Revisiting Star Trek Continues...

[Warped9]

For all my criticisms I feel STC hasn’t aged badly. There isn’t much in it off the top of my head I find cringe inducing. It’s so obviously a labour of love and dedication. But even after only four episodes it’s apparent they couldn’t step back from their fannish mindset to be more critical of their own work.

Part of the intent might well have been, “Lets pretend it’s 1969 again.” but they also wanted, “Lets sneak some of this into it to neatly tie things together with later continuity.” If they could have resisted that impulse it would have served the first part of their intent better.

What they needed was a good, and more objective, script editor. Someone to snippet things out and say, “Take this out, rethink this and so on.” In the case of “The White Iris” I would have said, “No, you have to completely rethink this or come up with something entirely different. No way would this story have been done in this way in 1969 for one of the show’s established leading characters. There is nothing authentic about this.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

For all my criticisms I feel STC hasn’t aged badly

Agreed. It holds up much better than New Voyages.

I don't want to sound too harsh on NV, which I greatly respect as a labor of love, and it did produce a few very good episodes. The production value went up fairly quickly as well.

But overall Continues, much like TOS, has held up well and remains very watchable if one isn't distracted by externalities like those already discussed in this thread.

(Though I agree that "The White Iris" is a very mixed bag at best. In addition to the points you mentioned, it tries to do too much, and it's kind of silly that the whole plot requires on Kirk forgetting his password and not having a reset option.)

The final bit of fun is that the scene we open to is meant to be a demonstration of a holographic entertainment area that Scotty is working on. Many might automatically assume that a holodeck is a very TNG thing and has no business on the TOS Enterprise

Incidentally, I've long taken it that holodecks have existed for a while (as shown in TAS like you pointed out), but the one on the Enterprise-D were a significant upgrade from previous versions in terms of detail, sophistication, and sensory experience, which is why we get the reactions from Riker, Pulaski, etc. early in the show. When we saw the holographic simulator in Discovery it fit very well with this, so I didn't question it much. Seeing the one in Continues (and a similar one in The Ashes of Eden) fits with this as well.

 

[Bixby]

I could swear I remember a Security Chief character starting off in New Voyages and eventually ending up in Star Trek Continues. Am I imagining that? (After all these years, I might very well be.)

I'm making a guess, but you might be thinking of the actor who played Peter Kirk, who was a security guard on 2-3 New Voyages episodes IIRC, then appeared in one episode of STC (Fairest of them all?), this time as a no-name transporter techie.

 

[Bixby]

Agreed. It holds up much better than New Voyages.

Honestly, it's not that hard when you manage to raise $$6 figures and thus attract name talent...I may be mistaken, but I don't think James Cawley ever did that. To his credit, Cawley had amazing CG artists producing the effects on his shows.

Incidentally, I've long taken it that holodecks have existed for a while (as shown in TAS like you pointed out), but the one on the Enterprise-D were a significant upgrade from previous versions in terms of detail, sophistication, and sensory experience, which is why we get the reactions from Riker, Pulaski, etc. early in the show. When we saw the holographic simulator in Discovery it fit very well with this, so I didn't question it much. Seeing the one in Continues (and a similar one in The Ashes of Eden) fits with this as well.

The holodeck is probably one of the top 3 terrible concepts brought in by Roddenberry. It was surely brought in because it became too difficult to brainstorm an actual science-fiction reason that could explain away when the writers wanted to do a Sherlock Holmes-style detective story ("why not just HAVE Holmes and Watson"), instead of finding a brilliant idea for why Jack the Ripper ended up on a faraway planet. It was a lazy crutch.

 

[Bixby]

My preference was to do TOS as TOS. The rule on Exeter was to make it like it was contemporary to the original, with no foreknowledge of what was to come after 1970 (Startfleet Battles aside). Overt callbacks were minimal (the worst being connecting our "Quince" Garrovick to the TOS Garrovicks) and I think the only overt call-forward to later official Trek was Chang in "The Savage Empire," which many of us thought was a mistake, and something not repeated on

That's honestly the best policy IMO
One thing about fan film makers that has long bugged me, speaking specifically about the groups making non-Enterprise shows: It really bugs/bugged me when I'd see the Farragut and the Exeter crews (in "Savage Empire") encounter Klingons when those ships were more than likely zooming through space in a direction completely the opposite from the Enterprise vis-a-vis the Earth. I know the fanfilm groups likely love the Klingons and itch to use them, but it just makes it seem like each ship is going in the same direction.

I really prefer what Michael King and the Starship Valiant group created their own strange-looking aliens with entirely different motivations.

Too bad, there seems to only remain Broughton and Farragut Forward out of all of them from a decade ago. There's still two complete Bridge and ship's interiors out there, but not really anyone using them.