Isaacs Brings the Magic

The centre seat is filled.

Discovery has it's captain with the news yesterday that Harry Potter actor Jason Isaacs will be giving the orders as Captain Lorca.

Following in the footsteps of Shatner, Stewart, Brooks, Mulgrew and Bakula, Isaacs joins an illustrious line of commanding officers but this time there's a big difference - Lorca won't be the lead character in the show. The less than human sounding name also makes me think that this could be the first time that the captain of the series vessel is not human.

Isaacs casting set the fandom alight last night and it all seemed to be positive. I couldn't be happier and loved him as Lucius Malfoy. Could this new captain have a Sisko-style darker side to him? Say yes, please!

Having both him and Michelle Yeoh on board as the older commanding officers is big. The news that the Liverpool-born actor was joining the crew was, it seems, announced by Isaacs a little too quickly and then rapidly taken down from his Twitter feed (thanks to Ian Kimmins for grabbing this screenshot) before confirmation from CBS officially broke.

I think this is fantastic news. Isaacs is a solid, experienced casting with credits including The Patriot, The West Wing, The OA and a lot of voiceovers including Star Wars Rebels. In no way can I see this in a negative light. Everything about this screams quality and I can't see why Isaacs would do the show unless it was good in his eyes (cough pay-packet cough). How significant the role of Lorca will be in the show and how it will play alongside Sonequa Martin-Green's Rainford could shape the show. Their relationship and how it develops may well define the nature of the series and where it goes in years to come.

Somewhat overshadowed by the news of the Discovery captaincy casting was the announcement that Mary Wiseman will be onboard the title ship as a Starfleet Cadet in her final year of training. Now that's a big turnaround because previously cadets have only been added to the show later (Nog in Deep Space Nine) so we might be seeing this one developing from the start and ending up in quite a different place and role by the time the show concludes. The lowest starting rank we've had before this was Chekov or Kim as ensigns.

Wiseman is another fairly new arrival into the TV world with only six credits to her name since 2012 with the most recent being Baskets (not seen it, can't comment). 

So here's my dilemma - so how many of these guys are going to be "main" and how many are going to be "recurring" and I'm still thinking we have more announcements. Perhaps we've being teased to be left wondering how everybody will fit into the big picture and if there will be enough room.

The diversity of experience is exceptional bringing some real class acts along with young/new starters into what will easily be the most radical departure for Star Trek since someone suggested setting the show on a space station (like that'll work...).

We've already discussed the potentials for crossovers in the show and at least that has come to fruition with that link to The Original Series with a younger Sarek taking to the screen plus a new revision of the Klingons (apparently). Does this leave some room for a send-off from a character from Enterprise perhaps? Could we get a hand-off from T'Pol or even Archer? It would stick with tradition as each show since The Next Generation has indulged - McCoy, Picard, Quark, Cochrane...

I suspect they may avoid that now since Sarek will provide the link to the rest of the franchise but we will have answers by the later half of the year at least if Moonves is to be believed - this time. I'm not going to speculate over the rumours of Fuller being removed from the production and a whole host of background issues that mean Discovery "won't work" because they will only be proved or disproved by the end result that makes it to the screen. That said, I am running low on salt...

What's your expectation from Discovery? Are you happy with the castings?

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So It (Should) Begin - (Maybe) Roll the Cameras on Discovery

January 24th 2017 marks (at least at time of writing) the first day since March 8th 2005 that cameras have rolled on an official Star Trek series.

In layman's terms that's just a fraction under 18 years and roughly about the same kind of time between the end of filming of The Original Series and The Next Generation. How odd.

I had previously wondered if we were going to get some more cast announcements before filming commenced next week but now it does appear that the seven names we've had so far are the regular cast for season one.

Well that's about what I thought until 7pm last night when it crops up that we have another official cast announcement in the form of James Frain who will be dropping onto the show as Sarek. So does this mean that we still have more names to come? Perhaps not all of those so far mentioned are main cast and are simply guest roles?

