I had my share of ups and downs in 2023 but the best of it won’t come together for me until 2024 so instead I’d like to talk about Star Trek.

Over the last year I have been putting all of Star Trek in order by stardate. It spans the dawn of time to roughly 4100 A.D. I’ve shared this Google Document a few times but it’s mostly been a personal hobby and obsession. 

I actually find it very hard to make Star Trek friends. When I bring up Star Trek most people react like I’m inviting them to my weird church. It also doesn’t help that I’ve recently moved to Portugal which is a wonderful place to live but is unequivocally a Star Wars country. The only two Trek fans I know here are the guy who works at my comic shop, Mundo Fantasma, in Porto and the, as yet unseen, owner of a Jeep parked in my neighborhood with the Starfleet symbol on its rear window.

I’d be lying if I said making this stardate document hasn’t taken up time and energy better spent in other ways. But there is a sort of meditation in the sorting and assigning of each piece of the puzzle to its rightful place in the timeline. 

It also makes me happy. I think it’s rare at 43 to discover something new that you love enough to become completely immersed in it. So while my Star Trek obsession can sometimes be embarrassing or distracting, I am grateful for it. 

I had actually only ever seen a few Star Trek episodes and films until 2020. During the confinement of the pandemic I was looking for a passive project to distract myself and it was then that I decided to watch every single Star Trek film and series in the order they were released (800 episodes and 13 films at the time). I hadn’t thought my interest would go beyond that marathon but after reading Una McCormack’s Autobiography of Mister Spock, I found myself drawn to the books and comics. 

Generally speaking, Star Trek canon is defined strictly by what appears on television and film, but it was hard to ignore the tremendous scope of storytelling that spans thousands of years with surprisingly very few conflics or redundancies of plot. 

Presently my timeline includes every episode, film, and novel though I’m still going through the comics, games, advertisements (Sulu for the Milwaukee Transit System; Final Frontier era bridge crew for UK’s National Power; etc), canonical social media, and ephemera (Kenner Give-A-Show projector, Universal Orlando Star Trek Experience, and the hilarious TNG VCR board game).

On my last visit to the U.S. I brought back almost 80 pounds of Star Trek novels in an attempt to own the entirety of Star Trek from year 0 until 2265 (when Kirk took command of the enterprise). On top of that haul were my cardboard cutouts of Kirk and Spock which caused some alarm at the airport when security thought they thought there was a body stuffed in my suitcase. 

80 pounds of Trek might sound expensive but most books can be found for less than $5. I’ve imposed a limit at 2265 until I complete all the reading and viewing until that point. To that end, I’ve begun posting written reviews at the bottom of my document, and spoken about them on my clumsy TikTok channel.

So other than my document, what else happened in Star Trek this year? Quite a bit…

PICARD: THE RETURN

Picard season 3 was a critical and ratings hit. Sadly, it was not for me.

A lot of people were celebrating the nostalgia. cameos and easter eggs, but those were the very things that I felt undermined it the most.

[SPOILERS]

My biggest criticisms of Picard season 3 go beyond its reliance on the past. I thought Data’s death in season 1 was actually one of the best and most poignant parts of an otherwise lopsided season. Resurrecting him here as a sort of copy-paste clone-collage of Data, his brother Lore, and his long deceased daughter Lal, was disrespectful to Data’s final wishes to die; something he felt made him truly human.

The trailers teased the return of Moriarty (from the episodes “Ship In A Bottle” and “Elementary Dear Data“) which turned out to be a red herring since he was just a crude interpretation of the sentient holographic Moriarty we came to know, who is still imprisoned (even after all Voyager’s Doctor did to speak out for holographic rights). 

The excitement of getting the gang back together was weakened by corny humor and clunky dialogue.

The villain, Vedic played excellently by Amanda Plummer, had a good backstory but was quickly and meaninglessly dispatched before the finale in favor of a predictable story about the Borg.

In the last episode when the TNG crew reunited on the bridge of the Enterprise D that Geordi has been conveniently restoring (even though, as many fans have pointed out, THE DEFIANT WAS RIGHT THERE!!!). 

Picard’s first and second seasons had their issues too but when season 3 mostly ignored their plot and characters it felt like those things were being sweept under the rug. Even Jeff Russo’s terrific opening credit theme was thrown out.

One of the best things about a story as vast as Star Trek is how it owns and recontextualizes its mistakes with creativity. Picard season 3 acted ashamed of the previous seasons and shoehorned in a Marvel style tease where Q is somehow still alive (after also dying dramatically in season 2). To say nothing of Picard’s own death in season 1 after which he was turned into an entirely synthetic being; a shocking development he barely acknowledges throughout the rest of the series. 

