been himself since Tendi left. She may be the best character the series produced, and I've said it before, certainly the best Vulcan in modern Trek (not a high bar, admittedly, but she does a creditable job of being a believable example of the logical race, unlike most aliens who never seem that alien - case in point the Tellarite, Gorm, who doesn't argue incessantly!). I enjoyed the little tribute to Data standing and staring into space while waiting for Picard to go to sleep, in this case T'Lyn waiting patiently for Rutherford to finish his work - although... would that be an efficient use of her time, surely she could have done some work on a PADD or something? The fact I'm starting to nitpick shows I was at least invested in this C-plot of the episode, though I can't say as much for the A- and B-plots.

I can understand the writers poking fun at the ridiculousness of Trek's 'post-scarcity' future, since it's never made any sense, or why would there be wars for resources or control of areas? (For that matter, aren't gold and jewels all obsolete anyway since they can be replicated, that's why Latinum was precious: because it can't be! So why would Orions want this junk?). I always go back to Picard's mumbled, 'holier-than-thou' speech about how the Federation doesn't need money any more, or use it (and the fun 'DS9' ribbing of the concept when Jake wants to buy his Dad an antique baseball card, but doesn't have any money because he's an 'evolved' human of the 24th Century - 'if you don't need money,' says Nog, 'then you don't need my money!'). It demonstrated why it's best not to think too deeply into how Trek's universe works, details modern Trek has mistakenly shown too much of (not just regarding money, but even basic domestic details like people cleaning their teeth, the kind of thing it would be better to leave to the imagination, but lack of imagination is one of this era's defining characteristics!). The reality is there is still a cost to everything, and that's energy, and while we can say they have technology that enables vast amounts of energy to be released (warp, Phasers, etc), something doesn't come from nothing. If they were seriously pointing out how terrible capitalism is then I don't think they'd have had the questionable act at the end where Freeman hands over all the planet's wealth to the family of her crewmember! Nepotism? It comes across as if they 'conned' a planet out of its wealth with Replicators and then ditched their economy. All of which was a bit uncomfortable in today's polarised political climate.

It's always important to remember the series is primarily a comedy, and while it's 'supposed' to make sense in the world of Trek, and be considered canonical, they are going to be wacky at times. Frequent times. The real story, in any case, is Boimler trying to be a fun boss, never a sensible idea in the first place since authority needs to have some distance to enable it to function properly and enforce discipline. Not that discipline is high on the agenda of modern Trek where everyone does what they want and argues with their superiors as a matter of course, but generally 'LD' has been better at such things than the others, one reason I suspect it feels more like Trek than they do, and is so liked by many in consequence. With Boimler's four-hair moustache and the new 'Bointers' to give advice (the inspiration being Lefler's Laws from 'TNG,' but in this case he clearly got the idea from his alternate rather than her), Boimler's arc this season of trying to emulate his alternate self is rather transparent, and therefore somewhat pointless since you can see where that storyline would lead: just be yourself. I have to say I found his and Mariner's roles rather lacklustre, didn't really go anywhere (other than to a fancy hall in a posh house that looks like it was out of 'The Matrix Reloaded,' though perhaps it was merely a generic posh hall, since no martial arts take place, in slow motion or otherwise). No, nothing really to comment on, it was just the pair of them tracking down his lost Away Team.

The A-story is Tendi's messing up of her entire family's position in the Orion Syndicate (I suppose you could see loose parallels with Worf's discommendation, but if that was intended it wasn't very well executed). The war between her family and the blue 'Oree-ons' has meant less profits, or something, so they pull the old space race challenge out of the back pocket of discarded sci-fi concepts. It's never a good idea and suggests a series rather running out of them, even with the solar sailing ships that gives it a more piratical feel. Add to that the culture is incessantly and simplistically feministic (green Tendi girls good, blue 'Oree-on' men bad), and it quickly becomes tiresome, the two sisters competing with each other or Tendi trying to protect D'Erica since she's read her Personal Log and discovered her pregnancy. I also don't buy the Orions would have a Queen (Sabor, voiced by Debra Wilson, Captain Cusak in 'DS9,' her second and final role in modern Trek here), since the whole point was that the true situation of women being the dominant force was meant to be a closely guarded secret. The best we can suggest is they don't allow outsiders on their planet, but in an age of recording devices and easy broadcasting from anyone it's hard to see how the secret would stay secret. It's also all too girly with choice lines like D'Erica telling her sister at the end that she doesn't want her girl growing up to see her doing anything other than what her heart tells her. Ick. This is where Trek had come to, though to be fair 'DSC' started it all in that direction right from the beginning and 'LD' has still been far more realistic than the other recent series'.