Anyway, yes, goddamn Sarek of Vulcan. Now go back a few years and for some bizarre reason when I saw him I did think he would make a decent Vulcan so this news sent a bit of a chill down my spine. Frain's very demeanour makes him perfect for such a role although just how big a part this is likely to be we don't know. It could be every episode, it could be recurring but there are a few things that make it very, very exciting. 

The very fact that they have announced a casting of Sarek means it's a big deal and it really is. It emphasises the importance the new production team are placing on linking the show into existing canon and embracing Star Trek's rich past. More than likely this isn't going to be the only familiar face showing up over the course of the show but it might be the only one in the first season. Whether this is an indication that we might get to see Spock at some point I really wouldn't read too far in but there's always the dream and a sliver of hope. Besides I'm sure the writers will love dropping some knowing winks into the story...

Sarek also cements the fact that along with the teased Andorians and the certain casting of three Klingons, the Vulcans are going to be a key player within the first season of Discovery. Remember too that this will be a Sarek only a decade younger than we saw him in Journey to Babel and as such that does pave the way for a possible appearance by his wife, Amanda as well. 

Frain is an actor I've caught in a few bits over the years. I actually first saw him back in the three-part BBC drama Armadillo back in 2001 and much later in 24. Both times I thought him excellent and once more it's a top level addition to this rather impressive cast list. He'll actually be the fourth actor to play the role after Mark Lenard in The Original Series, two movies and a couple of appearance in The Next Generation, John Simpson in The Final Frontier and Ben Cross in the 2009 reboot.

Looking into those castings a bit more deeply and with this latest announcement does mix things up a little. I am leaning now more to the belief we are being purposely drip fed with low level information to keep fans happy and that there are bigger things to come. For one the only Starfleet captain in the main cast isn't even on the Discovery and only two of the seven are slated to be on the titular craft. Seems a bit silly to call your show Discovery if it's not getting that much screentime.

Scanning over the IMDB info it also seems that we can only expect Sonequa Martin-Green to be the only cast member guaranteed to survive the first season and be in every episode. But in that instance let's also point out that she's not actually been officially cast!

The way in which the main cast is segregated across several places and ships immediately makes this a very different and unique Star Trek. Never before have multiple locations and a criss-crossing of races as part of the main cast been such a major piece of the story. You can see the influence of multi-location shows such as Game of Thrones in the approach and does account for the high cost per episode but on the other hand is this actually going to be out of format? Will too many locations actually make it un-Star Trek? 

Maybe the casting of Sarek also indicates that we're being sold a few dummies at the minute. Are all these guys really main cast? Are some of these Klingons actually just recurring or guest stars? Do we still have a chunk of the main cast, who will be back each week, to be revealed by CBS? I really don't know because as we've seen from the further delays, nothing is set in stone - or very wet cement in this case.

Finally though it wasn't all good news around the Discovery series because it now seems that the shifted launch date to May 2017 has become somewhat transient. Now there is no confirmed air date for the show only that CBS are taking their time with it to make sure that it's right. Good on the one hand that they aren't prepared to churn out something mediocre just to fill a slot but bad that we have a longer - undefined - wait until episode one.

Will Discovery get to the screen in 2017? Have you passed caring?

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All Grown Up: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season Five

I've always considered there to be two eras to The Next Generation - the pre-Piller years of '87 to '89 and the remaining five seasons from '89 to '94.  Of the latter, season five is the one I approach with the most trepidation and following my re-watch over the last couple of months I still hold the same view.  

Of the "later" Piller years I find this to be the most uneven batch of episodes.  There are some out and out classics in here that would make it onto everyone and anyone's top list of TNG episodes and possible even a few that would challenge for some of the best installments ever but they are slightly tarnished by those they sit alongside and more-so than other seasons. 

