Kirk Goes Away

With Christmas out of the way, your gaming fund is absolutely -

Hold that thought because for fans of Gale Force Nine's Away Missions, there's a new pair of expansions about to drop that will no doubt catch your attention.

For the first time stepping outside of The Next Generation's timeframe, Away Missions brings in The Original Series crew across two fabulous sets.

Assembled on the transporter pad for the first beam out are Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Chekov.

Now this could be classed as the more "run of the mill" Federation pack but there's a new feature on the cards that will certainly mix things up... and did in my first trial of the set.

The figures are great. I know there's a very mixed bag of opinions out there around their styling but I think it really works and given their size the detail is pretty damn fine even down to the correct rank braiding on the shirt cuffs and dials on the teeny phasers. Some of the paint jobs we've seen on the previous sets are just phenomenal and I wish I had half the talent on display. Look forward to seeing these in all their glory!

So to the pack; Kirk is an oddly average team leader on first glance but the chance to pick up some easy points on skills challenges thanks to that Command trait helps a lot. So too does his ability to re-roll an additional die in attack, skill and defence. Plus he integrates a lovely close combat attack adding two dice to his assault. At cover value not so good but once you can get him into tight situations Kirk comes into his own.

Spock is the go-to for skills challenges whether or not he has the trait since he rocks an impressive three dice out of the box. His nerve pinch is also a close quarters winner but will stun rather than kill. It's an advantage over his phaser, emphasising this pack as one that will need players to be prepared to get right up to their opponents for maximum effect.

McCoy's healing abilities are useful but rely on you again being close to another character (namely your own!) to regain some health. One note here is that McCoy is a big advantage in terms of the health regain over the Scotty pack which we'll come back to in that article.

Crouching Chekov adds the muscle to the pack needs players to ditch Support Cards in order to take advantage of the re-roll Kirk gets for being Kirk. It's actually pretty balanced as a quartet with each character providing a different weight to the away team and potentially leading players to customise their cards to play to the higher stats of each one. That said, the fact that you're shuffling before dealing out five Support/Mission cards doesn't guarantee you'll be getting the right mix off the bat so think about packing in some easy wins just in case your combinations don't come to pass.

All are able to make a move of four spaces to get around the board and that makes using turbolifts a lot easier in this gamer's opinion. They did come in useful to bounce around the boards and complete a few goals in round two.

Packed into the box to help boost the abilities of the team we have additional bonus point tokens as well as counters for the new Beam Away move and Mind Meld.

Taking your character out of play as part of a Mission Card direction, your character then only completes the directions on the card when you come to activate your following character. In the first run through I got to use this move twice and both failed spectacularly resulting in both Kirk and Spock being Neutralised during the second of the three rounds. Good luck to McCoy and Chekov for round three.

In the box players also receive a new deck of cards. What I think is a fantastic idea here is that for the initial few run throughs there is a set 20 Mission and 20 Support card deck pre-built before adding in another set to customise your loadouts. This stops any horrible surprises but also means players can get to grips with that new Beam Away dynamic that can get your characters out of a sticky situation. For example, I had Spock cornered by Lursa and used it to drag him out of danger in the hopes that his return would mean I could beam him back to the transporter pad. Needless to say it didn't in this case. 

Some cards will provide the usual skill tests at a certain terminal on the board while others play to whether or not opponents are neutralised. Some do allow for additional bonus too including searching for specific cards to help your team or even require others on our crew to complete skills tests for the points that round. Nicely there are a couple (Hortas take note) that combo up your points should you have other missions already scoring.

The theming of the deck is absolutely on spec too. Working in classic themes and episode titles, the Support and Mission decks offer a breadth of equipment, tactics and game changing interruption moves that will have you racking up points and hopefully keeping your opponent on their toes for the duration of those three critical rounds of play.

There are joyously several focusing on Kirk's legendary fighting skills to give the captain even more of an advantage as well as gains in medical equipment and phaser lethality. That last one's a big winner since Federation characters can only stun! Vulcan Nerve Pinch is another good one you hope pops up since it can incapacitate an opponent in one go - very useful for a cornered Vulcan. 

