Shuttles 2: Four Small and Several Years Ago

Continuing our step back and move for completion, the second set of shuttles produced waaaaaaay back in 2015 have now been added to the collecton.

Packed up in one box, the four small units come with their own mini-mags plus a lithograph LCARS print for display. I have however chosen to keep the prints in their wrapping and fortunately away from my own greasy fingerprints(!)

In Pack 2 there is the Spacedock Shuttle from The Undiscovered Country, the larger Type-7 and the Type 15 from TNG plus the Pod 1 craft from Enterprise.

As with boxes one and three which we've covered previously, there is the option to display the ships on their own individual mini-stands but aside from the odd one, they look far better standing on the ground - as they naturally would in the "real" world.

Tackling these in numerical magazine order, we have the NAR-25820 Spacedock Shuttle up first. More recognisable if you flipped it over and stuck some warp engines on as the USS Jenolan from Relics, the Spacedock Shuttle is the most distinctive of the four. Showing off a more sleek design there is a good amount of hull detail although the painting doesn't line up exactly with the hull lines that indicate where it should be - especially along the side windows. 

What is good here is the application of the decals and some of the smaller thruster detail. That pennant on the side doesn't quite line up with the text which is horribly noticeable on this scale - just as much as the occasional paint bleed. The marking out for the entry doors is nice and clean but the grey misaligned paint just knocks it from being a good 9/10 to a steady 7.

The underside is more filled with greebles and also two very recognisable borrowed warp engines from the Galaxy Class Enterprise-D. Certainly a franchise that likes to reuse items. it's one of the most obvious I've seen on a replica for a while and is nowhere to be seen by the time it's refitted out as the Jenolan. 

Some of the joint lines are gaping around those engines and at the rear however the curving nature of the hull sides seems to be hiding a multitude of building sins and works in favour of the finished article.

Second in here it's the gorgeous Type-7 from early days TNG. When I sat this on screen it looked cumbersome, ugly and just terrible but I've clearly matured over time with the model from Eaglemoss looking stunning. The curves and lines of this one are so heavily '80's it almost hurts but importantly and in contrast to the Spacedock Shuttle, the paint all lines up!!!

The decalling is at A+ levels on the Hawking right down to the tiny registry on the sides and the alignment of the sharp Starfleet pennant. The joint lines from the main hull to the pylons and then to the nacelles aren't ll that clean but the fact that we have translucent bussard collectors and translucent warp field grilles more than makes up for it. The shape of this thing is just stunning and Eaglemoss have done it more justice than I ever expected even down to the tiny RCS thrusters and impulse engines to the rear. Magnificent.

The third is also an early TNG shuttle, the rather TV budget friendly shuttlepod that cropped up a lot in season two. Named here as the Aldrin, the pod was a boxy sprite that this scale suits perfectly.

Allowing for not just clear decalling, the surface features here are distinctive and easy to make out with hatch lines and particularly to the rear where there is a single porthole and some shaded surface greebling. The join line are stealthily hidden under that black central stripe but again, what's not to like with this result. Upping the scale for these shuttles has nailed the quality that can drop off on some of the larger-made-very-small models we've seen so many times. Ok, the windows are blacked out but creating the interiors would be a mammoth and expensive task on a £75 asking price (at time of writing £60 on sale). 

Finally and the only one of the four not to be in a shade of white, we have Pod 1 from the NX-01. Bullet-shaped and more in line with the design lineage of 20th Century space shuttles, the shuttlecraft from the Enterprise is a mix of eras combining the winged atmospheric capabilities of a chunky plane with the need to operate in space.

The work on this one again is excellent with that paintwork being spot on the mark. More impressive than the other three is the fact that the more metallic finish also has lines criss-crossing the hull in a lighter shade plus a lot more distinct panel lines. The hatch for example is a much more intricate (and timeline basic) design with multiple divisions in a fairly small space. Somehow it works.

The black paint around the engine block to the rear is a tad scruffy on the edges and sadly there's no good way of covering up the hull section lines with the central horizontal one very evident when viewed from the back and behind the wings. It's cleverly (slightly) concealed forward of this thanks to the alignment with the bottom of the passenger hatch so hats off to Eaglemoss for that clever positioning.

