BOB SAYS...

"A very merry Christmas and a happy new year to everybody and may next year bring joy and happiness to you"

Bob de Bilde (aka Bill de Dashe)

Key moments in Star Trek Voyager (3)

Star Trek Voyager (Episode no. 171 & 172)... The final episode sees Voyager destroy the Borg AND return home...

"Endgame" is the title of the series finale of the Star Trek spinoff series, Star Trek: Voyager. Originally shown as a double-length episode and presented as such in DVD collections, it is shown in repeat broadcasts as two linked episodes.

In the year 2404, Earth is celebrating Voyager's 10th anniversary of its 23 year journey home. However, an elderly Admiral Kathryn Janeway steals a chrono deflector from a Klingon named Korath and uses it on her shuttle to travel back to 2378 in the Delta Quadrant. She pulls rank on Voyager to emit an anti-tachyon pulse, collapsing the temporal distortion to prevent the Klingons from following her through. However, everyone is unaware that the Borg are monitoring the events.

On board her old starship, the Admiral tells her younger self to return to a nebula filled with Borg that they passed by a few days ago. She provides advanced technologies that would give Voyager the opportunity to get past the massive Borg defenses and enter a transwarp corridor. The Borg are unable to penetrate Voyager's new ablative hull armour nor capture it with tractor beams while Voyager destroys two Borg Cubes with transphasic torpedoes. They then come upon a Borg transwarp hub at the center, which could save the ship sixteen more years of being stranded in the Delta Quadrant.

However, the admiral’s efforts are hindered by the desire of her younger self to use the future technology to destroy the transwarp network instead of using it to return home. Trying to blast it from the inside is impossible, as the network adapts to any attack due to the control of the Borg Queen (Alice Krige, reprising the role for the first time since Star Trek: First Contact). It can only be destroyed from their end for the Alpha Quadrant contains only exit apertures. The two Janeways argue over the issue until the elder Janeway tells her younger self that Seven of Nine will die if they do not take the road home, along with 22 other crewmembers. Though Captain Janeway is moved by this confession, she decides that the foreknowledge of Seven's death means it is no longer certain. The Admiral mentions that, while that might be the case, Tuvok has no chance, already suffering from a degenerative neurological condition that will slowly destroy his logic and will eventually make him senile. After discussing the issue with the rest of her crew, Captain Janeway decides to go ahead with her plan to destroy the Borg’s transwarp hub, one of their centres for transporting around the galaxy, as without it, the Borg's ability to travel across the galaxy will be severely hampered. On seeing the crew’s selfless reaction to the plan, the older Janeway rediscovers a piece of her old fighting spirit and with Captain Janeway, comes up with a plan to both destroy the hub and possibly get Voyager home.

Admiral Janeway takes her shuttlecraft and enters the transwarp hubs, taking her to the Unicomplex—the center of all Borg activity, where the Borg Queen herself resides. She first appears to the Queen in her mind, claiming she wants Voyager towed back to the Alpha Quadrant (apparently in defiance of the younger Janeway's plans) in exchange for information on how to adapt to the armour and torpedo technologies. However, the Queen is quickly able to detect her shuttle and beams the Admiral to her chambers and “assimilates” her into the Borg collective. A few minutes later, Admiral Janeway unleashes a neurolytic pathogen from within her bloodstream that devastates the Borg, physically making the queen fall apart. With the deactivation of the Queen, the Unicomplex suffers a cascade failure and blows up, killing the partially assimilated Admiral.

Meanwhile Captain Janeway and her crew have entered a transwarp corridor and fire torpedoes at the unprotected manifolds while traveling back to the Alpha quadrant, pursued by a Borg sphere ship that has managed to withstand the pathogen’s effects and assimilate Admiral Janeway's ablative armor upgrade, ordered by the Borg Queen to destroy Voyager so that the Admiral (and her sabotage) will never exist. Unable to fight back against the ship’s exterior defenses, Janeway takes her ship inside the sphere, where, upon its arrival in Earth's solar system, she detonates a torpedo that destroys the sphere from the inside out.

In the show’s final few minutes, the crew stand dumbfounded that they have finally returned home after seven years lost in the Delta Quadrant and are greeted by a fleet of Starfleet vessels that arrived to fight the sphere. Settling down in her chair, Captain Janeway issues her final words; the same words that she used at the start of her journey: "Set a course...for home."

The final episode also includes the birth of Miral, daughter of Tom Paris and B’Elanna Torres. Miral is born as Voyager reenters Earth’s solar system. The sounds of the baby’s gurgling are heard over the communications system, to the joy of all the crew. In the alternate future, she is an ensign on a classified mission to obtain a chrono deflector for Admiral Janeway. She threatens two Klingons who accused the admiral of disrespect, with the breaking of their arms. Janeway suggested she spend some time with her parents at the reunion on Earth.

Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine are revealed to have started dating. Though Seven is at first wary of the relationship, and more so after Janeway tells her of her own death, Chakotay persuades her that he wants to be with her, even if it's uncertain how long they will be together; however, Janeway's older self suggests that Seven and Chakotay will eventually be married. In the alternate future, Seven died on the trip home and it is implied that Chakotay couldn't handle the trauma and died on Earth the year Voyager got back to the Alpha Quadrant.

Tuvok is suffering from a degenerative brain disease that will slowly destroy his logic, yet does not tell the Captain as the only cure is a mind-meld with a family member—logically, he does not want to distract the Captain. In Admiral Janeway’s future, the disease has progressed too far to be cured and he is in a mental institution.

The Doctor’s “name” saga is finally concluded in the first few minutes of the show, where a future Doctor is seen confessing that he has finally decided to call himself Joe, taking thirty-three years to come up with that name, after his new wife’s grandfather. He even plans to have kids. This revelation takes place in an alternate future, one in which the Voyager crew does not ultimately end up.

Neelix makes a brief appearance on the communications screen talking to Seven of Nine. Two episodes earlier he had left to join a Talaxian colony. He has plans to marry Dexa, a Talaxian woman he first met at the colony and quickly fell in love with. His first appearance in the show was also on a viewscreen.

Harry Kim is the captain of the U.S.S. Rhode Island. He goes to stop Admiral Janeway from going back in time, but he ultimately decides to help his old friend in her cause. In the present timeline, young Harry Kim is anxious to pursue what is inside the nebula. An amused Janeway tells him "you may be the captain some day, but not today." In another timeline, it was Harry in the Voyager episode "Timeless" who was determined to rewrite the past and prevent a disaster.

In the last few scenes of this episode, seven classes of Starfleet ships are seen: Defiant, Galaxy, Excelsior, Nebula, Prometheus, Akira and Intrepid (Voyager itself).

The shooting adventure game Elite Force II uses an 'unseen' part of the series finale as a plot device. In the first level of the game, Voyager's Hazard Team is assigned to beam aboard the Borg Sphere which has trapped Voyager inside during the trans-warp pursuit, in order to disable the dampening field which, it is claimed at the start of the level, is keeping Voyager captive. The level overall represents the length of 'real time' that Voyager is trapped within the sphere before it ultimately blasts its way out. The level's end is ultimately followed by a cutscene imitating the very end of the 'Endgame' episode, using the game engine's CGI, before it cuts as a segue into the office of a Starfleet administrator on Earth, where the game then continues. The game's plot also states that Tuvok is temporarily assigned as Tactical Officer and Second Officer of the Enterprise E, following Voyager's return to Earth and William Riker's re-assignment to the starship Titan

Key moments in Star Trek Voyager (2)

Pathfinder; (Star Trek Voyager Episode no. 128) is the episode where Star Fleet makes contact with Voyager (for the second time following the Doctor's visit to the Promethius nearly two years earlier)... More tear jerking stuff from UPN...




"Pathfinder" is the 10th episode of the 6th season of Star Trek: Voyager. It has an average fan rating of 4.1/5 on the official Star Trek website as of September, 2009 and features the characters Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

On Earth, Reginald Barclay is involved in the Pathfinder project, an effort to communicate with the USS Voyager stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Barclay soon becomes obsessed. He loses himself in the reality of the holographic Voyager created for the project, enjoying the false friendships within.

He seeks help from old friend and shipmate Counselor Deanna Troi who advises him to forge real relationships and stop straying into the holo-program he has created of the Voyager ship and crew. When Admiral Paris visits the project to inspect progress, Barclay ignores orders from Commander Harkins, the project leader, not to bother the Admiral with his unfeasible suggestions. Barclay puts forward his theory that using an advanced sensor array, and computing Voyagers progress from their last contact, they would be able to create a micro wormhole in the Delta Quadrant near Voyager and use it to create a two way communication link. Admiral Paris is intrigued by this and promises to give it further study which Barclay is highly excited by, but at a later meeting with Admiral Paris, Barclay oversteps the line and is removed from the project for insubordination.

Later that night, he breaks back in to the pathfinder project to prove his theory is correct. He hacks into the system and sends commands to the array which, as he predicted, creates the wormhole in the Delta Quadrant. As he attempts to contact Voyager using the array, Starfleet detects and sends security personnel to stop him. Barclay locks out the system and takes refuge in the holodeck simulation of Voyager where he continues to direct the wormhole to locate Voyager. The security officers led by Commander Harkins follow Barclay into the simulation where the faux Voyager crew rebels, even firing on the security officers. Of course, this does nothing as the security protocols are on. The holo-Torres is destroyed by a pursuing Commander Harkins, who shuts down the primary cooling systems on the holographic Voyager which will cause the warp core to overheat and breach, effectively destroying the entire program unless Barclay complies and releases command back to him.

