STC Ep. 7: "Embrace The Winds" speculation and discussion....

Kirk very nearly had to make a decision in this one. That was close.

 

BS - He should have told his friend straight up.

 

Yep. This episode certainly violates the idea that Kirk must make a decision.

I don't mind, though. I'd rather that an episode gave me food for thought, as this one did, than simply adhere to that principle of story construction, or any other for that matter.

 

While the episode was up to their usual technical standards, it suffered from being the second "message" episode in a row. Had it followed something with a little more action, I might have liked it better.

 

Oh yes definitely! Just hearing your scenario described makes me want to hear that story.

 

This.

 

This episode feels like all set-up and no resolution. The main storyline is very topical, but feels out of place as an issue within Starfleet. The explanation why there was never a female Captain shown in TOS was very contrived. The behaviour of Garret was almost childish in the way she thinks everyone is out to get her. Kirk is pointless as a character here, and the writers go out of their way to let him take a position.The Hood B-plot seems to be part of an bigger story that will be revisited in another episode - if this is even permissible now.
The topic of sexism in this episode would have better worked as continuation or revisitation of the events of "Turnabout Intruder" and the character of Janice Lester, trying to make sense of all of that.

Good performances and great production efforts unfortunately can't gloss over the issue of a weak main-story that does not even get a resolution, and actively avoids to go into the subject matter.

 

After watching this episode about 3 times now....

Bloody hell, I truly hope they were kidding...

 

It might be time for you to hit the dirt, you've barely contributed anything of value to this forum apart from clearly antagonizing a specific member (obvious agenda there), and you're nowhere as funny as you imagine yourself to be...

 

Watched it again, and while I love all of the cast, in this episode, Todd Haberkorn is Spock.

 

Just watched it. Excellent. I have no criticism to offer. I look forward to the next effort from STC.

 

Very nice model pic

 

Who doesn't love Todd's Mr Spock, I just hope CBS doesn't steal him at some point...

 

I just watched this. It was a pretty solid episode. The production values remain top notch and I personally consider Star Trek Continues Season 4 of the original series. The story was an interesting one, and if it had actually premiered in say 1968 or 1969 it would be touted today as another groundbreaking episode of Trek and television period.

I enjoyed the guest stars this episode. It was great seeing Erin Gray, who I will always have a soft spot for due to Buck Rogers and Silver Spoons for that matter. And Beau Billingsea (sp) as the Vulcan admiral. He was one of the best parts-though brief-about Into Darkness, in large part for the potential of seeing Spock on another ship. I wish they had at least had the USS Bradbury show up during the climatic battle against the Vengeance, but oh well. And the actress playing Garrett was good, in her forthrightness and also in her evasiveness.

I guess the episode did its job in the sense that I at times both agreed and disagreed with both Kirk and Garrett. Kirk's last question at the inquiry reminded me of Chief Justice John Roberts defense of the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act to some extent, and also seemed oblivious to the very Federation tendency to put its value judgments, often a very human-centric value judgments, onto other species. So, that was not a highlight of the episode for me, but I did like Garrett's response which placed her position within context and nuance, which is something Kirk's question ignored. As for Garrett her positions were right, but she might not have been the best fit for the captain's role. The episode left me wondering what exactly did Garrett do or cover up, and why did she? I would've liked a flashback to that Nimbus III mission. The episode added just enough taint to Garrett, just enough ambiguity to muddy the waters around her so it wasn't as straight forward a story about gender discrimination-yet at the same time it was, so it was a complicated, knotty episode IMO and perhaps that's the way it needed to be, and it left everyone in shades of gray (pun intended), and the audience to make up its own mine, at least where Garrett's qualifications were concerned, if being very explicit about female equality.

And speaking of context, there was a little voice in the back of my head saying Captain Hernandez from Enterprise as a counter to Garrett's argument, but I stilled that voice. In the context of this show, which is a continuation of the original series (and I don't know if the show Enterprise has factored into ST: Continues calculus at all), Garrett's plight and cause was very much an important issue, an injustice that needed to be corrected. And Hernandez's captaincy would be a weak counter anyway because she was a United Earth starship captain, not Federation, and was not impacted by Federation gender politics.

I did like how the episode explained some of the politics around why there were so few female starship captains. I hadn't thought about other members of the Federation having a problem with it before, so that was a neat way to incorporate and acknowledge the other members and their viewpoints, not something that has been considered a great deal in a lot of Trek, unless its to criticize them while putting humanity up on a pedestal-and to be honest, to some extent we got the same thing here in this episode as well so Continues is following the Trek tradition.

