{"id":5005,"date":"2014-08-20T05:04:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T05:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Star-Trek-Continues-E01-Pilgrim-of-Eternity"},"modified":"2014-08-20T05:04:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-20T05:04:21","slug":"star-trek-continues-e01-pilgrim-of-eternity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2014\/08\/20\/star-trek-continues-e01-pilgrim-of-eternity\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek Continues E01: “Pilgrim of Eternity”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

Star Trek Continues E01: “Pilgrim of Eternity”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This new-in-2013 Star Trek fan production follows in the footsteps of Star Trek: Phase II<\/em> by depicting the continuing adventures of NCC-1701, with recreations of Original Series sets, props, and costumes, and new actors cast in the roles of Kirk, Spock, and the rest. Kim Stinger reprises the role of Uhura she played in four episodes of Phase II<\/em>, and Vic Mignola, director of the Phase II<\/em> episode “Kitumba,” assumes the role of Captain Kirk. Mignola, a successful professional voice actor, also serves as a producer and director, and shared script writing duties on the first episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> While investigating unexplained power drains on Federation-owned automated refueling depots, the Enterprise<\/em> has a surprise encounter with an old adversary: the alien entity known to them as Apollo, who impersonated a God during ancient times as a visitor to Earth. Apollo attempted to enslave the crew of in TOS episode 2.2 — “Who Mourns for Adonais?” This Apollo (played by Michael Forest, reprising his TOS role 46 years later) has aged dramatically in the two years since the crew has last seen him, and appears to be depleted and near death. Apollo requests to be delivered to a human colony to live out his remaining days, but the crew mistrusts his intentions, not knowing how much power he has in reserve, or how he intends to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> This looks great and is a joy to watch. The producers reproduce more than just the sets of TOS, but attend closely to all the details, reproducing the lighting style, original series music cues, the structure and timing of act breaks, and even the cadence of the screenplay and actors’ performances. The episode even ends with a classic “laugh and reminisce” huddle around the Captain’s chair. Graded as a fan film, this gets an A++. It’s too good to be graded on a sliding scale, however, so I will just review it on its merits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Michael Forest’s Apollo seems shockingly vulnerable at the end of the teaser. That’s the theme of the episode, however–how vulnerable is he really? How much mercy can the crew afford give him?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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My favorite call back to “Who Mourns for Adonais?” is the fact that Scotty, played by Chris Doohan, is still pissed off at Apollo on Carolyn Palamas’ behalf. Chris acquits himself very well. Somewhere, Jimmy is smiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While Chris gives the stand out performance, all of the leads do well, even if the gentleman playing Sulu (Grant Imhara, of Mythbusters<\/em>) is a bit hammy. The actor who feels most false is Star Trek ubergeek Larry Nemecek, who may be the only non-professional actor of the bunch, as Dr. McCoy. There’s a scene in which he takes a patient’s pulse where I thought “that medical style is much too hands-on for McCoy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The new character of Starfleet’s first ship’s counselor, Dr. Elise McKennah, played by Michele Specht, is intriguing. Whatever you think about the sexual tension layered in between her character and the temporarily-shirtless Vic Mignogna, it struck me as being true to the source material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speaking of ship’s counselors, if you dig through the credits, you will find that Mirina Sirtis plays the voice of the ship’s computer (I recognized the voice, but couldn’t place it at first when I watched the episode). It’s appropriate that she is the heir to Majel Barrett, who always provided the voice of the computer while she was alive, since Barrett played the recurring role of Laxwana Troi, Sirtis’ character’s mother, in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I have some criticisms. I see the moral point the writers were going for when the crew “reasons” that Apollo must be capable of receiving fuel from sacrifice as well as worship–but it’s a big leap and they should have found a better way to justify this. The whole plot thread about McCoy conducting surgery to remove one of Apollo’s organs comes to nothing and could have been dropped.\u00a0More seriously, I don’t see how it squares with the Prime Directive to drop off an effectively immortal savior figure on a unsuspecting, comparatively primitive planet. This sounds like a profound level of interference to me. I would have dropped him on an advanced Federation world after distributing wide publicity about his history and powers, so that the inhabitants could make up their own minds about what risks to assume and keep him under appropriate surveillance. This would not have made him a pariah–I would think any number of Earth historians would be very interested in talking to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3.5 of 5 stars.<\/p>\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3G-ziTBAkbQ<\/a>