As a dejected Barclay is led out, Admiral Paris enters the lab and announces them that Barclay's idea has real promise and should be explored further. As he is informed that the attempt has already been made and was unsuccessful, Admiral Paris expresses regret at Barclays choice to disregard protocol.

Meanwhile, the real Voyager far in the Delta Quadrant detects the micro-wormhole and a communication signal which Seven of Nine disbelievingly identifies as Federation in origin on a Starfleet Emergency Channel . The crew attempts to clear up the signal while back on Earth, the jubilant officers and Barclay assist. For a few seconds the team on Earth clear up the return signal, two-way communication is established for 86 seconds before the micro-wormhole collapses. A few words are exchanged and data from Voyager's logs, crew reports, and navigational records are transmitted to Earth. Barclay sends "data on some new hyper-subspace technology" in hopes Voyager's crew will eventually use it to stay in regular contact as well as recommended modifications to the com system. In the final seconds, the crew hear some moving words from Admiral Paris ending with, "I want you all to know we're doing everything we can to bring you home."

To celebrate the knowledge that home is looking for them and regular communication will be possible in due time, the crew of Voyager hold a party in honor of Barclay. They discuss what little they know of him through his personnel record and declare he is an honorary Voyager crewmember.

Key moments in Star Trek Voyager (1)

Message in a Bottle (Star Trek: Voyager Episode no. 82). The clip is of the final sequence when The Doctor returns to the Delta quadrant via The Hirogen sensor network array.

Tear jerking stuff from UPN...

"Message in a Bottle" is a popular episode of Star Trek: Voyager, the fourteenth episode of the fourth season. The episode has an average rating of 4.6/5 on the official Star Trek website (as of May 11, 2007)

After successfully extending the range of Voyager`s sensors, Seven of Nine locates a network of alien sensor stations. Patching into this, she is able to locate a Federation vessel on the far reaches of the Alpha Quadrant, the USS Prometheus. Voyager's crew attempts to send a message along the relay, but it is reflected back to them after degrading en route. Theorizing that a holographic signal would be stronger, and not degrade so quickly, they send The Doctor as a datastream.

Upon arrival, The Doctor discovers that the Prometheus is an experimental warship developed in secret by the Federation, however the Romulans have learned of its existence and captured the vessel. Being pursued by the USS Bonchune, the Romulans initiate the first test of the new multi-vector assault mode, in which Prometheus splits into three separate pieces to engage hostile ships.

Seeking assistance, The Doctor activates the ship's own EMH, a Mark II of the program. The second EMH cites protocol for an EMH to deactivate when its vessel was taken over, but Voyager's doctor notes that as both ships were at stake, they do not have that luxury.

Using the pretense of an infection on board, the Doctor goes to the bridge in an effort to open the atmospheric filters to flood the ship with anesthetizing gas and knock the Romulans unconscious. The ruse fails, but when he is captured and interrogated, The Doctor keeps the Romulans stalled long enough for the EMH Mark II to fool the ship's computer into opening the filters, permitting the distribution of the gas.

Unfortunately, by the time they take control, Prometheus has reached the designated rendezvous point, and three D'deridex-class warbirds are ready to take delivery. Unfamiliar with the helm and weapons systems, the two EMH programs unsuccessfully attempt to fool the Romulans into leaving, before three more Starfleet vessels arrive to retake their ship. In the ensuing battle, all six other vessels target Prometheus. EMH Mark II stumbles upon the command to put the ship into multi-vector assault mode. The strength of the Prometheus is quickly demonstrated when it easily overpowers and destroys one of the Romulan warbirds. With that loss, the Romulans retreat, and a Starfleet security detail transports over to the Prometheus.

Meanwhile, the Hirogen, owners of the sensor array, have contacted Voyager, and demand they log off the relay. Seven of Nine zaps the threatening Hirogen officer with a feedback loop, and the Voyager crew await a response from the Alpha Quadrant. After the battle with the Romulans, the Doctor gets through and materializes in sickbay. He has good news: he has updated Starfleet on Voyager's situation. This is the first time Starfleet has heard from the vessel since it disappeared four years ago. Voyager was removed from the Starfleet list of destroyed ships (having been listed for fourteen months), and a message sent back: "You're no longer alone". Starfleet will be trying their best to return Voyager home, as well as tell their families that the crew is alive.

