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Star Trek Continues Episode V Premier

I think it was back in the late 1960's or maybe the early 1970s that David Gerrold wrote a post mortem of the original Star Trek series. Gerrold, who wrote one of the original series most endearing episodes, "The Trouble with Tribbles" attributed the cancellation of Star Trek, at least in part to what he called a "hardening of the arteries" created by the need to have either a communicator or a transporter malfunction to prevent Scotty from beaming Kirk and the rest of the landing party back to Enterprise and prematurely ending the conflict that made an episode.

If the first five episodes of Star Trek Continues, a fan produced continuation of the original series with Vic Mignona as Kirk, Todd Haberkorn as Spock, Chuck Huber as Dr McCoy, and Christopher Doohan as Scotty, are any indication, Gerrold was wrong. In fact, he couldn't have been more wrong - There's no sign of hardening of the arteries at all. It may interest Mr. Gerrold to observe that neither the transporter nor the communicator could have changed the outcome of any of the first 5 episodes (no one actually leaves Enterprise in the first 4 episodes, and, well, they don't actually leave in episode 5 either...); yet the stories are pure Star Trek.

These new episodes are intended to continue the original series to its natural conclusion and bring the crew of Enterprise to where they appeared to be at the beginning of the first movie. The sets, costumes, and all other details of the new episodes are faithful to the original series - even down to having special fabrics made to duplicate uniforms and even the covers of the sickbay beds. The production values are higher than they were for the original. Yet amazingly, the production budget is only about half of what it cost to produce an episode in the sixties. (Of course it helps to keep costs down when the cast and crew do it for the love of their art and contribute to the show financially from their own pockets...)

I had the privilege of watching the world premier of episode V, "Divided We Stand" at the Salt Lake Comic Con this evening. True to Gene Roddenberry's vision of the series, the episode's central conflict centers around issues relevant to our world today, but set in a different time and space - a device that always provides edifying contrast which hopefully helps us to see where our true values lie.

I won't give any spoilers for those of you who may not have seen the premier tonight, but I will give you the link to the series website. The new episode should be online tomorrow (9/25/15). If you haven't seen the first four go give them a look.

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