So what's this season about? Originally I was going to call this blog Mortality and Morality as Sarek dies ("Unification"), Worf dies ("Ethics"), Geordi and Ro "die" ("The Next Phase"), Data 'dies' ("Time's Arrow"), everyone dies over and over again in "Cause and Effect" and that's just the main cast! You're hard pressed to find an episode where someone isn't on the verge of death or ending up on the slab during this year - and then there's the morality bit. The dangers of addictive gaming ("The Game"), homosexuality and conformity ("The Outcast"), mental rape ("Violations"), euthanasia ("Ethics"), enforced parenthood ("New Ground"), slavery ("The Perfect Mate") and dealing with horrific trauma ("Hero Worship") all get an airing this season but there seem to be chunks of these more serious and personal stories through the season providing that uneven keel and perhaps making it quite a hard series to access in some respects.

So what did I actually like about Season Five?  Quite a lot if I'm honest.  While it is uneven in places, it's still a cut above TNG's first two seasons. More importantly the fact that it's willing and able to tackle such difficult subjects through the year shows that TNG had really come of age. The first two years of the child learning to walk were distant memories, seasons three and four marked the show making itself stable, polishing the finish and then embarking on season five as a grown up; well experienced and prepared. However the placing of the more thought provoking episodes to the action-orientated installments could have done with a little bit more planning but on the whole it's a good effort.

The opening conclusion to "Redemption" was never going to live up to the hype of the previous season's cliffhanger but it's still an enjoyable start to the year. Commander Sela arrived and returned Denise Crosby to the Trek fold, popped up again in "Unification" - and then was promptly never seen again. It's OK but there was much better to come - virtually from the next episode when we encountered Picard in his trendy new captain's jacket and Darmok, at Tenagra of course. For me this was the real sign that TNG had grown up, as was the introduction of the semi-regular character, Ensign Ro in the eponymous episode. Semi-regular is perhaps a bit strong for Ro as she only made a series of fleeting appearances from here to "Preemptive Strike" right at the end of TNG's seventh year (mental note that I should do something about her in the future). The promised conflict wasn't to the levels that we would see from Major Kira in DS9 but her arrival did add a different edge that the Enterprise hadn't seen since its inception in 1987. It also introduced us to the Bajorans - a race whose actions and involvement with the fish-like Cardassians would affect the back stories of the two series that followed.

Indeed, as a year for "big" events such as the creation of the Bajoran back-story  they were pretty massive - and all I need to say here is Spock and probably "The Inner Light". The latter of which is, of course, rated as one of the great TNG moments. No question can be made of Patrick Stewart's performance here and no matter how many times I've watched it I still get a bit of a lump in my throat at the end. The story has everything that Picard can't have and all in less than 25 minutes. In the case of the former, what can we say - the return of a legend and finally a point where TNG became comfortable with its past. For more on this one, I would refer you to my recent blog on the seminal two-parter.

It was quite a season for returns in fact. The Crystalline Entity came back (and shattered), Sarek came (and went), Sela turned up (and went twice), Wesley came back (twice), Lwaxana appeared for her customary story and wouldn't be back until season seven (luckily); all that was missing was Q - but he would receive two installments the following year to make up for his notable absence. Another returnee who would be sticking around in the same "recurring" vain as Ensign Ro was Worf's son, Alexander. He would pop in and out over the course of the next two seasons and a few occasions on DS9. Alexander had the enviable ability to age at a phenomenal rate and also sadly gets lumbered with a heavy weight family stories this season. While they aren't my favourite installments by several country miles they do provide a lot of development for Worf as he becomes more comfortable with parenthood. Out of the whole cast he's probably the most used character this year however the shame is that the stories he is provided with are either Alexander related or honour related which is a shame because in other seasons we see much more to the character than these two facets which he becomes bogged down with in season five.