I do prefer the Type-7 just based on its look and design especially when it comes to the translucent sections on the engines which even the Aldrin pod doesn't manage but on detail you can't get better here than the NX-01 Pod 1. As a pack though these are among the best released together with four blindingly good and "realistic" replicas from the franchise. Could we get a few XL versions in the future perhaps?

Check out all our Starships (and shuttles!) posts HERE

You can find out more on the Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection by visiting the Hero Collector website HERE

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Next Gen Guest Double: The Official Starships Collection Issues 104 and 105

The latest duo from Eaglemoss drops us into the fifth and sixth seasons of The Next Generation.

Up at issue 104 it's one more kitbash to add alongside the Kyushu and Centaur in the form of the chunky Sydney Class USS Jenolan. 

Ok, ok I dig this one in the ribs a little too much with that line because the Jenolan is a ship I'm really rather fond of. So it might be a flipped and nacelled-up version of the SD-103 shuttle that makes a fleeting appearance near the beginning of The Undiscovered Country but so what, this little ship has a special place in the hearts of fans across the world since it's the craft Scotty reappeared on in Relics.

Crashed on the Dyson Sphere, the Jenolan had seen better days but here we have it presented in all it's launch day glory. She really is a right block of a ship which makes no matter in space since gravity and aerodynamics aren't really that important (or are they...?) and it's not going to win any beauty prizes. In essence this is the Starfleet version of a National Express coach or a cross-channel ferry. It's no science vessel, cruiser or deep space explorer, it's effectively a very big shuttle.

Yet I still love the damn thing and having a model of it is something I've waited a long time to see. The shape is clearly that of the shuttle but there's a lot of additional extras and the Jenolan is significantly bigger than the shuttle set counterpart we were treated to at the end of 2016. 

So NCC-2010 has some fantastic detail for such a lump. The metal top section isn't overly covered in detail with the exception of the ship registry to the front which leads into the bridge module (definitely nicked from a Constitution Class model) that trails back again to some exposed mechanics and also to the blue raised warp core cover.

The colour scheme is distinctly Kirk movie-era with a full white overcoat from nose to stern. Having only minimal detail doesn't crowd the surface although it does feel a little blocky with the grey touches just a sprinkling across the upper hull and a couple along the sides and back. 

The central/upper metal section is enclosed by the rest of the plastic build with the side panels closing in around the metalwork on either side. It's a quite an impressive piece of construction with four pieces of hull coming together to form the shape of the Jenolan. The hull detail right at the front is a little washed out with the two side panels on the front "prongs" making it very obvious since they are much more pronounced.

Along the sides of the hull we have the United Federation of Planets pennant on either side - and both the right way up and spelt correctly however the three decks of windows are all out of alignment with their recesses on the hull surface. Maybe one day huh, Eaglemoss? Maybe one day...

I have to admit to liking the tiny bit of hull marking/panelling towards the front as its nice and subtle and doesn't, again, overpower the whole hull as full line definition might well have done. Also this detailing then makes you realise that the Jenolan is, unusually for a Starfleet vessel, devoid of any aztec paint scheme. Probably too much for something this size and the Runabout too avoided that finishing touch if you recall.

Flipped over and the real detail on the Jenolan can be uncovered. There's a lot of engineering works all the way along the ship with some incredibly tiny greebling everywhere you look. Oh - and look out for the very obvious Romulan Warbird nacelle glued in there! The hull sides again hug around the central body and it's a very distinct feature of the craft which has been replicated on the model perfectly. Choosing to have them as individual pieces certainly brings depth to the result.

It's an amazing finish and such a shame that for it's life on display you'll barely ever see the work that was done on the underneath (or topside if you're thinking of it from the SD-103 shuttle perspective).  I mean, in concept this should be the other way up and thus exposing all this wonderful detail but then we have the shuttles set for that!