It's rather rich of a mega-franchise that requires payment to watch nowadays to be pointing out the 'evil' of the system in which it's made, Trek being a product manufactured in order to make money! It's hard to take any satire about profit or the extremes of capitalism seriously in such a setting, but there's always been a tug-of-war between 'art' and 'profitability.' Still, some people do genuinely watch Trek believing this world will one day come to reality, but unfortunately that's meant modern Trek had to dumb characters down, and in keeping with the modern ideals of 'being yourself,' even if that encourages selfishness, focus on oneself, and lack of care towards anyone else, made them more like 'us,' to the extent people from old Treks that went back in time and found people to be so different to them, could now go to their fellow Trek series' and find the same thing: modern Trek characters are us now! (With the exception of the odd superhero character like Burnham who could almost do no wrong, and even when she did, escaped real punishment and was soon shown to be righter than right!). When an episode only leads me down the rabbit hole of denigrating its stablemates I know it hasn't succeeded, and while I wouldn't say it's on a par with the worst Treks of recent years, it is one of those episodes that shows up the weaknesses in the modern crowd. Not least the excessive swearing I noticed again! And the fact Tendi just turns up back in Starfleet as if you can waltz in and out however and whenever you feel like it (rather than the real world reason of having her leaving be a cliffhanger ending). But the real issue was barely seeing any of the supporting cast at all (even if some of them do voice other characters instead). The blazzard squawking was amusing. As was seeing Goodgey poking his head up in the Cargo Bay. Yep, that's all I've got.

**

Dos Cerritos

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Dos Cerritos)

The final season of yet another Trek series begins already, but that seems to be the way with streamers, ten episodes a season and done in five seasons or less, a far cry from the depth and latitude afforded to the old 'factory' production of the 90s. It was meant to be a new Golden Era with all these different Treks, at one point five series' appearing in a single year, I think, but the quality just wasn't there, so in reality this Golden Era was much more factory-like than the so-called classic period which was bashing out greats on a regular basis. But there was one shining example in all the new Trek sludge... well, maybe a lightly glinting example, anyway, and that was this 'Lower Decks,' a series that had its ups and downs, for which we can be grateful there were ups at all since most were almost entirely downs, but as with this opener, even the stories I couldn't say were particularly outstanding had plenty of little pleasures to savour and if there was one bright spot of this era, this was it (and with the recent suggestion of a potential spinoff film from creator Mike McMahan, perhaps the days of 'LD' aren't quite over just yet?). To recap: I disliked Season 1 apart from the finale, which showed promise, grudgingly purchased Season 2 and was more than pleasantly surprised to find it the best modern season of Trek with a finale that was the single best episode of the Kurtzman Era, followed by a pretty good third season, a slightly disappointing fourth (with the caveat of a strong and Trekky resolution to all three of its homegrown villains), and so, while I was onboard for more 'LD' by this point, I also didn't have high expectations for the final season.

First impressions are the slickness (and sharpness of this beautiful Blu-ray edition - for all its faults, the series looks the best with its clean and gleaming Starfleet style), followed by remembering how much out of place swearing and inappropriate laxness there is! After watching 'Voyager' the last few months it takes some getting used to return to the low standards of modernity, but in fairness most of it comes from Mariner herself rather than being spread around, and somehow the casual or contemporary speech never bothered me quite as much in animation and with the fast-paced style of this series - it's not that I can overlook it, but I've got used to it much more and come to at least like the characters, something I can't say for any of the other casts of recent times! I'd forgotten what the overarching storyline was for the season until they mention the rift in space and then it all came flooding back. It's very lightly introduced here, no indication we'll be dealing with this sort of thing season-long. They'd done Cerritos doubles before on the series, but only the comedic way of other California-class ships (or ship, I can't remember which), having almost identical crews with slight differences (like a male version of Freeman or a Boimler that looks like a fly) - what am I saying? It's all comedic! But in this case it was played a little more seriously in that it's the old trope of them meeting an alternate reality version of their ship and selves, a time-honoured tradition in Trek that I felt missed a lot of opportunities to examine humorously in this episode.

