Modified: The Official Starships Collection Issues 98 and 99

Thanks to Eaglemoss (but probably fluke rather than design) there's a nice little theme running through this month's pair of releases.

Both of these ships actually started out as something else. In the case of the Nova Class USS Rhode Island it's an updated version of the USS Equinox while the Assimilated Arctic Transport was actually upgraded and changed during the episode in which it appeared so both of these are in their "final forms" so to speak rather than their original configurations.

Let us begin therefore with issue 98 and the upgraded Nova Class ship featured in the Voyager finale, Endgame. Now the original version of this ship is one of my all-time favourite craft and with the modifications made for Rhode Island I think it loses a little bit of its endearing character.

Not saying that this is a bad model in any sense but smoothing her out and making the mods does make some significant visual differences. Take the nose. On the original model there was a "cut out" for the secondary deflector at the front of the primary hull while here Rob Bonchune chose to fill in the gap and make that deflector a little smaller. It brings the hull here to a sharp, wedge point and although I niggle it didn't need the change the model does a good job of blending the old with the update. 

The hull detail is a lot more subtle here than on the Equinox which you will inevitably compare her to and that was a conscious decision during the alterations. There doesn't feel to be as much depth to the panelling here but the surface of the hull still offers up some lesser greebling detail with modified lifeboat hatches and more distinctive phaser strips right across the surface. Indeed with the Equinox there really was no distinct hull detail beyond the panelling but now the updates have made the finish much more striking.

The precision on the added paint details is quite wonderful with the Rhode Island especially at the pointy front end with the greys and orange panelling making a real impact visually. It's also in keeping with the paint scheme that adorns the deflector and surroundings on the Equinox but what you do come to realise here is that the overall paint job is a shade or two lighter than its predecessor.

Certainly the exposed circuitry detail has been much improved upon and the red decal lines around the nose feel a lot crisper than ever before. Even the registry on the Rhode Island seems a better fit with the red trim as a nice added touch which was sorely missed on the Equinox. Stepping back and another difference is the lack of blackened windows here. All the square recessed windows most notably are white and it combines well with the lighter paint job on the starship.

The trim around the bridge has also been touched up but now the command module sits higher rather than being recessed into the hull. Behind it are some further updated hull markings replacing some more nondescript recesses from before. 

Looking down to the spine of the Rhode Island and you can spot a big change. The panelling here isn't as prominently marked out and continues the smoother effect right to the rear shuttle bay. The Nova Class vessel is clearly a lot sleeker in every department with Eaglemoss getting a second chance to tweak a collection favourite for the better. While the panelling isn't as darkly marked it has more detail within its confines and this is allowed to shine through with the blacks and greys of various elements contrasting strongly against the light grey of the hull. With the Equinox the darker top coat meant that features were almost drowned by its shades rather than allowed to stand out.

The pylons sprouting from the sides of the engineering hull retain their dark markings but the biggest update to the model - and this comes from a manufacturing point of view rather than an "in universe" alteration is the construction of the warp engines.  Back on the Equinox the engines clipped together with a seam that ran across the top of the nacelle, slipping the registry marking and leaving a dirty great gap. It looked horrible and the bussard collectors were just painted on. It looked a bit ropey to say the least but changes have been made.

The nacelles now split along their centre line top/bottom rather than left/right meaning the registry is in tact and it's a much better finish to the eye. This time the bussard collectors as well as the warp coils are in translucent plastic suggesting a more refined and precise way of creating gaps in the plastic moulds has been found since the holes here appear smaller than the Equinox versions. Note too that the fins have been removed to enhance that sleeker impression.

Flip her over and there's some noticeable changes here. The phaser strip decals are more precisely aligned and some of the grey added detail has gone. The metal upper section now finishes closer to the leading edge than previously and the join is a much better fit.  The primary hull details are virtually identical in regards to panelling with a sharper ship registry but the engineering hull itself has been totally smoothed out. In fact two of the recessed panels on Equinox just behind the deflector and two parallel to the pylons have been replaced with decals however the one around the hexagon shaped hatch (warp core ejection point) is just off alignment.

