TrekToday

For fans hoping to see William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy or other actors from the original series in Star Trek 2, it looks like you’re out of luck. Plus: the possible return of Captain Pike, and an Abrams Star Trek 2 progress report.

The word over at Showbiz 411, from a “source close to the next film,” claims that none or the original series actors would be returning for Star Trek 2.

However, a guest star from Star Trek XI may be returning. Blastr reports that a part has been written for Bruce Greenwood. “Spoiler alert,” Roberto Orci told TrekMovie readers. “We wrote a part for Greenwood. Let us hope he says ‘Yes!’”

Finally, J.J. Abrams gave a progress report on Star Trek 2 to MTV. “It’s a little early to be talking about Star Trek,” he said, but I will say that they wrote – the three writers, Damon, Bob and Alex – they wrote the most amazing script, and I’m thrilled to get a chance to direct it. It’s totally mine to screw up, so if you don’t like it, it’s completely on me.

“Our sets are almost done, so we’re going to go back and start shooting next month.”

Abrams also spoke about how the movie will be filmed. “We’re shooting on film, 2-D, and then we’ll do a good high-end conversion like the Harry Potter movie and all that,” he said. “Luckily, with our release date now we have the months needed to do it right because if you rush it, it never looks good.

“We were talking about [shooting in IMAX] and I would love to do it. IMAX is my favorite format; I’m a huge fan.”

You may have noticed some downtime in recent months, due to issues with our old web server. We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

We’re delighted to announce that TrekToday is now on a new server. Trek BBS has been successfully hosted there for a couple of weeks, and now TrekToday joins it. You should have a faster experience, with more reliability.

Look out for a fresh new look coming to TrekToday within the next few weeks.

The leader of the Ferengi, the Grand Nagus, visits the station to check up on Quark’s profits.

Plot Summary: While Quark is berating Rom for returning a lost purse without stealing the contents, a Ferengi named Krax approaches and introduces his father, Grand Nagus Zek. Quark scrambles to impress the Ferengi leader while fearing that the Nagus has arrived to buy the bar from Quark and make his own profits with it. Meanwhile, Sisko can’t convince Jake to accompany him to a festival on Bajor and is told by Miles O’Brien that Jake has been covering for Nog at school; he tries to talk to his son about differences between human and Ferengi values, but Jake is annoyed at the interference. That evening Quark serves the Nagus a grand dinner, but Zek is disgusted that Rom lets a woman teach his son, causing Rom to tell Nog to leave school for good. Zek assures Quark that he only wants to borrow the bar for one day to host a conference about Ferengi trade in the Gamma Quadrant, at which he makes the shocking announcement that he wishes to retire and make Quark the Grand Nagus in his stead. Quark soon discovers that many people want to kill him to take over the job and becomes even more fearful when Zek dies unexpectedly of what seems to be natural causes, though Odo is suspicious and wants a Starfleet autopsy. A Ferengi bomb nearly kills Quark but he refuses all Federation assistance, feeling it would be a show of weakness. When Rom asks to take over the bar to ease Quark’s burdens, Quark becomes suspicious of his brother and “bodyguard” and soon discovers that Rom and Krax have a plot to eject him into space instead of escorting him to a ship to the Gamma Quadrant. Odo rescues Quark with the help of Zek, who faked his own death to test Krax’s worthiness to succeed him – something Zek now knows Krax does not deserve. Quark, however, is impressed that Rom tried to murder him for profit and makes him assistant manager of the bar. And Sisko discovers that the reason Jake is often with Nog is that Jake is teaching the Ferengi to read.

Analysis: I was never a fan of the Ferengi on The Next Generation – they had prominent roles in several terrible episodes and they often seemed like vaguely anti-Semitic stereotypes coupled with a deep misogynistic streak – so for many years I was not happy to see them in large numbers on Deep Space Nine, even though I liked Quark, Rom, and Nog as individual characters. Knowing how Ferengi society will be turned on its head by the end of the series, however, and how much heroism we will witness from the ones most closely associated with DS9 (including Quark and Rom’s as-yet-unseen mother, Ishka), I can enjoy the Ferengi stories with a new appreciation, even this introduction to their stuffy patriarch who has much in common with many of the conceited elder male leaders of other societies we’ve seen in the Star Trek universe. The humor of this episode is mostly based on misunderstood intentions – Quark thinks Zek is his enemy with plans to take over his bar when in fact Zek thinks more highly of Quark than of Krax, Sisko thinks Jake is up to no good with Nog when in fact Jake is epitomizing the values of the Federation – but we don’t know most of the characters well enough yet to have a full sense of what they might or might not do. Yet again we’re faced with the odd situation of the leader of an entire culture visiting the station while Sisko, apparently, has better things to do – even plans to visit Bajor while Zek is holding his conference about infiltrating the Gamma Quadrant – so we’re not encouraged as viewers to take any of the dealings all that seriously.