The only really ugly bit on the Jenolan has to be the joins between the nacelle pylons and the main hull. They are gappy and seem a little misaligned when viewed from the underside. From the front and top it isn't too bad - again this is the angle you'll be seeing it from for most of the time.

The pylons are beautifully crafted with a very tight sweep and turn in the middle arcing out to the warp engines. Now these are very clearly stolen from a Constitution Class ship with that glaring movie-era shape and grille placement. For me on the Jenolan it's the finishing touches like the older nacelles and the registry edged in red that make this such an exciting ship to add to the collection. It bridges a gap, introduces a different type of Starfleet vessel and gets to be the vehicle which returned Scotty to Star Trek. 

Lastly to the rear there's a ship name and a couple of guidance lights plus the greyed out engine of the SD-103 shuttle converted into just another hull panel. It's only really at this end that you can appreciate how the Jenolan model has been put together. The stand is a rear fit which grips right around the backside of the craft giving the illusion of flight and providing a decent sturdy support although I need to file the peg down to fit into the base more snugly. 

While it's not the streamlined Enterprise-E or an intricate ECS Fortunate freighter the build here does impress me. Love it, love it, love it.

The magazine retells the story of Relics among the details of the craft itself. The initial CG picture is actually really nice giving a rear view of the ship and you can clearly make out some form of observation lounge at the back that isn't evident on the TV. Of course the mag skips over this being apparently the only ship on which you can beam through shields(!) but has some great stills from the episode in question. I'd have liked some coverage of the story pre-Relics that was included in the novelisation but I understand that it's not classed as canon since it wasn't screened.

The views of the ship are great to look at but they do reveal that the impulse engines on the model aren't marked out and that there is a magazine/ship discrepancy between paint finishes on the "spine" running from the bridge to the rear of the ship. Follow this up with a double page on the designing of the Jenolan and you get quite a detailed picture of a one-ship wonder. It was used again as a shuttle (Generations) and a starship (Trials and Tribble-ations) but not in this configuration. She really is a one off.

Eaglemoss have chosen to pay tribute to James Doohan here with six pages devoted to the Scotty actor. A perfect way to complete this issue given its focus on the return of the character aboard this very vessel. The coverage touches on all points of Scotty's appearances from his virtual cameo in Where No Man Has Gone Before through to the movies, the crossover of Generations and his "final" appearance in the 24th Century. A great overview and well picked.

Issue 105 travels back a season to Unification and the so-called Smuggler's Ship. Now you might be getting a sense of deja vu since it's only four issues ago that we saw the Bajoran Freighter which is this ship in another guise - have a look in that magazine to see what else this model has made an appearance as since 1989!

Ok, it is a little soon after the Bajoran Freighter to be dropping this one but there are significant differences between the two. 

The Smuggler's Ship (or should that be Smugglers' Ship? Was there really only one smuggler? Anyway, I'll remain true to the magazine cover) is a one coat black finish all the way across with only the red engines, white portholes and light blue forward viewscreen acting to breakup the darkness.

The ship is two clean halves with the top in plastic and the bottom - which includes the two pairs of "wings" being metal.

The wings, the removal of the rear pod and of course the colour change all help to radically alter the look of what was a Bajoran freighter into something a lot more sinister. In fact there's a lot more surface detail on this ship with additional "bobbles" along the upper hull sides at the front and back as well as more defined mechanics on the upper mid-section. Interestingly this model also has the fins thinned out that were filled in on the Bajoran freighter. I'd suggested this was down to moulding but I'm not convinced having seen this.

The aggressive wing formation to the front really set this model off and add to the look making it almost ready to pounce on an unsuspecting craft. Having them as a single element with the underside of the ship adds a lot of strength and stability to these pieces. The panelling on these isn't too heavily lined and contrasts to the extensive markings on the rest of the Smuggler's Ship.

One clear addition to the ship are the three gun structures on the top and the single one on the bottom. Again it adds to that darker purpose for this version of the model and also it's great to see that Eaglemoss aren't shying away from sticking in some very fiddly bits. Without these I don't think that the look of this craft would have been quite right somehow.