• The Dominion War is briefly mentioned when the EMH Mark II mentions to the Doctor that "the Romulans haven't gotten involved in their fight with the Dominion." Three months later, in "[[In the Pale Moonlight]], the Romulans would become involved and oppose the Dominion.
• The Crew of Voyager makes contact with home for the first time since they were lost in the Delta Quadrant in the first episode of the series.
• This episode also marks the halfway point in the series.

We Are The Borg "Resistance is futile"

The Borg are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe. Aside from being the main threat in Star Trek: First Contact, the Borg also play major roles in The Next Generation and Voyager television series, primarily as an invasion threat to the United Federation of Planets and the means of return to the Alpha Quadrant for isolated Federation starship Voyager, respectively. The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against which "resistance is futile".

The Borg manifest as  (more...)

Star Trek: The Original Series

Star Trek is a science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry that aired from September 8, 1966 to September 2, 1969. Though the original series was titled simply Star Trek, it has acquired the retronym Star Trek: The Original Series (ST:TOS or TOS) to distinguish it from the spinoffs that followed, and from the Star Trek universe or franchise they comprise. Set in the 23rd century, the original Star Trek follows the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew, led by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his First Officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and his Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley). William Shatner's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose:

“

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before.

”

When Star Trek premiered on NBC in 1966, it was not an immediate hit; ratings were low and advertising revenue was lackluster. Even prior to the end of the first season of Star Trek, there were already calls in the network for the cancellation of the series due to its low Nielsen ratings. Bay Area Creature Features host John Stanley in his memoir I Was a TV Horror Host relates how Desilu head Lucille Ball at that time "single-handedly kept Star Trek from being dumped from the NBC-TV lineup."

Towards the end of the second season the show was also in danger of cancellation. Its fans succeeded in gaining a third season; however, NBC subsequently moved the show to the Friday Night Death slot at 10 PM. Star Trek was finally cancelled at the end of the third season, producing 79 episodes in total. However, this was enough for the show to be stripped in syndication, allowing it to become extremely popular and gather a large cult following during the 1970s. The success of the program was followed by five additional television series and eleven theatrical films, including the most recent film Star Trek released in May 2009. Guinness World Records lists the original Star Trek as having the largest number of spin-offs among all television shows in history.

Star Trek: The Animated Series

Star Trek: The Animated Series (also known as The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek) is an animated science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe following the Star Trek: The Original Series of the 1960s. The animated series was aired under the name Star Trek, but it has become widely known under this longer name (or abbreviated as ST: TAS or TAS) to differentiate it from the original live action Star Trek. The success in syndication of the original live action series and fan pressure for a Star Trek revival led to The Animated Series from 1973-1974, as the source of new adventures of the Enterprise crew, the next being the live-action feature film 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture. TAS was the first Star Trek series to win an Emmy Award.
The series was produced by Filmation in association with Paramount Television and ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974 on NBC, airing a total of twenty-two half-hour episodes. An early Filmation proposal for this series had children assigned to each of the senior officers as cadets, including a young Vulcan for Mr. Spock. According to interviews with Norm Prescott, Paramount offered Roddenberry a substantial sum of money to abandon creative control of the project and let Filmation proceed with their "kiddy space cadet" idea. Roddenberry refused. Filmation would later develop the idea into its own original live action program: Space Academy in 1977.
The writers of the animated series used, essentially, the same writers' guide that was used for the live-action Star Trek: The Original Series. (A copy of the "series bible", as revised for TAS, is held in the science fiction research collection at the Samuel Paley Library, Temple University, Philadelphia.)

While the freedom of animation afforded large alien landscapes and believable non-humanoid aliens, budget constraints were a major concern and the animation quality was generally only fair, with very liberal use of stock shots (as was often the case with many of Filmation's shows). There were also occasional mistakes, such as characters appearing on screen who were elsewhere, or a character supposed to appear on the bridge's main viewing screen, but then appeared in front, indicating bad ordering of animation plates. These were typically isolated errors however. Occasionally, though, parts of episodes would be animated at a near-theatrical quality level.

Main article: List of Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes

The characters of TAS.

The 22 episodes of TAS were spread out over two brief seasons, with copious reruns of each episode. Most were directed by Hal Sutherland.
All the episodes of this series were novelized by Alan Dean Foster and released in ten volumes under the Star Trek Logs banner. Initially, Foster adapted three episodes per book, but later editions saw the half-hour scripts expanded into full novel-length stories.
Star Trek: The Animated Series was the only Star Trek series to not feature a cold open ("teaser") and started directly with the title sequence (although some overseas versions of the original live action series, such as that run by the BBC in the U.K. in the 1960s and 1970s, ran the teaser after the credits).
The writing in the series benefited from a Writers Guild of America, East strike in 1973, which did not apply to animation. A few episodes are especially notable due to contributions from well-known science fiction authors:

