Tales from The Trade! - Star Trek: Godshock

During a trip to Nashville back in 2023, I decided to stop by my old comic stomping grounds, The Great Escape, off of Charlette Ave. Even though my comic buying has gone down in the last couple years, I still try to make time for the hobby. Making time to read said comics is another thing altogether. Anyway, I was perusing some of the new stuff, and a recent Star Trek trade popped out to me. The hardcover had a few Trek characters, most notably, Captain Benjamin LaFayette Sisko. You know I had to get this, man!!!

At the end of 2022, IDW started to release a new Star Trek comic that featured a lot of notable characters from the franchise with Captain Sisko being the lead. It even has a sister series called Star Trek: Defiant which features a few other popular characters. Since Trek continuity is pretty busy these days, they had it take place a couple of years after the end of DS9 and before Star Trek: Nemesis. “Godshock” contains the first 6 issues of the series. It’s being written by Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing who I don’t know too much about. The artwork is being done by a few like Ramon Rosanas, Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, and Erik Tamayo. So, what happens when someone is killing “gods?”

 

Star Trek: Godshock

Writers: Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing

Artists: Ramon Rosanas, Oleg Chudakov, Joe Eisma, and Erik Tamayo

Colors: Lee Loughridge

Letters: Clayton Cowles

 

TV Talk - Star Trek: Picard

Well, it’s come to this. I never knew that a revival of this would ever come. So, I’ll start the beginning. Digimon --- wait. I’ll save my talk for the franchise that is better than Pokemon (you know it’s true!!) later.

I’ve been sitting on this one for quite a while now. Heck, it took me a while to see all 10 episodes. So, I might as well start at the beginning. Star Trek as a franchise has seen a bit of a resurgence thanks to CBS All Access. While it may not be perfect, Star Trek: Discovery has been a success in my eyes. Heck, we’re getting more of Anson Mount’s Captain Pike, so you know things are looking up a bit. Of course, there’s that Section 31 show that may or may not come. Then, there’s tonight’s pick about that old French/British bald guy, Jean-Luc Picard.

Star Trek: Picard was one of the ideas that Alex Kurtzman had for CBS All Access. All  they needed was Patrick Stewart, who at the time was pretty much done with Trek, to come back. It took some a lot of work and the right story, but Stewart eventually said “I’m back.” Michael Chabon, a novelist, also came on as writer and producer. The show stayed in production for a couple of years until it was released on January 23^rd, 2020. It’s the first official show or movie that takes place after Star Trek: Nemesis. Yeah, the 2009 Star Trek movie had the destruction of the Romulan homeworld, but this was the first time we’d be seeing more of the Prime Timeline.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Schisms aka "Alien Abductions Galore!"

Well, it’s Star Wars day, and I’m talking about a TNG episode… yeah, I’m that guy. Honestly, I would’ve done a post on the 7th season on Clone Wars (it just ended today), but I’ll wait on that. I might as well start off Sci-fi Month with my favorite sci-fi franchise. Tonight, it’s Star Trek’s version of an alien abduction episode… yeah, Trek’s done those, but this is a little different. It’s from the sixth season of the show.

The episode starts off with life on the Enterprise-D drumming along. Riker’s a bit restless, and it doesn’t help that Data has decided to host a poetry session in 10-Forward. “Ode to Spot” is definitely a classic. Also, Geordi is also making modifications to the sensor array. Things start to feel off on the ship when other members start to feel restless and a little paranoid. Riker, Geordi, Worf, and others feel like something’s off. Even Data’s been screwed with, and all this comes as they find a weird anomaly in Cargo Bay 4.

You know it's bad because Riker has issues when the hair is razzled.

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.

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Man of the People aka "Troi's Gettin' Old, Hot, Bothered, and Scratchy!"

Counselor Troi, did you throw on my old man makeup again? I must say that it at least looks better on you than I and that is not saying much!

Well, it’s time for another weird episode from the Star Trek franchise. I haven’t done many of these in a while.  You can only watch so many weird episodes of Trek. I’d rather watch the good ones. Anyway, today’s episode is from Season 6 of TNG. That was a fine season for the show but I can’t really say that about this episode. “Man of the People" was the third episode for the season and it involves Counselor Troi going through the gauntlet again. It tends to happen a lot with her.

The episode starts out with the Enterprise finding a transport being attacked. Apparently, they’re being attacked because a diplomat, Ramid Ves Alkar, is on board. They save the transport and save Alkar who’s with his really overprotective mother. Starfleet orders the Enterprise to take Alkar to his destination since he’s needed for an important peace negotiation. While he’s on board, Alkar takes a liking to Troi and his mother isn’t liking it one bit. The mother then suddenly passes away. Dr. Crusher wants to run an autopsy, but Alkar’s customs won’t allow that. He then gets with Troi to do some sort of funeral ceremony that involves weird stones.

After the ceremony, Troi starts to feel… turned on sexually. She makes advances at Alkar but he refuses her. This leads her to find some random Ensign. Riker finds out about this and is kind of weirded out. It even gets weirder when Troi starts to age rapidly, act unprofessional, and not wear her uniform. She even came on Riker at some point and scratched his neck badly. She tries to get with Alkar again but he refuses. When the Enterprise makes it to the planet and Alkar is preparing to leave, a really old Troi finds his party and tries to kill his female assistant in a jealous rage. Instead, she stabs Picard.

Is that the "Talk to the Hand" maneuver, Sensei Worf?

Weird Star Trek Episodes - Sub Rosa aka "The Ghost and Doctor Crusher"

Uh... I think we need an adult! Also, fetch Father McFluggal at the local shire!

