Why Roberto Orci is bad for Star Trek, and for the film industry as a whole.

So I’m returning from my self imposed exile. I have decided to do weekly posts rather than three a week, mainly to give more resources towards my other creative projects. Also, this space will occasionally house more than just Trek stuff. There will be some gaming and some film related things in here as well. Now, the topic at hand: Variety has just named Roberto Orci as the director of Star Trek 3. This isn’t shocking, we all pretty much knew this is what was going down. It leaked about a month ago, and it seemed like the studio didn’t have issues with it. I kept quiet, mainly because it was still speculation, and when it comes to speaking out about other creative people in public, I usual err on the side of caution. However, now that he is officially the director I must speak up. Roberto Orci being given the directors chair for Star Trek 3 is not just bad for the Star Trek franchise, it is bad for the film industry as a whole.

Now most of my reasoning is probably not for the reasons that you think. Roberto Orci has never directed a feature film, and that is troubling. However neither had Leonard Nimoy, and he directed Star Trek III and Star Trek IV. STIII was sort of a mess, but its a good sequel to Wrath of Khan. STIV was the third most successful Star Trek film in terms of domestic box office and is a fun time travel romp that effectively brought Star Trek to a much broader audience. It was co-written by Nimoy, Harve Bennet, Nick Meyer, Steve Meerson, and Peter Krikes. Usually seeing that many names attached to a screenplay throws up red flags, but Bennet and Meyer were part of the incredibly successful rebranding of Star Trek, having directed and produced Wrath of Khan, respectively. Part of the success of the new direction was the producing and directing, with Bennet reeling in the budget and Meyer more effectively retooling the concept to a more effective storytelling method, which ultimately saved the franchise. That was 30 years ago. Another comparison to be made is Jonathan Frakes, who prior to directing Star Trek: First Contact, had never directed a movie before. However, Frakes had proven himself to be a very competent director on Star Trek: The Next Generation, having directed The Offspring, Reunion, The Drumhead, Cause and Effect, The Quality of Life, The Chase, Attached, and Sub Rosa. Reunion, The Drumhead, and Cause and Effect are considered some of the best episodes of the series. (Sub Rosa is often cited as the WORST episode of the series, so theres that.) Nimoy also was not new to directing, having directed theater and television before that.

So then why is Roberto Orci being turned on? Are his ideas that bad? The short answer? No, his ideas aren’t terrible. The long answer is much more complicated. Orci and Kurtzman wrote the screenplay for the first two Star Trek reboot movies. The first is a rollicking sci-fi adventure that manages to cleverly reboot the franchise with a wit and energy that had been long missing from the franchise. There were definitely issues, the script was full of bad writing tricks like an eye rollingly high amount of coincidence, things just happened because Orci and Kurtzman needed them to happen. Worse yet, existing continuity and character were excised when they found themselves in a conflict that they didn’t know how to get out from, like a certain character inventing a technology on a whim based on information from a future person. One of my favorite writing rules was broken countless times in the film: “Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.” The last bit of criticism I don’t personally feel as strongly about but it’s been said many times; the characters had such dramatic changes to their histories that they were no longer even the same characters, specifically James T. Kirk. Overall though, I enjoyed the movie, but all of the errors, all of the issues I had from day one? All of them were problems with the screenplay. The best elements of the movie were the direction. The speed and efficiency of the storytelling. The visually dynamic action scenes and interesting choices in diversion from existing canon. All of this was J.J. Abrams, not Orci and Kurtzman. Orci and Kurtzman’s ideas aren’t terrible, they’re actually pretty interesting. It’s their application that is seriously flawed.

The second Star Trek movie written by the duo, Star Trek Into Darkness, I can’t write about here. I loathe the movie. It would be unfair to drag my feelings about that movie into this, suffice to say that it just illuminates how poorly the two writers behind the screenplay understand basic story structure and stakes. It is gimmicky and manipulative and DUMB in all the ways a screenplay should not be. This movie is the perfect example of good ideas being completely wasted by bad writing left and right. How this script was greenlit for such a huge franchise is very surprising.

