Star Trek New Voyages: 4×02 — “To Serve All My Days”
Plot: In this episode, the Enterprise whethers a ship full of ambassadors, critical damage to its shields and warp engines, and an unprovoked attack from a Klingon warship. Meanwhile, a blast of radiation activates a latent disease in Lt. Chekov, causing him to advance rapidly into old age.
Thoughts: Quality leaps forward in this second official episode. Much of the credit belongs to guest screenwriter D.C. Fontana and guest performer Walter Koenig as the aging Mr. Chekov.
It must also be said, however, that the special effects look fantastic. Incredibly, they appear to have been done twice. The episode as originally released has strong CG effects including space battles and scenes of the shuttlecraft manuevering through a debris field. The “special edition” of the episode, called “A Night in 1969, Special Edition,” has completely redone special effects, including what looks like shots constructed using physical starship models, and new design for the Babel conference center. The special edition also features replaced score elements (including the horrible Russian chorus that starts singing at Chekov’s death), and a tag scene explaining why Chekov remains alive in the film series and later installments fo Star Trek. (The notes with the special edition state that Chekov’s death scene was filmed at Walter Koenig’s request to bring closure to the character.) Why this exists must be a tribute to the insanity of fandom. Here’s a link: http://digitalnewage.com/dnapartners/stp2/default.asp?epi=TSAMD1969
Walter Koenig classes up the episode and proves he’s a strong actor and performer. His scenes do drag long, however–they needed either to have more active direction, judicious editorial trimming, or both. I’m willing to indulge some scenes of sitting around a table reminiscing about old TOS episodes, however, even if they would never make the cut on prime time TV.
Even the performances of the regular cast members seem elevated, which probably flows from having good writing and episode structure. It’s always easier to act in a clearly defined situation where you know exactly what your motivation is, and what you’re supposed to be doing.
It’s nice to see Kargh, the Klingon, again. We learned from the last episode that in the alternate timestream where planetkillers invaded the galaxy and destroyed Vulcan, Kargh was Kirk’s first officer. Here we see that while the Federation and Klingons have not had a reason to come together yet (that will occur in Star Trek VI), Kargh is still an honorable character. And the unresolved mystery about a traitor in the Federation may yet pay off in future installments. Good one! I rate this as “This could almost be canon.”
Not to be outdone, George Takei will guest star in the next Star Trek New Voyages episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hornvnjML88&list=PL5h4ur_aSq8N5yx46vUjnNbsaQ74kcBLV&index=5
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