The smoother finish does make the hull a lot less cluttered and I welcome that. It does look a whole lot better. The stand is a re-run of the first, slotting around the edges of the primary hull for a mid-point hold as with many other Starfleet ships.

The Rhode Island, while not my favourite version of the class is a whole light year or six ahead of the Equinox when it comes to the presentation of the model. My only niggle is that I had to glue the top of the port nacelle on which had come loose in the box. Minor issue and quickly resolved. I really like the way this model has been developed and honed from the original as well as introducing the updated elements. I and several friends did breathe easier when we saw that the yellow detail on a pre-production model had been removed!

The magazine replays through the updates of the Rhode Island both from the in-universe perspective of Endgame plus then from the point of view of Rob Bonchune who took it upon himself in his own time to tweak the popular Nova Class for the Voyager finale. Of course the former section does tend to meander into retelling the episode but you can forgive that when you read the development information.

Perhaps the grumble this month should be levelled at the magazine which chooses to talk about the Unimatrix Zero two-parter which has absolutely nothing to do with the starship at all and can only be tediously linked via the Borg. Very odd choice but I guess by this time in the collection it is getting more and more difficult to find relevant topics to include in the magazine.

Issue 99 does manage to continue the Borg theme through however with an entry from the Enterprise batch. One of those occasional curve ball craft, the Assimilated Arctic Transport is a real crazy inclusion.

From the second season episode Regeneration, the transport starts out looking very different but ends up Borgified by the end of the show. It also comes with the weirdest most fiddly, hardest stand in the whole collection to get the damn thing on. Be warned there could be breakages with this one.

Ok, there's a lot to talk about here because it has got a lot going on. For starters there are aerials and antennae all over the place. Right at the front there are protrusions from the nose as well as two spiked arrays jutting aggressively out from the sides and ahead of the craft.

Now it might be as ugly as sin but you have to take this one as it comes because the craft of the final item is actually really, really good. I don't especially like this one but there's so much to pour over. Cloaked comprehensively in black, the transport surface is a roadmap of bumps and undulations indicating the haphazard manner in which it was being changed as the episode progressed. Everywhere you look there's something going on or a piece of technology that seems to be reaching out over the surface; it's almost Borg artwork.

That individuality *which is not something you say everyday about the Borg!) and bespoke surface work covers the whole thing from top to bottom and front to back with almost no space to breath. The further back you do go, the more intense and crazy the modifications get with one whole side of the transport asymmetrical to the other thanks to a huge clunking piece of machinery. A uniform colour once again there are little blips of green against the black which hint at the typical Borg paint scheme that marks out their vessels. 

But it's not about the paint here because this is a ship that has lots of ins and outs - literally. The whole back end is a maze of pipes, aerials and workings that expand out from the original vessel and actually produce a fairly chilling end result. The single tone paint doesn't detract from the detail as every piece has a clear form but it is a rather fragile piece. Not the level of the Bajoran Solar Sailor I have to say but it's one of the less stable pieces due to the flex in some of the antennae.

Flipped over you can see the single metallic piece here is the inset underside of the transport. Covered with Borg tech in every space possible, you can barely see the original hidden underneath. The additional green highlights do break up the monotone but the surface changes still mean everything can be made out. 

The challenge with the transport though has to have been working out a location for the stand to fit and the result is ingenious if rather tight. It fits around the large rear section just managing to avoid a couple of those pesky aerials. It's a firm grip and getting it off provides an even greater risk to your model. I wish you all good luck.

Into the magazine and we talk about the plot of Regeneration and are then taken into the two-fold design process for the ship. While it finishes up in this configuration (and was ultimately supposed to become a Borg Sphere) it began life as a civilian ship used to transport scientists up to the Arctic to investigate some unknown wreckage from a crash many, many years before. The process takes us through the steps that see the ship evolve during the show which is a very interesting read given how little we really know about this one. 

Budget constraints on the product do become very evident when you take a look at the plan views (and the cover) of the Assimilated Arctic Transport. There the textures and shading across the ship really do look amazing. Sadly with plastic and metal and on such a small scale it becomes difficult to truly belay its true nature and I think we can use the Species 8472 Bioship as another example of that.