I can’t really blame Sisko for being concerned that if Jake hangs out with Nog, he’ll become a greedy, unscrupulous, self-centered womanizer like every other Ferengi we’ve ever seen. Rom doesn’t quite fit that mold – he does think of the good of others, he’s initially willing to let his son be educated by a female – but he’s quick to bend to Quark’s wishes and later to Krax’s, so it’s hard to believe that he could represent any sort of hope for reform. Yet I can’t help wondering whether Jake’s breaking Rom’s rules for his son could be interpreted as interference in a more serious storyline. Sisko tries to talk to Jake about how he’ll meet people from backgrounds that make real friendship possible, but he doesn’t address the fact that even when aliens choose Starfleet values over those they grew up with, they often find themselves nearly alone among their species, like Spock and Worf and increasingly like Kira. Of course, that’s not a conversation or a concept that can be wrapped up in a single episode, and later on it becomes a prominent issue of the series, which is one of the things that makes DS9 so exceptional. But the haphazard blending of comic Ferengi storyline with the beginnings of Jake and Nog’s development here doesn’t suggest that the writers have any plans to cultivate such a rich and powerful theme.

Let’s face it: the writing in “The Nagus” is pretty mediocre. Come on, writers, how many fake alien deaths do you think you can get away with in a single season of a series? How much father-son bonding with heavy-handed parallels to other duos can an audience be expected to take? Is learning that the Ferengi leader is even more unscrupulous than Quark supposed to give us new appreciation for Quark’s restraint, or to think that maybe he’s a loser among his own people, which is why he’s so happy running a bar in what was essentially the middle of nowhere until the discovery of the wormhole made the place important? Are we really supposed to get a giggle out of Rom’s attempted murder of Quark and Quark’s surprising reaction, being impressed rather than furious? There just doesn’t seem to be a great deal of thought put into the storyline and the laughs are cheap, even if “Vulcans stole my homework” may be the best excuse of all time, and “No studying!” the best parental admonition concerning school. Okay, and the visual references to The Godfather and the casting of Wallace Shawn – the latter in particular being a choice that will do well for the series in subsequent seasons. And I got a tiny chill hearing Sisko’s offhand reference to wanting to visit Bajor’s “fire caverns” which I assume must be the Fire Caves where he will meet his fate with the Pah-wraiths. But the first season writers get no props for that; it’s one of the many threads picked up by the geniuses who scripted the show’s final seasons and wove everything together as though it had been planned all along.

Once again, this time in the role of Scrooge,  in a CD recording of A Christmas Carol,  Robert Picardo is playing a “cranky curmudgeon.”

A call from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Chase Masterson (Leeta), who took on the role of Mrs. Fezziwig, set the wheels in motion for the musical CD, based on 1970′s musical Scrooge.

Preparation for the role by Picardo began by watching Scrooge, which starred Albert Finney in the title role. “I’d never seen this musical adaptation of Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol,” said Picardo, “so I watched the DVD and found myself quite moved by Finney’s performance, made all the more impressive by the fact that he was only in his mid-thirties at the time.

“The Leslie Bricusse songs were great, and Scrooge’s transformation from isolated misanthrope (I Hate People) to redeemed man/giddy enthusiast (I Like Life) through his visions of Christmases past, present and ‘yet to come,’ was beautifully realized in song.

“I was particularly touched by his ballad of remorse ‘You. . . You,’ which Scrooge sings when he realizes he lost his one true love to his obsession for making money. The greatest acting challenge was ‘I’ll Begin Again,’ the impassioned pledge to change his life that Scrooge sings when he awakens in panic and dread from his terrible dreams. Watching Finney in that scene in the movie was heartbreaking. No one could improve on that, I thought. So…why try?”

It turns out that the original film soundtrack was never released on CD, but is only available on vinyl. “Here was an opportunity to bring this music to a new generation of listeners, and my only responsibility was to do my best to live up to that opportunity,” said Picardo. “And — let’s face it — I’ve had a certain amount of experience playing cranky curmudgeons, even a few non-holographic ones.”