What amazes me with this issue is how a few changes can make something look completely different and even feel different within an episode of the series. This is a lot more futuristic and tech heavy than the freighter and in only a couple of episodes between appearances it's barely recognisable. In fact if I had the choice of which one I would display if it came to it, I would pick this one.

The all over detail on here - top and bottom - is lovely to take in and although it's one more of the "one shot" starship, the work on this one is exemplary considering this was The Next Generation model time and not the impressive CG results we've had from Enterprise. Really the only area that suffers a little on finish is the engine block at the rear. The red is't as bright as I expected and it seems to fade into the black of the main body.

The Smuggler's Ship feels good, it's a solid, robust piece of Star Trek and even the four gun emplacements are pretty secure.  The stand fitting is a singular clip that wraps around the rear and claps cleverly over the two levels of the hull at the back. It's a lot of weight at the back of the ship for something with this kind of length but it still looks and feels fine. 

The 500m ship gets minimal background in the magazine this time as it was there to serve a purpose for the story, hence the reuse of an older model. The magazine tends to defer to the plot of Unification but aside from the two new CG pictures and the plan views of the Smuggler's Ship there is very little of the craft from the episode - probably understandably due to its fleeting appearance. That said the CG pics are gorgeous and help to bring out the hull detail which can, in some lights, be lost due to the one colour finish.  

I've looked over her several times since she arrived and keep spotting a bit of tech here or a window there that I hadn't seen before purely because the black shrouds everything.Even when photographing her the light changed and meant a couple of shots made her look a lot lighter and brought out some of the hull panel lines and greebles (hence the shot above right).

Thankfully if you do want to get an impression of what it looked like on TV, the Creating the Smuggler's Ship section shows a couple pics of the model itself and there's a good shot for comparison of the back end. Minor grumble but that image does give the tail end a lot more depth to the hull surface than the model however I'm more thankful that some of the reduced detailing on the freighter version has been "upgraded" for this one.

I suppose it's apt that this and the Jenolan were released together since both are the results of "parts bin" refurbs having previously been something very different.

Next up is a section covering the making of the classic 25th anniversary two-part Unification. While I did know that there had been longstanding plans to get Spock into The Next Generation it fills in the process from that early point to the development of the fifth season landmark and adds in something I've always said - that the second half is way, way too wordy and lacking in action. I still find watching this as a single movie is a drag once Spock steps out of the shadows at the end of the first part.

The "Making of..." piece ties in Unification to both The Undiscovered Country and the tragedy of gradually losing Gene Roddenberry (who would have been 96 this month) through the character of Sarek. This piece does have some good in depth information around the story and the elements within it - Sela, Spock and Data, the Enterprise's mission and the final, touching meld between Spock and Picard. It'll still be a talky last 45 minutes but this has added a few sparks to watch out for in future viewings.

Again as with the Jenolan the episode On Screen section can only be the one episode the ship appeared in. The sad thing with this page now that we are getting into repeat territory quite a lot and also into ships that only appeared once and very briefly is that this episodic recap is getting repetitive. It only discusses the episode as a synopsis rather than honing in on the ship plus the info in these paragraphs has been stated several times over and over in the rest of the mag. Time to maybe look at doing something different here? For note though I'd still keep the Trivia trio since that can be moulded to the issues/episode/relevant characters.

I've been impressed with this month's double act. I absolutely love the USS Jenolan and have done for years since I first saw her crumpled hull on the Dyson Sphere so a model is icing on the cake and this one is pure class even with a few niggles. The Smuggler's Ship is just different and although released very soon after the Bajoran Freighter it is different enough to just get away with it but I know collectors will grumble because of the proximity. Solid entries, well made and a welcome step back into The Next Generation.

To next month and we finally get another of those elusive opposition ships from Voyager with the release of the Kazon Predator Class warship and one that will probably eclipse it in popularity even though it's a "twicer", the Klingon Bird of Prey in attack formation (wings down). Will there be any notable improvements or changes to this one or will we just be getting the same body mould as issue three? 