So Orci is a hack, and thats why he’ll be a terrible director? Well... No. Not really. Honestly, I have worked with creative people for a long time, and time and time again I have come to realize that when it comes to things like directing and translating ideas, sometimes, people really shine in the directors chair. You really can’t tell until they’re UP THERE doing it. Orci has been the exectuive producer on a few shows, and being an EP on a TV show is very similar to directing a movie, you have many creative people you’re trying to wrangle into the right place, often giving specific qualitative and creative decisions from on high, so he’s had elements of the right kind of control. It was also noted that Orci and Kurtzman were very active on the set of STID, (which is more of a mark against him as far as I’m concerned.)

So, it doesn’t matter that he’s a hack and it doesn’t matter that he’s inexperienced? No it matters because he’s the guy in the room. Paramount has a history of going with the guy in the room. In fact J.J. Abrams was the guy in the room when he got the job on Star Trek. When J.J. Abrams was offered the directing and producing job on Star Trek, he has just come off of a MASSIVELY successful, critically acclaimed, reboot of the Mission Impossible franchise with MI:3. The skeptics of that project, of which there were many, were instantly silenced, and from Mission Impossible, which was another reboot of a classic television series, J.J. Moved to Star Trek. Except, in retrospect was that really what was best for the franchise as a whole? One great movie, one terrible movie, and he jumps ship for his true love, Star Wars? As we sit here now, having gone from Star Trek being the hottest shit in the galaxy five years ago, to being the sad girl at the prom whose boyfriend left to go dance with the more popular, sexy girl, with a rich daddy to boot? The J.J. Abrams Star Trek is an evolutionary dead end. J.J. was never interested in the franchise, he was settling for the only Space Opera in the room that wanted him. Where did that come from? Being the Guy in the Room, or as most of us know it, nepotism. Should Roberto Orci be directing Star Trek? Who knows really, he might be good, he most likely will be bad, but the question should be WHO should be directing Star Trek? I don’t know, maybe someone in the spirit of Star Trek? If experience is irrelevant, hire someone unique, someone with fresh, incredible ideas, like say, an upcoming female writer/producer like Brit Marling, or someone with existing credits like Duncan Jones, or literally ANYONE ELSE. Even going back to the old guard would give you some pretty fantastic talent that has shown they can update the sci-fi to be gritty and interesting, like Ron D. Moore. Just showing up and being the only guy with his hand raised is a terrible precedent to be set, especially since it’s another dude. When these franchises can be killed in one swift blow, why would they risk so much on a person that is so incredibly boring? That probably says it straight away.

Roberto Orci in the end isn’t Harve Bennet or Nick Meyer. He’s not even Leonard Nimoy. The era of filmmaking that those men belonged to is long over, they had a thoughtfulness about the way a motion picture should be constructed. Orci wrote Transformers 2. Yeah. This is a very slippery slope for Hollywood, and is a major red flag for the way that Paramount is choosing to treat it’s biggest franchise, that ultimately boring is better. At least he’s not writing the script. Maybe if Orci drops out of Star Trek 4, Patrick Mckay and John D. Payne, the screenwriters, can direct it, and they’ve only written comic books.

A Retrospective on Star Trek Video Games! Part TWO.

(1986)

The next game in our series is Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy which was released by Simon and Schuster Software in 1986, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of TOS. A text based game in the vein of Zork, the game was created by TRANS Fiction Systems, AKA Ron Martinez and Jim Gasperini who also developed Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Transinium Challenge. The game was the second text game released by Simon and Schuster Software in the 80's of a total of three, preceded by Star Trek: The Kobayashi Alternative, and succeded by Star Trek: The Rebel Universe, with Promethean Prophecy from what I've been able to understand, being the more popular entry. I managed to find a working web version of the Apple II edition of the game here. I will say, it's a bit difficult to understand what the larger cultural commentary on the various games was a good 27 years out, but I've read a lot of great things about this specific game.

Screenshot from the MS-DOS version.

The Promethean Prophecy has a story that may sound familiar: The Enterprise is attacked by Romulans, who are defeated. During the attack however the ships food supplies are contaminated with a MacGuffin. Since the MacGuffin, can't be handwaved away, they need to go down to Prometheus Four, the closest M Class Planet around. Realizing that they are not yet a Warp Capable species, the problem now becomes one of not just survival, but of the Prime Directive. What follows is an interesting look into an alien culture with a lot of not so subtle callbacks to episodes like "Errand of Mercy," "The Cloud Minders," and "A Private Little War." Unfortunately I did not have quite enough time to finish the game, but I intend to sometime later this week.

Operation and Reference Card.