• "More Tribbles, More Troubles" was written by David Gerrold as a sequel to his famous episode "The Trouble with Tribbles" from the original series. Here Cyrano Jones is rescued from the Klingons, bringing with him a genetically-altered breed of tribbles which do not reproduce but do grow extremely large. (It is later discovered that these are really clusters of tribbles who function as a single tribble, and it is decided that the large numbers of smaller tribbles are preferable to the larger ones.) The Klingons, due to their hatred of tribbles, are eager to get Jones back because he stole a creature they created: a predator that feeds on tribbles. This episode was originally written with the intention of being an episode of the live-action original series, but this was vetoed by Fred Freiberger who wanted serious sci-fi episodes instead.^{[citation needed]}

• "Yesteryear" is a time-travel episode in which Mr. Spock uses "The Guardian of Forever", a time gateway from the original series episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", to travel to his own childhood past. This is the only animated Trek episode written by original series and later Next Generation writer D.C. Fontana. This was the first actual appearance of Spock's pet sehlat, first mentioned in "Journey to Babel" and finally named I-Chaya in this episode.

• Larry Niven's "The Slaver Weapon", adapted from his own short story "The Soft Weapon". It includes some elements from his Known Space mythos such as the Kzinti and the Slavers. This is the only Kirk-era TV or movie story in which Kirk didn't appear. This episode also has the distinction of being the only animated episode where anyone dies or is killed onscreen.

• "The Magicks of Megas-tu", by Larry Brody, sends the Enterprise to the center of the galaxy. Its crew find themselves befriended by a devil-like alien named Lucien, whom they must defend against accusations that he has brought evil to the world of Megas-tu.

The USS Enterprise in this series, while supposedly the same ship as from the original series, had a holodeck very similar to the one introduced on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which was set approximately eighty years later. It only appeared once, in Chuck Menville's "The Practical Joker" and was known as the "Rec Room". This feature was originally proposed for the original series (see, e.g., Gerrold, The World of Star Trek) but was never used.
Filmation later went on to produce the hit He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983-85), which occasionally used modified character and set designs from Star Trek: The Animated Series, mostly as background material. (He-Man and the Masters of the Universe also had several Trek-similar stories, most notably "The Arena", which is very similar to Star Trek: The Original Series's first season episode, "Arena"). Later series also shared many of the stock sound effects from both Star Trek: The Animated Series and Star Trek: The Original Series. Filmation also recycled some of the background music for Star Trek: The Animated Series in their later shows Shazam!, Tarzan and the Super 7 and Sport Billy. (Some of the music had already been reused from the previous season's Brady Kids and the Treasure Island feature, and were shared with that season's Lassie's Rescue Rangers).
In addition, a few facts introduced in the animated series have been referred to in the live-action productions:

• Kirk's middle name, Tiberius, was first introduced in "Bem", then subsequently referred to in several Star Trek novels (most notably the novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture by Roddenberry). The name was conclusively established as part of the Trek canon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
• Amanda's maiden name, Grayson.
• A second exit for the bridge, referred to in Franz Joseph's Star Fleet Technical Manual and seen in the refitted Enterprise and the NCC-1701-A from the first six Star Trek movies.
• The kahs-wan ritual Spock endures in "Yesteryear".
• Klingon commander Kor's command of the battlecruiser Klothos.
• Doctor Phlox uses Edosian slugs in his medical bay, and Chef once served up Edosian sucker fish, similar to Earth's catfish, as a meal, in the series Star Trek: Enterprise. They come from the same planet as Lieutenant Arex, as do Edosian orchids mentioned by Elim Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• The Vulcan city, ShiKahr, has been referred to in multiple series (sometimes misspelt "ShirKahr"), and can be seen in an episode of Enterprise. A Vulcan city which looks very similar to the ShiKahr of Star Trek: The Animated Series was shown in the new CGI establishing shots used in the special edition of "Amok Time".
• Some of the worlds and aliens in the series were included in the 1989 book called Star Trek: The Worlds of the Federation.
• Some of Sarek's dialog from "Yesteryear", and young Spock being bullied by Vulcan classmates, are given homage in the 2009 feature film, Star Trek.

Star Trek: Phase II...

Never completed, the pilot was rehashed as the film "Star Trek: The motion Picture" and several proposed episodes were used later as TNG episodes ("The Child", "Devil's Due")

Star Trek: Phase II was a planned television series based on the characters of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, which had run from 1966 to 1969. It was set to air in early 1978 on a proposed Paramount Television Service (a precursor/forerunner to UPN). The series was to follow the adventures of the Enterprise crew on a second five-year mission, and be a continuation of the Star Trek franchise.