Scrooge is available for download on iTunes and Amazon. The CD can be purchased at Buysoundtrax.com. The first one hundred CDs ordered will come with an extra booklet signed by Mr. Picardo.

Fans in the Big Apple in February will have the chance to see William Shatner appearing on Broadway in a one-man show.

The one-man show is called Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It and it will run for several weeks at the Music Box Theater in February.

Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It is based on years of Q&As done by Shatner for his various books including Star Trek Memories, Up Till Now: The Autobiography, Get a Life! and Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large.

Room for Shatner’s performance opened up courtesy of an early closing of Private Lives, starring another Star Trek veteran, Kim Cattrall (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country). Private Lives was a casualty of slow ticket sales.

After the Broadway run, Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It will begin a fifteen-week national tour.

For fans of the music from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the complete Leonard Rosenman score to the movie has just been released.

The CD is seventy-one minutes long, and includes twenty-four tracks, including bonus tracks.

“For this release, Intrada worked from the original session masters housed at Paramount, reassembling the complete score in film order. This presentation also includes numerous bonus tracks, including alternates and the song I Hate You. A stand-out is an alternate version of the Main Title. Rosenman created this stately arrangement of Alexander Courage‘s classic Star Trek theme to accompany the first part of the opening credits, which appear against a background of deep space.

“Rosenman’s Star Trek IV music bears the hallmarks of the composer’s distinctive style: vaulting brass figures, complex textural passages, thumping suspense motives. The main theme–and also Kirk’s theme–is upbeat, heraldic and heroic, its optimistic flavor cutting a different path than the other scores in the series.”

The track list can be seen here, and samples may be heard at Intrada, where the CD may be purchased for $19.99.

In March 2012, there will be four Star Trek comics issued by IDW Publishing.

The comics include: Star Trek #7, Star Trek 100-Page Spectacular 2012, Star Trek Vol. 1, and Star Trek/Legion of SuperHeroes #6.

In Star Trek #7, a “major element of the plot centers on the Vulcans, some of whom are just trying to survive in the wake of their homeworld’s destruction. Others, of course, pursue what they consider the only logical response to the Romulan aggression – revenge.”

Set in the Abrams’ Trek-verse, Star Trek #7 was written by Mike Johnson, with art by Joe Corroney and cover art by Tim Bradstreet. The thirty-two page issue will sell for $3.99.

The Star Trek 100-Page Spectacular 2012 will feature several classic Star Trek comic book stories, including one with a “mischievous alien wreaking havoc, and a heroic-yet-tragic captain.”

Writers for this issue include Scott and David Tipton, and Stuart Moore. Artwork was created by Elena Casagrande and J.K. Woodward, with cover art by Joe Corroney. The one hundred page issue will cost $7.99.

In Star Trek Vol. 1, several Abrams-verse stories are “re-imagined” original series episodes as seen “through the filter of the alternative timeline.”

Written by Mike Johnson, Star Trek Vol. 1 features art by Stephen Molnar and cover art by Tim Bradstreet. The 104 page issue will cost $17.99.

Finally, Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #6 will conclude the IDW/DC Comics crossover collaboration. In this issue, “Kirk and his crew and Cosmic Boy and the rest of his Legionnaires play out the quest to restore their respective histories. However, with one half of their teams held prisoner in the future and the other half stuck in the past, it may be too late.”

Written by Chris Roberson, Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes #6 features art by Jeffrey and Philip Moy, with covers by Phil Jimenez and Jeffrey Moy. A variant cover features artwork by J.K. Woodward.

Fans of the Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes comic series will want to head to the stores, as the third issue in the series releases today.

This issue of the Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes series is written by Chris Robertson, with art by Jeffrey and Philip Moy, with covers by Phil Jimenez and Mike Grell.

In Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes #3, “Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship: Enterprise have come face to face with Cosmic Boy and the other members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and each team assumes that the other is responsible for the change in the timeline that landed them in this strange world. But will they find common ground in time to defend themselves from an attack by an elite group of imperial enforcers, some of whom are very familiar to the two teams?”

Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes #3 is thirty-two pages in length and sells for $3.99. Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge the photos. More pages can be found at the referring site.

Doug Drexler recently shared what he enjoyed most during his time working on Star Trek shows.

