Didn't care for the counselor. Seeemed to be something to try and bridge TOS and TNG...which isn't needed. Besides, Jim Kirk already has a Counselor, his name is Leonard McCoy.
The quality will definitely guarantee that they and other productions will push each other to new heights.
My problem with the character of the counselor is that her interaction with Apollo felt too much like McGivers and Khan.
How so? I didnt see it that way, McGivers appeared to be like a school girl in awe of her crush, her lust for this "powerful man of the late 20th century" allowing him to manipulate her. Where as here i just saw someone who by doing her job was sympathetic to a man who appeared to be dying and believed wanted to be better which in the end she was proved right.
Great production quality - the acting- the Doctors left me wanting, Kirk and Sulu need to find thier own voice
For some fun pics go here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?...037188.-2207520000.1370902733.&type=3&theater Just click on the pic to go to the next ones.
While I work I actually concentrate better if I have a video playing in the background (no, really! ), and STC's initial production was next on my YouTube rotation, convenient since its follow-up is imminent. Man, this production is a mess, storywise. I just don't get all the internet chatter that is practically coronating this webisode as almost the second coming. Not only are Kirk, Spock and McCoy once again playing second bananas in what should be their own series, they act out-of-character and the episode chooses to waste precious minutes meandering through scene after scene with new character Dr. McKennah. It might just be me, but this pointless character is the equivalent to many Star Trek novels I used to purchase back in the 80s and 90s which at first glance promised a new adventure with the characters you wanted, a game of bait-and-switch designed to instead feature the writer's unwanted pet female lead character stealing the spotlight. But it's not just McKennah, PILGRIM is a prettied-up TNG episode attempting to masquerade as a...oh screw that TOS appelation, it's STAR TREK!!..as a Star Trek episode. Basically all the characters talk for the entire episode without once entering into conflict, and maybe if we the audience are nice the makers will throw us a bone, i.e. an action sequence or two. (Gh-awd, the writer even inserted my most hated of TNG clichés in this episode: when they have Sulu saying: ''By setting phasers to the proper resonant frequency, we should be able to insert gobbledygook technobabble into this frakkin' story'...') The first bit with Sulu (I actually like the guy who plays him!) and the former Lee Adama was nice with the return of the atmosphere suit, but what killed his character was so vague and inconsequential... The piece de resistance, or what should have been, namely the confrontation between Apollo and Kirk is just such a ridiculous mess...you have Apollo using his mojo on Kirk and fine, the security redshirts pull their phasers on him, only to have them be TK-ed behind the crowd of 6 (or was it 7? some guy in gold uniform just magically appears amongst them). so what do the 7 do afterwards while Apollo magically crucifies their commanding officer? Well the 7, including Spock of all people, do NOTHING whatsoever! and not only them, we saw in the previous scene there was about 15 people in the nearby rec room. So even Spock can't be bothered to sidle up and put a neck pinch on a not 100% former deity, some best friend...What resolves this mess? Well we have cut after cut of the half-dozen starfleet crewmembers frozen in their tracks, when finally a phaser magically appears in Dr. McKennah's hands and she zaps the big lug. Where did this phaser come from? who knows but it was thrown far behind them and I don't know how McKennah managed to make her way behind everybody, crouch down and grab the weapon in between the quick cuts... Still, I'll give points to Michael Bednar and John Broughton for an amazing producing job, the sets are great, the colour and cinematography is vibrant, the atmosphere feels close to their objective. But they really need to jettison the extraneous characters, BSG style, and refocus their scripts to actually give us stories centering on Kirk, Spock and McCoy, finally (Phase 2, my same plea to you), with a real theme, tension and conclusion. The new episode coming out in a couple of weeks is trumpeting some impressive celebrity names (stunt-casting?), but to date I'm a lot more impressed with Starship Farragut's 3 episodes.
^^^Well put, even if this thread is teetering on necro-ville. Rule One for me re scripts is "what would people actually do?" and the scene where everyone stands around while Kirk is in trouble rings a totally false note because no one in it acts like real friends and shipmates would. Technobabble must die. It's a sin the original Star Trek rarely committed but which almost all fan productions set in the same era do incessantly. And, yes, as Middyseafort and I are always carping, let's have the LEADS motivate the action, drive the action. Hell, let's just have the character DO something and not stand around and talk about it over and over.