They could hardly have Other T'Lyn with a beard! And we do get bearded Boimler (which also becomes a bit of a recurring theme for the season), an entirely cybernetic Otherford, Captain Becky (so is her full name Rebecca Mariner Freeman? Either way I actually largely preferred this professional version as it showed what she could be, minus the extreme discipline!), King Billups (why is he still serving on a starship - to avoid his regal duties?), but Freeman ended up at Starbase 80 (something else to be revisited later), and Tendi left to become a pirate, devastating Otherford and turning him inwards to become our Rutherford's warning. Some nice little character work going on and after an absence it is nice to get back to these people. I just don't think the story had that much going for it - very slight. Surprisingly, Tendi isn't back with the crew at end of episode as she refuses to leave her responsibilities behind when the blue 'Oree-ons' declare war against the greens (not environmentalists, the Orions!). The series has always shown a great love and affection for 'The Animated Series' of the 1970s, and this was up there with the return of the Kzinti to Trek. They really were ridiculous (even more than green aliens usually are), but their overconfident stupidity was somewhat endearing - they came across much like Pakleds so it would be interesting to go back to 'TAS' and see if they were potentially the seeds of inspiration for the least intelligent race in Trek (to the extent they were used for one 'TNG' episode, then only ever seen as background until 'LD' - even the great 'DS9' didn't see fit to expand upon them, a service they made to so many of the 'TNG' aliens).

Tendi shines through as the most Starfleet of all, constantly restraining her bloodthirsty crew from killing, secretly healing a casualty and generally striving to impart Starfleet values to a very un-Starfleet situation, but not looking like she was striving to impart Starfleet values to a very un-Starfleet situation! If you were drawing morals from the story, her emphasis on non-lethality and not being forced into extremes of enmity by others, wasn't a bad take-home. And we learn her crew secretly wish they weren't pirates anyway - they want to bake or dance (I thought she was going to break out in the famous 'Animal Woman' dance of 'The Cage'), or teach, all typically feminine practices, which was a nice way to show that even Orion women are 'human' at heart and are drawn to the things modern society considers stereotypical and 'beneath' them, which was a nice twist. Tendi's own sister, D'Erica, holding her in hock, sums up her sibling's true desires quite effectively, even couched as a teasing insult ("You miss debating the ethics of goop"), but Tendi earns respect for staying to deal with the 'Oree-ons' who call Tendi's tactics 'un-piratical' for using laughing gas to capture this old and rare Orion medical ship that may have been used to cure The Great Plague.

We know so little (probably nothing, actually), about Orion history, so any little detail concerning them is of interest, though modern Trek is so bad at world-building and the development of species that even if it was in full production rather than ground to a halt and limping to a closure with the final seasons of 'SNW' and 'Academy' I doubt they'd ever have expanded upon anything mentioned here. There are of course the usual little Trekferences put in for the fun of it, such as Captain Becky's swagger stick (or riding crop, here - hadn't we seen a similar callback to 'Star Trek III' before on the series?), or her statement that 'no interpersonal conflict is allowed on my ship,' a dig at the Roddenberry edict that has gradually been lost through such casual and loose interpretations of Trek in recent times, but which 'LD' excels at calling attention to. You could say they call attention to the Kelvin Universe again since they have Becky's crew standing at attention whenever she walks past, something we saw on the USS Kelvin (and one aspect I actually rather liked, amazingly!), and it made sense that this alternate Cerritos considered their existence as in the Prime Universe (another concept introduced, or at least named, in 'Star Trek XI'). It was very in keeping with this series that Freeman views their closing of these rifts as the kind of 'second tier' job the Cerritos is used to carrying out, describing them as fixing 'space-time potholes.' She has a way with words, but a shame she demeans her ship as a matter of course...

The big thing for Boimler is meeting his alternate who is much more like Riker - confident, an achiever, even wearing the same beard (it looked good!), while our self-doubting fellow is pushed out of a magazine feature on the top 30 under 30 officers in Starfleet - the greater insult being not only is he not in the top 30, he's not even in the honourable mentions below, pushed out by a ten-year old Naomi Wildman (I can believe it). This Official Starfleet Magazine, 'Fleet,' as it was called, was quite obviously a pastiche or tribute to the Titan mag made in England for almost thirty years, right down to the layout of the cover. Too sad that after finally getting as close as it could to appearing in Trek, the magazine itself ended just the year after this was made (2025), but I'm sure they wouldn't have been aware that was about to happen when they were making this episode. It was my constant companion during the height of Trek's greatness, through the declining years and the fallow period, and survived to see almost all the new Treks debut, so it was nice to see it acknowledged in some way. And in the same way we get other tributes with the 'LD' logo now sporting ghost trails behind it, duplicating the effect used for Season 5 of 'TNG' - and of course they add more to the major battle in the opening credits, now joined by the green hand of 'TOS,' the Tholian web and to cap it all, when you think it can't get any more extreme, V'Ger shows up to twang its presence. Even the use of a Palor Toff-like character (not Kivas Fajo - he's the name I always remember, but it was Toff who had the metal band woven in and out of his face. Hilarious when he cries it's 'prescription' when one of Tendi's women tries to rip it out!). But did they break canon when one of his Hupyrian servants speaks? It was speaking to him, but I thought they never uttered a word in front of anyone else due to a vow of silence?

