Weird Star Trek Episodes - Impulse aka "Twilight of the Dead(?)!"

Well, Halloween is upon us, and the usual “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has started. Let’s face it, “Look at Somewhat Scary Things” has been a thing this year if you look at the state of the world. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about what Lafreeze, the Orange Lantern is doing today. I wanted to find and look at some horror-themed Star Trek episodes. There aren’t many unfortunately. If I hadn’t talked about Enterprise’s “Resurrection” a few years back, that would be a contender. I then remembered that Star Trek tried to do zombies at some point, so I set out to watch that.

"Impulse" is the 5^th episode from Season 3 of Star Trek: Enterprise. This is where the show started to take a turn for the better with its season-long Xindi arc. At this point, Earth gets attacked by a new race called the Xindi. Starfleet sends the Enterprise into the Delphic Expanse, the region of space where the Xindi live. It also a region that has weird space anomalies, and this is something that the Vulcans have experienced. They lost a couple of ships in there and what they saw through ship logs was pretty disturbing.

Favorites - Favorite Star Trek Episodes Involving Time Travel

Well, this didn’t take long to put together. As I said in my last list, Star Trek made time travel into a fine art. All of the series (even Discovery) have conducted in some time travel. While most of the episodes tend to be good, some of them tend to be the best the franchise ever produced. Trek has pretty much run the gamut with these stories, so finding 15 of them would be hard to do. I was going to try and rank them, but that ain’t happening. I will put my favorite up top though. If I leave one off, just know that it’s just my opinion.

1. TNG’s “All Good Things…”

I might as well start the list off with one of the best last episodes ever. It’s also a good time travel episode. In the episode, Captain Picard is somehow being transported between the past, present, and future. While the past sequence should be familiar to fans of the first season, the future is something else. It is the future, after all. I won’t spoil anything here but he does find out who caused it and why it’s happening. It ties into someone he met during the first season. It’s truly one of the best.

2. Star Trek: DS9’s “Trials and Tribble-lations”

It’s the meeting of two crews, sort of. The episode takes place during the fifth season of the show. In it, Someone uses an orb of the Prophets to send The USS Defiant to the 23rd century during TOS’s “The Trouble With Tribbles.” In order to find out who is behind it and keep the timeline safe, the crew has to integrate itself into the crew of the 23rd century. They literally go all out on this. The scenes where the DS9 crew interacts with the TOS crew are pretty cool and still hold up now. It’s an episode that honors both eras of Trek.

3. Star Trek’s “City on the Edge of Forever”

This is considered to be one of the best episodes from franchise and it’s easy to see why. In the episode, the Enterprise finds the Guardian of Forever, a sentient time portal. When a crazed McCoy goes back in time and changes history, Kirk and Spock must go back and set things right. Things get a little complicated when they find out what they need to do, though. It’s an episode that has both Kirk and Spock at their best. It also has a nice but tragic romance. It’s definitely one of the best from the series and the franchise as a whole.

4. Star Trek: First Contact

This was the 8th movie from the franchise and the second one involving the TNG crew. In the movie, the Borg try to take over Earth by going back into the year 2063. The Enterprise-E follows them and does what it can to stop them. Not only does the crew have to stop the Borg, they need to help Earth achieve first contact with aliens. It’s part “Borg Shoot ‘Em Up” mixed with running into “great” men from history. It revamps the Borg in good ways and bad (The Borg Queen is okay). The crew itself and the folk from the past also make it a good watch.

25 Favorite Star Trek Characters

Now that I’ve gone through my favorite antagonists of Star Trek, it’s finally time to quickly talk about some of my favorite characters from the franchise. I’m sort of going all out on this one. I decided 25 was a nice number considering we’re in Star Trek’s 50^th anniversary. Of course, I’ll be listing my favorites from the main casts of all shows. I’ll also include some recurring characters that I thought were pretty cool. I won’t be including villains though. I already went through that.

25. Kes - Yes, Kes made it to the list. I did like her over some of the other characters on the show especially Neelix. I will say that her species kind of sucks in the evolutionary hierarchy. A 9-year life span? What’s up with that? Anyway, I liked her for a couple of reasons. She had a nice personality that made her easy to talk to anyone on the crew. I also liked that she had telepathic abilities and that she wasn’t always in control of them. It sucks that she got let go from the show. To me, her character had more potential on the show than a couple others.