Mind Meld is also Spock specific with the chance to use an adjacent character's trait for a Skill test - so just make sure you know who you're next to when it matters because it might be to your advantage.

As said, Kirk and Spock are much more useful right up close leaving McCoy and Chekov to do some distance shooting although you will need to unify the team to get different challenges completed over the course of the two rounds.

I do like this set and it's already seen more action than Picard but that's only because I've not unboxed Scotty just yet. In fact both of these sets are currently a bit of an "anomaly" since there are no classic villain sets to counter them and for timeline purists dropping Kirk and co onto a 24th Century ship against the Borg (for example) could almost be seen as franchise sacrilege. We can only hope GFN have some suitable baddies lined up in the wings... am I hearing calls for a certain Khan? Kor? The Gorn? Now there's a pack...

The Beam Away function is one to use wisely but it's not the only new twist that's introduced in these expansions. Scotty's set has some interesting new bits I can't wait to try and I think the Chief Engineer himself might be a real dark horse of a character as the Mission Commander. But we'll come to that one next...

The Captain Kirk Federation Expansion pack is now available from your Away Missions stockist!

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Lights, Camera, ACTION FIGURES!

Y'know what... thank god Playmates came along to drain my wallet now Eaglemoss has disappeared. I mean, what other Star Trek stuff would I have ended up buying? I dread to think.

The first wave of figures includes Saru and Burnham as seen in season one of Discovery as well as Picard, Riker and Data as seen from season three of TNG. Rounding out the eight arrivals we have a trio from The Wrath of Khan. There's Khan himself and, as we'll dive into here, Admiral Kirk and Captain Spock.

Now, while the TNG characters come in suitably retro '90's packaging, Kirk and Spock arrive in new styled boxes bearing the visage of each as well as the Star Trek Universe logo.

The boxes are nice to look at and well presented with each bearing a side tab to indicate who is in the box plus the usual blurb on the back insisting you purchase the other options available.

But these are never going to stay in the packaging in my house so don't expect this to be a hands off review in any respect. Let's take a look at Admiral James T Kirk for starters.

As with the TOS phaser, this is not going to give you Diamond Select levels of accuracy. For one the scale is significantly smaller but this in no way detracts from what is actually a decent reproduction of Kirk in his monster maroon uniform. 

Packaged up with a phaser, 23rd Century PADD and tricorder, Kirk is certainly ready for an away mission. The accessories themselves are just grey, unpainted moulded plastic although they do have a good level of detail so that is a positive.

The figure itself is really what we're here for. With 14 points of articulation there's not a lot you can't get him to pose for - that is if you can manage to keep the accessories from falling out of his hands.

The uniform is very well presented, including the rank pins on shoulder and sleeve as well as the service length pips and bars. There's the gold admiral trim along the front flap, the gold Com badge and belt buckle too for good measure. On the back we have the flap catch attached but missing the black centre of the xxxx. Again there's some minor painting issues around the black of the belt where it's been marked in over the base maroon colour. UPDATE: Thanks to the keen eyes of Marcelo Carvahlo though I am pointed towards one inconsistency - the flap should not extend around from above the delta - only from the centre line of the collar. WHOOPS Playmates!!!

Ok, some of the painting on these small details isn't exhibition level but let's just bear in mind that these are toys at their heart and are designed more of rough and tumble play than standing on display in a vacuum sealed case.

Everything is very posable - feet, hands, elbows and even the head can be moved fairly flexibly. Kirk's eyes do give me the creeps though as he's permanently giving a side stare. What I have noticed as well is that the physical features here are a lot less shiny and also much more in proportion to the bodies. One of the lasting memories I have of the original Playmates line is the oversized hands (bear with me on that one when we come to Spock) and larger than necessary heads. 

Likelihood was that they were larger to add in the needed refinements to distinguish Neelix from Chekov (extreme example) facially. Technology has certainly moved on with the figures now scaled more to their respective sizes so Picard for instance isn't as tall as Riker.

But back to Kirk before I digress once again. He also comes with a display stand which is a huge let down. The older stands had at least some detail and looked the part. This one is, in keeping with the accessories, just a moulded piece of grey plastic. However, if you're not using Kirk to battle Khan you'll want him attached to it or he'll be constantly falling over.