For Drexler, the thing that stands out most was the friends that he made over the years. “These people are still my friends, and I still work with many of them, too,” he said. Those friends included Mike and Denise Okuda. “I owe [Mike] much for [taking a chance on me], but the friendship that we have, it’s something you can’t put any price on.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation was the most fun time for Drexler. “I’ve been in this business for thirty-two years, and I’ve never seen anything like the cast on TNG,” he said. “You read about shows where they say it’s a big family and then you find out they really hated each other. Not on TNG. It was a genuine family and everyone had a ball. It was sheer fun, no matter how late you worked. Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes, the guys were wacky and totally loony. They didn’t take anything seriously until the camera was rolling. Honestly, I don’t think I ever saw a normal rehearsal. Every rehearsal had somebody trying to crack somebody else up. But once they called action, they were right on the money. If I could go back to a time, it would probably be to that show.”

After Star Trek: Enterprise wrapped, Drexler worried about future employment. “When Enterprise ended, I was thinking, ‘Man, I was on Star Trek shows for seventeen years! This could be the end of it! I’ll never work again! Who gets a streak of luck like that?’ But when I get home, there’s a message from Gary [Hutzel] on the answering machine. Lightning! Right away I knew he was going to ask me to come to Battlestar Galactica. I called him and he said, ‘I heard about Enterprise.’ I said, ‘Yeah…’ He said, ‘You know, Doug, every cloud has a silver lining.’ And that was it, I was on the show.

Drexler is currently working on Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, and waiting to see if it is picked up as a series.

Fans of Star Trek Deep Space Nine‘s Jeffrey Combs will be able to see the actor perform a one-man show in Nashville next month.

Combs will be appearing at the Nashville Public Library at 7 PM on January 19, where he will be performing Nevermore, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe.

Nevermore, An Evening with Edgar Allan Poe, is “a dramatic recreation of the readings that Poe performed during the final years of his short life. Set in 1848 a year after the death of his beloved young wife Virginia, and at the height of his fame as the author of The Raven, the audiences watches as he is undone by his own self-destructive tendencies, or in his words: ‘the imp of the perverse.’”

“Our goal is to present a sense of the fascinating man behind the poetry and brilliant tales, a man who could be his own worst enemy, and whose life was even more bizarre and tragic than his strangest story,” said Director Stuart Gordon.”

Combs’ appearance is part of a new series, “Night at the Library.” The event will be held at the main branch, located at 615 Church Street in Nashville.

Fans of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s Nana Visitor will be able to see her in an episode of Castle which will air next year.

Castle is a “comedy-drama” starring Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Serenity) as Richard Castle. Castle is a mystery writer who is brought in for questioning by the NYPD after a serial killer uses his novel plots as inspiration for his murders. The author comes along on homicide investigations to assist the team in research and to get inspiration for his writing.

Visitor will be appearing in episode 13 of season four, in “An Embarrassment of Bitches,” where she will portray Dr. Phyllis Barker, an “eminent canine therapist whose talents are called upon when it’s discovered that one of her ‘clients’ witnessed a murder.”

The episode is said to be a “Kardashian-esque spoof” in which another guest star, Hilarie Burton (White Collar) will play Kay Cappuccio, “a woman ‘famous mostly for being famous’ who ‘feels a prisoner of her own celebrity lifestyle.”

A change in publishers was in order for the 2013 Ships of the Line calendar, which has just been completed.

Even though a change in publishers from Pocket Books to Rizzoli meant a shorter lead time for the Ships of the Line 2013 calendar, fans should be pleased when it comes out, and they will have Doug Drexler to thank for not being stuck with a rerun calendar due to that shorter lead time.

“Rizzoli is the new publisher,” explained Drexler. “Pocket Books is not continuing on. I don’t know exactly the reason. All I know is that their licensing agreement with CBS came up again and it didn’t survive through that. So, Rizzoli has picked it up. Their publishing schedule is totally different from Pocket Books’. If it was Pocket, we would have until March to finish the image. But Rizzoli just got the license and there wasn’t enough time. Their thought, was, ‘Let’s do a Best of…’ issue.”

But Drexler wasn’t happy with that idea. “Now, frankly, when you’re making a transition like that it’s really important how you look when you come out the other side,” he said. “You can’t look like a retread. So I talked to my buddies who work on the calendar and I said, ‘Look, they want to do a rerun thing. Personally, I’m not going to do that; I’m going to create new art for the rerun price, and you guys are free to do that as well if you want. I hope you will.” And everyone just jumped in. We actually got the calendar together in about three weeks. I think it’s one of the best-looking calendars yet. So, sometimes extra-cool stuff comes out of adversity. I’m real excited about it.”

