I will give the production crew, and actors, credit: The visuals were delightful, and Chris Doohan would have made his dad proud. Aside from that, most of the other actors were just non-existent. Oh, they were saying their lines, but that's about all it felt like. There was no emotion, no strength in the delivery. It almost felt like a table reading, to be honest.
If I close my eyes, and listen to Shat, Nimoy, or Kelley deliver their lines, I can almost read the expressions on their faces just by the way they deliver the words. With these people, however, I draw a blank. For all I know, they're reading the menu at Don's Chinese Buffet, and just ordered the Creme of Sum-Yung-Gai.
Also, the actor playing McCoy needs to be replaced. He's just completely wrong for the role. Remember watching Andy Griffith, and seeing Floyd Lawson as played by Howard McNear? Remember the first actor who played Floyd? Well it would be like replacing Howard McNear with Walter Baldwin. It would just strike the wrong chord immediately, and that's how I felt with this actor playing McCoy. No offense to the man, he's playing his part, but the whole tone feels completely off.
By comparison, Karl Urban nailed the shit out of the McCoy role for ST09 and STiD. To me, Urban is the bona fide younger incarnation of De Kelley's famous ship's surgeon/all-around curmudgeon. So it can be done.
All in all, a decent effort, though I feel that they should have simply struck out to do a different crew. One of my favorite fan productions is Starship Exeter, because they're not trying to be the Enterprise crew, and I think it works better that way. Unless you have some mad talent as a casting director, you're not going to effectively capture the mannerisms and style of that original crew.
So, all in all, a valiant effort, and in some places they succeed, where in many others they don't. I don't care about authentic sets, and smooth visuals if the actors can't deliver. If they can't pull me into the story, then it's all for naught.
As it stands, when I see Vic Mignona, I see "I AM PLAYING CAPTAIN KIRK!" in neon letters above his head. The same for Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Chekov, respectively. Chris Doohan, though, did a wonderful job as Scotty. He even smiles like him. I really enjoyed his work in this episode. The rest, though, didn't seem comfortable in their roles. Maybe it's just me, but they seemed to be more avatar than incarnation.
So I hope they can improve on that, because they have a lot of promise. Some significant work needs done, but if they're dedicated, they'll see it through. I hope they succeed. It's nice to see episodic Star Trek again.