Then there's Spock. This is, unbelievably, the first Spock I've ever had as a figure and he infuriates me.

That's not logical I'm sure you'll be saying but for what reason did he have to be giving the Vulcan salute permanently?

Now I think this is a great reproduction and in the scale it's a marvellous recreation of Leonard Nimoy's features but that hand bugs me. The bodies (thanks again to Marcelo for pulling me up on this one) are also slightly different. Spock noticeably thinner while Kirk is more season three TOS than early season one!

Again there's some colour bleed where the base red is still visible on the rank and Starfleet emblem but I really do think they're as near as dammit when it comes to making this recognisably Spock. The eyebrows, the haircut and even the lines of the face are spot on. Thank goodness too that Playmates chose to go with a more focused gaze on the Vulcan than his superior.

Given that one hand is fixed into the Vulcan salute (which looks damn awkward when positioned), this means that only his left is available for accessory duty. With Spock there's a handheld scanning device and a clunky The Motion Picture/The Wrath of Khan tricorder but that's not the big draw.

In keeping with the theme of the figure Spock forgoes a phaser and receives the radiation suit gloves as seen towards the end of the second Star Trek movie as he valiantly tries to repair the Enterprise. 

Partially split towards the cuffs, the gloves do slide particularly well onto the figures hands and does, thankfully, cover that salute. One problem. However I look at it I'm thinking they're just a little too big, making Spock look like he's wearing two novelty foam hands. Worse, as one of my friends noted, he looks like he borrowed them from Sonic the Hedgehog.

It does force you to end up placing one of his hands behind his back if you're not a fan but it does also exude a certain Spock-ishness once you do. For note, the arm joints do seem to be a lot stiffer than the leg ones. When I was posing both of these the legs tended to try and head off in their own directions from hip, knee and ankle while it felt like trying to prize a Ferengi off latinum to move the elbows.

Ok, so it covers the hand and is a nice nod to the movie. It's also different because these are a lot softer plastic and  (shocker) in white with sliver highlights so they're fairly accurate to the movie. All you need now is a piece of plastic and you can recreate one of Trek's greatest scenes in miniature.

Reflecting on the more chunky 90's editions, these new Playmates figures are fair better proportioned and much more malleable than ever before. I'm not totally convinced if it's been 100% successful given the smaller heads but overall it looks to be an improvement and I'm keen to see how the line progresses. Surely the DS9 figures will be in the later uniforms? Will we get numerous Kirk variants? What about Enterprise? So many things to come as long as these first releases are a success... how could they not be? 

More Playmates reviews to come soon!

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The Wrath of Khan at 40: The Classic Lives On

I was far, far too young to watch The Wrath of Khan when I first saw it.

My first experience of the movie doesn't come from 1982 when I was *cough* just two *cough* but from about three years later on a videotaped version from one of the (at the time) four terrestrial channels we could enjoy in the UK. 

It was the first Star Trek movie I ever saw and for a six year old it blew my mind. Honestly, I didn't realise that I was probably far too young for this movie as I just lapped up every scene with relentless excitement and awe. It was incredible, proper space battle stuff, phasers and explosions; Amazing! What more could you want from a sci-fi film? Apart from being slightly terrified by those ceti eels in a very much edited-for-Saturday-afternoon version.

This video was watched and re-watched with frightening regularity because it was and still probably is my favourite film of all time. If I'm right I wore the tape out because it was viewed that often and now I know the film, as many, many fans do, line by line. Each word is subconsciously pre-empted, every nuance and action anticipated but loved all the same.

I mean, The Wrath of Khan's brilliance has endured for four decades and - in fact when I originally started drafting this - I even introduced it to my wife who took it a lot more positively than I expected.

Melissa is in no way (read: any way at all) a Star Trek fan and would be happy if the s**t was removed from the house this instant and burned. But she has allowed it for many years and knows it's a part of who I am. Anyway, cutting back to the point, she watched it and enjoyed it. I might have even heard the comment of 'good film' in there somewhere. Mel has been more akin to the general movie-goer friendly JJ reboots and after watching those she dropped in during my in-sequence movie watch with The Search for Spock coming to realise that the more recent blockbusters merely touch the surface and offer a line into the wider franchise.

