Observations, rants, and musings by Joe Siegler.

Star Trek Continues Marathon

When I finished the original series, it was obvious that I would carry on with Star Trek: The Animated series.  When I got close to the end of TAS, I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going to go.   The first choice was to carry on onto Next Generation, but I thought I’d hit the fan stuff first.

There’s a few out there, but in my opinion, “Star Trek Continues” is the best of the lot (and the only one I’m going to cover here).   I know TOS quite well, and while obviously STC is different actors, the feel of the show is properly captured here.  The tone and inflection is correct here, it really feels like “Star Trek Continues” – the series is well named.  I also really loved the fact that they cast James Doohan’s real life son Chris as Scotty here.  They also brought the “concept” of Troi from TNG here by introducing a ship counselor (Lt. McKennah). Vic Mignogna does great job capturing Shatner, but it’s not just him.  Todd Haberkorn is damn well as Spock, too.  They all do, actually, and Michele Specht’s addition of Lt. McKennah is a great spice to the feel of the OG Trek characters.

A base feeling I have about this is that the original three seasons of TOS were obviously years 1-3 of the five year mission, the animated series is year four, and Star Trek Continues is year 5, which is absolutely held up with the way the final episode of STC finishes – heck it’s even in STC’s marketing – “Boldy completing the five year mission”.  There’s some great sequels here to original series episodes as well,  But it’s not all sequels, they tell some good original stories too.

In order to “use” Star Trek here, STC is officially designated as a non profit organization, which means that they cannot charge for their work.  All of what you see here is available totally free – in full.  If you spend some time on their site, you’ll find lots of materials – all the episodes, some nice artwork, bloopers, behind the scenes stuff, even ISO files where you can burn your own physical media to watch them if you choose to do so.

Amy Rydell with her mother, OG Trek actress Joanne Linville.

The series has some cool guest stars – some from Trek’s past.  Most are not their original roles, but it’s nice to see them return.  First off, they have Michael Forest in the first episode as Apollo, bringing back the role he did in the TOS era episode. There’s TNG’s Marina Sirtis as the Enterprise’s computer.  Michael Dorn plays the ISS Enterprise in the mirror universe. John De Lancie makes an appearance (not as Q), plus some other famous actors are here.  Colin Baker & Nicola Bryant from Doctor Who are here (but sadly not together), Jamie Bamber from Battlestar Galactica, Lou Ferrigno from the Incredible Hulk, Anne Lockhart from the OG Battlestar Galactica, Erin Gray from Buck Rogers, and Amy Rydell.  You probably don’t know that last name, but it’s one of my favorites.  In the TOS episode “The Enterprise Incident”, Joanne Linville played the Romulan commander.  In an episode of STC, the commander is brought back, but played by Amy Rydell – the real life daughter of OG actress Joanne Linville.  I ADORED that connection more than anything else in the series. There’s a lot more in the guest star list, check out the cast page on the STC website.

This series is spectacular if you spent any time with the original Star Trek Series. I couldn’t finish with (original) “Star Trek” without touching on what Vic Micnogna and crew have done as I really feel like it caps off TOS.  It’s well worth your time.  RIP Grant Imahara.

Season 1


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