Winona Ryder, Star Trek XI‘s Amanda Grayson, will be appearing in The Iceman.

The Iceman is based on Anthony Bruno’s The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, the story of mass murderer Richard Kuklinsky.

Ryder will be playing Kuklinsky’s wife Deborah alongside Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire‘s FBI agent Nelson Van Alden).

The Iceman is in pre-production, and will be released in 2013.

Just in time for its twenty-fifth anniversary, Star Trek: The Next Generation will be released in high-def Blu-ray.

For fans of The Next Generation, 2012 will be a good year, with the release of the first season towards the end of the year. But fans will get a taste of what to expect with a sampler to be released January 21, 2012.

“All 178 episodes from seven seasons will be transferred to true high-definition 1080p for release on Blu-ray and eventual runs on television and digital platforms both domestically and internationally,” said the CBS Home Entertainment press release.

“Fans have been clamoring for a high-definition release of Star Trek: The Next Generation for years,” said Ken Ross, Executive Vice President and General Manager of CBS Home Entertainment. “Transferring the series to high-definition presented difficult technical challenges, but our team has come up with a process to create true 1080p HD masters with true HD visual effects. We can’t wait to show fans how pristine the series looks and sounds with our upcoming Blu-ray releases.”

The first full season won’t be available until late in 2012, but a sampler disc, Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Level, will release next month. The Next Level will include the pilot episode, Encounter at Farpoint, as well as Sins of the Father (S3) and fan-favorite The Inner Light (S5).

“One of the most popular series in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: The Next Generation celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2012. It premiered in first-run syndication during the week of September 28, 1987 and ran through 1994.

“Star Trek: The Next Generation won numerous accolades, including 18 Emmy awards, and was the first – and only – syndicated television show to be nominated for the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series for its seventh season. It was also ranked #46 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time list in 2002.”

Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Next Level can be pre-ordered here.

According to two people associated with Star Trek 2, Khan will probably not be making an appearance.

Simon Pegg and Bryan Burk recently nixed Star Trek 2 Khan rumors, or did they?

Will he, or won’t he, is the question being asked by Star Trek fans, who are wondering if Star Trek 2 will see the return of Khan Noonien Singh.

Pegg hasn’t seen the script, but neither has he heard anything about Khan either. “I haven’t heard the name Khan come up,” he said. “Not to say it won’t come up, but I have heard no mention of him whatsoever. He is a great villain. I don’t want to say too much and then have to eat my words as I often do, but we’ve seen Khan. To see him again, how much value is there in that? I don’t know.”

Burk, when asked about Khan in Star Trek 2, said “There are amazing villains all throughout the Star Trek universe as well as new villains,” he said. “As we did in the last film, there’s a lot of directions you can go with the film. In this case, we chose to do something we thought would be original and unique and different, and I think on paper, we made the right choice. Now we have to go shoot.”

One thing Star Trek 2 will see is a quick start compared to Star Trek XI, where characters needed to be established first. “Unlike the last film, where we were restarting and setting up the characters … we’re going to jump right back in, and we don’t have to set up everybody and we can go right in it,” said Burk. “We’re kind of in a mad dash at the beginning of the film. In all of our conversation, we reference a lot of our favorite films and how Empire Strikes Back was spectacular and how they were able to pick up and keep going.”

Star Trek 2 releases in 2013.

According to George Takei, Star Trek and Star Wars fans shouldn’t be fighting each other, but instead should be uniting against another fandom.

After the recent online exchange between Star Trek‘s William Shatner and Star Wars‘ Carrie Fisher, Takei decided to jump in with his own opinion on the fandom war, with a three minute video, George Takei is the Broker of Star Peace.

“No More Hope,” begins the video. “William Shatner went where no man had gone before, risking a civil war that pitted two fan worlds against each other.”

The video shows what happened when Shatner called Star Wars “derivative of Star Trek.” Fisher fired back, claiming that Star Trek wasn’t even in “the same league” as Star Wars.

“Fellow Star folks,” said Takei. “Cool it down! And shut your big wormholes. Each is wonderful in its own special way.”