Then we get Mike Sussman's first hand account of how Regeneration came about. It's one of those episodes that splits fans down the middle. I used to hate it because I felt it ruined the Borg but after a recent revisit I realised it's a clever story sequelling the First Contact movie and prequelling Q Who? all in 42 minutes. If truth be told because the Enterprise-E didn't clean up their mess properly it's their fault the Borg take a glance over at the Alpha Quadrant 200 years after this story. 

Reading Sussman's interview and recollections has added a new slant for me on the episode and it's even tempted me to give it another shot. If there's one thing that Regeneration does do, it makes the Borg hauntingly mysterious and terrifying all over again - something that I don't think had been successfully managed since First Contact.

Issues 98 and 99 are great entries into the series and even at this stage it's not running out of steam but instead seems to be producing better and better items. Coming next month we have issue - wait for it - 100!!! This means we'll be seeing the seminal Daedalus Class along with the Bajoran Freighter for issue 101. 

Still collecting or have you called it a day?

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Delivering the Endgame

To quote Dirty Harry "...in all the excitement I kinda lost count myself..." as I totally missed it was 15 years since Endgame first aired last month and therefore brought Star Trek: Voyager to an emotional close.

Indeed it's been a big month for series finales with this week also marking the 47th anniversary of the first airing of Turnabout Intruder, the episode that should have been the end of Star Trek back in 1969 however we all know what happened there...

Over the course of my slow and steady re-watch, I've had the chance to reacquaint myself with the three feature length finales. All Good Things... is still the pinnacle of them yet I was previously a much bigger fan of What You Leave Behind (which also turned 17 just last week) from Deep Space Nine than Voyager's Endgame. Over the last 12 months though - and through the course of that re-watch - I've actually started to lean towards the return home of Janeway and crew as a better series closer. So why has that come to pass?

Since Deep Space Nine debuted in 1993 I have been utterly in love with the show. I liked The Next Generation, I adore The Original Series but the story of the space station at the very edge of the frontier really captivated me from day one. It was so refreshingly different, so raw, dark and filled with a widely diverse range of main and secondary characters that every episode, even the bad ones, was a pleasure to watch because I was sold on the people. Deep Space Nine for me had everything - drama, development, ongoing stories, payoffs, humour...everything and when Voyager came along I was loathe to like it. 

As I've said before there were two of us at school who were obsessed with Star Trek but once The Next Generation had passed our interests diverted into Deep Space Nine for me and Voyager for Steve with each of us sitting firmly pro our series with no chance of swaying. So it stayed for the best part of the 15 years since Voyager left the airwaves and while I had to make do with Janeway and her adventures in the Delta Quadrant after Sisko bought it in the Fire Caves, I never felt quite satisfied. Hell, Endgame was nowhere near as good a finale as What You Leave Behind - check out the build up not just in the previous eight episodes but in the seven seasons before! Endgame had nothing on it and I readily dismissed the finale once I'd seen it on VHS.

Last year however at the age of 35 I got round to hitting through Voyager one more time from beginning to end after finishing my Deep Space Nine marathon and here's where things began to change. Perhaps a certain middle-aged maturity has finally kicked in but What You Leave Behind actually left me a little cold. There's no question it's a good finale because it wraps up the Dominion War, ties off the Sisko/Prophets thread and places the crew at the end of their association with that era of the station however its not the highlight of that ten episode arc and as such I now feel a little bit gutted by it. Even more so it's not a final episode that's an easy watch on its own. You need to have a good grasp of what the heck has been happening (especially in the final season) to really "get" where it's going.

The eight episode build-up is amazing, well paced and exciting with numerous threads from Section 31 to Rom becoming Nagus, Sisko's marrage and more all being ticked off the big list but in retrospect the final episode just can't deliver on such an incredible narrative. It also has the weirdest passage of time ever. Just how long are Winn and Dukat in the Fire Caves while Sisko is off at Cardassia Prime for example? Anyway, it does a good job but after seeing Worf kill Gowron, the Breen smash the hell out of the Defiant and Kira in a Starfleet uniform how could the last episode live up to it? Well when I watched it through now, not as well because the pay off is not as strong.

