Welcome to Star Trekking, my weekly attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier.
My wife and I started watching a show called Suits. It’s about lawyers. Meghan Markle is a co-star.
Anyway, one episode we saw this week featured Tim Russ as an opposing lawyer. Yay! I always enjoy seeing Trek stars in other contexts.
The next day John Billingsley showed up in a pretty prominent guest star spot. Yay! What’s not to love about John Billingsley?
Then yesterday we were watching another episode and a whole chunk of Trek-related dialogue occurred.
Allison: When documents are received into the firm, they then come to you, is that correct?
Donna: Yes.
Allison: And how do they get from the mailroom to you?
Donna: Transporter beam.
and
Allison: Obviously any further mention of Star Trek may just compound the problem.
Donna: Aye, Cap'n.
Which reminded me that earlier in the series there was this.
Harvey: The firm has presented an exercise where there’s potential for failure, okay? All I’m saying is try to create a situation where that’s not even a possibility. Kobayashi Maru.
Mike: Koba-what now?
Harvey: Star Trek. Captain Kirk. He wins a no-win situation by rewriting the rules.
Mike: …You’re a Trekkie.
Harvey: Hey, Captain Kirk is the man. I don’t want to hear another word about it. Now enough about your fake law problem, let’s deal with my real one.
Mike: Aye, aye Captain.
It is currently unknown whether Meghan is a Trekkie, but Patrick Stewart has gone on record as wanting her (and Harry) to appear on Picard.
Final frontier indeed.
You know I love Trek music, and Neil S. Bulk recently stumbled across this surprisingly faithful version of Horner’s TWOK theme.
I remember seeing those kinds of records ALL THE TIME in the hours and hours I spent browsing in record stores. Remember record stores?
The ST—TMP rendition is, um, a bit less faithful to the original.
Love the abrupt change to disco midway through.
But that ain’t nothing compared to what they do to the original theme.
In high school jazz band, we tackled this Maynard Ferguson version.
This one’s pretty good.
Bossa nova Voyager theme? Yes, please.
I’m on record as not being a fan of the Enterprise theme, but this is nice. Also the video has a pretty truthful easter egg in the bottom right section.
Okay, I guess this guy is my new favorite musician.
Look, we all know the Kirk v Gorn fight is an all time classic. But have you ever wanted to hear an MMA fighter break it down? Of course you have.
You’ll also get a few tips on how to defend yourself against a Gorn.
Now this is glamping.
I would like one, too, please.
Fascinating.
The Wand Company is working on a Tricorder and I loved reading this update.
Certainly the most exciting (and probably the most important) stage of developing any prop replica from a movie or TV show is finding and studying the original screen-used prop. Whilst there’s often a wealth of information already shared by fans on the internet, and plenty of detail to be gleaned from remastered high-definition video, there’s nothing quite like getting hands-on access to an original “hero” prop.
The whole article is worth a read - they scanned and measured an original owned by the great Greg Jein.
Crossing the streams.
Art!
Lee’s TNG season two scribbles.
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Also: LOVE long and prosper.