Brannon Braga is definitely one of the heroes of this season from a writing perspective. While "The Game" is a fair segment his real highlight is the mind-bending repetitive "Cause and Effect". Jonathan Frakes also deserves a fair amount of praise here for the direction here. It can't have been the easiest to work on especially as the whole episode effectively happens over and over again. Somehow Frakes comes up with something slightly different for each cycle to keep the audience attention and keep the story fresh each time. This is probably one of my favourites along with the classic "Darmok", Ronald D Moore's "The Next Phase" (which we would see a twist on in season seven) and "Conundrum" - if I'm not mistaken this was a few years before Buffy dropped Dawn into its fold without any explanation. It's also a wonderful occasion for the cast to play out of character and add a new "regular" for 30 minutes. Worf decides he's captain, Data mans Ten Forward and the mismatched Riker and Ro take their relationship to another level. If it had been made in the first two seasons it would have been an instant classic but dropping as it does in the middle of the fifth, it's overshadowed by others mentioned here. Still, one that is certainly on my "To Watch Again" list for the future.

I've mentioned it already but there are some highly moralistic episodes in season five, perhaps more than any other year of TNG. While this gets a bit of a drag later on, it's not the lowlight of the year. That honour has to be shared between two installments later in the year. First, "Cost of Living" , for the amusement park and mud bath sequences as well as the double hit of Lwaxana Troi and Alexander in the same 45 minutes. Way too much for me to deal with as I'm not a flag waver when it comes to Deanna's mother. I will watch them but it's against preference. I find this a particularly grating story that does damage to the character of Worf in some respects and is another Alexander/Worf family story where they have some issues to resolve in their father/son relationship. Writing this now I think this is why I'm not a great fan of this year. There's a lot of schmaltz and that goes for another story too.

Then there's the misfire that is "Imaginary Friend". While the story is solid enough I think the tragedy is that it is built around a young girl, Clara, who is not one of the cast and as such the emotional bond that has been built over years isn't there. In essence what happens to her isn't going to have much effect on the series on the whole. A nice little space filler but a shame when compared to some of the shows surrounding it. Kids are great; I'm happy to admit that, but the writers of TNG never really got to grips with them and in these two pieces it is very evident. Honestly, I feel a little sorry for Brian Bonsall getting lumbered with some of the scripts here in season five. Luckily he got "Rascals" and "A Fistful of Datas" in the following year which made up for it.

These are probably the only two episodes I could point to as being disappointing in the 91 - 92 season. My re-watch has discovered that "Unification" is a lot better than I remembered and "The Masterpiece Society" is a far better story than I thought aged 15. While we're mentioning that, it's also worth dropping in "Violations" - what a great story and so well played out. It's something a little edgy for TNG and the whole cast do a superb job with a great script from  Pamela Gray and Jeri Taylor. Not a bad result I would say considering this was a season I was not overly enthused to start watching again.

Getting later into the season the final four episodes are back-to-back brilliance; fast paced and jaw dropping sci-fi. The Borg are back; Geordi and Ro get to walk through everything in the budget-smashing "The Next Phase" and then there's the oft mentioned Picard-fest of "The Inner Light". However I must reserve my favourite moment of the entire year for the pre-credits sequence in the season finale, "Time's Arrow". While you just know it will be a cliffhanger and that there is absolutely no hope that the conclusion is going to do the first part any justice it contains one image that has stayed with me for many years and totally shocked me when I first saw a picture of it in the Star Trek Chronology (blast from the past!). It is of course Data's head on the ground in a cave under San Francisco. Apart from the face of Locutus on the Enterprise viewscreen at the end of season three I don't think that there's another image in TNG history that is burned into my mind as well as this one. I still get a chill seeing it now!

So what's next? Well, season six and the conclusion to Data's time-travelling predicament. Now I enjoyed season five but I have quite fond memories of its successor as all fans do. Will they be the same this time around and what episodes will cause a change of heart?

Oh - and what the HELL is going on with Riker's hair in Season Five?!