Lasty, there is Picard’s son Jack, whose entire characterization seems to be that he vaguely resembles a young Patrick Stewart. Beverley Crusher apparently hid this offspring from everyone for over 20 years which seems both cruel and completely out of character.

Having said all that, I can tell you that my opinion is the outlier. Most people loved it. There is even a petition to continue it’s story with a show called Star Trek: Legacy. If you loved it and want more, I really am happy for you.

There are probably holes to poke in my criticisms. I would welcome that discussion. Showrunner Terry Matalas might not however, since he blocked me and many others on Twitter for saying less than glowing things or, in my case, for liking critical Tweets by others. So to that I say, double dumbass on him. But I make a point of never entering a discussion where people are celebrating something I dislike just to add my dissent where it isn’t welcome. 

FANS

This seems like a good point to describe what I feel are the two polar extremities of the Star Trek fandom, or the worst of both worlds, if you like.

On one side there is a contingent of younger fans, often relentless “shippers” who insist on their shipping delusions as though they were a canonical certainty. This side of Trek fans are usually so fixated on their favorite character that they can’t see beyond a preferred imaginary headcanon. They will take a thing that isn’t so, and… make it so (sorry). Not that there’s anything wrong with shipping. We’re all entitled to our own ideas and interpretations. But on the far end of this extreme there is usually no real conversation to be had and I think they do a disservice to new fans who are just trying to figure out who’s who and what’s what. 

On the other, much worse, end of things are some older fans who rant and rave about how woke “nu Trek” has become. They persist in their own obstinate delusion that “real” Trek ended with Voyager’s finale. They troll just about any online discussion of Star Trek: Discovery and spew their dimwitted pronouncements.

Discovery has its problems but being “woke” isn’t one of them. Rather, Discovery’s inclusions and representation is more in line with Gene Roddenberry’s true vision of the future than any other Trek series before it.

The embarrassing P’takhs that rant against it are always gatekeeping and imposing their own margins of what is and isn’t “real” Trek. But real Star Trek fans know the answer is that it’s all real Trek, even the ones you don’t like, even the ones I don’t like.

STRANGE NEW WORLDS / LOWER DECKS

With its second season Strange New Worlds introduced Paul Wesley as a younger James T. Kirk who completely won me over after a lot of apprehension at Kirk’s inclusion so early in the series (SNW is set several years before the original series begins).

They reintroduced The Gorn who bring a much needed fearsome villain to the Star Trek universe after the Borg became neutered and redundant. With “Subspace Rhapsody,” they pulled off an impressive musical episode with some really catchy songs that somehow felt completely natural. Ethan Peck brought incredible nuance and insight into Spock’s character. 

The most incredible episode had to be “Those Old Scientists” which saw voice actors Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome playing real live versions of their animated counterparts from Star Trek: Lower Decks. This bonkers time travel plot could have been ridiculous but ended up being one of the best episodes of any Star Trek series.

Lower Decks finished its fourth season and is better than ever. Its ostensibly a comedy series but showrunner Mike McMahan knows how to strike the perfect balance of comedy, action and drama to make something unique but cohesive to all of Trek’s ideals and long running story.

Recommendation: If you’re enjoying Strange New Worlds, pick up the novel Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno. It gives a great account of Captain Pike’s life before and after his delivery to Talos IV.

THE PRODIGAL SON

Star Trek: Prodigy concluded the second half of its first season in December of 2022 but was summarily canceled and removed from Paramount+ in early 2023. For a while there wasn’t anywhere you could watch it at all, causing an uproar among  fans who rushed to show support in whatever way they could.

Luckily Neflix picked it up with season 1 being added on Christmas and season 2 coming in 2024. I’ve already been re-watching the first season on repeat.

Prodigy was presented as a kid’s show, but it truly is for everyone. In a lot of ways Prodigy is the perfect Star Trek entry point for all ages. It follows a crew of children ranging in age and species, working at a sort of mining penal colony planet who find a Starfleet ship and use it to make their escape.

The young protagonists know nothing about Starfleet so we are able to learn along with them as the lore becomes more and more understandable and clear. Prodigy introduces Star Trek to audiences young and old without condescending to its audience or diluting its subject matter. Instead it finds inventive and exciting ways to bring a new audience to Star Trek while expanding on the greater story for the rest of us.

Recommendation: Anyone streaming Prodigy season 1, you can supplement episodes 11-20 with the official log entries found HERE.