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Shuttles Collection 1: Updated 24/04/22

Aaaaah Germany, how we envied you when it was announced that for a bit more dough you would be able to receive four shuttlecraft models.

Then how psyched were we in the UK to discover that these shuttles would be packaged up for us in one box and available before Christmas. The price was a little higher than expected but with a cunning code there was a decent discount and through the postal service they came (on the second attempt so thanks to whoever nicked my first set).

Presentation-wise it's a bit woeful with simply a shiny cardboard sleeve holding the four regular-sized shuttle boxes together. The magazines come loose inside the sleeve and every expense has been spared for your £75 if you paid full price. NB: The sleeve was upgraded from set two onwards!

Let's start as we should, right back at the beginning and the Galileo from The Original Series. Introduced mid-season meaning that Sulu had to freeze his ass off in The Enemy Within since the transporter was broken, the Galileo was a box with warp engines, nothing more or less made by AMT to satisfy the series and give them a model to flog.  In its mini form here Eaglemoss have done a great job reproducing the flat, simplistic lines of the craft as well as the signature rear landing leg and tiny twin warp nacelles.

Impressively the nacelles even have translucent bussard collectors which I was surprised to see on something of this scale although they did manage it on the Antares too. Including the Galileo is a bit of a must for this set especially with the recent (from issue 50 onwards really) inclusion of ships from the 1966-1969 classic series. I really do appreciate the finish here, the plain paint job and I have to say it's a brilliant - if expensive - reproduction and one that I would say is essential to any collection. Build-wise there's very little to complain about and even moreso to laud given the smaller scale. There were no bad joins, uneven surfaces, scuffs or cracks anywhere. The fit together was seamless and right across the hull there's nothing to scoff at. Even the transfers - again, teeny, are well applied.

Its probably the most famous of the lot especially with the original being recently restored plus of the four it has the more distinctive livery which is carried on every surface. While there isn't as much surface tech as the ships from the later series, the landing strut and rear engine structure on the hull are well realised and incredibly clear. There's also the solo entry door on the port side but for me it has to be that retro pennant which really stands out here. 

The only real grumble I have with the pack is the equally shrunk down magazines you get with each of the craft. At least there are four but each has just two pages devoted to the craft before the final two pages are covered with a reproduction of the lithograph LCARS image which is included in the box as a separate item! It does seem a waste of space which could have been devoted to filming, design or even episode appearances a la the main series of issues.

The stand you get with the ship is generic to all four with the sticker on the bottom being the only indicator of which came out of which box. To be honest the stands are a bit iffy given that they are just a flat base which doesn't clip or secure the shuttle to it. In three of the four shuttles they sit flat anyway so stands aren't a necessity (the Voyager Type-9 does have a slight list to the nose) but do add to that "model shelf" finish if you will.

The chunky Type-6 from The Next Generation has been a favourite of mine since I first caught sight of it in the series' technical manual back in '91. A more robust and functional design than the flared and over-compensating '80's child Type-7 used more often in the earlier seasons of the show it carries both the surname of a good friend of mine plus helped Scotty get away from it all at the end of Relics. Evidently Eaglemoss thought that its chunkiness needed some reinforcement as this is the heaviest of the quartet. 

Mine does have an annoying mark on the starboard hull plating just above the "...1-" point of the ship registry (you can just see it in the picture above) and some scuffing on the portside by the window as well as a generous finger print in the transfer so thanks for that. Unusually too is the point that the underside is rendered in metal while the top - and by that I mean everything above the centre line - is in plastic. The nacelles too are in plastic allowing Eaglemoss the chance to plumb in the warp exhausts in translucent blue.

Comparing her to the magazine cover, the engine markings, hull surface detail and decals are all spot on but what it does lack is a certain texturing of the hull that the image alludes to. Perhaps not aztecing as with the Enterprise-D for example but maybe a brushing of dirt here and there would have lifted the finished item just a little.

Saying that, you have to be a fan of grey, grey and grey if you're adding these to your shelves since all four are, well, grey since they are all Federation in origin.