So as I dived into Voyager I found myself refreshingly surprised by the show. My blinkers had been lifted and I made myself open to be entertained by the series. Seven seasons sped past as we moved from Kazon space to Hirogen to Borg via sick cheeses, alternative timelines and a lifetime of coffee. We even made contact with the Alpha Quadrant and not too late in the process either I might add. 

Every season had closure, every year brought something new and a concept that only Voyager could make work. Full year in two episodes? Tick. Future museum butchers the ship's history? Tick. Rogue Starfleet ship? Tick. The list goes on and while Voyager was back to the single-episode story trait of The Next Generation because of its transient nature it still managed to load story arcs and offer some form of continuity plus being the most "out there" thinking of any Star Trek series.

When Caretaker aired I was 100% certain the finale would be the other creature they mentioned but that was done with by the early part of season two which left the ending very, very open and suggested that Voyager was going to be around for some time. What could they do? How could it all come to an end?

The arrival of the Borg as an adversary late in season three and Jeri Ryan's addition to the cast at the beginning of the fourth season changed a lot of things and the final four years are a lot more self-contained than seasons one to three which brings me to Endgame.

Ultimately the show does pay off on the promise from the pilot in that the ship does get home (whoops...spoiler!) but it doesn't allow itself to be dragged down by that point because there's a lot more to it than that. As with All Good Things... and to an extent These Are the Voyages, there's an element of time travel locked in here but check out how the strands from the show are wrapped up. The Pathfinder Project and Barclay are integral to the finale, Kim finally gets a command even if it is a ship where the name is bigger than the saucer but there are still things that shouldn't have happened specifically Tuvok becoming gravely ill and the death of Seven.

Of course we all know how it pans out with Admiral Janeway heading back, boosting the abilities of the Voyager from her past and seemingly putting an end to the Borg in the process. All in a day's work of course and many fans might rejoice more to realise that Neelix is only present for a matter of two minutes via subspace. Winner all round.

Endgame draws on some of the show's best and most inventive elements from the off. Indeed, if you think about it the ship actually gets home twice - at either end of the episode plus it demonstrates how far it had come from the planet/cloud/enemy of the week formula that was prevalent throughout the first two years of the series (give or take a Kazon instalment). In fact Endgame is a great example of Voyager learning from its 174 episodes. Yes there were errors and learning curves (!) but in the final 90 minutes it draws on its strengths by focusing on the biggest of bads and drawing a line in the sand.

The finale is indeed all the stronger for expanding the story to Earth and by default the secondary Earthbound recurring cast since Pathfinder had been brought into the series on more than one occasion over the final few years and provided a very different slant to the series that none of the other shows had been able to exploit. For once there was a group not aboard the title vessel who were integral to the story and Dwight Schultz as Barclay is a much better character here than he was in The Next Generation. Odd to think that his association with Voyager actually goes all the way back to season one and Projections. Who would have thought he would become such a major factor in the show?

Endgame explored, very much like All Good Things..., where our cast of familiars had ended up for good or bad but it also did something that no other series had ever done - destroyed a major enemy for once and for all it seemed. Deep Space Nine may have ended a war but the Dominion still existed while here Admiral Janeway not only brought technology resistant to the Borg to the table but affected their demise at the same time. At its core - and just as with All Good Things... and What You Leave Behind it's about family and the completion of something very special. Seven years have passed, we've lived and died with these people (several times in some cases) and experienced some life-changing moments as they've explored beyond the final frontier but there's always been that underlying unity. A unity that interestingly never once references the Maquis and the crew's formation in the last episode.

There is no big save for humanity here, it's just one crew and one final attempt to get back home which is, as you will know, a success although it was criticized for that moment coming right at the end credits but if we look at the show as a whole we always knew they would return to Earth at the end it was, please accept this cliche, always about the journey and on that level it most certainly delivered.