24. Deanna Troi - Yeah, I got her on the list too. Even though Counsoler Troi’s role on the Enterprise-D was a little useless at times, I did like her. There were some episodes that revolved around her that I thought were nice. The one where she was surgically altered to be a Romulan (“Face of the Enemy”) was pretty cool. I also liked her rapport and relationship with Will Riker.

23. Jonathan Archer - While Archer was my least favorite captain, he did have some moments to shine for me. By the way, Archer was captain the NX-01 Enterprise. Most of those moments were in the third season during the Xindi arc. He also had some standout moments during the fourth season. Besides, it’s Dr. Sam Beckett in the role. That’ll automatically get me to like the guy somewhat!

22. Martok - Martok was a Klingon commander on DS9. While we got introduced to him in the fourth season, we didn’t get to really know him until the fifth season and afterwards. If there was a Klingon I would say was legitimately cool, it would be Martok. He even beats Worf in that aspect. He was probably also one of the more likable Klingons since he wasn’t too uptight in honor.

Favorite Star Trek Villains Part 2

Hey, all. Here is the rest of the list. As you can probably tell below, there's a reason I split this thing into two parts.

7. The Romulans

The Romulans have been major villains for the franchise since the beginning. They are descended from Vulcans who left the planet long ago to forge a different path. Instead of logic, their prime motive is maintaining their own set of order through any means. They definitely like to spark up trouble especially when it involves the Federation and its allies. Their technology is on even on par with Stafleet’s.

There have been some standout moments involving the Romulans. There was Kirk’s encounter with  a cloaked Romulan ship in “Balance of Terror.” We had the Romulans trying to interrupt the creation of the Federation on Star Trek: Enterprise. Then, there’s all the stuff they did on TNG with the Federation’s relationship with the Klingons. The most standout moment for the Romulans would have to be from the rebooted movies series where a group of them travels back in time and wreck some serious havoc on Starfleet and Vulcan. What Worf said about them is true: “They are without honor.”

Favorite Star Trek Villains Part 1

Next up on this Star Trek frenzy of mine is the topic of villains. With Trek, they tend to vary. You have some that are really good, you have some that are average, and then you have “hippies in space.” Guess what won’t be on this list, “brother!” Today’s list is going to center on 15 of my favorite villains from the franchise. I did something similar to this years ago and I actually included a couple of villains that’ll see today. You’ll probably see some of the regulars like Khan (not the Bennie Cumberbatch variety) and the Borg. You may also see some that don’t get mentioned on the top lists especially since most of those lists center on the movies. First, here are some honorable mentions:

• Garth of Izar – Yes, I kind of like this guy even though it’s literally being played to the nth degree of cheese. ‘Ole Garth was once a famous captain in Starfleet who was driven mad and sent to Elba II’s asylum for the criminally insane. He quarrelled with Kirk in the episode, "Whom Gods Destroy." While he’s not one of my favorites, I like him. I heard someone say that he’s basically a Batman villain from the 60’s TV show and I see it. What’s even funnier is that Batgirl (Yvonne Craig) is in the episode too! I would have rather had seen Cumberbatch play him than Khan as well.
• Soran – In Star Trek Generations, Soran was an El-Aurian scientist who wanted to go to a dimension called the Nexus aka “Red Ribbon in the Sky”. Unfortunately, he had to make a sun go nova and kill millions including the crashed Enterprise. Luckily, that dark future was erased because Picard decided to bring James T. Kirk (who then dies…) back from the Nexus at that exact moment and stop it even though he could have used the Nexus to take him to a better vantage point. Yeah, Generations wasn’t that good though it had its moments. Luckily, Malcolm McDowell was pretty good as Soran.
• T’Pring– That was one mean, logical…woman! T'Pring was Spock's arranged wife from "Amok Time." Unfortunately for "Hot and Bothered" Spock, T'Pring wanted to marry someone else. Now, I get she wanted to marry Ston instead of Spock. It was her right. What makes her a stone cold antagonist is that she picks Kirk to take Ston’s place in the… that battle which name I don’t remember. That’s cold-blooded in my dictionary!
• Shinzon – I know Star Trek: Nemesis gets a bad rep but I thought Shinzon was fine. It was cool that he was a clone of the Picard. Plus, the guy did some bad stuff like killing Romulan governing officials and ultimately killing Data (sort of). And that ship of his looked pretty cool. Too bad the movie couldn’t be that cool.
• The aliens from “Conspiracy”– During Seaosn 1 of TNG, these interesting aliens caused Picard and Starfleet quite a scare in a pretty entertaining episode. They had somehow taken control of the higher-ups at Starfleet and were making plans to take over more officers. They and their queen who had taken over an officer named Remmirick were eventually beaten but others like them were still out there waiting in another system. Unfortunately, they kept waiting since this episode was all we got of them. They were never brought back to the show and I heard that they were replaced by the Borg for being the Federation’s big threat.