The third shuttle, from Deep Space Nine is one which only appeared from the end of its sixth season and fleetingly in the seventh replacing a rather cumbersome shuttlepod which we had only seen a couple of times anyway (The Search, Part II). It's another great design and one which totally flipped the way we look at Star Trek shuttles in the same way that the designers broke the mold with the ship that carried it, the Defiant.

Instead of the standard hull with dropped-down nacelles, the Chaffee has its warp engines fitted into the top and rear of the craft making for a more streamlined and combat-ready support ship. Of the four this has to the be the one which is the most impressively detailed. The hulls on both the Goddard and the Galileo do bear the plating lines as does the Chaffee but in this instance the engine pod is two-tone painted with the warp reactor clearly visible along with some very nicely aligned Starfleet decals around the edges. Even on the top the paintjob has managed to highlight the raised and lowered areas of the hull without any horrible streaking.

Flipping her over the detail continues to be evident on the underside with more components clearly painted up in contrast to the grey, smooth hull. It's a grand job and one that I've liked a lot. 

Finally there's the instantly replacable (!) Voyager Type-9 Shuttle. So good that they built the
Delta Flyer in fact. But anyway, here is the smallest of the four special additions but that doesn't mean there's any degradation in quality. 

With a heavier metal upper hull it's the only one that really needs to rest on the stand since the weight pulls the front down over the shorter nacelles positioned far to the rear. Labelled up as the Cochrane (Shuttle 4), the paint job on mine does appear a little thicker than anticipated with not as much plating and surface detail definition as there is on the Goddard or the Chaffee. The nacelles still have a good finish to them with the translucent side panels in place and the Starfleet pennant adorning the top of each. 

As a pack it is very, very impressive if tainted by the high price. Rumour has it that there will be another shuttle set in the future. My guess is that this would include the Galileo from The Final Frontier, a shuttlepod or the Type-7 from The Next Generation, the Deep Space Nine shuttlepod from The Search and maybe the Enterprise version too.  (NB: Only one would be in set two but all four would eventually be included) That would give all the series a shot and include all the favourites. I even suggested in a previous article that there could be a third, alien shuttle set however the announcement of the Goroth Klingon shuttle from Bounty indicates that those might well be included in the main range - let's keep fingers crossed for the Romulan shuttle from In the Pale Moonlight then (which it was!!!)

I have to grit my teeth and say that, ignoring the price, Eaglemoss have provided just what fans will want, an excellent, well made and solid four shuttle set that does everything it needs to. These are original, unique and probably the best shuttle reproductions to date. Having the Defiant shuttle in there is a big bonus to us Deep Space Nine fans but the highlight has to be the Galileo with its retro styling and function over look. Well done to the collection, a real winner (especially if it was half the price). 

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Trekollections IV: SKY's the Limit

The early 1990's were my Trek proving ground. My knowledge of the subject was growing and the franchise was about to move into what I consider its golden era. Everything was good...

Except I was going to miss every moment of it because we didn't have SKY and that was where season four of The Next Generation was due to premiere in the UK. The year was 1992 and the countdown to Family was on.

Now I'll rewind back slightly to Trekollections III at this point - I slipped in the mention of a saviour there and it's only fair to bring this in now. As you will remember I'd talked about the Christmas Day watching The Motion Picture and having turkey fritters for dinner. What had happened was that Dad had been made redundant and was searching for work at the time. Co-incidence had it that one day he was out gardening and started talking to the guy who lived directly behind us through the slatted wooden fence.

Over the next few weeks and months we came to know this man very well. George was ex-RAF and one of the nicest people I have ever known, bar none. He too was looking for a new job which led to many collaborations with my parents but George also had SKY. Now in the early 1990's in the UK that was a big thing and somehow the conversation one day turned to me being given the chance to go and watch some  if I wanted to. Now I jumped at the chance - but it would need to be weekdays around 5pm and could I video something say once a day...?

Personal library photo

At the cost of a bit of house-sitting and gardening i could now watch new Star Trek whenever I could. George would be quite a big influence on my life at this point and significantly, about 15 years later but we'll talk about that in due course. Being a writer himself when schedule permitted i was able to spend some time with our neighbour helping me develop a few essential planning skills which I used for a fair few years while I was focused more on novel writing. I believe we worked on a The Next Generation story on a few occasions and got a fair distance into the planning. Sadly time was against me and I never sat down to flesh it out properly.