Although there were some good morals on display, I also had to question Rutherford's tampering with Otherford to program him to want to make friends. That seems a bit presumptuous to force a change in someone like that, especially as it was to benefit Rutherford! It's only a brief moment and it was for his own good, but it stood out as a kind of un-Trekky thing to do that sometimes betrays that these modern writers don't always stick as close to Trek's manner of doing things in the good times. If nothing else it shows a disadvantage to being cybernetic if you can be so easily manipulated, and of course I'm making more of it than was meant since Rutherford saw he could do some good by interfering, but still, it would have been better if he could have used his charm or logic or something other than a direct adjustment to his program to help him make a change, though time was limited, I grant. Just a little nitpick, too: I don't see Hupyrians being bested by Orions in a fight. There's a reason the Grand Nagus used them as personal bodyguards - they were big and tough. I know, it's silly trying to maintain some semblance of Trek reality in something that's little more than a half hour comedy, but that's one of the tugs of war within the series that they want to be true to Trek, and are, in so many ways compared to the live action productions, so you want them to stay true in every aspect, so when they aren't, it can stick out. Otherwise it was a fine start to the season, nothing special, but that's also the point of 'LD': to be short, individual stories that can delve into any aspect of Trek, the way Trek used to be, allowing for the broad gamut of choice from week to week. But why is Gabrielle Ruiz (T'Lyn), still not in the opening credits, she steals the show? The slight twitch around the line of the mouth was like all-out merriment for a Vulcan!

**

Endgame (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Endgame) (2)

First, I have to apologise to 'Star Trek: Picard' - I was so sure Seven of Nine ended 'Voyager' with a smaller Borg implant above her eye and ridiculed them for not staying true to that, and then I finally get around to the end of the series again and find she has just the same large implant as the rest of the series! I must have been confusing 'Human Error,' in which we see her without implants on the Holodeck, and the operation the Doctor wants to do on her in 'Endgame' which will unspool her emotional side, as strong and visual evidence Seven was adjusting to become more human, but there isn't a visual change and I wasn't even sure the Doc had had time to perform the op - my other complaints about the 'Picard' version of Seven still stand, so I'm not about to recant and come around to the awful choices they made with her, and I will say I found her to be at her most pleasant in this episode. But enough about Seven, it isn't really about her, other than her future death acting as a catalyst for the most grievous temporal violations from a regular temporal violator. Just as she used to wryly observe the 'TOS' era would all be kicked out of Starfleet in her day for their cowboy diplomacy, I can imagine a new generation saying the same thing about her for all her failures to abide by the Temporal Prime Directive. Or did that even exist at this point, I don't remember? Either way she'd be very harshly criticised for all the incursions and alterations, and I would too if there was potential for me not to exist based on a decision she made (except those 'unborn' voices would never get a chance to accuse).

If it isn't a Seven story then it has to be a Janeway story, and here we get two for the price of one: Admiral Janeway come from the future to make sure every member of her crew makes it back to the Alpha Quadrant. Except she seems to have forgotten that risk is part of life, no one can know what the future holds, that's entirely the point - the best line came from Chakotay when he states not even an Admiral from the future can guarantee what's going to happen tomorrow, and therein lies a critical flaw with the story. A Janeway that has forgotten what she was there for, lost sight of the bigger picture and the reality of life being death and loss, and typically stubborn Janeway, refusing to accept any defeat. At least there was some kind of backlash against her with Captain Janeway and the crew acknowledging it was the journey that was most important, not the destination, an uncharacteristically wise speech from Harry saying it best. And that Janeway's decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant in the first place was not the wrong one, she did what was right which often carries a sacrifice making it even harder, but no less right. But Trek is supposed to be optimistic so of course it had to end happily in spite of the nefarious ways in which they got themselves there.