The extraneous characters are very problematic in these productions. They're not interesting, don't drive the story forward and are more Mary Sues or Gary Stus than anything else (Peter Kirk, I'm looking at you!). I too would like a greater focus on Kirk, Spock and McCoy. They aren't really used properly in these productions, and I've gone on and on about this in other threads. Or what Maurice just said.
“Some best friend” is right. Maybe it’s just me, but I never get the feeling of friendship between Kirk and Spock in either STC or Phase 2. Phase 2 in particular seems to play up the Kirk / McCoy friendship instead. Maybe it was because of the number of actors playing Spock or a lack of chemistry between the actors, but Spock isn’t even written to be much more than a dispenser of information. He has no real personality and without deft writing or acting, Spock can be very bland. Go back to the series; he doesn't just exist for Bones to hurl insults toward. Say what you want about “Come What May,” but it wasn't about the guests (Eddie Paskey! John Winston!). Seeing Kirk and Spock talking about the meaning of a hymn in Kirk’s quarters was a nice touch and showed us an off duty relationship. Now, however, Spock is just there. You could drop him from the series altogether and his absence would hardly be noticed because we have Bones and Peter filling in as Kirk’s "family." I mean, jeez, Scotty gets more lines than Spock. I’d love to see Phase 2 in particular get to the heart of why these three characters are so well loved.
Agreed. ''Kirk'' doesn't act like Kirk all the time, but especially ''Spock'' does not act like SPOCK! All 4 of the actors that have played Spock up to now need to realize that Leonard Nimoy did not play Spock as an impassive nearly-robotic alien character. In Galileo 7 you often can hear the confusion and frustration in his voice as he struggles to keep his crew alive and from mutineeing on him. In his many verbal sparrings with McCoy you can often see the twinkle in his eyes and the slight smile at the corner of his mouth. And true that Spock in both web-series seems to have become Mr Exposition or Mr information-giver. I miss the days when Spock would go rogue and challenge the gathered humans around him and point out their/our biases-failings-quirks. Sometimes I get the impression Spock's portrayal in the first 2/3rds of Star Trek: the Motion Picture is the template the actors are following... 2 new Enterprise-based web-isodes are due to premiere within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully one of them will show either Kirk & Spock the true way we all remember them finally...
I think it also points out why Nimoy was several times Emmy-nominated for the role: what he did is very difficult. He has to play this supposedly unemotional character in a way which allows us to see what's boiling underneath the surface. It's hard to imagine most actors pulling this off, let alone fanfilm actors. The poor handling of the characters in the fanfilm scripts doesn't help.
^^^Which is why I"m so high on Mark Lenard's work as Sarek in "Journey to Babel". He's supposed to be emotionless (of course we know Vulcans are anything but emotionless,but still...stick with me) but it's clear that Amanda is right when she says that Sarek is secretly proud of Spock and also passionately in love with his wife. The multiple textures and layers as Maurice points out could be beyond a lot of professional actors. Lenard pulled it off brilliantly.
This is the problem with casting actors (both amateur and professional) to play Vulcans. It's not about the stoic exterior, it's about what's underneath that barely showing beneath the surface. Obviously, Nimoy defined it and Lenard gave us a view from the other side. Nothing against actors who have been cast to play Vulcans in the past, but none that I have seen have come close to the two originals. One exception, in my opinion, is Kim Cattrall, who played her character perfectly. It's a lot to ask of fan productions to cast actors who can pull off playing a Vulcan sucessfully, because the bar has been set so high. But something these actors can do is try to be less unemotional, and be more a character with emotions straining to break free. I could have gone a lot of places with this, but I hear supper calling ...
I agree with that. What you have to do is play the character actively suppressing their emotions. Nimoy pointed out in I Am Spock that upon reviewing the original show he noticed that Spock would often swallow when Kirk was in danger, so there was this subtle "tell" that Spock was concerned even if his face was a mask.