Several attempts at a Star Trek motion picture were made in the 1970s, including Gene Roddenberry's 1975 treatment The God Thing, and a later attempt called Planet of the Titans, which proceeded to script stage to be abandoned in 1977. It was decided instead to create a new Star Trek television series, for a new national television network to be owned by Paramount. This was announced on June 17, 1977 with a projected start date of February 1978.

Pre-production work started, with sets built, several television grade models (including the Enterprise itself and many of the pilot episode's models) made, deals made to bring back most of the original series cast, and several actors cast. It was planned to use the original series uniforms. Principal photography had not started, but test footage had been shot. Story writing had proceeded to thirteen scripts, enough for a half-season.

Work on the series came to an end when the proposed Paramount Television Service folded. However, following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the planned pilot episode entitled "In Thy Image" was adapted into a theatrical production, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Several minutes of test footage, including a view of a redesigned Engineering Room, costume tests with crew, screen test footage of David Gautreaux as Xon and costume test footage of Persis Khambatta as Ilia, were included in a featurette on the DVD release of the Directors Edition of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation (often abbreviated to TNG) is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Created about 21 years after the original Star Trek, and set in the 24th century about 80 years after the orginal series, the program features a new crew and a new starship Enterprise. It premiered the week of September 28, 1987 to 27 million viewers with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". With 178 episodes spread over seven seasons, it ran longer than any other Star Trek series, ending with the finale "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994.

The series was broadcast in first-run syndication, with dates and times varying among individual television stations. The show gained a considerable following during its run and, like its predecessor, remains popular in syndicated reruns. It was the first of several series (the others being Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise) that kept new Star Trek episodes airing until 2005. Star Trek: The Next Generation won 18 Emmy Awards and, in its seventh season, became the first syndicated television show to be nominated for the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. It was nominated for three Hugo Awards and won two. The first-season episode "The Big Goodbye" also won the Peabody Award for excellence in television programming. The series formed the basis of the seventh through to the tenth Star Trek films.
After the box-office success of the Harve Bennett-produced Star Trek-based movies, Paramount decided to create a new Star Trek series in 1986. Roddenberry initially declined to be involved but came on board as creator after being unhappy with early conceptual work. The creation of Star Trek: The Next Generation was announced on October 10, 1986. The show was, unusually, broadcast in first-run syndication rather than running on a major network, with Paramount and the local stations splitting advertising time between them.
Roddenberry hired a number of Star Trek veterans, including Bob Justman, D. C. Fontana, Eddie Milkis, and David Gerrold. Paramount executive Rick Berman was assigned to the show at Roddenberry's request. 

The Next Generation was shot on 35 mm film^[4], and was one of the first television shows with sound recorded in Dolby Surround. The filming negatives were scanned in a straight-to-video device

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (sometimes abbreviated to ST:DS9 or DS9) is a science fiction television program that premiered in 1993 and ran for seven seasons, ending in 1999. Rooted in Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek universe, it was created by Rick Berman and Michael Piller, at the request of Brandon Tartikoff, and produced by Paramount Television. The main writers, in addition to Berman and Piller, included show runner Ira Steven Behr, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Ronald D. Moore, Peter Allan Fields, Bradley Thompson, David Weddle, and René Echevarria.

A spin-off of Star Trek: The Next Generation, DS9 began while its parent series was still on the air, and there were several crossover episodes between the two shows. In addition, two Next Generation characters, Miles O'Brien and (eventually) Worf, became regular members of DS9.

Unlike the other Star Trek programs, DS9 took place on a space station instead of a starship, so as not to have two series with starships at the same time (The starship USS Defiant was introduced later in the series, but the station remained the primary setting for the show.) This made continuing story arcs and the appearance of recurring characters much more feasible. The show is noted for its well-developed characters and its original, complex plots. The series also depended on darker themes, less physical exploration of space, and an emphasis (in later seasons) on many aspects of war.

Although DS9's ratings were solid, it was never as successful as the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation, with approximately 6% versus 11% of U.S. households watching during sweeps months. However it performed better than its network sibling Star Trek: Voyager which averaged around 5% according to the Nielsen Ratings. Although DS9 had a very popular first season, it experienced a gradual loss of audience over time, ultimately dropping to a 4% household rating. One factor was the increasingly crowded syndicated marketplace which provided viewers with a number of alternative shows to follow (Babylon 5, Xena, Earth: Final Conflict). Another factor was the minimal promotion for DS9 as Paramount focused its efforts on its flagship network show Star Trek: Voyager. Finally, from 1995 onwards, most of the independent stations joined new networks (UPN and WB), and these primetime shows gradually pushed DS9 into weekend/late-night slots when few viewers were watching. The US television market expanded from four networks (1987 when TNG premiered) to six. The competition became so intense that eventually DS9's ratings dropped below fantasy fiction rivals Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess, and by the year 2001 nearly all original programming for syndication had disappeared.