I do feel quite conflicted in a lot of ways about this as a finale. You can clearly see they were trying to duplicate the weight of the time-based story of 'All Good Things...' in which we jumped between different points of 'TNG,' its beginning, its current end, and the future beyond, only not to be quite so direct about it we only have the future beyond. That in itself was good to see as it reminds us of time and the passing of such, that bittersweetness of living out life, but also knowing everything ends, the changes, the heartaches, the losses, so it was fertile ground for a Trek finale to explore, even if it doesn't do it as effectively as 'TNG' did. They also had to bring in the Borg, and specifically the Borg Queen one last time as being the closest they had to a recurring villain, one of the disadvantages of the series being that they were always moving on, making it very tricky to be able to deal with the same people for long. We see the heart of the Borg's power with one of their Transwarp Hubs, something which enables them to travel anywhere in the Galaxy within minutes - it strikes me as a rather big plot hole that they haven't showed up at Earth to assimilate it again. Or Qo'noS. Or Vulcan. Or... you get the idea. When trying to work with big ideas you're more likely to slip up, and I don't recall any excuse for why the Borg don't just sweep the entire galaxy away (as they did in an alternate universe in 'Parallels').

It was a nice touch to have Alice Krige back as the originator of the Queen, even if the setting has none of the scale or menace of the past and in fact I found all the Borg stuff to be rather small fry, other than the actual Hub itself. I'm not sure we even saw any Borg drones with the Queen. It's a nice callback, but she's hardly Dukat to Janeway's Sisko, simply a confounded enemy who is quite petty. Another nice touch was in keeping with the future uniforms seen in 'All Good Things...' and the combadge, the latter of which would be the only part of the setup to make it to the 'actual' future as seen in 'Picard.' That's the thing, we've now gone beyond all this time period, even in the future and although we know here that the future will be changed, it's still a lessening of the impact the future scenes have when seeing them now. But with Trek seemingly about to come to an end (and not before time, many would cry), with only the dribs and drabs of a couple of poor series' to come, it seems the right time to be reaching the end of one of the great and classic series', the first I watched from the very beginning to the very end, and which will always hold a special place in my affections.

Seeing it end now is a very different feeling, the abruptness of the success at the very end was always galling, but back then there was still some hope they might continue into films when 'TNG' had had its fill, but of course it wasn't allowed that, 'Voyager' never given its dues. We've since had 'Prodigy' as an animated follow-up that brought back a few characters (and across all the modern Treks the only characters not to be reprised were B'Elanna and Neelix, so that's pretty good going when you think how few 'DS9' and 'Enterprise' cast-members were allowed to return), but none of the cameos or other can give us the satisfying conclusion the series needed. And I do like this episode - the technical qualities are there to see with the two Janeways acting off each other superbly, the beauty of the Hub, the pleasure to notice little details like future Reg Barclay being so much more assured, only reverting to his nervous tics under pressure. Old Janeway showing her mettle with the Klingons is one of my favourite things - we get to see Tom and B'Elanna's daughter, Miral Paris, setting things up for Janeway with the dishonourable Korath, protective of her commander, but when it comes to it Janeway goes in alone and doesn't need her 'protection.' If anything, I wished there was more of that side of things, Korath an atypical member of the race, an inventor, but one Janeway easily bests, and not through violence, but guile.

Something the episode does well is the personal: Janeway and Janeway, Tom and B'Elanna, Harry coming to the realisation he's already lost his best mate to marriage and Fatherhood even before the baby's born - that was one of the strongest parts of the episode, Tom's vehement belief that he's already home, Voyager is their home and he's not going to be doing anything to jeopardise it, himself or his family. Chakotay and Seven is a bit strange if we didn't already know Seven had been trying holo-Chakotay on for size recently. It does almost come out of nowhere, but that's another aping of the end of 'TNG' with its Worf and Deanna direction. I'm not sure the poignancy quite works as well for me now, there isn't much of it and the episode barrels along without as much of that necessary closing out of these people and the place they'd inhabited for so long. And of course it would have been so much more affecting if we could have seen them reach home, their families, set foot on Earth, the strangeness of leaving the confines of Voyager for good - they'd been off the ship many times, but always to return before long, it would be a huge wrench to suddenly find complete freedom again.