And now, here's the first part of the list.

Love is in The Air... Sort of - Star Trek's Favorite/Least Favorite Relationships

When preparing my Latinum/Vole Awards posts, I came across one category: Romance in Star Trek. I mulled over it and really couldn’t make up my mind on what to say. So, guess what becomes its own separate post? Yes, Valentine’s Day is far from us, but love knows no season. Just imagine me saying that in a sultry, deep voice that brings the house down. While I’ll be listing five of my favorite romances from the franchise, I’ll also put five of my least favorite romances too.  I might as well balance it out with this one. Trek didn’t always do romance that great even when the couples were cool, so I‘ll mention that as well. They’re also not in any sort of order.

The Cardassian Vole Awards - Star Trek's Low Moments

Here on the Random Boat of Randomness, I try to look at the good stuff. Even when I talk about something that isn’t really good, there’s usually something in there that’s okay. Heck, I was able to find something good in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 and that mostly sucked. I even said the DVD would make a nice coaster. So, that’s where I’m going with the Vole Awards. For those who don’t know, voles are annoying ugly creatures from Cardassia that know how to muck up your standard space station. Gul Dukat must have left some over there when the Federation came to take over Terok Nor.

The things I’ll be looking at today are some of my least favorite aspects of the franchise. You’ll notice I didn’t say “worst” here. While some of these things are definitely bad, you may be able to find some good in them. There are things on here that I kind of like but they have aspects that I’m not really fond of. So, what will get a nice vole to put on their shelf at night? Find out below.

The Latinum Awards - The Best of Star Trek

Greetings to the first (and probably only) Latinum Awards. Since we’re in the franchise’s 50th year, I thought it was finally time to look at some of the good things it’s given us. After all, Star Trek has given us a lot of good things over the years. This is something that fans have probably debated for years on end and it’s time to throw my cards in on the subjects. I have 10 categories and I may have some surprises in there for y’all.  Yes, I did choose latinum for the award since it just looks good. Just don’t have any Ferengis around it or it might go missing. So, what will get a statue made of gold-pressed latinum for being pretty cool?

Favorites - My Random (though not perfect) Star Trek Crew

Since this is Star Trek’s 50 anniversary, it’s finally time to make this post. I have other posts planned for the next few months and this is one of them.

Over six shows, 13 movies (I’m counting Star Trek Beyond too), and a crapton of novels, we’ve been shown a lot of officers. We’ve had some good ones and a couple of okay ones. I doubt we’ve had any bad crew members unless you count Harry Kim. Personally, he’s alright but he’s definitely not on this list. Some have braved the vastness of space and have done some cool things. Others just did their job and they were good at that. I can say one thing about the many crews: they were at least good at their jobs. You can’t always say that in real life.

So, here is my ultimate Trek crew. I know that folk online have done this, so I’ll try to do my own spin on this. By the way, some of these may not be my favorite characters from the show. They may not even be the best at their certain job. I also wondered what team-ups or pairings would be interesting. I’m also not going to crowd it with just one crew. I could do that easily, but that wouldn’t be fair to the other shows. I do think each show has at least one character that would be on a list like this. So, if I was Admiral Williams of Starfleet (played by Tony Todd or Michael Dorn for cool reasons), who would I want to head a crew that’s heading into that final frontier we call space?