Going back and watching The Wrath of Khan was a great experience to see her drawn in by the story, the action, the subtle undertones and admit that it was easily the best of the movies. It was pretty much as I did back in the mid-80's watching Ricardo Montalban chew the scenery for the umpteenth time and eye roll at the recognition of Chekov which is the stuff of Star Trek legend.

Khan is in no way a hard movie to say why it's so good and even the franchise itself has attempted to copy its brilliance with varying levels of success - First Contact and Into Darkness being those polar opposite examples. Indeed it's influence reaches into the writing of The Voyage Home, the writing and directing of The Undiscovered Country and ultimately to the direction of Discovery with the inclusion of Nicholas Meyer into the show's writers room. Heck, there's still that rumour that a Khan mini-series will happen and even in the last episode of Picard's second season there was an ominous reference to Project Khan in the hands of Adam Soong. It's influence cannot be underestimated which isn't bad for a movie that had a fraction of the budget of its predecessor. Think about it for a moment and just how much is reused. The Klingon K'tingas, Enterprise in spacedock, the crew uniforms are dyed rehashes of the ones from The Motion Picture and the two main sets - the bridges of the Reliant and the Enterprise are the same set. 

Even just with those you would be laughing and mocking a movie if it were made now and rehacked a substantial amount of its forebear but in that respect The Wrath of Khan is unique. The story is a huge upgrade, the stakes are unequivocally raised and slot in one of the most gut-punching final acts in cinema history and the sedentary plod through V'Ger is easily banished from the mind. 

People ask if you can single out moments from the movie which are classics but I find it hard to pull apart what is the perfect Star Trek movie. There is true heart, character and loss in every cell of the film from the opening "In the 22nd Century" right to Nimoy's one and only time recital of "Space; the final frontier...". No other Star Trek movie packs so much into its running time and effortlessly feels like every minute is finely balanced, every line just necessary; no more no less (more on that in a sec).

The legendary six day Meyer rewrite may have given The Wrath of Khan the kick that the franchise needed after the pedestrian nature of The Motion Picture it was a vibrant visual spectacular with those monster maroon uniforms, phaser battles, a submarine-like hunt in the Mutara Nebula and the Kirk/Khaaaaaaaaan exchanges but how come it's endured for so long and how come I still find it my go-to Star Trek movie more than any other?

It has matured exceptionally well with my younger self enwrapped in the action, the explosions and the burning starships but as I've grown older each viewing has brought something new to light and a new angle to view it from; life and death, winning and losing; vengeance and perhaps interestingly, growing older itself.  Like Kirk, I tried the desk job and it wasn't for me and I went back to something that I enjoyed before it was too late (!) and still after all that it still resonates. I might not be watching it with the regularity I managed in the late 80's but there are at least a couple of re-watches a year, even if it's just to enjoy the adventurous James Horner soundtrack.

Each scene delivers and provides almost a mini-cliffhanger as we bounce between the Enterprise, Reliant and Regula One with themes explored at the beginning re-emerging later in the movie without feeling forced. It's an action adventure that carries more weight than you think and barely has the two main protagonists speaking to each other let alone ever physically meet.

The Wrath of Khan really affected my views on Star Trek from something that I watched on a Wednesday night into something that I absolutely loved. I can remember recreating the final battle with my Ertl USS Enterprise which had been adorned with phaser and torpedo damage just as the ship had been in the Mutara Nebula - it was on the TV version of the ship however but my young mind could easily make the jump as the Enterprise rose up behind the Reliant/over the bedside.

Believe it or not this is actually going somewhere because June 4th 2018 marked 36 years since the movie was originally released and it still looks great in every frame and with every spoken line. It has everything you could possibly want from Star Trek and I firmly believe that without the success of this movie there would be no franchise today. The Wrath of Khan is one of those moments where Star Trek actually got it right in the right way at the right time. All the elements needed were where they needed to be and it pounced on the move to the cinema with veracity and energy rather than treading a similar line to The Motion Picture. 

Without the renewed vigour and dynamism of The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek may well have become a sci-fi footnote of 79 episodes and two so so movies whereas instead it breathes life into the show which still exists today. If you were to encapsulate the effect of this story in one word it would have to be ‘monumental’. A moment that is off-referred to, imitated both outside and within the franchise and still as fresh today as it was in June 1982.

