Made by Star Trek fans for Star Trek fans I’ve been a fan of writer Mark Altman since his days at Cinefantastique magazine, which was a must-read for me in my twenties and thirties. I’d later buy Altman’s books, including “The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek,” which he cowrote…
Tag: Star Trek TOS
Star Trek celebrates its 60 anniversary: “Yet I feel uneasy, and I wonder why…”
It’s probably redundant to explain where the title of this Star Trek 60th anniversary column comes from, since other old-as-dirt Star Trek fans like myself have probably seen “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” more times than we care to admit (even to our therapists). However, for this landmark year of the franchise, Kirk’s…
Star Trek TOS’ “Tomorrow is Yesterday”; looking back at Star Trek’s first time travel adventure…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Way back in the dark days before streaming or even affordable home video, I used to place my old audio tape recorder up to the TV speaker and record Star Trek episodes during their syndicated broadcasts in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I’d taped roughly half of them before the shifting sands…
Star Trek: The Original Series; “The Ultimate Computer” went online 58 years ago, and is still relevant today…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** When Star Trek the Original Series (TOS) aired its second season episode “The Ultimate Computer” in March of 1968, factories and automobile assembly lines in the US were introducing new generations of machines controlled by bulky, room-sized computers that threatened the jobs of many workers. It was in that climate that Star Trek…
Star Trek TOS: “The Corbomite Maneuver” (1966) put the series on course…
******FESARIUS-SIZED SPOILERS!****** As a kid watching Star Trek out of broadcast order in reruns during the 1970s and 1980s, I could always tell earlier episodes by their ‘growing pains’; uniforms without black collars, different paint/layout scheme for the ship’s interiors, Spock’s makeup tweaks, various terminology differences (“United Earth Space Probe Agency,” “Vulcanian” ), etc. First…
The Enterprise is haunted by the spirit of Jack the Ripper in Star Trek’s “Wolf in the Fold” (1967)…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** This month marks the season for my favorite holiday; Halloween. Even now, some decades since I’ve last trick or treated, I still look forward to the costumes, handing out candy to the kids, and of course, enjoying all the scary movies/TV shows that are trotted out this time of year. Even the Original…
“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” third season is boldly going nowhere at maximum warp…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** The Promise After a lot of speculation and advocation by fans like myself, “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” (SNW) debuted in May of 2022 with one of the strongest pilot episodes of the nearly 60-year old Star Trek franchise. The SNW pilot, plainly-titled “Strange New Worlds,” was a tongue-in-cheek redux of director Robert…
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Relics” builds a sentimental bridge to the past…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** It’s been nearly 33 years since I eagerly rushed home from work one night in October of 1992 to catch a new, special “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (TNG) episode. From its teaser trailer airing the previous week, “Relics” promised to be a well of classic Star Trek love, with the return of…
Trekking down memory lane with the “Star Trek” Fotonovels & Photostories…
In the dark ages, before streaming… This might come as a tremendous shock to younger readers, but once upon a time, when we Gen Xers were kids (sometime after the Yucatan impact killed the other dinosaurs), we weren’t able to simply stream nearly any movie or TV show we wanted on our phones, tablets or…
Star Trek TOS: “The Savage Curtain”; Abraham Lincoln beams up for a slightly goofy, yet memorable episode…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** Here in the United States at the time of this writing, I’m not exactly in the ‘President’s Day’ spirit this month. However, this site is about sci-fi/fantasy/horror and nostalgia, not modern politics. Way back in March of 1969, Star Trek aired “The Savage Curtain,” an episode cowritten by no less than creator/ex-showrunner Gene…
No, Star Trek: Discovery hasn’t been ‘erased,’ nor has any other Star Trek…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** In light of the wildfire emergencies here in SoCal–the worst of which are about forty-odd minutes northwest of me–I’ve been reluctant to punch out another column just now, in case my electricity is suddenly cut to prevent sparking from fallen power lines. However, since I need the diversion, here goes. For this column,…
Where Nomad had gone before: Star Trek TOS’ “The Changeling” (1967)…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** An ancient Earth space probe, radically upgraded and repurposed by alien technology, now seeks to eliminate Earth’s ‘infestation’ of irrational ‘biological units.’ What sounds like the short synopsis of 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (ST: TMP) also happens to be the plot of a 1967 episode of Star Trek: The Original Series…