CAPTAIN JAMES T KIRK by Steve Yarwood

When it comes to deep space exploration one mans name stands out. James Tiberius Kirk. The man who beat the Kobayashi Maru simulation. From a time when men were men, Klingons were real dodgy mustachioed Klingons (not latter incarnations that had sprouted lobsters on their foreheads) and the young pretenders to the Captain’s chair were still brushing up on their Shakespeare, came a Captain that men would follow “ 'round the Antares Maelstrom and 'round perdition's flame” and make it back.

Not without fault and a trail of women and failed relationships he excelled himself with his responsibility for ship and crew.Maybe he wasn't the first pioneer "to boldly go" but he still boldly went and did the business.

He disobeys orders for a friend in need (Amok Time), offers his life for his crew (Squire Of Gothos), gets Starfleet a percentage (Piece of the action), and ultimately pits wits with Whit Bissel (Trouble with Tribbles). Yet for all the gung ho dropkicking, this Captain is as human as the rest of us. Never forget the pain he suffered when he had to let the woman he loved, Edith Keeler, die even though he knew it had to be done or the determination to bring back the life of a friend (Search for Spock).

I know damn well if I had to rely on one Captain from all the Trek franchises in a life or death situation it would have to be Big Jim. He would either seduce the female leader, get Spock to sabotage a computer, work a way for the Scotty and the Enterprise to pull off the rescue or just damn well fight his way in and out with a ripped shirt and a defiant stance.

Forget your meetings, your coffee breaks or hiding behind Klingon security. Forget boredom and helium toking female Captains.And forget the whiney worry warts. Jim Kirk is the real deal and don’t let anyone tell you any different.

Best Kirk Episode - The Enemy Within

Ask anyone on the street who is the Captain in Star Trek and invariably the answer is Captain Kirk. For 40 years Jim Kirk has been the iconic face of Star Trek. I’m going to share with you what I believe to be Kirks best episode, The Enemy Within.

            For those who have been living under a rock the storyline is roughly this. Whilst on a survey of Alpha 117 a crewman beams up with magnetic ore residue on his uniform that screws up the transporter. Kirk beams up and all seems well until everybody departs the transporter room and another Kirk appears. This is Evil Jim. Well you can imagine the fun. One Jim is all sweetness and light the other a right animal. Unfortunately when it’s realized the transporter is a bit poorly it’s touch and go for Mr Sulu and his team down on the planet who are slowly freezing to death.

            So what’s so good about this one? Well for me, everything. This is my perfect argument to all those who vote for the other pretenders to the throne who harp on that Kirk was too much action for being a Captain. In this we see his persona split into two. Neither side of him  can properly function without the other. The aggressive one goes too far (he even attempts to rape Yeoman Rand attempting to rationalize his actions by telling her "We've both been pretending too long.") as he is unable to think and consider consequences and the thinker cannot give commands because the other side is needed to balance the decisions. The good is weakening, the bad side is dying. Finally good Jim confronts bad Jim in the transporter room, tries to reason with his dark half explaining they cannot survive apart. Bad gets one over on Good  and escapes to the Bridge where he tells the crew to leave orbit, leaving the landing team behind. Spock and the bridge crew are a bit put out by this until the elevator doors open and good Jim appears. Evil Jim is finally restrained and taken to the transporter in the hopes of reuniting the pair. It’s a massive risk but Kirk(s) know it has to be done. I ‘m on my feet when Kirk reappears and says…"Get those men up here fast” . Spock does so and the landing party returns with minor frostbite.

            Jim Kirk not only knows his limitations, he’s lived through them.At the end of the episode he tells Spock “Thankyou. From both of us.” He knows that a man is a sum of his parts. Just as Star Trek history is a sum of it’s parts. James T kirk is the major building block of the Star Trek universe.

CAPTAIN PICARD THE CENTRE OF THE STORM by Geoff Carter

The crew are running around. Some want Captain Picard to fire on the other ship. Jean-Luc won’t be hurried by junior officers. They urge him to fire. He stands calmly on the bridge, the centre of the storm. During the last moments he reaches the right decision because that ship out there might have a problem communicating. He realises that the wrong decision could cause war. Jean-Luc unlike his juniors sees the situation from the point of view of the federation not the Enterprise alone.