Indeed, just think how many references to Augments, Ceti Eels, Ceti Alpha V, Khan himself,

great fictional works, the needs of the many or even the Kobayashi Maru have pervaded the franchise since this point - how many times has it perhaps attempted to regain that moment of "perfection"? Maybe the other way of looking at it is that The Wrath of Khan spawned the greatest period of Star Trek's history but was it also the most polluting factor at the same time with everything being rated against the second movie in every sense meaning that future writers and directors were consciously or unconsciously using it as a base?

Now in 2022 I can add another few paragraphs to my love of this movie because I've finally watched the Director's Cut. The differences are subtle; the nod to Scotty's nephew, slight extensions to a few of the scenes that add a little more depth to the narrative (and an odd one or to that actually remove a touch of the dynamic) but as a whole it still proves that this is a classic. Polished up and with some great extras it's a must to any collection and will more than likely be pressed up against the inevitable 4k Blu-Ray render of The Motion Picture that's recently arrived.

Perhaps back in 1982 there was even more riding on the success of a sequel than there was from The Motion Picture. That had proved the franchise could work on the big screen and attract a good size audience and takings but The Wrath of Khan had to do more for less. This one had to prove that there was longevity to this direction and it did that in spades. Even today there is no other film I have watched or quote more than this one, there is no other movie I have seen more times than this nor one that I enjoy as much on each viewing.

Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan has been revered and imitated within its own franchise walls for 40 years and that love does not look set to dissipate any time soon. Maybe though there is one more thing for me to do with it and that's to see it up on the cinema screen itself as along with The Motion Picture and The Search for Spock it's one of only three Star Trek features I've not experienced in that environment. Fingers crossed it doesn't take another 40 years for me to make that happen. 

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SNW and Captain Kirk

It was only a matter of time?

In terms of Star Trek that’s one of those phrases that can be taken several ways. However the latest from the Kurtzman stable seems to have provided something of a severe look of confusion from Trekkies including myself. (note that the above pic is a photoshopped image of Anson Mount)

Paramount Plus’ hand was forced this week by some set photos to announce that Vampire Diaries’ Paul Wesley will be appearing in SNW’s second season as the legendary James T Kirk. Great news and something that fans were indeed hoping for with the new, episodic series.

But. According to all those fixed points in the Star Trek PRIME timeline, Kirk should not be a captain as is suggested by his sleeve stripes but still a lieutenant on the USS Farragut (see TOS’ Obsession for further details). Might we be looking at a flash forward? A full skip to Kirk era after season one? Time travel? Note also that there's no actual reference anywhere from Paramount that he's Captain Kirk.

As we know, season one of the hotly anticipated SNW takes place a short time after season two of Discovery and the recent trailer reveals Pike has retreated to Mojave and grown himself a fine beard. Kirk only becomes captain when he joins the Enterprise and that doesn’t happen for another 6/7 years. 

So what is going on? Kirk’s emblem on his uniform does look different to the standard delta so that could be an indicator but still… to have him at the rank of captain? Might there be some element of photoshop in the works or have they genuinely cocked this one right up?

There seems to be a lot more people leaning to the second but hey, let’s see what happens. You have to admit that the publicity from a couple of stills and the casting announcement will have done wonders for the PR machine ahead of SNW launching in May.

Might this also be a way of Kurtzman finally admitting that the whole of his Star Trek journey is indeed part of another timeline? I would hate for that to be the case but logically it’s the only way to explain Kirk’s apparent rank unless there’s time travel or that physical jump in the series chronology.

I will admit though that with all of the ongoing storylines there will inevitably be some errors because of the amount of characters and narratives running but the Kirk rank issue would just be too glaring and obvious. Lazy writing? Hope not. 

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Picard: In His "Own" Words

Nearly three years ago I tapped out a review of David A Goodman's Autobiography of Captain James T Kirk.

Now, with the Autobiography of Spock soon to hit the shelves I've turned my attention to the second in his series which takes us to one Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Beware, there might be SPOILERS ahead.