A Pivotal "Unification"?

Spock: In your own way you are as stubborn as another captain of the Enterprise I once knew.

Picard: Then I am in good company, sir

I remember the first time I saw "Unification" was rented from a local Ritz video shop of the TV movie version during a school summer holiday in 1992.

At the time I found it boring, drawn out and a little confusing; but then I hadn't seen much of the fourth season and it wasn't the most action-packed installment I had seen.  I managed to watch it all the way through and in conclusion it was OK; nothing particularly special considering this was the seminal 25th Anniversary moment where The Next Generation finally shook hands with its predecessor and acknowledged its past openly.

The second time I saw it was in two-part format over two weeks on BBC 2 probably a few years later after it had been rerun on SKY One and I'd missed it.  Still I didn't see anything special but now, as I relive the seven seasons of TNG in order I have found a new understanding of the story and would argue that now "Unification" is probably one of the most important moments in Star Trek history.

I'm not a big fan of plot summarising as there are plenty of sites and books out there that do it brilliantly but here it is in a nutshell for those of you who might need a refresh. Starfleet believes that Ambassador Spock has defected to Romulus and get Picard and Data to go undercover on the Romulan homeworld to investigate.  They make contact and discover that Spock is actually looking to work on reunifying the Vulcan and Romulan peoples after many centuries of separation. Meanwhile Riker and the Enterprise are following a lead on some debris that leads them to a Federation salvage yard and a missing Vulcan ship. Ultimately it becomes apparent that the two incidents are linked and with the reappearance of Commander Sela we learn that it's all to do with the Romulans using Spock's reunification plan to cover up an invasion attempt.  Needless to say it's foiled by Picard, Data and Spock and all is well in the universe once more.

So why has my opinion of this story changed in the 22 years since it aired?  I think "Unification" is a cornerstone firstly because of the arrival of Leonard Nimoy as Spock.  While we had a fleeting meeting with McCoy in the pilot and Sarek in the eponymous third season episode, this marked the true acknowledgement of the original series and their part in the history of the franchise.  Of course this came at the time around the promotion of Star Trek VI and the story references Spock's part in the Khitomer Conference on several occasions which acts as a nice tie-in to "historical" Star Trek events.

Symbolically "Unification" is a torch-passing moment not only for this appearance but also because it was dedicated to the Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry, who passed away shortly before it aired. His influence on the series would be no more and his legacy would be firmly in the hands of those he had worked with since the first thoughts of Trek's return in the 80's. As within the episode we lose the father-figure role of Sarek to his long-term debilitating illness so the man who had brought the series to light back in the 1960's also took his final bow.

What I do think is fitting here is that we have almost every major race up to this point in Trek history making an appearance (except the Borg of course) - the Klingons help deliver Picard and Data to Romulus, the Vulcans are here (which is not a common  occurrence;the Romulans play host of course; we have a Ferengi mercenary who rubs Riker up the wrong way and there's even a Zakdorn thrown in for good measure.  The Klingons even manage to get one of their older K'Tinga class cruisers a cameo part at the salvage yard if you keep your eyes peeled. Oh yes - while we're mentioning links to TOS, the name of that Vulcan transport that Riker and the Enterprise are so keen to find? The T'Pau - a freighter and also the name of a certain priestess who presided over proceedings during the TOS second season classic, "Amok Time". 


Unless I'm mistaken the next time we would get major races together in one episode would be "The Chase" in season six however the Cardassians would taken the place of the Vulcans.  In Trek terms that's probably more in line with the way the series was progressing and the franchise would develop particularly with note to Deep Space Nine.

In fact, "Unification" is very much about pulling the two series of TOS and TNG together through Spock's addition but there are also a couple of other notable guest stars here with at least one getting majorly overlooked.  which draw on Trek history even more closely than you may appreciate.