The finale is pure action/adventure and keeps with the ethos of the previous seven years. Everyone has their time to shine and share the limelight which is possible because the cast never became as large as its space station based sibling and the relentless pacing plus the singular storyline of Voyager versus the Borg means there is very little (if any) baggage carried through these last 90 minutes of the show.

Endgame remains a pure and uncomplicated finale to the show which still marks to this day the latest episodic moment in Star Trek history (of course Nemesis and the destruction of Romulus in 2009's movie go beyond this point) making it very much the bookend to the franchise on TV. With all the hype and interest around the upcoming series for 2017 that is a record it may no longer hold especially if the anthology concept is going to be the way forward. I also suspect the omission of a subtitle for the show (i.e. The Next Generation etc...) may well be linked integrally to that possibility.

That aside, Voyager's Endgame is a finale that has bettered with time and one I now find I can happily watch again and again. All the cast give solid and meaningful performances throughout and while the end of What You Leave Behind is bitter-sweet this remains firmly positive with the bookending of the show in every sense. The journey was indeed well worth it and remains just as good - if not better 15 years on.

NOW check out and subscribe to our monthly podcast. You can find us on iTunes, Soundcloud and Stitcher by searching "Some Kind of Star Trek". Episode one is live and ready for you to listen. We are recording episode TWO this week!

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The Starfleet Escape Podcast: Listen Up!

If it wasn't for the rather excellent Google+ Star Trek community I would have missed out on a gem of a podcast.

Now up to their 17th installment (with number 18 coming soon),  the SF Escape Podcast looks set to become one of my must listen to Star Trek audio shows of 2013. Hosted by Aaron, Marty and Eric it's informative,  funny and exceptionally accessible to fans both new and well-established.

You might ask how that's possible considering the amount of material that's out there (and what you're reading!) but Trek Trio manage it with ease. I like to think I have a fairly decent understanding of the subject however I even realised a couple of things during the Borg show that I hadn't noticed in the TV shows after several reruns. That, for one thing really impressed.

It's a straight forward format to the podcast; 90 minutes (approx) of chat and banter separated into distinctive sections. For a starter in this Star Trek audio restaurant there's news and opinion followed by a main course of good wholesome and filling debate into the topic of the podcast.  Once that's been cleared then you get to enjoy a dessert of subspace comments from a range of social media channels where a question of the podcast has been asked.  Bringing it all together as the coffee and mints at the end are a few moments to air some grumbles they may have over the subject which just helps to remind us all that it is a work of fiction and open to the wonders of human error and almost 50 years of attempted continuity.

Due to a bit of a hectic home, blogging, work life recently I'm combining my reviews of The Borg and The Romulans podcasts into one piece.

Now I really enjoyed Episode 16 and the Borg discussions,  possibly because I was fortunate enough to get my comment on the cyborg nemeses read out (sorry it was only slightly shorter than War and Peace gents,  I'll be concise next time!)   but it's great to get some clever,  witty and genuinely entertaining words on Star Trek even when you might think think that everything there is to say has been said. The news section was good although I would have liked to hear a bit more opinion than news fact which we can pick up at the newsagents or off the web. When there is, it lifts the show and makes you listen because it's absolutely worth taking in. I would say for newer Trekkers and those who are just getting into the franchise with the most general audience friendly reboots it's an excellent avenue and devoid of technobabble I can assure you. As you would expect there's talk If of the new JJ Abrams movie but also fan productions such as Star Trek Continues, the Green Girl documentary and Star Trek Renegades. Upcoming releases such as the timeline video game are also covered but there does seem to be an absence of printed Star Trek be it novels or comics. The good thing is with this piece of the show is that if you're not keen on trying to sieve your way through the internet the news section will help you out admirably. Also there's a great bit where our hosts consider whether or not they would purchase a chosen Star Trek product. Have to agree that the Bye Bye Robot posters are very good but I've got very little wall space opportunity to display them ! While it took a few pauses to listen to,  I was still surprised to find an hour and a half had warped by.