Conceived in 1991, shortly before Gene Roddenberry’s death, DS9 centers on the formerly Cardassian space station, Terok Nor. After the Bajorans liberated themselves from the long and brutal Cardassian Occupation, the United Federation of Planets is invited by the Bajoran Provisional Government to take joint control of the station, which (originally) orbits Bajor. The station is renamed Deep Space Nine.
According to co-creator Berman, he and Piller had considered setting the new series on a colony planet, but they felt a space station would both appeal more to viewers and save money that would be required for on-location shooting for a "land-based" show. However, they were certain they did not want the show to be set aboard a starship because Star Trek: The Next Generation was still in production at the time and, in Berman’s words, it "just seemed ridiculous to have two shows—two casts of characters—that were off going where no man has gone before."^[2]
In the pilot, the station is moved near the just-discovered Bajoran wormhole, allowing access to the distant, unexplored Gamma Quadrant. It quickly becomes a center for exploration, interstellar trade, political maneuvering, and eventually open conflict.

DS9 contains more story arcs that span several episodes and even seasons than preceding Star Trek series. Its predecessors tend to restore the status quo ante at the end of an episode, so that many episodes could be seen out-of-order without compromising their plots. On DS9 however, not only are events in one episode often referenced and built upon in later ones, but sometimes several episodes in a row are cliffhangers. Michael Piller, who spoke very highly of Behr's contributions, believed this to be one of the series' best qualities, that the repercussions of past episodes remained with the show and characters were forced to "learn that actions have consequences". This trend was especially strong near the end of the series’ run, by which point the show was intentionally very much a serial
Contrary to Star Trek: The Next Generation, interpersonal conflicts were featured prominently in DS9. This was at the suggestion of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s writers (many of whom also wrote for DS9) because they felt that the prohibition limited their ability to develop interesting stories. In Piller's words, "people who come from different places — honorable, noble people — will naturally have conflicts"

Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager (sometimes abbreviated as simply Voyager) is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. The show was created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor and is the fourth incarnation of Star Trek, which began with the 1960s series Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry. It was produced for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2001, and is the only Star Trek series to feature a female captain, Kathryn Janeway, as a lead character. It ran on UPN, making it the first Star Trek series to air on a major network since the original series which aired on NBC. It was the only TV show on UPN to have seven seasons, making it the network's longest running show, and the only show left over from its first year.

Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while pursuing a renegade Maquis ship. Both ships' crews merge aboard Voyager to make the estimated 75-year journey home.

Voyager was produced to launch UPN, a television network planned by Paramount. (Paramount considered launching a network on its own in 1977, which would have been anchored by the TV series Star Trek: Phase II.) Planning started in 1993, and seeds for the show's backstory, including the development of the Maquis, were placed in several Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes. Voyager was shot on the same stages The Next Generation had used. The pilot, "Caretaker," was shot in October 1994. Around that time, Paramount was sold to Viacom - in fact, Voyager was the first Star Trek TV series to premiere after the sale had concluded.
Voyager was the first aired UPN program at 8:00 p.m. on January 16, 1995. Voyager was also the first Star Trek TV show to use Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) exclusively, and eliminate the use of models for exterior space shots. Other television shows such as seaQuest and Babylon 5 had exclusively used CGI to avoid the huge expense of models, but the Star Trek television department continued using models, because they felt models provided better realism. Amblin Imaging won an Emmy for the opening title visuals, but the weekly episode exteriors were still captured using hand-built miniatures of the Voyager, shuttlecraft, and other ships, the same method used for The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine.
That changed when Star Trek: Voyager became Paramount's first television property to go fully CGI in mid-season 3 (late 1996). Paramount obtained an exclusive contract with Foundation Imaging which had done the effects for Babylon 5's first three seasons. Season 3's "The Swarm" was the first episode to use Foundation's effects exclusively. Deep Space Nine started using Foundation Imaging in conjunction with Digital Muse one year later (season 6), after Voyager had successfully proven that CGI could look as realistic as models. In its later seasons, "Voyager" featured visual effects from Foundation and Digital Muse (later to become Eden FX).
In the pilot episode, "Caretaker," Voyager is on a mission to locate a missing ship piloted by Maquis fighters. Janeway brings Tom Paris, a former Starfleet officer and Maquis, out of prison to help find the ship. Maneuvering through the dangerous Badlands, an ancient alien known as the Caretaker transports Voyager to the Delta Quadrant, 70,000 light years on the other side of the galaxy, where the Maquis ship was also sent. In the process, several members of Voyager's crew are killed, including the first officer, helmsman, chief engineer, and all medical personnel.