Trek Novels - Star Trek: Enterprise - The Good That Men Do

Say, remember Star Trek: Enterprise’s “These Are The Voyages…?” If you do, don’t fret and break out into hives. Here, have a Snickers. For those who don’t know, it was the last episode for the show. It was a really bad way to end the series, in my opinion. If you’re curious, don’t watch it and see what I had to say about it. If you want the short version, it unceremoniously killed off a cast member, treated the regular cast like extras, wasn’t well-written, and was just a bad grab at ratings. It may have one or two good qualities, but it’s definitely on the list of worst Trek episodes ever.

Thankfully, I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this episode. You can go almost anywhere online and see folk go off on this episode. Since the Star Trek franchise puts out these novels a lot, you know someone would have to tackle this thing. In 2007, Star Trek: Enterprise – The Good That Men Do was released.  It was written by Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin. Both writers have done their time with the franchise in novel form and in comic form as well. This was the second book in a line of relaunch books for the series. They even worked on books that were spinoffs to the TV show, Roswell.

Star Trek: Enterprise – The Good That Men Do

Writers: Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

BRIEF BLURB: In the early 25^th century, in series of Section 31 documents are released to the public. A couple of old friends peruse the documents which contain the true events of what happened to Commander Charles ‘Trip’ Tucker.

Favorites - Ten Favorite Prequels

Prequels tend to get a bad rep, don’t they? I guess I can’t blame folk for not liking prequels. There are some that are pretty bad. They tend to be of low quality and not capture what the original was all about. I guess I can say the same thing about reboots, but that’s a list for another time. Today, I’ll be talking about my ten favorite prequels. Why ten? Well, there aren't that many good ones out there.  I won’t be including reboots like Batman Begins and Casino Royale on here simply because they aren’t prequels. I’ve see some lists include them and that’s pretty annoying. Now, there are some I’ll include that are sort of reboots, but they are meant to be prequels.

10. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 

ToD is probably my least favorite of the Indiana Jones Foursome. It’s down there with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While it’s not my favorite, it has its moments. Of course, Harrison Ford rules any role he’s in. Short Pack was cool. It also had some nice quotes (“You betrayed Shiva!”)

9. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 

Yes, I know. It’s a general fact that the Star Wars prequels suck. Luckily, I’m not a general person. There were good things and bad things in those movies. ROTS was the best of the three prequels. It helped set up things in the original trilogy and isn’t a bad movie in of itself. It’s far from perfect but I do like it more than the other two prequels. I will say that the Clone War TV series (I’ll get to it later) did more to expand the universe than the prequels did.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Regeneration aka "An Obvious Ratings Grab Gone Right!"

Oh man... someone get the flamethrower or Kurt Russell. Either will get the job done.

So, Enterprise used the Borg for an episode… Let me say that again. The prequel to the whole franchise decided to bring in the Borg for an episode. You might be shocked at what I think about this episode. “Regeneration” takes place during the second season of Enterprise. That was a pretty sub-par season, so you know the producers needed something to increase the ratings. Jolene Blaylock’s hotness wasn’t cutting it, I guess. So let’s see what happens.

The show starts out on Earth in the Arctic. A Starfleet team finds the remains of the destroyed Borg sphere from Star Trek: First Contact. They also find a couple of drones. Guess what happens when they decide to thaw them out. The Borg assimilates the team and leave Earth in the team’s ship. Starfleet Command contacts the Enterprise and orders them to find the ship. They find the pretty modified Borg ship attacking another alien ship. The ship escapes, so the Enterprise tends to the other ship.

I'll say this about Reed. At least he has more sense than most folk when dealing with the Borg. 

 They teleport the survivors to Sickbay but they were assimilated beforehand and try to take over the ship. They also assimilate Phlox, who handles the situation as well as he can.  The crew is able to stop the assimilated survivors by reluctantly jettisoning them out into space. While Phlox desperately searches for a cure, Archer wonders if he can save the Starfleet team. Eventually, he realizes he can’t do anything for them when they find the ship again. Archer and Reed transport over to the ship in order to place charges while Phlox uses the cure he concocted up (yeah, I’ll get to that). In the end, the ship is destroyed and Phlox is cured. Still, the episode ends on an ominous note as T’Pol reveals that the ship sent out a subspace message to the Delta Quadrant.