Again an "autobiography", this second book stays firmly in the mold of the first giving us a full narrative from early years right through to - in the case of Picard - his twilight years in the ambassadorial corps.

Goodman's grasp of the lineage of the character is excellent and his knowledge of The Next Generation and Picard (of course) is exemplary. The influence of episodes such as Family and Tapestry are there from the beginning talking us through his early years at the Picard vineyard in France to his first and second attempts to join Starfleet which would eventually reveal more to his increasingly distant father than Jean-Luc initially imagined. There is indeed a great deal of detail within the events Goodman is "editing" for the former captain.

We join Picard as he steps through the tough Academy years, reliving the time he won the Academy Marathon as recounted in The Best of Both Worlds and meet up with Admiral (Captain as was) Hansen on the occasion, even take a few steps on the Enterprise-C which is odd since this was never even mentioned on screen - even in Yesterday's Enterprise when you would most have expected it.

Martha Botanides and Corey Zweller make appearances too (but their exit is far too convoluted) as do Guinan (many times!), the Crusher family and in fact many more notables from Picard's past. Even old flames - as they would be by the time of The Next Generation such as Olivia Dubois and Jenice Manheim from The Measure of a Man and  We'll Always Have Paris do a turn in the book allowing us to "see" their first encounters with the future Enterprise captain and in some respects make more sense of their later reunions with him and the reasons for their attitudes towards Jean-Luc.

There is a great deal of the book handed over to events that take place right up to the point at which Picard takes command of the Enterprise-D with meticulous attention to the years on the USS Stargazer and how he made his way through the ranks to become the ship's captain.

While a fascinating read it does have a few drawbacks which become apparent fairly quickly. The pre-Enterprise years, while interesting and deeply "researched" do feel as though they go on for a considerable amount of time in some ways forcing the appearance of future The Next Generation characters just for the sake of name dropping them in. It also means that his command years on NCC-1701-D are heavily condensed with only one event from each of the seven seasons being used and his most famous period of exploits being shoddily condensed. We get Conspiracy, We'll Always Have Paris, The Best of Both Worlds, Family, Unification and it goes without saying, The Inner Light, all receiving attention with the four motion pictures getting a shot too for good measure but certainly there's more of a leaning towards Generations and First Contact than the others indicating a certain authorial preference just as was with The Final Frontier? What about Darmok? I could pick more...

It is a crackingly entertaining read and does avoid the pitfall of making part of the main character's existence into an almost-joke as Goodman did with Star Trek V in his Kirk book. I'm not for a second suggesting that this should be taken and presented as canon because there's a bit in there that does feel a tad convoluted and I'd draw your attention to how a lot of notables from his past get killed off conveniently at Wolf 359.

Post Nemesis is where fans will certainly have a lot to say with not only Picard marrying Beverly Crusher but there's what could be seen as a highly controversial story move in regards to B4 that isn't one handled by the continuing novel series by rival publishers Simon and Schuster (this is published by Titan Books). 

It does get quite speculative in these later pages but I suppose there are always the possibilities of alternative futures and the like so anything can - and therefore will - happen. While Goodman's book is a great read I feel that the tone isn't quite Jean-Luc enough. There's a certain aloofness, perhaps a little more ego than I might have expected or anticipated to the writing which doesn't seem in keeping with the Enterprise captain and, if I'm honest, didn't feel that different to the tone of the Kirk autobiography. 

I mean you do feel for Picard when he's recounting his assimilation by the Borg and some of his early relationship issues with his brother but otherwise it feels very average on the emotional scale. That might be by design but I imagined Picard writing something with a bit more of a flourish to it than Goodman has managed. It also, as suggested betrays the author's preferences when it comes to events within the known 24th Century timeline. There are of course elements that you can't ignore but what of Dixon Hill for instance?

There is that rather ironic twist to the tale in that we've only recently had news that Patrick Stewart could be returning to his most famous TV role very soon - which means that a bug chunk of this title could be incorrect within a matter of months and along with those little inconsistencies which could be from a case of trying too hard to cram in as many cross-references as possible, this doesn't sit as well with me as Goodman's first tome on the captain of NCC-1701.

