Every Star Trek Story Ever
And other great love songs
Welcome to Star Trekking — random intersections in the final frontier.
First off, a note about the subtitle. This has nothing to do with Star Trek, by the way.
I trust you are familiar with a little 70’s ditty entitled Kung Fu Fighting.
Well, one day, back in the 90s, I was trolling through a used record store, as one did back then, and came across an LP that immediately seized my imagination. I had never considered, in the past, that Carl Douglas’ classic had originally been released on an LP. But of course it had. And I certainly never would have guessed the LP’s title.
Yes, the LP’s full title is Kung Fu Fighting And Other Great Love Songs.
Other. Great. Love Songs.
Such as Dance the Kung Fu.
I like to think that when Shahna asked Kirk to describe the most important thing on earth…
…Kirk considered answering by dancing the Kung Fu.
Anyway.
About the primary title of today’s newsletter.
Every Star Trek Story Ever.
Well, let me start by telling you about Lance Parkin.
I first discovered Lance through the wonderful world of Doctor Who. Specifically, his influential novels The Dying Days and Cold Fusion. Around the same time I finally discovered his writing, he was in the process of writing a new novel for the David Tennant incarnation of the Doctor and blogging about his process. I loved the resulting book, The Eyeless.
He has also written a mythbusting bio of the Great Bird himself.
A few days ago, he put together a blog post titled ALL THE STAR TREK STORIES and indeed it is exactly that. If you are reading this newsletter, I promise that you will enjoy reading Lance’s blog post.
Here is the opening paragraph:
Here’s a convenient list of every Star Trek story. If you’re writing an episode and feel adventurous, you can, of course, use more than one of these elements, mixing and matching, but it’s certainly not necessary.
Don’t worry, it won’t take you very long to read the post. But seriously, please go read it. CLICK THIS TO READ ALL THE STAR TREK STORIES.
So what are some other great love songs from this week?
Well, we all have our Eras, from Star Trek to Taylor Swift. And one way I can look back and reflect on my own personal eras is by identifying what show I quote most often. Obviously, I started by quoting Star Trek all the time. By my mid to late teens I’d graduated to becoming a Monty Python guy. Later, Simpsons quotes peppered my conversations. And then, most recently, I began quoting 30 Rock. For my wife and I, 30 Rock is practically a second language.
All this to say, this video struck me as delightful on several levels.
I want to go to there.
PS, this one was for you, Laurie.
Another love song I came across recently was an article from economics blogger Noah Smith:
Why some franchises go downhill while others stay great
One section is all about prequels, and which prequels work, and which don’t. For instance.
Part of Star Trek’s lore is that the Federation once fought a war with the Klingon Empire long ago. Discovery shows us that war. The depiction is incredibly clumsily executed, turning Klingons into bizarre lizard-creatures with little connection to their depiction in other Star Trek series.
But more importantly, it becomes one less thing that fans can imagine about the Star Trek universe. (Star Trek: Enterprise did a lot of this too, but that show was so poorly executed that I couldn’t even make myself watch it.)
He then goes on to praise SNW for doing prequel right.
That’s all for now. Although I feel I should share that I’ve turned my office into a living tribute to 1979.
Remember, the human adventure is just beginning.
Until next time, LLAP.
Neil
I saw that 30 Rock video this morning and loved it! Good god, Lemon!