While I jabbered on about it was a push for ratings, I really enjoyed this episode. The Borg is one of Trek’s best villains, so I liked that they were used here. It also ties in well with First Contact. It would make some sense that some of that Borg sphere would end up somewhere on Earth since the sphere was really close to Earth when it was destroyed. I also liked the obvious homage to The Thing at the beginning. The Borg was treated as a real threat especially since this is the 22nd century we’re dealing with. The Enterprise crew was also good here for the most part. I liked how Archer struggled to deal with an uncompromising enemy.

The continuity issues it brings up don’t really bother me. You could probably explain most of the issues away with something. What I’m not a big fan of is Phlox curing himself from assimilation. That was a little too much though you could explain that big continuity issue up as well. Other than that and the Borg’s inconsistent adapting, I thought this was a good action-packed episode. While it’s not the greatest episode in general, it’s definitely better than a lot of the episodes from season 2.

TV Talk - Star Trek: Enterprise

Don’t worry, folks. You’re not dreaming about me skipping my looks at DS9 and Voyager. I don’t know why, but something compelled me to re-watch Enterprise aka Star Trek: Enterprise from the beginning. Whatever the reason, I can safely say that it didn’t destroy me. That final episode was close to making me tear up a bit and it wasn’t because it was a crappy episode either. You can find my “essay” on how that finale sucked here.

I was there with the show from the beginning. I vaguely remember seeing the promo after Voyager’s finale aired. I pretty much watched most of the show through the first two seasons. I’d sometime miss it because of something band-related or something else was on. During the second season, UPN started acting weird.  For some reason, the station would go grainy and you couldn’t see a lot. You got to love cable. It was pretty much like that until the show ended.

I was in college during the final season and it was airing on Friday which is usually the final nail in the coffin for most shows. I did get to watch the season as well as the dreaded series finale. Then, it was gone for a while until the Sci-Fi Channel aired reruns of the show for some time. I think it was through some Enterprise (or TNG) episodes where I found out about the Internet reviewer, SFDebris. Let’s just say that he’s not a big fan of the show. When I got Netflix, this was one show I knew I was going to eventually revisit. It took a while, but I was able to go through all four seasons. What’s my verdict? Find out below:

Weird Star Trek Episodes - "These Are the Voyages..." aka "Wait, These Flippin' Idiots Did What? Part 2"

Okay, I'll admit that this scene was good. That's all this episode gets though.

So, I’ve finally finished Star Trek: Enterprise… or at least the final season. There were some season 2 episodes I skipped, so I guess I have to go back and see those to get a better picture. Yay, I guess. I thought I may take this time to talk about the much-criticized series finale. No, I’m not talking about “Terra Prime” which I consider to be the true last episode. I’m talking about “These Are The Voyages…” which I felt I had to watch again. So, “hold on to your butts” because this might take a while.

The whole episode basically revolves around Commander William Riker making a decision on following orders. Yes, this is Star Trek: Enterprise, but someone had the “bright” idea to get Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis to reprise their roles from TNG. The episode actually takes place during “The Pegasus”, a pretty good Season 7 episode. Riker uses the holedeck to pull up the NX-01’s final mission and get advice from the main crew. He plays as the unseen cook to get some advice from everyone. Even Counselor Troi takes a tour of the ship.

Jeffrey Combs... not even you can't save this episode.

For the crew, it’s been six years since “Terra Prime” and Capt. Archer is going to give a speech at the signing of the Federation Charter. They’re contacted by Shran, an Andorian and former ally. His daughter was kidnapped and he needs help to get her. The crew decides to help him out and save his daughter. Unfortunately, it comes at a price. The Enterprise gets boarded by the kidnappers and Comm. Tucker risks his life in order to save Archer. Even though Trip dies, Archer goes on to do his speech (WHICH WE DON’T EVEN SEE) and the episode ends with Riker ending the program. 

So… is there anything good about this episode? Nope. Peace, God Bless, and don’t forget to neuter your dogs or something.
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Ugh, I guess I have to say more than that.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Dear Doctor aka "Wait, You Flippin' Idiots Did What?"

