Two days ago, as of this writing, I learned of the passing of actor Tom Skerritt from natural causes at age 93. One of the unspoken side effects of aging is that you live long enough to see so many of your favorites depart. While I never met Skerritt personally at any of the conventions…
Tag: William Shatner
Beaming up for “The Sixty-Year Mission: How Star Trek Changed Television and the World”…
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…
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…
Why “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (1979) is the greatest love story of the Star Trek movies…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** After seeing “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” (TMP) theatrically in the late 1970s at age 13, the last thing I would’ve labeled it was a love story. There are no cute-meets of characters spilling coffee on each other in turbolifts. We don’t even see Captain Kirk romance a single green-haired alien woman. In…
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…
“Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” is the latest Star Trek movie to get the coffee table book treatment…
******STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!****** One of my favorite activities in my free time is book shopping. Back in the day, when we had many used bookstores in my area, I would love to spend an afternoon leisurely perusing through titles, looking for my next read. Rarely did I go into a bookstore knowing exactly what I was…
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…
Through “The Time Tunnel” and into “Deep Space Nine”; James Darren (1936-2024)….
One aspect of growing older I’ll never get used to is seeing so many names and faces I grew up with passing away. This morning, I’d read about the passing of actor James Darren (1936-2024), who died in his sleep last night (September 2nd), from apparent issues relating to an inoperable heart condition. He is…
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…
Astronaut-artist Ed Dwight Jr., 90, finally gets his space shot, 63 years later…
The Right Stuff Denied Last weekend, something truly amazing happened. An event which did get some press, but not enough. Granted, in an age when when devastating wars, an intense US election season cycle, and other ongoing issues are dominating the news, a 90-year old African-American man taking a suborbital tourist spaceflight seems like a nice…
The unlikely episode that launched Star Trek: “The Man Trap” (1966)…
*****STARSHIP-SIZED SPOILERS!***** When fans today think of the ‘first’ Star Trek episode, they tend to (not incorrectly) think of the pilot episodes “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” but neither of those pilots were broadcast first. In fact, “The Cage” wasn’t broadcast in full until 1986 (the same year I bought it…