Text games for those who have not played them, are a sublime experience. The closest thing I can describe it to is reading a book in which occasionally you have to figure out what the story is trying to tell you, and then describe that, at which the story continues. You can at times, if you would like to know more about a certain subject, ask more about that subject, and it will be described! On the other hand, sometimes I would like to talk to a character or examine an item that the programmers and writers never thought about in which the game will respond: "I don't recognize the word 'analyse'." or something else to that effect. The game starts off with an attack by a Romulan ship in which a sort of phantom image is being projected, with a vague description of a visual anomaly off the starboard bow. The Ensign at the con fumbles and fails to be able to scan the anomaly and the phantom ship so you must find someone who can: "Kirk to Spock" the command calls Lt. Commander Spock (The game makes reference to the death of a Romulan Captain at the hands of Kirk, which I believe is a nod to Mark Lenard's character in "Balance of Terror." He says it happened very recently, within a few months, so that puts the game somewhere between Season 1 and Season 2, as Chekov is aboard the ship. I bring this up because Spock's rank as the XO is very slippery. It is believed that at some point offscreen between Season 1 and 2, he was promoted from Lt. Commander, to a full Commander. I'm going with Lt. Cmder now arbitrarily.)  The game is not hard, but sometimes, I got lost and needed to check a tutorial. Despite the difficulty and some logically mind twisting bugs of the typical adventure game ideology, it's a fun game. Because of the strong writing and well drawn characters, Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy has aged QUITE WELL. Not having what is now considered graphical features has prevented the game from looking dated, and even just being played in a Chrome App, is a very satisfying experience. Track it down, you'll enjoy it.

A Retrospective on Star Trek Video Games! Part ONE.

Hello fellow Trekkies! After taking a little break, I'm back in the command chair and ready to move ahead! Starting off the next feature article set, will be Star Trek Video Games! Over the next few weeks I will be revisiting select Star Trek computer and video games, covering as far back as 1971 all the way until today, up to the behemoth, Star Trek Online. This will not be comprehensive. I won't be playing every single game, as many are long out of print, and some of them I don't have the technical know how to be able to emulate. (Though I will try.) But I will try to cover all of the major titles from every era. The story of Star Trek Video Games is almost the story of video games themselves, having had iterations on almost every computer and home console available, and covering almost every single genre (thankfully there was never a Star Trek fighting game, which is more than can be said of Star Wars.)

Star Trek (1971)

The first title, "Star Trek", is from 1971. The series had just started airing in syndication and it was a hit. Picking up new fans left and right, this is really when the era of Star Trek Fandom began, in the 70's. Obviously I was not around to see it, but it was an interesting time in our nation's history: Technology was taking off quickly. Computers, if huge and complex, were finally starting to exist, not just in some Sci-Fi authors thoughts, but on college campuses and in corporations. It was created by Mike Mayfield who has said it was thought up during geeky garage sessions with then-high school friends, and then developed on an SDS Sigma-7 with a friend's computer lab account. The game is text only, as the computer systems it was developed on didn't even have a screen! The game would print out on reams of computer paper! Mayfield than got a chance to port his game to the HP 2000C in exchange for access to the computer. HP then gained access to the game and started distributing it as "STTR1" via the contributed program library. This led to the game being seen by David H. Ahl, who distributed the game in a newsletter that he wrote about DEC BASIC programs, which led to the game being widely distributed through out that community. David later published a book containing many of those programs in 101 Basic Computer Games which saw "Star Trek" widely distributed amongst virtually every major computer platform. Hell, back in the early 90's I found a box with my mom's old Apple II and opened it up. There was a 8 inch floppy that said Star Trek. Being the young inquisitive nerd I was, I set up the computer (thank god I knew how to run DOS games!) loaded up the files, and saw this game, imagine my utter shock when the game was just numbers and letters, I think I got bored and went read comic books... The look of the game is stark, to say the least. With text characters representing a grid, you fly around the galaxy looking to blow up Klingons. There are photon torpedos and phasers. Phasers are weak but plentiful, and torpedos kill with one shot, but are limited. For the time, the complexity is rather impressive, with complex shooting mechanics and different strategies used for play. It almost resembles something like a digital board game, which given the era and the types of games available for reference at the time, seems reasonable. The game was procedurally generated, and had repair stations where you could patch up your wounds. Having different sectors, you would use the warp drive on the Enterprise, represented by -E-, to go to each sector looking for Klingons, +K+, or Starbases <*>, winning when all of the Klingons were defeated. The success of this game led Ahl to create Super Star Trek with Bob Leedom in 1978, at which time he acquired the official rights from Paramount Pictures to use the name and IP of the series, thus making it one of the very first licensed video games.



"Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator" is an arcade cabinet produced by Sega in 1982. From the get go, it is rather impressive. It utilizes digitzed speech and vector graphics, looking and playing sort of like a mashup of Asteroids and Battlezone. The game has a unique 3 panel layout, with the forward viewer providing a first person view on the bottom half,  with the top down sensors display and the supplies readout taking up the top half. The point of the game is to shoot down all of the Klingon K′Tinga class, making a return from Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979, and save the Starbases which will in turn provide you with all important shields, after which you will warp to a new sector to protect the next Starbase. Having a fast paced, action approach, the game is rather fun. The fantastic graphics, for the time, make the game really feel like playing a simulation ala The Kobayashi Maru. I actually have played this cabinet before, when I was young lad. Having grown up in the late 80s, Early 90s, there were places like Wunderland that spotted the country that had a paid entry but once you had entered the neon palace, were a mere nickel a piece (some games sat defiantly at 10 cents) and this was a popular addition in the various Wunderland's I attended. Especially as a young Star Trek fan, with a fair amount of Star Trek movies under my belt, (8 years old in 1994, I had seen WoK, SFS, The One With The Whales, UC in the theaters in 91, and Generations, but not Motion Picture or The Shatner Effect.) I was hooked by the look and feel of this retro game that played better than a lot of games from that era (remember graphics and the first person thing were big for an 8 year old.) The digitized voices are really fun, even recreating the accents of the characters.

Captain's Chair Variant of Star Trek: Starship Operations Simulator (1982)

Pictured above is the "Captain's Chair Variant" which had I seen at 8 would have blown my head wide open, it even has the controls in the arm chair (though it seems that would make it more difficult than less.) The gameplay was impressive. The faster Battlezone-esque action had surprising tactical depth, with my personal favorite move being to warp past the enemy and turn around quickly before they set their sights on you. It was hard, but not impossible to save the Starbases to get the shields for the next round. If you are killed once, you are dead, but before you go the shields, photons, and warp will go down, which is actually fairly canonical, if even by accident. All in all it was a pretty fun game, and I remember sinking quite a few nickels into it back in the day. Now I know some people might have played something similar to this game, with less than stellar memories as it was ported to 9 different consoles throughout the 80's with some less than stellar results. Yikes. Along with this and the fantastic Star Wars cabinets of the early 80′s, I have many fond memories of arcades and older arcade cabinets as a young sci-fi nerd. I actually think gameplay wise this was a golden era as newer late 80′s and early 90′s cabinets relied more on cheap gimmicks and beat em ups with better graphics (I′m looking at you Konami and X-Men arcade!) 

Well, thats it for now folks, come on back on Friday for my first post in the Chronological Rewatch Project starting with Enterprise Season 1 Episode 1: Broken Bow, and then next Tuesday for my second entry in the Retrospective on Star Trek Games, covering the famous Simon And Schuster produced text game  "Star Trek: The Promethean Prophecy," and then the rest of the best of Star Trek games from the 1980's.

Announcing Two New Feature Article Series

Welcome back folks! My first feature series about Fan Films and series is over and it went very well. I learned a lot about how much work goes into a large project like that and how much time I will need to devote to each post going forward. With that said I think I did a pretty good job for having just rebooted. Moving on.

I know I want to have regular features that bring people back, so they know that I am consistent, and until I have another writer providing an extra voice I'm going to need to be as realistic as possible towards my release schedule, so for the time being I will be sticking two feature articles a week. I'm not entirely sure know but most likely that schedule will be Tuesday, and Friday with some little posts to pepper through the week as well as some activity on the @TrekINADW twitter.

The first project, the smaller month long feature, will be a four part series on Star Trek Video Games through-out time. Now, as I learned with my last feature, this series will not be comprehensive. I will be focusing on major releases and fan favorites, with some examinations of projects that may have been well regarded failures. For this I will be going back to talk about classics of the 1970's but mostly as curiosities. I will devote most of my time playing games that defined the era for games. So for example, 25th Anniversary, Bridge Commander, The Fallen, Star Trek Armada. If the project gets too big I may expand it to a two month long series, but I'll cross that road when I come to it. If any one has so!e suggestions or other ideas feel free to send them my way.