I was wondering throughout the show if the Garrett name had been picked on purpose and got the answer by the end. I also was left wondering what really happened to the Hood. I was expecting more to that story. I also detected, perhaps I'm imagining that something was going on more between Uhura and Scotty when both of them thought they were going to die, but perhaps I'm just imagining that, or was this a foreshadowing of the feelings intimated in Star Trek V? I did like that Chekov got more focus this episode and we saw more of Uhura. If Continues continues I hope we see more of them. One thing Continues and other fan films can do is provide more stories with the characters that were often overlooked in the original series. With Uhura for example, Continues or other fan films/shows can fill in a ton of her mostly nonexistent Prime Universe backstory.

 

YEP. What Intrepid said.

First, (as others have noted) the ep was more than a bit ham handed- and- having followed another thinly disguised allegory- perhaps an action adventure romp would have been nice. Not pew pew pew for phasers' sake- but a little less NextGen in the TOS please.

Second, I'd suggest that the presence of both McKennah and Grey kinda weaken the episode's premise of the under-represented high ranked woman. Also, as the Tellarites don't seem respected by the other races/planets- would their (sexist) opinions really have carried that much weight? For example- would the international community care if the Russians said that they didn't feel comfortable with a Minority or LGBT person being placed in command of the American /Japanese/European ISS section(s)? Of course not.

Third, (and this is key), regarding the forced /artificial conflict (and concomitant tribunal) about the Hood captaincy:

I don't know how an actual situation like this could occur either in our military or NASA. Two folks vying for a position would never be put in direct conflict via an ersatz "trial/tribunal" situation. Testify? Why? What? One would get nominated by peers and commanders- there would then be a period of review- a final assessment would be made as to availability and that's it. IF one candidate happened to get shortchanged/removed (politics or late information) - such a removal/change certainly wouldn't happen out in the open. This was totally unprofessional and took me out of the episode.

Finally, I was a little bummed with Mr Scott's "deer in headlights" routine while Uhura was there with him on the Hood. Pre/Unrequited love doesn't stop one from being professional. Not our heroes, anyhow.

Technically, as always - everything looked great. Music cues are always on point. Acting up there as well.

Looking forward to more folks seeing it- so we can get more of those great (and thorough) reviews going. (Ryan?)

 

Yes, I think that that's what was intended. Nothing clear-cut here at all.

 

STC Episode 7

“Embracing The Wind” *** (3/5)

While the Enterprise tries to retrieve a derelict starship Kirk sits in judgment of a Starfleet commander vying for a starship command.

This episode is a mixed bag. On the one hand is an interesting story idea along with STC’s usual high production standards. On the other hand is unfocused and frustrating writing that undermines what could have been a genuinely interesting story.

In 1964 Gene Roddenberry pitched his idea for Star Trek that included a woman as ship’s First Officer. In the episode it is even stated the female character Number One was the ship’s most experienced officer (besides the Captain, of course). In the early to mid 1960s this was somewhat of a daring idea for television (although it had already long been done in literary science fiction), but then again inroads were being made for women in television during the 1960s. There were a number of television shows that were giving women prominent roles that went beyond the general convention of nurturing type character roles.

While there may have been some resistance to a female in command with some in the audience the network, NBC, actually didn’t have a problem with it. After all the character of Number One, while prominent, was not meant to be the star of the show. What NBC did object to was Roddenberry’s blatant nepotism in casting his well-known extramarital mistress in the role. That and they didn’t think Majel Barrett was strong enough to carry the role. So NBC told Roddenberry to recast the role as well as some of the other more minor characters.

Somehow this rejection of Majel Barrett—and not the character of Number One—got retold as NBC’s rejection of a female First Officer. And in extent of that the rejection of the idea of any woman in command.

As such we never did get to see a woman cast in the role of commanding a starship or starbase or anything else. And this despite the fact that much of “The Cage’s” footage was reused for the two-part episode “The Menagerie.” There viewers finally got to see Roddenberry’s original idea and the inference that if a woman could be a First Officer and assume command in the Captain’s absence then it only made sense that eventually she could attain her own command posting.

Alas that never came to be throughout the original Star Trek series. They simply never went there until the show’s third season where we finally saw a woman in command of a squadron of starships in “The Enterprise Incident”—only she was a Romulan, an alien.