Takei goes on to encourage both sides to aim at a more worthy target, Twilight. “It is really, really bad,” said Takei. “Gone is any sense of heroism, camaraderie or epic battles. In its place, we have vampires that sparkle, and moan and go to high school…

“But sci-fi fans, be warned. There are no great stories, characters, or profound life lessons to be had in Twilight. Noooo…in Twilight, the only message that rings through loud and clear, is ‘does my boyfriend like me?’ Let us band together to combat this mutual threat.”

While TrekToday certainly doesn’t encourage fandom wars, it’s hard to approve of a series where vampires, instead of bursting into flames when exposed to the sun as they’re supposed to do, sparkle instead. DIAMONDS sparkle. Vampires blaze.

Next month, shooting begins on Star Trek 2, and Simon Pegg knows some details about the plot.

The actor, best-known to Star Trek fans for his role of Scotty, believes that fans will like what they see, too. “It’s more of what we love as Star Trek fans…,” he said. “What’s not to love?”

Although he knows some plot details, Pegg has yet to see the script for Star Trek 2. “I haven’t seen a script yet,” he said. “I do know the story, though. I know part of the story, but we haven’t seen a script yet. We’re gonna see it soon. I think next week.”

In other Star Trek 2 news, producer Bryan Burk was at the same function as Pegg, and in answering a question, almost gave out a bit of information regarding the title of the Abrams sequel. “Oh, we’re not calling it Star Trek 2 anymore,” he said. “Just…” and then Burk stopped, realizing that he had almost let something slip.

The Wadi, who like games, make Quark lead the senior crew on a trip through a complicated maze.

Plot Summary: A first contact with the Wadi from the Gamma Quadrant surprises Sisko when instead of diplomacy, the aliens are only interested in Alpha Quadrant games. Quark agrees to let the leader, Falow, bid gems at the Dabo table while the bored station officers head off to bed. When the aliens quickly learn the rules of Dabo and start beating the house, Quark instructs one of his employees to cheat. The Wadi realize that they have been duped and insist that now Quark must play one of their games, which he activates on the Promenade. At the same time, Sisko wakes not in his quarters but on the floor of an alien room. The commander quickly discovers that Kira, Bashir, and Dax have all been brought to the same alien structure, which puts them through a series of puzzles and tests, while Odo discovers that the four officers are missing and Quark slowly realizes that the four playing pieces he is using in the game represent his four associates. Falow tells Quark that his winnings will be greater if he uses a shortcut, though that will also increase the risk to his game pieces. At first Quark chooses the safer route, but realizes that a quick end to the game may be wiser and agrees to skip a level. Though Bashir disappears and Dax is injured in the game, they reappear along with Sisko and Kira when Quark loses the game. Odo reveals to Sisko that Quark’s cheating was likely responsible for the perceived peril, but Quark is too concerned with franchising this new game to atone.

Analysis: This episode is generally considered a stinker, with reason – it’s plodding, it’s more like a kid’s fantasy story than science fiction, and it requires the senior crew to behave in a very silly manner without the humorous payoffs of such Next Generation episodes as “Qpid” (there is no “I am not a merry man!” moment, nor even “A cellular peptide cake…with mint frosting”). It’s hard to avoid comparisons with TNG’s “The Game” and at least Sisko’s crew is not addicted, though they look no less ridiculous playing hopscotch than Picard’s crew did staring at miniature game boards projected before their eyes. For better or worse, the aliens look just as goofy as any crewmember and unlike in “The Game” there isn’t some clever, sinister takeover plan behind the form of recreation they introduce. But considering we’re only a few episodes away from “Captive Pursuit” and its lethal sport, one has to wonder why the spacefaring races of the Gamma Quadrant have so much time on their hands to devote to not-very-benign pursuits of pleasure. The first time I watched, I expected the game in “Move Along Home” to have a diplomatic or political point, like the aliens who restructured the Enterprise in “Masks”; apparently, however, the only moral is not to cheat someone whose more adept at gambling.

While it’s nice to meet a species with no apparent interest in violent conquest, it’s a shame that we get no insight into their formidable technology and why they choose to devote so much of their energy to games. Is it a strategic decision, have they discovered that games keep their minds sharp and help them with engineering problems, or is this all a ploy to see what sort of people occupy the Alpha Quadrant? Clearly their transporter technology and holographic skills are far beyond anything in the Federation – the computer reports that Sisko is nowhere on the station while he’s trapped in the game, and when Odo tries to enter the Wadi ship, he is instantly transported to the Promenade – yet there’s no discussion of how these scientific wonders work, to what other uses they might be put (simulating experiments and training soldiers come immediately to mind), whether there could be any sort of exchange beyond the financial transaction Quark is planning. Even if Sisko is too disgusted to want to open the first contact negotiations that are the ostensible reason for the visit, I’m astonished that Kira does not see immediate practical reasons that the Wadi might make excellent allies for Bajor.