So what did I get out of listening to their take on the Borg? Running through their appearances in Star Trek universe chronology rather than episode transmission order does help realise how there was an attempt to tie everything together, and even the perhaps poorly conceived Enterprise story, Regeneration. What you become aware of is how Picard and co effectively are the reason the Borg become aware of humanity with an ending similar to TNG's Conspiracy. There's of course a good deal of discussion on the seminar two parter,  The Best of Both Worlds (is it now the most overrated episode of all time? As well as Q Who and I, Borg but yet there's a Descent shaped hole only touched on during a reflection on the Borg ship designs we've seen over the years. I was always of the thought that this was a captured ship however the distinctly non geometric design and does suggest their more fragmented and individualistic nature as portrayed in the double-hander. While not classed as one of The Next Generation's stronger installments I would have liked more opinion on where this might have led in the future.

The majority of of the discussion does end itself more towards Voyager and by default everything that comes after Seven of Nine's arrival on the ship at the beginning of its fourth season. What you do get from the chat is how inconsistent Borg history is. I tend to distinguish between Borg Version 1 (TNG) 1 and Borg Version 2.0 (First Contact and later)  but even then flashbacks in Voyager and the Next Generation movie aren't correct on wardrobe for starters. Then there's consoles, backgrounds...Picky but noticeable. While it was noticeable that Descent was sidelined, the podcasters did manage to spend some time looking at the variations that appeared in Star Trek: Voyager ranging from the future-Drone, the Borg children, Seven's former associates in Survival Instinct and the wonders of Unimatrix Zero from the final two seasons. There's a lot of information on the Borg meaning certain episodes such as Blood Fever and Unity were skated over in favour of some of the later, larger stories such as Dark Frontier and Endgame. This also meant curve-ball angles such as Hope and Fear didn't even get a look in when they deal with the effect of life after an attack on Borg survivors. Even some conjecture on their origins was played out citing non-canon novels and the story of the NX-02, the Columbia. I would have enjoyed some more non-canon moments within both of the podcasts but I get that time is limited and for the sake of the audience who will be more aware of the televised material this is probably a good choice although it might be a good suggestion to do something non-canonical in the not so distant future? Or maybe even something on the library of excellent Star Trek reference materials that exist? (I know a good guest host you could get for that...runs a blog....English....) 

The additional comments from Twitter and Google+ mean we're not restricted to the views of our hosts - although I they are pretty varied anyway - and I'm going to have to add a disclaimer because they had the patience to read out my Borg essay. Thanks guys! It showed there's a lot of love for TNG's first two parter as well as for I, Borg and Scorpion which is interesting as there's a lot more love for Janeway and crew than I thought.

What is good is that this podcast is just like getting a group of your mates round for a couple of beers and having a chat over an episode. It's informal, relaxed and very easy to listen to. I also didn't feel that I was getting an opinion forced down my throat, only provided with a few more angles to see the series which can only enhance future viewings - especially now I realise that Geordi is the one who starts up the deflector dish and not Worf as Riker requested at the end of The Best of Both Worlds, Part I! Never spotted, but another example of Worf getting neglected. There's also the good old subject of the Borg Queen and the drones from Star Trek: Enterprise that don't seem to fit too well with the space/time continuum but that kind of discussion is probably best left alone until a few more cans are drunk. What I had forgotten until this side of fandom came up was the potential Borg/V'Ger link that's been banded around for some time. Kudos for picking this one up as it's always been an interesting concept (although it goes out the window in David Mack's Cold Equations trilogy). However disappointed Peter David's classic Vendetta didn't get a mention - now that's how to deal with the Borg!

The Romulan podcast (Episode 17), which followed a couple of weeks later trod a similar concept in it's setup. Kicking off with the news section as before, the topic quickly turned to the Star Trek isolationists and conspirators extraordinaire, the Romulans. In comparison to the Borg I actually found this to be a better  structured discussion focusing on sections of the species rather than chronological appearance. Leading with subjects such as technology, clothing, footwear culture and ships it was great to reflect on how the Romulans have been portrayed since their first sighting in The Original Series episode, Balance of Terror. 