I've never been a fan of the future technology being used (though on this occasion I noted how the crew were doing all the work out on the hull themselves because there are no drones or robot assistants in this universe, unlike what was portrayed in modern Trek), and it seems all too easy they can have this physical shield come up around the ship, or blast Borg Cubes into oblivion with single Torpedoes. It was all a little easy. Which contrasts with the toughness of the future scenes, whether it be Janeway dealing with the Klingons (good use of the cave set once more!), to her mourning of Tuvok in his presence as his degenerative disorder has taken hold (she leaves him a cast photo as a parting gift - how thoughtful!). But it was clearly wrong what she did, as heroic as it was. At the same time there were unlikely to be any ramifications for the writers to deal with since the next series, they knew, was going to be in the past, and the 'TNG' films could stand alone (and as it happened would get only one more outing), so I can see why they did it. I can imagine that Kim speech closing out the episode if they hadn't forced the trip home and that the point was they were still out there. That would have been the more 'romantic' route to take and left the possibility open for further adventures in the future, and perhaps even the return home as a big draw for a film. I don't really know what was the right way to go, it's so long past that the end of the series has little relevance in Trek for good or ill, we haven't explored the ramifications because Trek has never fully returned to the science fiction, science-based, thoughtful, canonically sound world it had been.

Melodrama, comic book unreality, fantasy and emotion are what makes Trek these days, and you can see some of the seeds of what was to come even as far back as 'Voyager.' I think for me, the entirety of Trek has become less engaging in general. Partly for no longer being in want: either for new Trek or the ability to see any episode or film any time. It's lost its specialness. Part of that is ageing, but the far larger part is the poor directions and major flaws of what it became, so different to what I grew up with and that accompanied me on the journey, to the extent that even writing reviews has lost a lot of its joy. I no longer need to get out my thoughts on Trek because it's becoming increasingly less important - it still has importance, but it's as much about the nostalgia and sentiment, grabbing back to a time that is rapidly fading away, an unreal world and life where the joys of the past almost only exist in memory. That's quite sad, but I've really reviewed all the old Treks, and other than finishing 'Lower Decks,' have no interest in writing about modern Trek because it's too dreary, uninteresting and irrelevant to me. These last two seasons of 'Voyager' were actually my second run through at reviews since I started with them and felt I needed to expand on the shorter reviews I made in those days.

But I digress... Before I go, I do want to mention a few things: Neelix gets a small scene playing Kadis-Kot with Seven, a nice touch, and the same for Icheb with Tuvok and Harry, unaccountably beating the Vulcan and Kal-Toh (all futuristic games must begin with a 'K'!). Voyager's status as a museum would be borne out in 'LD.' Chell has volunteered to take over from Neelix as master of the Mess Hall, and it's a shame we never saw that as I imagine he'd have been a bit Neelix-like (only much more sensitive towards the crew's dislike of his dishes, I imagine). The Majel Barrett computer voice was still being used in Admiral Janeway's time, at least in this alternate timeline - in that same time the Doctor decided on 'Joe' as a name, but how could a computer man marry a flesh and blood living being? They throw in all kinds of issues like this knowing they'll never have to examine the workings of them, so it's a bit of a cheat. It's claimed Chakotay was never the same after the death of his wife, Seven, but that doesn't ring true for his character who was always so philosophical and capable of adapting to any situation, as seen by how quickly he bowed to Janeway's authority as Captain, or in 'Resolutions' he was much more ready to settle on a planet and make the best of it. The Doctor suggests Seven is running more simulations with holo-Chakotay, which still strikes me as wrong (even though we know the whole crew apparently has holographic templates in the ship's database according to the previous episode!), and I'm really not keen on the Admiral's micro SD in the brain so she can connect with a neural interface. Harry made it to Captain to shut up all the complainers he was still an Ensign (even then he was worried about being busted back down to that rank!). And Tuvok quotes Spock's needs of the many, but for me it was more special to have the symmetry of a scene with his Captain in her Ready Room, like the pilot.

They close out, typically, with some old faces on board, with Vaughn Armstrong in his eighth Trek role (and fourth on 'Voyager,' soon to become a recurring face on 'Enterprise' - it's truly unbelievable that not one single modern production has used him!), as Korath. Richard Herd (also known as a Klingon on 'TNG'), returned for his fourth appearance as Admiral Paris and his final Trek role (he died in 2020). Manu Intiraymi in his eleventh and final appearance as Icheb. Alice Krige as her second and last live-action appearance as the Borg Queen. And Dwight Schultz as his twelfth time playing Reg Barclay, the sixth on 'Voyager.' As I mentioned before, it was the last time Roxann Dawson played B'Elanna Torres and Ethan Phillips played Neelix. But how would I rank 'Endgame' with the other series finales? 'DS9' would still be king, 'TNG' second. I don't know, but I think I prefer 'Enterprise' to this one now, I'd have to watch again. I've since seen a further three Trek series end (four if you count 'Prodigy,' but that was cancelled), though none of those are even in the conversation! I felt generous with my former rating for 'Endgame,' so had to mark it down, but it also marks a definite end to childhood and transition to the next stage, so for all its flaws, easier to see with the passing of time, I still retain a fondness for it and the time in life it stands for, and the series as a whole remains my second best after 'DS9,' something that will never change.