The second, but no less important project is my long running feature set, The Chronological Rewatch and Review. This rewatch method has gained some popularity over the years, though not quite as popular as the Production Order Rewatch which I still respect. I will be watching every episode in chronological order of the in-universe timeline according to this guide: The Star Trek Chronology Project. This method achieves two things for my own purposes: Firstly it allows me to revisit the two series I have spent the least time with first, Enterprise and TOS, in a way that both contextualizes both and informs the other. Second, it allows me to combine this rewatch with the IRL airing of all of Star Trek. The shows in the 90's did not air in a vacuum, and to best recall the true nature of the series, especially the last two seasons of TNG and the first two of DS9, they must be be contextualized with each other. It will also give me a chance to revisit the end of Voyager the same way I did as a teenager, with it as the last bastion of the 24th century. I plan to watch between one and two episodes a week with a corresponding article each week. I will admit there is also a practical element to this: my budget. I want to watch all these shows in the absolute highest quality possible. Currently there are streaming HD seasons of ENT and TOS. With TNG almost done with the blu-ray sets and I hope to god DS9 coming soon with VOY finishing out the run this project will literally give the blurays years to catch up. With 705 different titles not including the animated series, at two titles a week this project won't be done for 7 years... Woah. I know it's quite a bit, and I plan to do quite a bit of research on the tidbits and ideas and between the lines, looking for trivia and other interesting anecdotes to add to the discussion. I'm doing this for my own sanity as I've always wanted to revisit the magic of the 90's when these episodes were waiting constantly. And week by week will give me a nice way to have a regular writing schedule. 

Well, that's it folks, my totally insane and completely nutty plan to start a 7 year project on a whim... Though, if there's one constant in my life, Star Trek is it.

The Voyage Continues - Star Trek Fan Series Part 4.

In 2005 Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled. A very divisive show, it took a while for it to find its footing, much like TNG, DS9, and VOY before it, but by that time the world was growing weary of the same production elements reformulated. There are many different arguments about what went wrong where, but despite improving quality, the show was hemorrhaging viewers, and was eventually put to rest. Many felt the last episode “These Are The Voyages“ was ill-advised and showed all the things the show had done wrong, while at the same time hinted at the storylines that fans had wanted all along. It was a dark period for Star Trek. For the first time in 18 years there was not a live action Star Trek show on television. People started to wonder, “Is this the end of Star Trek?“ Obviously in retrospect, it was not, and I really don't think there ever will be an end to Star Trek, but there was now nothing but the books and comics to keep us going. However, Trekkies had been through this before. Star Trek: The Animated Series was cancelled in 1974. In that time there were rumors of another Star Trek show, Phase II, for years! Star Treks popularity had grown via reruns. Star Trek Conventions were getting bigger and bigger every year. It was 5 long years before Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released in 1979. In that time books, comics, and fan fiction took center stage and developed the stories that fans were rabid for. It seems, history repeats itself.



James Cawley had been collecting props and costumes from TOS since the early 90s. His collection led him to William Ware Theiss the Costume Designer for the original Star Trek. Through this relationship Cawley found in his possession blueprints for the Starship Enterprise sets. Using Cawleys own money, and working with Jack Marshalls “Cow Creek Films“ production company, they built down to the foot recreations of the sets in Port Henry, New York. In 2003 work on a Pilot episode, “Come What May“ began and Star Trek: New Voyages was born. The idea was to pick up where TOS and TAS had left off in 1974 and create a 4th season of episodes done in the same style, mimicking everything from the intro, costumes, jewelry, hairstyles, sound effects, stories and color palette with new, modern VFX to add a little bit of flair, but not to stray too far from the original look. “Come What May“ was released in 2004 and sent a shockwave through the fan film community. Here was, to date, the most impressive Star Trek fan film the community had ever seen. Everything worked. The recasting of the TOS crew was mostly spot on, with a few weak points but ultimately, playful and fun performances. The sets were amazing, the music well done. The look of the actual film and some of the lighting was off, but improved with every subsequent episode. Cawley played Kirk, with a flair and swagger that both refrenced William Shatner and let Cawley improvise. Jeff Quinn played Spock with a cold detachment and a more alien, quizzical approach reminiscent of my other favorite Vulcan, Tuvok. John Kelley completed the trio as Leonard McCoy with the grounded, concerned older brother with a furrowed brow, providing a performance that reinterpreted rather than mimicked DeForrest Kelley. As the series progressed the cast and crew would rotate, in fact even Cawley has given up the mantle to the new Kirk, played by Brian Gross, seen here in a vignette released last winter.