Commander Sela makes her second and final appearance in TNG and returns Denise Crosby for the third of her four post-death roles (the next is "All Good Things...") ensuring that all of the original crew from TNG are represented in some form but it is Spock's Romulan friend, Senator Pardek who intrigues me the most here. Played by Malachi Throne, Pardek turns out to be in league with Sela and part of the conspiracy to invade Vulcan but Throne's history with Trek is just as interesting and he has crossed paths with Spock before providing the two-parter with another link to its acclaimed past. Throne's voice was used for the lead Talosian in the original pilot "The Cage" and then he featured as Commodore Mendez in the reworking of that very episode, "The Menagerie" which was, of course, the only two part installment of the classic Star Trek series. Rather fitting then that he should be here, in a two part TNG story with Spock!

For a show that was never great on ongoing storylines/recurring characters and back-referencing, "Unification" is full of it whether its just to Sela's previous "meeting" with Data in "Redemption II", the recent Klingon civil war itself or Sarek's time on the Enterprise-D with Picard or his relationship with his half-human son, this tale has it all. Even Kirk gets a sideways nudge-nudge-wink-wink mention (see quote at the start) as well as a direct reference as to how Kirk was involved in the Khitomer peace mission by his Vulcan first officer. Perhaps this is given even more resonance through the fact that The Undiscovered Country had the original crew officially signing off and here we have an epilogue to that tale - almost a what happened next that would oddly carry on into an alternative universe....

"Unification" also acts as something of a precursor to the events of Deep Space Nine and Nemesis in the way that there is hope of the Romulans being accepted as an ally rather than an enemy which they have been since "Balance of Terror" in Kirk's era.  The very possibility that there is hope here may turn out to be a ruse but the seed is planted for future developments; the twist eventually being that they have to join with the Federation to defeat the Dominion and then in the final Prime Universe film the concept of peace initially would be a ruse to tempt Picard to cross the Neutral Zone. For years we have seen the Romulans as hostile and indeed that is how they were introduced back in Season One's "The Neutral Zone" but here we get the hint that not all Romulans are the same and there are some that would welcome a more peaceful future. Lest we also forget that this is the first time since Trek records began that we have seen Romulus AND get to set foot on it too. 

Of course the best example of both the torch-passing and the notion that this is a symbolic moment in Trek history was the meeting of Spock and Data - specifically the conversation they have aboard the Klingon Bird of Prey in the concluding part.  I have recreated it here because it is one of the most interesting few lines of dialogue in the season maybe the series.  I love it for the way in which we realise how similar yet how different these two "windows into humanity" characters are:

Spock: Fascinating. You have an efficient intellect, superior physical skills, no emotional impediments. There are Vulcans who aspire all their lives to achieve what you have been given by design.

Data: You are half-human?

Spock: Yes

Data: Yet you have chosen a Vulcan way of life?

Spock: I have

Data: In effect, you have abandoned what I have sought all my life.

It's the realisation that while they are both exploring the human condition they are hitting it from quite opposing angles and coming to massively different conclusions. Logic has dictated both their paths yet they are truly unique characters who allowed us to see humanity for the flawed species we are!

In essence this is TNG saying that while it recognised it's history it was very much its own series with its own views, direction and beliefs.  This truly is an occasion where the new generation is finally at ease with its past. Indeed it's well known that the writers had to fight to get a reference to Spock into the script of "Sarek". McCoy was unnamed in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Naked Now" retrod ground perhaps a little too familiar too early. Here we are in the presence of celebration and acknowledgement for the 25th Anniversary as was.

So 22 years has made a lot of difference. Once an episode that I had little love for is now one I would treasure to watch again. "Unification" is a moment captured and an occasion for TNG to be proud of and at such a maturing stage of its life. While it's not the most action-packed Trek of all time I do think it can hold its head high as one of the best installments in it's lengthy history if only for its unifying factor not only potentially between Romulans and Vulcans but also Star Trek generations.