While a lot of my friends and peers were getting into Blur, Oasis, Suede and other indie Britpop bands that were beginning to rear their head, I was turning away from the music scene and digging firmly into the sci-fi camp. My foray into the world of music would be put on hold for a long time. In fact it would only be the last 15 years or so that I have really started to hone my tastes!

Luckily for me George was very reasonable and at the cost of a VHS cassette I was soon receiving batches of The Next Generation on its first run through on SKY One. I didn't manage to see every episode during the run but I did get to see a good 70% of seasons four and five. My viewing of season six was a bit hit and miss but I had better luck when SKY cycled back round from Encounter at Farpoint before they embarked on the first showing of the seventh season in 1994. Actually this reminds me that my first encounter with these later seasons was Unification in it's movie-length format and for more on that one I would refer you to a previous blog piece on that two-parter.

Anyway, my recollections of this first run on SKY is of some grainy VHS quality episodes, particularly, Reunion, Future Imperfect and The Loss. Many of them were taken out of sequence so what I saw when is a bit of a blur but I do know that in the following season I managed Darmok and Cause and Effect at least. Why I missed a good chunk of the sixth season is hard to recall but what I can tell you is that SKY held back the first part of Descent which was the season cliffhanger to air with the final year. 


Now around this time I started to get TV Zone magazine from the local newspaper shop. The first issue I bought was number 52 (right). It was a must have if only for the brilliant episode guides for the seventh year of The Next Generation and the second season of Deep Space Nine. Magazines were a key way to keep up to date with any goings on in the Trek universe. TV Zone and Starburst in Copelands newsagents were a monthly revelation and I found out a great deal about the last days of The Next Generation through their pages. I also managed to find the odd copy of the now sadly defunct Starlog mag. Again while doing some loft rummaging and reminiscing I located the issue in which readers were asked to vote for their favourite 25 The Next Generation episodes. 

Oddly it's conducted before the seventh season and with half of season six still to run so whether any of those would have made the list we will never know. Anyway, the magazines gave some brilliant tit-bits of info and pictures of what was coming. You have to remember that this was in the days before something called the "internet" (you may have heard of it) so finding out information was a much more challenging hobby! I seem to recall reading my first bits of character detail and plot synopsis for Deep Space Nine's pilot there. At the time I didn't quite get what it was all about and thought it was going to be another show featuring a crew on a space ship in a completely different sector of space. Indeed, this would come true to some degree in season three of the series with the introduction of the Defiant. 

VHS was the format to get hold of new Star Trek back in the day and as with "Unification" it was the way that I managed my first viewing of Deep Space Nine's pilot episode in 1993. Rented from the local (and recently closed-down) Blockbuster Video shop it was my treat while mum and dad went out for the evening. Different was an understatement and I wasn't totally prepared for such a drastic departure from the Star Trek world we came to know and love in the hands of Kirk and Picard. It was rough, tough and gritty and really placed Roddenberry's vision on the edge of the final frontier. While Encounter at Farpoint had gripped me from the start of The Next Generation this was a much more tepid introduction and it would take time for me to appreciate how good this show was. During the first year I was even contemplating turning it off on occasion because it didn't seem to be going anywhere. While I had rented that first volume, it would again be down to the kindness of our neighbour, George and the Powers That Be at SKY who would provide me with the chance to see the remaining 18 episodes of that inaugural season and unlike The Next Generation it would be one episode per week on a Sunday night. 

When all this was going on I managed to gain a StarTrek ally in the form of Steven Bond. How we were introduced is now lost in the annals of history. What I can say is that we both went to the same school and were heavy StarTrek addicts. We would swap magazines and information regularly as well as VHS cassettes of the latest The Next Generation releases. Later it would move across to Deep Space Nine and Voyager episodes as while I was more of a fan of Sisko and crew, "Bondy" preferred the charms of Captain Janeway and the Delta Quadrant.