***

No News Is Something News - The State of Star Trek

No News Is Something News - The State of Star Trek

Hearing nothing about the future of Trek beyond the limping out of the final seasons of 'Strange New Worlds' and 'Starfleet Academy' is bad news in the sense that it's sad news - no more Trek for the foreseeable future in a world where everything keeps being redone over and over? But it's good news for the fact that Trek has been done so badly for so long that we're at the stage where it's a relief not to have to watch any more of it. At one time I would have still held hope that the next iteration created by a different generation might recapture the essence and qualities so long lost, but now I don't even have that slight optimism, and in all likelihood when they do bring back the Trek name it'll be even worse: you like the fact that they brought back so many past Trek actors returning to their characters (even though there was a whole list of bizarre choices like the Punk on the bus, the outrageous Okona, or Shelby... okay, the last one I mention for being a poor way to finish out a character), well in the 4th generation it'll be all gender rebootings and recastings to better balance the ethnic mix of the world. You like canon (even though it's been broken, stomped underfoot and maybe even spat on), well it'll all be 'free' from canon, unrestrained and unconstrained, and if you think 'but they can't ever entirely get away from canon since everything they do becomes canon and they have to stick to their own internal logic and consistency even if it conflicts with past Trek's canon,' I would just refer you back to the 3rd generation of Trek (2009-2027: 'Star Trek XI'-'Academy'), in which they didn't even seem to regard their own details as important to stick to!

As you can see, I view the state of 'Star Trek' as not good, to put it lightly. Since last year's examination of its state I've finished two more series' and got up to date on another: 'Discovery' Season 5 was the usual stuff, the same old flaws, the same contemporary dialogue and manner, the same empty, meaningless 'adventure' for the sake of it, with the same annoying characters. 'Lower Decks' was at least more of the reasonably entertaining, but not going to set the Trek world alight, fun, but streaming series' never seem to be made to 'bed in,' have time to become a staple of viewer's lives in the way the 2nd generation did (1987-2005: 'TNG'-'Enterprise'), when they were making 26-52 episodes a year, watching on a weekly basis as part of life, where now it's about cramming in as many different TV shows and films as possible, bingeing them to keep up with everyone else for fear of missing out. In that landscape Trek is just one tiny morsel of flavour devoured in the mad rush to get to the next thing before it's spoiled for you, and where does Trek fit in a world where people no longer make an appointment (whether that be on TV or a trip down to the video shop to get the latest VHS tape), to view, can just watch whenever they want and move on to the next empty production?

When I think of old Trek I tend to think about the homeliness of it all, Tuvok sitting at his accustomed seat in the Mess Hall, or Bashir and O'Brien playing darts at the back of Quark's bar, those bits between all the adventures that made the adventures more real, more a part of their everyday lives, and by extension, ours. Every modern Trek series has its equivalent bar or Mess Hall, but the characters are so barely developed as people and the time is so much taken up with wacky stuff that there's so little reality to modern Trek, even if it weren't trying so hard to be 'hip' or relevant. It's become a parody of itself - intentionally with 'LD,' that's the whole point, and if anything it's pulled back on that a touch to allow those characters a little more room for growth, successfully or not, but with 'SNW' it's a whole different thing: we need to bring in Scotty and Korby and Trelane and the Gorn and the Metrons and... endless rehashing, and not for the sake of being true to the history since they're so far gone from that they seem not to even try. But then it is subtly hinted it's all an alternate universe, even if they publicly appear to claim it'll all marry up in the end.

I have no anticipation for how 'SNW' will end, presumably next year unless they're desperate to drag out the little new Trek content they have in the hopes people will still care for longer. The characters from the word go were not the characters from the 1st generation (hmmm, would that be 1966-1973, or 1966-1991, or 1965-1994...?: 'TOS'-?), but completely overhauled modern people that have no connection with the mythical 23rd Century at all. They talk like us, they think like us, they act like us... even the Vulcans are barely Vulcan and it's a real travesty to see how badly such classic characters could be handled, or mishandled. Not to say I didn't enjoy any of Season 3, but not as Trek in the style of 'TOS,' merely as less dull 'SNW,' and after the low points of Season 2 it could be argued it would've been difficult to sink that low again (though they tried).

