30 min
Star Trek Continues ”What Ships Are For” - Detailed Analysis & Review Nerd heaven
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- TV Reviews
In this episode of Star Trek Continues, we are treated to the return of John De Lancie is a new role. But just because he's not playing Q, doesn't mean he isn't awesome. "What Ships Are For" explores an issue that has been topical in our world in recent years - immigration and refugees.
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Transcript
Welcome to Nerd Heaven.
I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars
And I am a nerd.
This is episode 104 of the podcast. (Yes, I’m counting the chat about DC comics from last time)
Today, we’re talking about the Star Trek Continues episode “What Ships are For”.
The description on IMDB reads
Kirk struggles with aiding a society whose inhabitants view their isolated world in a very unique way.
This teleplay was written by Kipleigh Brown
With story by Vic Mignogna, James Kerwin, and Kipleigh Brown,
It was directed by Vic Mignogna
And it first aired on the 30th of July 2017
When I first heard that Star Trek Continues was bringing in the legendary John DeLancie, but that he’d be playing a character that wasn’t Q, my initial reaction was “What a waste of John De Lancie.”
My thinking went something like this. The idea of having Q visit Kirk’s Enterprise would be fun. Something that could certainly happen in-universe because Q can travel through time with the click of a finger. But it couldn’t have ever been done in TOS because The Next Generation didn’t exist yet. It’s the similar problem to having Kirk and Spock make references to Archer and T’Pol. While Enterprise took place before TOS, it was created more than 30 years later.
These kinds of references and interactions can only be done by fan productions (or maybe Strange New Worlds).
But as fun as it would be having Q show up in a TOS episode, it’s unlikely a fan production would be able to get John DeLancie.
But Star Trek Continues managed to get him. But they didn’t use him for Q. They cast him as another character. Added to the disappointment of him not being Q, was the fact that De Lancie is a very recognisable guy, so seeing him as a different character would be odd to say the least.
After watching the episode the first time, I had to back-pedal my thoughts on this because of De Lancie’s great performance. He did a fantastic job with this character, and now it’s hard to imagine this episode without him.
The Enterprise is responding to a distress call from an inhabited asteroid with a limited warp capable society.
I like that it’s an inhabited asteroid. We always see people living on planets, but I think we need more inhibited moons and asteroids, not only in sci-fi, but in fantasy as well. If I ever write a fantasy book, the world I set it on will be a moon, rather than a planet.
And a nice bit of ongoing continuity, we learn that two Federation starships have been dispatched to investigate what happened to the hood. Both have suffered unexplainable damage.
We also learn that Nurse Chapel is already at Starfleet medical, studying to become a doctor. We know that by the time of Star Trek The Motion Picture, Chapen is a doctor. This is the first really big sign that Star Trek Continues is on a trajectory toward that movie, starting to set up some of the big changes that occurred off-screen between season 3 and the movie.
You sometimes see nurses who decide to become doctors in both fiction and real life. It can be almost viewed as a promotion, which, I suspect it technically is, if you look at the hierarchy of authority in a hospital. But nursing certainly needn't be seen as a stepping stone to medicine. Nursing is a respected profession of highly intelligent people. And interestingly, my wife works with a nurse who used to be a doctor, but decided she’d rather be a nurse. You don’t often see it go that direction.
The other hint of the motion picture you see is the white medical uniform the doctor at Starfleet is wearing. Kirk jokes that you’ll never get him in one of tho
In this episode of Star Trek Continues, we are treated to the return of John De Lancie is a new role. But just because he's not playing Q, doesn't mean he isn't awesome. "What Ships Are For" explores an issue that has been topical in our world in recent years - immigration and refugees.
----more----
Transcript
Welcome to Nerd Heaven.
I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars
And I am a nerd.
This is episode 104 of the podcast. (Yes, I’m counting the chat about DC comics from last time)
Today, we’re talking about the Star Trek Continues episode “What Ships are For”.
The description on IMDB reads
Kirk struggles with aiding a society whose inhabitants view their isolated world in a very unique way.
This teleplay was written by Kipleigh Brown
With story by Vic Mignogna, James Kerwin, and Kipleigh Brown,
It was directed by Vic Mignogna
And it first aired on the 30th of July 2017
When I first heard that Star Trek Continues was bringing in the legendary John DeLancie, but that he’d be playing a character that wasn’t Q, my initial reaction was “What a waste of John De Lancie.”
My thinking went something like this. The idea of having Q visit Kirk’s Enterprise would be fun. Something that could certainly happen in-universe because Q can travel through time with the click of a finger. But it couldn’t have ever been done in TOS because The Next Generation didn’t exist yet. It’s the similar problem to having Kirk and Spock make references to Archer and T’Pol. While Enterprise took place before TOS, it was created more than 30 years later.
These kinds of references and interactions can only be done by fan productions (or maybe Strange New Worlds).
But as fun as it would be having Q show up in a TOS episode, it’s unlikely a fan production would be able to get John DeLancie.
But Star Trek Continues managed to get him. But they didn’t use him for Q. They cast him as another character. Added to the disappointment of him not being Q, was the fact that De Lancie is a very recognisable guy, so seeing him as a different character would be odd to say the least.
After watching the episode the first time, I had to back-pedal my thoughts on this because of De Lancie’s great performance. He did a fantastic job with this character, and now it’s hard to imagine this episode without him.
The Enterprise is responding to a distress call from an inhabited asteroid with a limited warp capable society.
I like that it’s an inhabited asteroid. We always see people living on planets, but I think we need more inhibited moons and asteroids, not only in sci-fi, but in fantasy as well. If I ever write a fantasy book, the world I set it on will be a moon, rather than a planet.
And a nice bit of ongoing continuity, we learn that two Federation starships have been dispatched to investigate what happened to the hood. Both have suffered unexplainable damage.
We also learn that Nurse Chapel is already at Starfleet medical, studying to become a doctor. We know that by the time of Star Trek The Motion Picture, Chapen is a doctor. This is the first really big sign that Star Trek Continues is on a trajectory toward that movie, starting to set up some of the big changes that occurred off-screen between season 3 and the movie.
You sometimes see nurses who decide to become doctors in both fiction and real life. It can be almost viewed as a promotion, which, I suspect it technically is, if you look at the hierarchy of authority in a hospital. But nursing certainly needn't be seen as a stepping stone to medicine. Nursing is a respected profession of highly intelligent people. And interestingly, my wife works with a nurse who used to be a doctor, but decided she’d rather be a nurse. You don’t often see it go that direction.
The other hint of the motion picture you see is the white medical uniform the doctor at Starfleet is wearing. Kirk jokes that you’ll never get him in one of tho
30 min