Now I just want to take a second here actually because I was perusing Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block's Star Trek 101 this week but couldn't get this podcast far from my mind when flicking through it. While it's designed as mini reference and ideal for the Star Trek new starter I would say that the SF Escape Podcast is a better and more comprehensive way to understand the series and what is all about. As with the Borg for example, if the introduction to the Romulan discussion kicks off with some useful background which would help newbies. Take note Mr Erdmann, sans-serif this is a much better way to break in some new fans. Aaron, Marty and Eric ensure that the scene is clearly set for discussion and then we're into the "good stuff". Gets a big gold star from my box of reviewing badges, gents. 

I really enjoyed this different approach and while it made me reconsider how the structure of the Borg episode had been crafted I also realised that this meant these guys are more than aware of the need to keep their audience awake and listening not turning for the stop button. There are certain things that will be heard on each installment but it's how those sections are made which provides the interest. The Romulans as a podcast was much more about their subject as a people and its portrayal over the various films and series; reuse of wardrobes, the difficult and yet managed appearance of their technology in Star Trek Enterprise when it has been made clear that they were not seen until Balance of Terror. A lot of time is given over to Enterprise in particular because of how things might have progressed into the now mythical season five and how the Romulans had infiltrated the Vulcan High Council.

My particular area of interest here was the ship designs over the course of Star Trek history - how they altered, how models got lost along the way and all the variations in between including the Nemesis revamps and the Next Generation scout ship version. 

While The Borg virtually stepped over Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to talk about the Delta Quadrant residents in Star Trek: Voyager, the space station saga got its fair share of air time here, most notably in reference to the classic and much revered In the Pale Moonlight. This seemed to be a much more comprehensive and flowing discussion with very little, but if anything being overlooked. From their origins through female commanders, the shoulder pads of the 80's, cloaking technology, peace treaties, neutral zones and even up to the destruction of Romulus itself in the 2009 reboot, then there's an opinion to hear on it all backed up with more subspace thoughts from fans on social media. Interestingly no mention of the fact that Denise Crosby's Sela is the only ever blonde Romulan within Star Trek but with the onslaught of information contained within Episode 17 this is such a minor detail that I can let it go. For those of you who do find there's a lot to take in during the SF Podcast then there's also a handy show notes download available. It helped a lot when covering these reviews it's a nice touch to add to the overall experience and for fans of all ages. Great to see the listeners comments included too.

I've got to applaud these guys for their enthusiasm through out the 90 minutes of run time. There are no uneasy silences, nothing too much and a very focused agenda that keeps the conversation and topics flowing. I didn't know whether I would get anything out of it as a long term Trekker but I was pleasantly surprised, sans-serif maybe because my 'specialism' doesn't lie in Star Trek: Voyager where we get the most information around the Borg so I got a lot from the reviews of that time frame. I have to agree with one thought at the end - the Borg have had their day and a decent run now on the big and small screen. They ended up being the main nemesis in Star Trek: Voyager by default and held their own until the end. In conclusion though the Borg could have probably managed another 30 minutes to look at some of their lesser appearances and references but when you have a broad audience to satisfy it once again comes down to ensuring common and referable ground is covered and covered well. 

The balance of understanding across the franchise is well proportioned with no particularly overwhelming part of this Trek Trio holding all the cards. I indeed I having the varied experience with the franchise makes it all the more accessible, sans-serif importantly reassuring us that Star Trek fans are human and not just huge memory resources of fictional information. As I've mentioned above though it would be good to hear more on non-canon material out there and perhaps even a section that allows listeners to air their though ts on the previous installment and anything contained therein. While one can always point for things that could be done differently this is still a supremely enjoyable production and clearly a lot of work goes into producing the information to fill the show. I'd guessing that all three hosts aren't in the same location either (?) for the production which must take some level of co-ordination just to manage that. The audio is crisp and there's not a moment wasted throughout either podcast.  I have to say this is well worth listening to and has helped me refresh my mind on some pieces of Enterprise and Voyager I'd completely forgotten about in respects to the two races featured in episodes 16 and 17. Good work gents - you're managed to secure my time and I look forward to your next recording!