This is all before the absent film series even enters the mix: what happened? They've claimed a film here and a film there nonstop for years, I can't even remember what the latest imaginary film production was aiming to be or when it was supposed to be coming, but then TV Trek has become the same as film Trek pretty much always was: only interested in the melodrama and big, sweeping grandness of visuals and action rather than the steady learning and getting to know the people over twenty-odd episodes a season. And it really is noticeable if you do go back and watch the old stuff (especially the 2nd gen), as I've been coming to the end of 'Voyager' (again), and enjoying it.

I'd actually forgotten that it will be the 60th Anniversary of Trek in September - not so much forgotten as phasing in and out of memory like I'm stuck in the Nexus or something, the echo of me recalling that things weren't always this way. Now and again I see something with a 60th logo on it, but in the same way as at the 50th we were slightly lost in terms of the celebratory traction, only 'Beyond' there to mark anything at all, and the promise of a new series still a year away, in the inverse of the 40th when we'd just lost series Trek, but a film was on the way. It seems the 30th will be the only 'recent' anniversary to succeed at making it feel special (even the 35th in 2001 was sort of between houses, 'Voyager' having ended, 'Enterprise' just begun, but not in a position to do something special for the whole of Trek, as it were). So it's hard to believe this year we'll be as far away from the 30th as it was from the first broadcast of 'TOS,' many more actors have been lost, not to mention creatives behind the camera (but William Shatner still goes on!), and it all just goes to show how short human life is, the space of two 30-year chunks has mostly taken a man's lifetime.

Why am I meandering away from Trek itself to philosophical musings on time? Because there's not really much to say. Trek in 3rd gen hasn't quite come to a stop, but that was simply the size of the train whose brakes had been pulled, and I expect most people had abandoned ship long ago as it grinds inexorably to a halt in the middle of nowhere, forgotten in the wilderness.

As I've taken to doing, I'll rank the 3rd gen seasons in merit order, with the caveat that after the first three they're all much of a muchness and mere guesswork to say where they stand (apart from the bottom three):

- Lower Decks S2
- Picard S3
- Lower Decks S3
- Lower Decks S4
- Lower Decks S5
- Lower Decks S1
- Picard S1
- DSC S4
- Prodigy S1
- DSC S5
- DSC S3
- SNW S1
- DSC S1
- Short Treks
- SNW 3
- DSC S2
- Prodigy S2
- SNW S2
- Picard S2
- very Short Treks

As expected, 'LD' S5 was in the upper tier since I do actually enjoy seeing most of those episodes and look forward to reviewing them soon, while 'DSC' S5 was about on the same level as S3, being quite unremarkable, but I liked the Vulcan woman Saru marries and I can't really think of anything else (other than Callum Keith Rennie failing to get anything to explore a very lightly established alien race from 'DS9,' a waste of talent and potential, and of course Tilly was back...). 'Prodigy' S2 never went anywhere for me. That leaves 'Academy' as a series I really don't want to watch, other than the shameless use of Jake Sisko to make me want to see that episode so I'll probably have to buy the season (even though I suspect Picardo will be wasted). Nothing really changes in my anticipation as new Trek is so unappealing, it's just about ticking it off the list rather than enjoying, hoping there'll be at least one episode a season I get something out of:

SNW S4: *
S31: -
SFA: *
next film: **
TNG Blu-ray: ****

Last year's anticipation was:

Lower Decks S5: ***
DSC S5: **
SNW S3: *
S31: -
SFA: *

I haven't touched on the business side of things with Paramount being under new management and a merger with Warner Bros. which will both have affected Trek's future, but whether for the good or bad, who knows? One thing's for sure, we're losing the Trek, and perhaps only a want of it is our only hope - failing that, forget all that's been made in the last twenty years and get stuck in on the old stuff! I got the 'TNG' Blu-ray collection for Christmas and it got me through Season 2 where I'd been languishing for literally years, every episode an undiscovered country thanks to the sharpness and detail on display. I'd certainly consider splashing out for 'Enterprise' on Blu-ray as it makes such a difference, and I now fully understand all those who've been bemoaning the lack of 'DS9' and 'Voyager' in such form. 'TNG' (and finishing up 'Voyager'), has by far been the highlight of my Trek viewing year and that's the way it's looking likely to be for the foreseeable future, maybe even forever!