Finally in the series’ final episode—“Turnabout Intruder”—we witnessed the ravings of a bitter and unbalanced woman ranting “the world of starship command had no place for a woman.” Since then for decades fans have debated the meaning underlying the words of Janice Lester. For many her words were dismissed as the ranting of a bitter woman spurned by Captain Kirk who years before chose his Starfleet career over her. Others accepted her words as a deliberate sexist declaration that women were not allowed to command starships. And this despite nothing else throughout the series itself stated definitively that women could not command and that it was counter to the message of inclusiveness Star Trek sought to convey,

Flash forward nearly fifty years and Star Trek Continues cast a woman, Erin Gray, in a command role—that of a Starfleet Commodore—in their second episode, “Lolani.” STC appeared to take the high-road stance that just because we never actually saw a woman in command in TOS didn’t mean there weren’t any given the rather small sampling of Starfleet personnel we actually got to see. This was a long overdue and very welcome element added to the TOS universe. It was a nicely understated way of addressing the issue without convoluted rationalizations.

However, now STC releases Ep. 7, “Embracing The Wind,” and they completely undermine what they had accomplished in “Lolani” by rationalizing the reason no women commanders were seen in TOS is because…the Tellerites objected to women in command as a price for helping Earth against the Romulans decades earlier.

Seriously? WTF!!! Or as Kirk says in the episode, “Why are we even having this conversation?” He’s right. It’s complete nonsense.

They built up this whole story just to continue straddling a line. The fact of Number One and later Commodore Gray completely blows the words of Janice Lester into the weeds. But, oh, a woman still cannot command a starship because the Tellerites don’t like it.

Seriously—WTF!!!

Instead of focusing on character flaws the character of Commander Garrett might have as well as questionable actions on her part—a potentially engaging story in its own right—they focus on whether a woman in general should or shouldn’t be granted a starship command.

Finally add in the frustration of leaving the issue totally unresolved because of a completely useless B plot in the episode. The B plot goes nowhere other than to serve more fannish connecting-the-dots and used an an out/excuse not to resolve the A plot.

Seriously—WTF!!!

The end result is occasional decent moments lost in a mass of frustrating storytelling that goes nowhere. Nothing is accomplished and nothing resolved. We get neither a positive nor a downbeat ending after everything is said and done. It just ends no different than it began.

That said there was something accomplished in this episode. There are plenty of connect-the-dots references to post TOS productions. There are multiple references aplenty to ENT, TNG, TMP, TWOK, TSFS and TFF. After six episodes of mostly understated referencing to post TOS productions STC goes wading deep into fannishness and any semblance of being as close to TOS in overall feel as possible is thrown totally out the window.

As a result “Embracing The Wind” is just as disappointing and frustrating as “The White Iris.” Both episodes waste a lot of screen time trying to explain/rationalize something that doesn’t need to be addressed and neither accomplishes anything. “Embracing The Wind” goes one better by going out of its way to foreshadow events TOS would never have conceived of addressing.

There are good characters in this episode and occasional good moments along with admirable performances. But it’s all undermined by disappointing writing.

After enjoying Ep. 6, “Come Not Between The Dragons,” I found “Embracing The Wind” a disheartening letdown. It’s not bad, but neither is it excellent or even good. I also can’t call it outright poor because there are elements to it I do like. But in the end it’s disappointingly just okay.

*Sigh*


From the beginning STC has been an impressive production in terms of recapturing that elusive and distinct TOS vibe particularly in terms of production as well as in terms of casting and acting performances. In most cases their episodes have been founded on interesting ideas. But it needs to be said that STC's Achilles' heel, its weakness, is one shared by many fan productions: the writing. And included in that is the tendency to indulgence in fanfic style insertion of pointless connect-the-dots references to other productions. Sometimes individual stories transcend this (for the most part) and approach being on par with writing of better stories in the Trek franchise, but too often that isn't the case and fan productions become conventional fanfic only produced with live actors.

Just as TNG era style technobbable serves no purpose other to eat up screentime and sound convincingly technical, fannish callouts serve no purpose other than to substitute for a lack of engaging writing. It also serves to make the fictional universe seem ever smaller.

 

So, the callouts... a ton of references to its own STC history; Garrett of E-C, Romulan Ale, the Romulan Wars, Chekov at tactical, Spock's emotions, the lack of ships in the fleet, Scotty/Uhura's friendship, the Tucker Award.... anything else?

I'd also like to point out that in specific, they were saying that no females have commanded *Constitution* Class starships, which means the drought may have been only 20 years old.

 

You forget the foreshadowing of the Prefix code bit from Wrath of Khan, and the ridiculous mention of George Takei's true life internment during World War 2 that was tacked on to STC-Sulu's family history...
Oh, and the standard TNG technobabble resolution to the Hood incident (save the day by futzing with the main dish or some other similar trick)

 

I actually have to rewatch it for that Prefix code part... I got that Chekov used the deflector to do something that overloaded it, but i must have missed the overt connection to the prefix code. I also have read comments referring to a "Starship Exeter - TI" callout but must have missed that one as well.