I think most impressive is the production talent that Cawley has assembled here. David Gerrold, a writer on TOS, contributed adapted screenplays for his own abandoned TNG story "Blood and Fire", an AIDS allegory featuring the first gay Starfleet crewmen. The original Chekov, Walter Koenig returned to reprise his role in 2006. This opened up other Star Trek alums to contribute; George Takei, Grace Lee Whitney, D.C. Fontana, Marc Scott Zicree, Michael Reeves and Denise Crosby, to name a few, have all been involved with many, many more actors and staff returning in some way. They knocked it out of the park and at the same time inspired the next generation of fan films.



2006 was the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek, and there were no official Paramount or Star Trek CBS film or TV releases that year. It was rather depressing as a fan not being able to celebrate the series with any new content. In stepped Tim Russ and James Cawley again. Using the New Voyages/Phase II bridge sets in Port Henry, the creation of a new mini-series was developed with a truly absurd cast of Star Trek Alums; Walter Koenig as Captain Pavel Chekov, Nichelle Nichols as Captain Nyota Uhura, Star Trek Generations Alan Ruck as Captain John Harriman, Garrett Wang as Commander Garan, William Wellman Jr. as Charlie Evans, J. G. Hertzler as Koval, Tim Russ as Tuvok, the list goes on and on. The series was written by DS9 writers Jack Trevino and Ethan H. Calk with certain location scenes being shot at the famous Vasquez Rocks in Los Angeles. The fan service here is unparalleled, except possibly by Deep Space 9s "Trials and Tribblations". Truly a one of kind endeavor, there most likely will never be a project like this again, its as fun as it seems, with great production values to rival those of New Voyages. This same team is now working on a follow up series, Star Trek: Renegades, which Ill go into in my next post.



Starship Farragut is a new ship with a new crew, but with familiar adventures taking place in the 23rd century. A sister ship to the Enterprise, its layout and design is the same, but the crew are different. John Broughton dreamed up Starship Farragut in 2004, delivering to the epic Farpoint Convention in 2006 with a slick presentation and the right level of special effects. Their first episode, “The Captaincy” revolves around the new Captain Jack Carter's first command mission. It is impossible not to compare Farragut to Phase II, especially with the cameo by the New Voyages crew in the episode. They both have incredible workmanship and attention to detail in the sets. Where the Phase II crew are a bit flashier with their recreations of our old heroes, the new crew, Jack Carter, the new, young Captain, is more relatable and grounded then the hard nosed captain of the other ship. The pre-existing relationship between Carter and his SIC, Michael Bednar as Commander Tacket, is comforting and feels like more modern Trek, through the PRISM of 60s American-Exceptionalism. Holly Bednar as Lt. Commander Michelle Smithfield has a presence and attitude towards Command with is sorely lacking in ranking female officers in Star Trek.



It is also absolutely of note that Starship Farragut, who are still releasing episodes that continue to increase with the already high level of quality, have also made two animated episodes in conjuction with NEO f/x, in the style of Star Trek: The Animated Series. The look and feel is spot on! It really is incredible that this amount of work has gone into a project for which there is legally no profit to be made. Also of note, Starship Farragut contains the first appearance of Vic Mignogna as Captain James T. Kirk, who will reprise his role in the upcoming Star Trek Continues, which I will be writing about in my next article, coming either Monday or Tuesday.

Alright folks, despite some missed deadlines due to real life considerations, I am reaching the end of my first set of featured articles for Trek Is Not A Dirty Word. The last in this series will be focusing on Star Trek: Renegades and Star Trek Continues with some look ahead at what we may come to expect in the future from Star Trek Fan Films. Tell me what you think and dont forget to subsscribe! I also have a Twitter account, @TrekINADW so, you know, if you do the whle Twitter thing...

Enterprise Accident Report.

Chance that you will die as a redshirt? High. On average. But did you know that more other colored-shirts died in the first season than red shirts? Matt Bailey over at Analytics Accoding tells us the chances of dying or being injured in the original Star Trek. His conclusion? Don't be wearing red while standing on the bridge. EVAR!



Analytics According to Captain Kirk