While I have my reservations here over the way in which Picard is presented from his own perspective, it is a book packed with fan-nodding references and a lot of love for the franchise. It's entertaining from the beginning and I did absolutely rip through it in a couple of days just in the same way as I did with the previous Kirk autobiography. One for fans of The Next Generation whatever their interest level I think!

Have you dipped into the Picard authobiography? What was your verdict?

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Lessons from the Past in "Divided We Stand"

Continues is back!!!

It doesn't seem that long since we were watching and reviewing The White Iris (it was only May!) but here we are with Divided We Stand. Be warned, I guarantee there will be spoilers.

Opening straight into the heart of peril, we find the USS Enterprise at the mercy of a strange life-form which has invaded the computer systems from the Friendship Three probe and is scanning through all the ships records. Just when it looks like the situation is about to be resolved, a freak explosion plunges Kirk and McCoy seemingly back in time to the American Civil War and the eve of the Battle of Antietam Creek (aka Sharpsburg) in 1862.

From the end of the titles we effectively have two stories in play. First there's the Kirk/McCoy story as they become involved in the events leading up to the battle. Kirk takes the role of a Union corporal while Bones is a Confederate sergeant. The latter is "captured" by the northern army but quickly becomes useful thanks to his medical skills in the field. Then there's Enterprise crew's efforts to save their colleagues lives - as it turns out the whole civil war experience is just in their heads caused by some nanite-like creatures who are gradually killing them.

Divided We Stand is satisfyingly different from previous episodes as we've dealt with gods, Orions, the Mirror Universe and mental illness before dropping on a time travel/history episode.  I'd only recently watched Starship Farragut's For Want of a Nail which takes place during the War of Independence so I was well geared up for another taste of US history and this was a level above that 2007 effort with a great deal of outdoor location work and some truly great performances all round. 

While there is clearly an exploration of war, cowardice and bravery, we do have the more booming theme of freedom bearing down from the very start of the episode. It's "hinted" at from the name of the troublesome Earth probe the Enterprise encounters and in dealing with the topic of the American Civil War in which slavery was a decisive matter, there's going to be no escaping the discussion. OK, so there's immediate concerns from Kirk and McCoy about becoming too embroiled in events that may or may not be real and thereby changing history but with a brief bit of narrative exposition we're up and running onto the more important themes of the story/

Of the two regulars, Vic Mignogna as Kirk is given a lot more time since he is out on the front lines and is placed into a terrifying situation that McCoy (Chuck Huber) must resolve. It's one of the great moments of the episode I'm surprised that Mignogna didn't play the trauma of it a little greater than he did but there's only 42 minutes of episode so we have to get a move on I suppose! Huber is excellent as always as McCoy, having to deal with basic medical practices and the nightmares of the battlefield as well as saving the life of his commanding officer. Chuck has the southern doc down-pat and for me he's one of the shining lights of Continues adding a little more compassion and a little less grump to McCoy.

What they do play on with this story is the matter of oppression and segregation that in some respects still rages across the world today. It is most evident because of the source material and the nature of the war but we still manage to divert into points regarding honour and the weight of history in how people are remembered and for what.

On the ship Spock (Todd Haberkorn) is once more in command as the medical staff struggle to battle the infection taking over Kirk and McCoy. Why they were exactly reacting the same to stimulus is a little confusing since they weren't at exactly the precise same place all the time but I guess we can let it slide since they are technically in the same place. Fairest of Them All was much more Haberkorn's episode to chew out as the Mirror Spock and here his role is pretty straight-forward. Not having McCoy to bounce off when we have the captain incapacitated does mean that the emotionless Vulcan doesn't get challenged to any degree and while it's great to have a Kirk/McCoy episode, I think Spock could have done with being at least a little more on edge given the state of his two closest friends.

Aiding him though is Chris Doohan as Scotty whose engineering skills are called into action but he sadly doesn't have a great deal to do other than that this time round. Getting a lot more exposure in his first Continues outing is Dr M'Benga played by Martin Bradford.