The fact that these issues are never even mentioned underlines the degree to which “Move Along Home” isn’t a serious episode. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t some telling character moments. After a few weeks’ absence, Jake Sisko reappears to reveal that while the O’Briens have been visiting Earth, leaving the school closed, he has been hanging out with Nog, checking out pretty Bajoran women who visit the station. Sisko realizes to his horror that he hasn’t managed to have The Talk with his son before Nog filled in all sorts of details that Sisko doesn’t care to imagine. Sisko is looking rather beleaguered this episode and doesn’t really seem to be on top of things; his eagerness to get to bed, leaving Quark in charge of a group of aliens no one knows anything about, without even calling for Odo to oversee the situation, seems like a recipe for disaster, and I don’t think it’s because Sisko senses all along that the aliens are really benevolent. He frets about small details like Bashir’s inability to track down his dress uniform – as Bashir correctly points out, the aliens have no idea what is considered formal for Starfleet, for all he knows they prefer nudity – and refuses to argue with Dax about the possibility of leaving her behind in the game to rescue himself and Kira. Yet he seems detached from his role as commander responsible for everyone on Deep Space Nine, perhaps because the writers haven’t really decided who he is yet. Allamarain!

Star Trek: Enterprise‘s John Billingsley , who played Phlox on the series, spoke about what made Star Trek great and why Star Trek: Enterprise ended so soon.

According to Billingsley, the future that Star Trek portrayed was a hopeful one. “For me, its success originally came from the idea that it was positing the hope and future for mankind, and (creator Gene) Roddenberry certainly was of a mind that Star Trek was designed to say first and foremost, ‘Yes we can.’ There is a time when different cultures and different races can bury the hatchet and we can find a way through our problems and thrive and grow.”

“When the show premiered in the 1960s we were going through a period in our history not unlike the period we’re going through now,” said Billingsley. “There was a tremendous amount of divide in our country…race riots, divisions over the Vietnam War, we’d lost a president, we were in a tremendous amount of social turmoil. And I think Star Trek suggested it was possible to get through that.”

Billingsley himself is not as optimistic about mankind as Roddenberry was. “While I admire the conceit of Star Trek, and the optimism of it, I don’t necessarily share that opinion,” he said. “I’m considerably more cynical about mankind.”

Star Trek: Enterprise ended after only four seasons, and Billingsley blames that on the studio and its greed. “But what happened with Voyager and our show Enterprise, and I don’t mean this in any way as a knock on our executive producers, …but Paramount was saying more, more, more, more, more, because they viewed this as a commercial product. Nothing (in television) works when it is brought into being by the marketing department. Paramount kind of sabotaged itself. I think they got greedy, and that’s what studios do, unfortunately, because they are run largely by bean counters.

“I say this, sounding harsh to my own ear: Everybody is in business to make a buck. But the idea that you have to have a product that has some artistic viability, that it just isn’t cash in, sometimes eludes the folks who are looking at the bottom line.”

Low ratings didn’t help the show either. “It’s a miracle we got four seasons,” said Billingsley. “Any other TV show would have been yanked after one season. Our ratings were abysmal. We opened well, we had a great audience for the first episode, and they watched it and they said, ‘This is nothing new. It’s the same Star Trek I’ve been watching for years and years. It’s a retread.’ And they ran away.”

Billingsley will be attending Starbase Indy, which begins today and runs through Sunday at the Indianapolis Marriott East in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Another possible gift idea for this holiday season for the Star Trek fan is the Star Trek Starfleet iPhone 4 case.

Fans owning the iPhone 4 can now protect their phones while showing their love of classic Star Trek with one of four new iPhone 4 cases.

The cases come in one of four styles: Command (yellow), Science (blue), Engineering (red) or Mirror Universe (silver), with the appropriate delta shield design for the first three, and the Mirror Universe sword through the Earth design on the M.U. iPhone case.

Prices on the Star Trek iPhone 4 cases vary from $11.25 to $19.99.