Neither of us had bought that many of the VHS releases upto this point with any dedication. The only ones I had at home were volumes bought by grandparents (which amassed to half of The Next Generation season) one along with the one video I had bought after much searching; Relics. To this day it is still the only Trek episode I have ever watched twice in one day. It was, to bring us nicely full circle in this blog, one of the episodes I caught on that first run through of seasons four through six on SKY. It is also one of the few episodes that I can still watch again and again and again and never get bored. This was also the first volume Bondy borrowed and it would continue with the majority of the final year meaning that when it did come round on SKY I only had a few to catch. When season one of Deep Space Nine had run its course this was exactly what happened. This was to be the final year of first-run The Next Generation and I had to wait until my birthday in 1994 to see the finale. Thanks to my VHS partnership with Bondy I'd managed to see the best of the last season; Parallels, The Pegasus, Genesis and Preemptive Strike still stand out from their first viewing and in the next few weeks I'm going to be going through them again, in order, for the first time since the mid-1990's.


Let's pause there for a second and take a breath - Deep Space Nine. That's the second reference here and it's about time I come clean that of all the Trek incarnations it's without any doubt my favourite. In fact probably for the opposite reasons that I should like Star Trek. It had conflict, it was darker, more unsettled and each week built on the last. There were repercussions from actions and the format didn't get the magic reset that plagued many an Original Series or The Next Generation episode. There is so much I'll come to talk about with this series but if truth be told in its first season I almost reached for the off button on more than one occasion.


In 1993/94 it was a huge shock to go from the comfort of The Next Generation to the frontier outpost of Deep Space Nine. The pilot was and still is my favourite of all the series inceptions but after that it was decidedly mixed. Q was just wrong for the series; we didn't need Lwaxana showing up, there was no action considering the promise from Emissary of what could be coming. It was very, very talky; nothing seemed to be happening and the characters were a bit, well, poor. Episodes such as The Storyteller, If Wishes Were Horses and Move Along Home didn't help the case for the defence but it seems as though Deep Space Nine managed to get a lot of its problems sorted in those first 20 hours. To this day I'm glad I persevered as otherwise my love of Star Trek may well have died with the end of The Next Generation in 1994.

Sadly on VHS the long-awaited finale of that show was a bit of a disappointment because after such great coverage of the entire series, All Good Things... was presented in its edited two-part format, missing some great little scenes to account for the restricted running time and addition of title and end credits. Later a feature-length version was released coupled with the Journey's End documentary and trailers for all seven feature films in a limited run but with my budget it was too late. I would have to wait a few months for SKY to show the finale as part of its Sunday run to enjoy such gems as Old Q and references to Leah Brahms marrying Geordi. Minor they may seem, but it was shocking to see them cut and the last The Next Generation ever presented in its hacked format. However as Picard proclaimed that "The sky's the limit." I already knew there was more to come. The main reason that The Next Generation had finished after seven fantastic years was so that the crew could move to the big screen. We were going to get our first Trek film since 1991. Star Trek Generations was on the way.

While I'd been avidly following The Next Generation through its swansong season I had inadvertently taken my eye off the Deep Space Nine ball as it had in turn passed into its second year in parallel. I'd kept a track of the episodes that were coming - there was a three-parter to kick off the season, an episode set in the past - but that was about all that interested me. When SKY started to run these episodes I dropped myself in front of the screen and prepared for more of the same as the previous year. I was surprised to find that the step up in quality that had been evident in Duet and In the Hands of the Prophets had been maintained and there was even the hint of an ongoing storylines around the Prophets, Bajor and something else... It was a much improved season all round and the second half of the year really emphasised that Deep Space Nine had a future and being different to the concluding The Next Generation was essential to that.

So here we are; it's coming to the end of 1994. I'd been a big fan of The Next Generation particularly in its later years when my love of Star Trek really took hold. How was I going to remain a fan with only Deep Space Nine to maintain my interest? It was nowhere near as good as Picard's Enterprise and there's no way it ever could be...Could it?!