Huh... I guess dude saw the ending as well.

Well, it’s time to enter the world known as Enterprise or Star Trek: Enterprise. Call it whatever you want. For the last few weeks, I’ve been going through the show on Netflix. I do have to say that it’s been a rough ride. I skipped one episode from Season One and quite a few from Season Two. At least Season Three has been been good so far. As of now, I’m almost halfway through the season. Today’s episode is from Season One and it’s called “Dear Doctor.” It’s an episode that… well, kind of perplexes me.

The whole episode revolves around the Denobulan doctor known as Phlox. He’s part of an exchange program and he was called to serve on the Enterprise because of his expertise. Some of the episode has him deal with being around humans and getting used to their customs. He also has someone who is pretty interested in him. The main drive of the episode comes when the Enterprise finds a downed pre-warp ship in space. They find survivors (the Valakians) and it turns out that they left their planet in order to find a cure for a planet-wide plague. The Enterprise takes the survivors back to their planet. The crew does what it can in trying to help them find a cure to the disease.

Phlox: Crewman Cutler, I've found a weird message here. It says "Are you interested in me? Check Yes or No." What does it mean?

Crewman Cutler: Uh... it must be a weird custom from the Menks. Yes, that's it! Excuse me...

It turns out the Valakians have another primitive species on the planet called the Menks. The Menks may be primitive but the crew finds that they have the ability to learn fast. They’ve also been treated poorly by the Valakians. It’s revealed that they haven’t gotten the plague, so Phlox checks them out to see if he can find a cure. Towards the end of the episode, Phlox finds out that the plague is actually a genetic disease and it’s killed the Valakians’ gene pool so that they’ll be extinct in 200 years. Phlox has made a cure but he thinks it would be wrong to cure the Valakians since it would hinder the Menks’ growth. Captain Archer doesn’t agree with it, but he eventually decides to defer to the doctor this time. The episode ends with the Enterprise giving the Valakians some medicine to ease the pain of the disease and more or less dooming an entire planet to an illness that could be cured… Well, they did!

The episode is pretty decent for the most part. It’s a “Prime Directive” episode and those are usually decent. It also serves as a Phlox episode which is nice. Barring the last few minutes of the episode, he’s actually one of the more interesting characters on the show. He’s definitely more interesting than Mayweather (sorry, bro) and a couple of others in the first season. I also like his scenes with his “crush” which were kinda funny. The stuff involving Archer and whether he should give the Valakians warp technology was fine and actually made sense other than the “other” plot involving the cure.

Then, there’s the whole issue about the cure. On the one hand, I can understand why Phlox didn’t want to use the cure. In his mind, the Valakians had to go in order for the Menks to thrive. I don’t like it, but I understand it. On the other hand, it just feels wrong. So, you’re going to leave them to die because evolution says so? What about that whole Hippocratic Oath you supposedly live by? The whole planet is suffering from this illness and I kinda think that this situation does fit with that oath. What’s even weirder is that Archer agrees to it albeit reluctantly. Also, you'd think he would have found another way to help both species without dooming one for the other. He doesn't know what'll happen in 200 years let alone three minutes!

Counter this with Archer’s decision to give warp specs to the Valakians. Archer doesn’t give it to them mostly because dealing with that technology is dangerous. There’s also the fact that they really don’t have the resources to teach them about it. It’d be like giving a kid a loaded weapon without teaching him how to use it. That was a decision that actually made sense. The decision with the cure made no sense to me at all. It made a decent episode smell pretty rank. I heard there were some editorial changes made by UPN with the ending, so that’s probably why it feels so “bleh.”

Hmm... I count three cavities, a busted molar, and some messed up gingivitus! What is Vulcan dentistry like?

Overall, it’s a decent episode with a crappy ending. I see why SFDebris gave it a 1 out of 10 but I wouldn’t go that far. It has its moments. The first season in general isn’t bad nor is it really good either. In fact, it has a lot in common with the other series since their first seasons were pretty subpar. Exclude TOS from that list since its first season was pretty good. Well, I’m outta here. Peace, God Bless, and don’t commit genocide anytime soon. It’s just not nice.