M'Benga is the latest canon character to board the ship and just manages to swerve to the side of hamming it up although his "serious eyebrow" and furrowed brow do come into play a lot. That said I really enjoyed his performance all the way through and maybe his straight, almost logical performance was a calming influence on Spock. As for the other recurring cast they really are, sadly, sidelined. Grant Imahara is there and gone in a few seconds; Chekov and Uhura barely get a couple of sentences each while Kipleigh Brown's Lieutenant Smith might be there at the navigation station but she's again only given a fleeting few lines of dialogue to handle. Chekov however does help make a dangerously big leap of plot in the aid of the story, suggesting that Kirk and McCoy are trapped in some form of illusionary recreation of the Civil War after he discovers what was being examined by the nano-machines at the time of the explosion on the bridge.

Even Michelle Specht's Doctor McKennah has a fleeting appearance (boo) that feels forced just to give her a few lines and remind viewers that she's a part of the crew and that Spock may be having some emotional issues with the situation regarding his friends. 

To be fair Marc Cushman and Susan Osborn's script (from a story by Vic Mignogna) doesn't present a great deal of action or suspense and instead once more delves into what Continues seems to do best and use only a select couple of characters to tell a character-driven story. The dialogue is fairly brisk too, moving us swiftly from one point to another and I do believe that Vic is sounding like William Shatner even more everyday. There's certainly points within this story where the lines could easily be directly from a classic episode and that certainly resonated with me in relation to the captain. I wouldn't class it as hammy either and given what other Star Trek fan episodes and films have been around, I think this is one of the best jobs so far. I'm not saying it's gold-plated but there weren't any moments I truly cringed at and I think the writers produced something here that was thoughtful and avoided all the subtlety of a sledgehammer given the subject matter.

Martin Bradford, as I noted is a great addition and I hope to see him back but there's also Scotty Whitehurst as the young Billy Palmerson is key to the civil war encounter and does a very good job at pulling off the inexperienced and scared young man pitched into a bloodbath. Of all the characters within the episode he is the one who perhaps takes the longest journey from a timid "boy" sickened at the sight of McCoy pulling a bullet from the chest of his sergeant to a soldier leading a deadly charge to turn the tide of the battle. Palmerson might well be influenced by Kirk in his change of heart but Scotty Whitehurst manages not to jump from one extreme to another and certainly grows his character as the story progresses. There's a nice little parallel on the Enterprise with a personal sacrifice as well but it's nothing in comparison to that which young Billy makes.

As for the settings, well we don't get that new Engineering set just yet (!) and all of the ship scenes are effectively confined to the bridge and sickbay so there's nothing new in that respect. When it comes to the outdoor scenes, Continues has performed a master-stroke. I suspect it's fairly easy(ish) to get a recreation organisation to get together as your background cast but filming outside can't have been the easiest thing and for that the production must be commended. 

Vic's direction is steady and does the job more than adequately, sticking to basics since this is a very "talky" episode which relies on us, the viewer, being up close with the characters a lot of the time. Fortunately we aren't treated to some sort of bloodbath episode which is all about the glory of war or how the US was formed and I think it's a good call to steer clear of such matters instead resting the narrative on the more human aspects that all those involved encountered. There is, of course, a bit of action but only using that tool for a matter of a minute or two is all that's needed to remind us of the setting for our story. 

Divided We Stand is another solid episode from the Continues stable and means we're taking note of everything that comes from this production team. Only thing that did annoy me here was that we've had to revert to using deadly infection/computer attack to work out a story and this concept does feel very tired by this point. It might have worked in the '60's in original Star Trek but now it's been overplayed so many times you would expect more. Perhaps what is also missing except for a few lines in the pre-titles sequence is that spark between Kirk/Spock/McCoy that Continues has worked so well to maintain. Separating the trio is always a good tool but as I've said already, it does seem to work against the story in some ways.

Coming off the back of Fairest of them All and The White Iris, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, Divided We Stand is a bit of a let down. Why? Because of the calibre of episodes that Continues has been producing. Every one has been a magnificent effort, well acted, well thought out and crisply presented on schedule and well packaged for the Star Trek-hungry audience and maintaining that level has to be a near-impossible challenge. Here we do have something, again, different, a piece of history Star Trek has never visited and one I didn't expect to encounter. It's not the best one of the five but we can see how things are moving on, how stable the cast is and how much this series is a work by fans that means to deliver every time.

What did you think to Divided We Stand? A good episode? Or not?

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