Since another Star Wars movie is out this weekend, I thought it was time to go somewhere else. I barely talked about any Star Trek this year, so this seems like a nice time to do it. Unfortunately, it's this episode. This is from Season 7 of TNG, a nice but kind of mixed season. It's not bad but compared to the other previous seasons, it's a litle subpar. I've been listening to Mission Log, a Star Trek podcast, and they're currently going through it. They touched this episode recently, so I decided to do a rewatch of my own.

Random Thoughts On... Star Trek: New Frontier Books One through Four

Well, I’m to my last post for the Sci-Fi Month... and it’s June 1st. At least I have an excuse with the trip and my time at the Renaissance Festival. As usual, it’s been cool getting back to doing regular posts. There were a couple of things I couldn’t get to, though.  Since I’ve touched on all the current Trek shows and movies, I think my last post should look at a lesser known crew: the crew of the USS Excalibur.

Some time ago, I talked about the first book to Peter David’s Star Trek: New Frontier series. For those who don’t know, Peter David and John J. Ordver put together a concept about a crew that wasn’t tied to what was going on in the movies and TV. At that time, DS9 and Voyager were on. You also had the TNG movies. David took a few unused characters from TNG and mingled them in with new characters of his own. David has had written them in novel form and even comic book form. From what I can tell, it’s actually still continuing. The latest book (an eBook) was released in 2015.

I don’t remember where I first heard about the series. It may have been on Two True Freaks but I’m not sure. All I know is when I read the first book, I really got hooked into checking them all out. Unfortunately, I haven’t done much of that reading. I stopped after reading the fifth book in 2014… sorry, Pete. I did lose a little interest since I was trying to find them all. Since there’s already so much stuff to see and read, they got literally put in the closet to make for more book space. I want to get back on this horse eventually, so I just want to talk about the first four books in the series.

Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Captain's Table - Dujonian's Hoard

Well, it’s the end… or the beginning of the year and I’ve decided to finally talk about this novel. I don’t know exactly why I took so long with reading this one. I guess it’s because there’s so much out there to do… or it could be I’m lazy. It could also be the book itself but I’ll get to that down below.  For those who don’t remember, I started a look at this small anthology series called The Captain’s Table. It revolves around a weird bar that captains can only enter. Last time, it was Captain Kirk and Captain Sulu. Today, it’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s turn to spin a tale.

Dujonian’s Hoard is written by Michael Jan Friedman. Friedman is no stranger to Trek. Not only had he written some Trek novels, he also wrote comics for the franchise with DC back in the 90’s. I’ve talked about some of the stuff he’s written here. As for when Picard’s visit and story takes place, I can’t tell. No stardates are given. Since events about Season Seven are mentioned, it has to take place after the show and before Star Trek Generations. Either way, it really doesn’t matter too much since the Enterprise actually doesn’t play a role here.

Star Trek: The Captain’s Table – Dujonian’s Hoard

Author: Michael Jan Friedman

BRIEF BLURB: During a conference on Madigoor IV, Captain Picard and a friend visit The Captain’s Table. At the bar, Picard tells some of the patrons a story about a recent undercover mission he took to find a former officer who was looking for a treasure.

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?

Tales From the 50 Cent Bin! Star Trek: The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine Crossover

Well, it’s another May, so that means I get to talk about sci-fi stuff for a month... or maybe longer. First up is something I found some time ago. The Star Trek license has belonged to a lot of comic companies. The TOS and TNG licenses belonged to DC during most of the 80’s and 90’s. I’ve read only a couple of those. For some reason, Star Trek: DS9 got shipped to Malibu Comics. With both shows on at the time, a crossover of some sort was inevitable. It took me a while to find all four issues.

The crossover was split between the companies. DC did two issues and Malibu did two issues. The same creative team stuck on all four issues. Michael Jan Friedman and Mike W. Barr wrote and co-plotted all four issues. Gordon Purcell handles the pencils and Terry Pallot handles the inks for the whole mini. The colors and letters are split between the two companies. The crossover is supposed to take place in the early parts of DS9’s second season and TNG’s last season.

Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine crossover 
Writers/Co-plotters: Michael Jan Friedman and Mike W. Barr 
Pencils: Gordon Purcell 
Inks: Terry Pallot 
Colors: Rick Taylor (DC), Digital Chameleon (DC), Moose Baumann (Malibu), and Violent Hues with Janice Wismar (Malibu) 
Letters: Chris Elipoulos (DC), Bill Oakley (DC), and Patrick Owesley (Malibu) 
Editors: Mark Panicca and Margaret Clark 

Trek Novels - Star Trek: The Next Generation - Q-Squared

Since I just looked at a pretty sub-par Trek novel, I think it’s time to head back to the man known as Peter David. He probably does good Trek novels, right? I found today’s paperback novel a few years ago in a used book store in Columbia. It’s a small store but they pack a lot of books in there. I’ve gotten a few from there and I still go there sometimes to see what they have. The cover called out to me. I mean, it has Picard, Q, and the original “Flim-flam” man known as Trelane.

Q-Squared was released in 1994. I had known about Peter David as a comic writer, but I had not been introduced to his Trek writing until I read this book. As you can tell by the cover, it involves the TNG crew. I’m not sure on when this is supposed to take place. I know it has to take place after the episode “Parallels” (for some reason I want to call it “Parallax”) since the events of that episode is mentioned here. I know it doesn’t take place after the end of the show since some stuff doesn’t get mentioned. I’ll get to that later.

Star Trek: The Next Generation – Q-Squared

Writer: Peter David

BRIEF BLURB: Picard and the crew get a visit from Q and he has brought along Trelane to keep him out of trouble. Unfortunately, things go south with Trelane and the entire universe gets put in danger.