PARAMOUNT MINUS / SIMON & SCHUSTER / STAR TREK 4

Paramount+ advertised itself as, “The new home of Star Trek,” but for most of this year one of its best and new shows, Star Trek: Prodigy wasn’t available to watch and the 13 Star Trek movies continually vary in availability. 

Lower Decks season 3 received a manufacture-on-demand release for Blu-ray and DVD showing a worrisome lack of confidence.

The Paramount app itself is glitchy. 

Discovery got prematurely canceled at the completion of it’s fifth season.

Simon & Schuster, who publish all the Star Trek novels, have been sold to private equity firm KKR.

There hasn’t been a Kelvin Star Trek movie in 8 years and Paramount continues to drop that ball over and over despite all of its cast wishing to return. 

Now there’s rumors that Paramount has been considering a merger with Warner / Discovery, which could leave Star Trek in new and graceless hands.

All these reasons and more have Star Trek fans very worried for the  moment, but there are still some bright spots ahead…

Michelle Yeoh is returning for the new Section 31 movie. 

Strange New Worlds is in production for season 3 and remains a flagship program for Paramount+.

Prodigy’s second season hits Netflix in 2024.

We still have Discovery’s final season to look forward to on Paramount+.

A new Starfleet Academy series is in pre-production.

Nicholas Meyer, director of Wrath Of Khan and Undiscovered Country, is overseeing a new podcast audio drama about Khan’s exile on Ceti Alpha V.

THE HUMAN ADVENTURE IS JUST BEGINNING…

As we approach 2024 (and possibly the Bell Riots and Irish Unification?!) I ask myself what I would like to see in Trek going forward. 

I feel like one of the things that stalled the Kelvin films was the proposed, and to me, ill-advised Tarantino Star Trek film. I think they should assemble the Kelvin crew for a new trilogy of films made in quick succession with the idea being to end those films conclusively. Then they can create a series of Kelvin TNG era films. That ought to keep the nostalgia fires burning for Picard fans while allowing for the rest of Trek to evolve

The Ceti Alpha V series is encouraging news. I’d love to see more audio dramas like this. So far the only original work like this I know of is the Captain Sulu Adventures. 

I would be thrilled to see a trilogy of Michael Burnham films to follow Discovery’s final season.

Bring back the crew of Star Trek: Enterprise for a limited series. There was so much left on the table after their four season run and pitiful finale.

Use Enterprise’s Jolene Blalock as T’Pol in a future season of Strange New Worlds. Given Vulcans lifespans she would surely be alive around this time. Why not, since John Billingsly seems eager to bring back Dr. Phlox!

Publish The Teachings Of Surak so my favorite Star Trek prop can be real.

Lastly, I have two pitches for original Star Trek series:

A courtroom drama series set concurrently with Strange New Worlds focused on original series lawyer Samuel T. Cogley.

A Halt And Catch Fire style series about the creation of the first transporter featuring a young Dr. Emory Erickson.

IN CLOSING

If you’ve made it this far you are either a real Star Trek fan or someone who cares enough about me to listen to me ramble about my interests, obsessions, and fixations. In any case, I thank you and wish you a happy new year. Live long and prosper. 🖖🏻

Here are some Star Trek resources:

Memory Alpha is the best source of Star Trek canonical information.

Memory Beta is a source for non-canonical or off-screen Star Trek stories.

The brilliant, insightful and indispensable Lt.Com.Rae on TikTok

Weird Star Trek Merch on Instagram

Star Trek Minus Context on Twitter / X

Star Trek jewelry and accessories from Troublesome Girl Studios

Watch the entire Star Trek VCR Board Game

Watch the entire documentary Trekkies (highly recommended)

MY STAR TREK SERIES RANKING

1. The Original Series
2. Deep Space 9
3. The Next Generation
4. Prodigy
5. Voyager
6. Lower Decks
7. The Animated Series
8. Strange New Worlds
9. Discovery
10. Enterprise
11. Short Treks
12. Picard

MY STAR TREK FILMS RANKING

1. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
2. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
4. Star Trek: First Contact
5. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (2022 Director’s Cut)
6. Star Trek Beyond
7. Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
8. Star Trek (2009)
9. Star Trek: Generations
10. Star Trek: Insurrection
11. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
12. Star Trek Into Darkness
13. Star Trek: Nemesis

MY STAR TREK CAPTAINS RANKINGS

1. Janeway
2. Kirk
3. Sisko
4. Burnham
5. Picard
6. Freeman
7. Pike
8. Archer
9. Dal R’El (only because he’s new to it though)

The books in the feature photo shot span year 0-2265 but my comics and Blu-rays are not pictured.

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