He’s determined to get it right. We’ve seen Jean-Luc learning the customs of alien races in preparation for a diplomatic mission. He understands the stakes for the federation. His next meeting could result in peace or war.

The thinker is not inactive! In the film Nemesis we saw Jean-Luc flying across the surface of the planet in a space age jeep he was at the wheel of. With a smile on his face he turns to Data and says, “I’ve always wanted to do this.” He often beams down to the surface of a planet, even when Riker warns him against it. He knows where he’ll be of best use and if the situation is dangerous he’s not afraid to be standing there.

Pain has touched his life. Jean-Luc is no aloof Captain as seen in `We’ll always have Paris. We saw him on the holodeck recreating a meeting in France with a past love. He agonises, had he made the right decision all those years ago when they parted?

He wasn’t afraid to tell Riker of a shortcoming. He explains to his second in command that he doesn’t know much about children and he may need help in that area. We see him keeping Ensign Crusher off the bridge of the Enterprise but as the young man shows abilities, the Captain learns to accept this adolescent member of the crew.

Remember Kirk was all shoot to kill, Archer got too emotional too quickly, Janeway relied too heavily on the other officers. It’s easy, vote for Jean-Luc Picard, the Captain you would trust with your life because of his rounded abilities.

Best Picard Episode - The Battle

Season one Episode nine

Jean luc Picard becomes unpredictable. The Enterprise has been led to the  Stargazer, the first ship the captain ever commanded. It now drifts aimlessly in space. The Ferengi alerted the Enterprise to the craft’s whereabouts.

There is something Jean luc is not aware of. The captain of the Ferengi vessel wants revenge on him. He is using banned mind probe device. Jean luc is soon seeing his life in an altered state. He is filled with anguish as he believes he obliterated a vessel that was surrendering. Data makes an alarming discovery.The records confirm that their Captain did fire on a vessel as it was surrendering.

The officers on the Enterprise become disturbed by their captain’s erratic behaviour. The vacant expression on his face says his mind is in someother place; his mind is not concentrating on commanding the Enterprise and taking responsible for the hundreds of lives inside the space vessel.The story climaxes where Jean Luc has boarded thedrifting vessel. The mind probe now fully controls his mind. He is now seeing analtered past. The Enterprise is now the vessel from all thoseyears ago and it’s about to destroy

his craft. He must therefore vaporise it.Only the ship presents no threat, it is in fact the Enterprise.

The episode demonstrates many things. We see a crew who started the first series getting to know each other and their ship.Here we see them working together. Doctor Crusher with the help of her son Wesley makes a last minute discovery. She reports her findings to Commander Riker who must take the information and decide how to proceed; bearing in mindthe man they are talking about is their superior officer. Is the captain guiltyof firing on a surrendering vessel as the record shows or do the Doctor’sfindings hint at something else? Will Riker uses this information in the climaxof the story but will only have a moment to make his decision. The wrong choicewill get the Enterprise blasted from space. Therefore thecrew will be killed by their captain!

CAPTAIN JOHNATHAN ARCHER by Graham Philpot

Let’s get one thing straight right here and now – Archer is the best captain by far.

Now I know you’re going to disagree – ‘what about Kirk and Picard?’ I hear you cry. My answer is simple: what about them?

Archer deserves your vote for one key reason – Scott Bakula. One of the finest American actors to appear on the small screen for the last 20 years, Bakula has it all. Strength, compassion, diligence, and above all, he is the typical iconic image of pioneering space explorer. Quantum Leap proved that the actor had a range that could make Marlon Brando whimper, and in Enterprise he excels even higher and proves to be the definitive captain from the Trek series.

I’m sure that Geoff has argued that Picard was a more ‘complete’ character. Nonsense. Archer is the complete captain. Whereas Picard was a French/English dude who had an entire Starfleet support network and the advantage of other successful captains having gone before him, Archer was the pioneer, the man who created that successful support network and gave hope to all those who would boldly go in his footsteps.

And let’s look at Kirk – he was a dull captain in a dull original TV show that spawned some rather dubious movies. If it wasn’t for Archer, Kirky couldn’t go anywhere. And let’s not forget that scene in Generations, where Kirk was a simple, bitter man, engulfed by self-pity and cut off from all his real friends through choice. He always knew that he would die alone, which is a tragic tale, but in truth he was an inward-looking loner whose only friend in life was a tall bloke with pointy ears. Great work, Captain.

Thankfully, Archer’s plight was exclusive to TV, with some great scripts, fine acting and believable CGI that made you believe you were there on the Enterprise. He had none of the flaws that exposed the aforementioned captains, and is the best all-rounder of the Trekkie series.

Therefore, I urge you to vote for the man who stands for truth, justice and a pioneering spirit that defines what Star Trek is all about.

BEST ARCHER EPISODE - DEMONS

Enterprise is far and away the best of the bunch from the Star Trek creators.

Pioneering and less self-pretentious than its counterparts, Enterprise will be the series that defines the Trek legacy. With a beautiful title song, strong acting and believable CGI it offers great viewing for sci-fi fans.

The episode under review here is one of my favourites – Demons.

Directed by LeVar Burton (Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in Next Gen – did you know he is actually German?) and written by Manny Coto, it aired in the UK in August 2005, as one of the final episodes of this great series.

The episode’s premise was an honest, dark account of human nature – our greed, our selfishness, our compassion and what makes us tick. In other words, it was a final thought on what the whole of Star Trek was about; the idea that we have to go billions of miles into space just to find out who we are inside.

In a sense, it was an echo of the Pilot episode of Next Gen, where Picard had to prove to Q that the human race was capable of self-management and understood the meaning of ‘humanity’. Burton matures this idea, and this time it is Trek itself that acts as the force that assesses the case. Whereas Picard was able to prove his case to some extent, this preachy-esque approach is dropped in favour of hard cold facts that mirror what is happening on 21st century Earth – poverty, greed, racism, xenophobia and religious intolerance.

I think that this episode could and should have been made into an Enterprise movie – it has all the ingredients of a classic Trekkie film. It could have been in the ‘Star Trek Begins’ mould, perhaps?

This Enterprise episode is daring and challenging and perhaps is less delicate than previous episodes – its aim is to provoke, shock and make us think about the world that each and everyone of us is creating. It examines the concepts of Nazism through the organisation Terra Prime, and brings it up-to-date with a 21st century approach – a la Al Quida. Rather than taking the easier option and being a pro-America versus the rest of the evil world, it instead tackles the issue head-on and is rather controversial with its approach – perhaps too controversial, as soon after this episode aired, Paramount announced that they were cancelling the series. Maybe this wasn’t so much to do with the perceived decline in viewing figures – perhaps Star Trek had just reached its natural conclusion; we’ve been on a 40 year journey to learn that we are already in the best place in the universe and should respect one another to create something that could be admired. After this ballsy episode, Star Trek had very little else to say – where as Star Wars was just a fairytale, Trek had proved its point – only we have the power to change.

Therefore, I can only say that this has to be the episode and series to vote for. This series had conviction and dared to go where no other Trek series had dared to go before.

Lea our News Editor submitted this personal piece that I thought deserved inclusion as part of our celebration of Star Trek @ 40. Still the best Sci Fi TV show to hit the airwaves. Here's to you Gene!!

TIBERIUS RISING

There’s usually a danger in taking a song and somehow going overboard in making it your own.  But if there’s anything we fans know how to do, it is make the object of affection – film, writer, television show, character – our own. 

The following lyrics are by a fandom-oriented band called Ookla the Mok, (http://www.ooklathemok.com) and I feel it is the best epigraph I could give for the respect I have for Star Trek … never mind the facts that I’m from Iowa, a day (and a night) dreamer, and a long, long way from home.

“Tiberius Rising”

Jimmy always was a restless boy
You could see it in his eyes
There was something wrong when I watched my son
When Jimmy watched the skies
And very often on an Iowa night
I'd see him standing in the yard
I can't describe how I loved that boy
But Jimmy loved the stars
And I remember he'd make paper boats
They seemed to bring him peace of mind
And then one day he sailed away
Leaving me behind
CHORUS:
Singing, "Some day I'll be going away
And I don't know when I'm coming home
I'm leaving on a moonbeam
I'm sailing away on a star
I don't think I'm ever coming home"
While all the other kids were flying kites
Jimmy was nowhere to be found
He couldn't bear to see it ride the air
While he was on the ground
And though he always got along with the girls
I knew he'd never settle down
He had a date with a greater love
The first ship out of town
So if you see that boy of mine
Tell him I hope he's doing well
And sometimes on a starry night
I swear that I can hear him still…

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