Voyager and the Maquis ship are attacked by Kazon raiders intent on capturing the Caretaker's Array, which was used to transport the ships. The Maquis ship collides with a Kazon ship, destroying both, after the Maquis crew transports to Voyager. Believing the Kazon will use the Array to harm the Ocampa, Janeway decides to destroy it rather than use it to return home.
The Starfleet and Maquis crews integrate and work together as they begin the 70,000-light-year journey home, predicted to take 75 years. Chakotay, leader of the Maquis group, becomes first officer. B'Elanna Torres, a half-human/half-Klingon Maquis becomes chief engineer. Tuvok is revealed to be a Starfleet spy on the Maquis ship and resumes his duties as chief security officer. The ship's operations officer is Harry Kim. Paris becomes the helmsman, and the Emergency Medical Hologram, designed for only short-term use, becomes the chief medical officer. At first the EMH is confined to sickbay and holodecks, but during the course of the series gains his freedom by way of a mobile holo-emitter, as well as expanding his program and personality on his own initiative. While in the Delta Quadrant, the crew gains the Talaxian Neelix as a local guide and chef, along with his Ocampan girlfriend, Kes. Both Paris and Kes become qualified assistants to the Doctor, expanding the ship's medical capability. In the show's fourth season, the crew grows to include Seven of Nine, a Borg drone liberated from the collective who, like the Doctor, expands (or rather, regains) her humanity throughout the series.
The Delta Quadrant is mostly unexplored by the Federation, of which Starfleet is the military/exploration/peacekeeping arm. On the way home, the crew contends with hostile forces that include organ-harvesting Vidiians, belligerent Kazon, nomadic Hirogen hunters, Species 8472 from fluidic space and most notably the Borg in the later seasons when Voyager has to move through large areas of Borg space. They also encounter hazardous natural phenomena such as a Nebulous area called the Nekkrit Expanse, a large area of empty space called the Void, wormholes and other anomalies. Voyager is the third Star Trek series to feature Q. Meanwhile, Starfleet Command learns of Voyager's survival and situation and eventually develops a means to establish regular audiovisual and data contact with the ship thanks to the efforts of Reginald Barclay who was featured more prominently on The Next Generation.

Star Trek: Enterprise

Enterprise (retitled Star Trek: Enterprise at the start of its third season) is a science fiction television program created by Brannon Braga and Rick Berman and set in the fictional Star Trek universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s. The series follows the adventures of humanity's first Warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.

Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001. The pilot episode, "Broken Bow", takes place in the year 2151, halfway between the 21st-century events shown in the movie Star Trek: First Contact and the original Star Trek television series. Low ratings prompted UPN to cancel Star Trek: Enterprise on February 2, 2005, but the network allowed the series to complete its fourth season. The final episode aired on May 13, 2005. After a run of four seasons and 98 episodes, it was the first Star Trek series since the original Star Trek to have been cancelled by its network rather than finished by its producers. It is also the last series in an 18-year run of back-to-back new Star Trek shows beginning with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.

In May 2000, Rick Berman, executive producer of Star Trek: Voyager, revealed that a new series would premiere following the final season of Voyager. Little news was forthcoming for months as Berman and Brannon Braga developed the untitled series, known only as Series V, until February 2001, when Paramount signed Herman Zimmerman and John Eaves to production design Series V. Within a month, scenic designer Michael Okuda, another long-time Trek veteran, was also signed Michael Westmore, make-up designer for Trek since Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), was announced as working on Series V by the end of April. Returning as director of photography would be Marvin V. Rush, who had been working on various Treks since the third season of TNG. For visual effects, Ronald B. Moore, who had previously worked on TNG and Voyager, was brought in.
However, the biggest news would wait until May 11, 2001. The title of Series V was revealed to be Enterprise, with Scott Bakula, of Quantum Leap fame, playing Captain Jeffery Archer, a name that was quickly changed to Jonathan Archer due to fan feedback. Four days later, the rest of the main cast was announced, though the character names would not be announced until the next day.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. When a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'ger approaches Earth, destroying everything in its path, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) assumes command of his old starship—the USS Enterprise—to lead it on a mission to save the planet and determine V'ger's origins.

When the original television series was cancelled in 1969, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry lobbied Paramount to continue the franchise through a film. The success of the series in syndication convinced the studio to begin work on a feature film in 1975. A series of writers attempted to craft a suitably epic script, but the attempts did not satisfy Paramount, so the studio scrapped the project in 1977. Paramount instead planned on returning the franchise to its roots with a new television series, Star Trek: Phase II. The box office success of Close Encounters of the Third Kind convinced Paramount that science fiction films other than Star Wars could do well at the box office, so the studio canceled production of Phase II and resumed its attempts at making a Star Trek film. In 1978, Paramount assembled the largest press conference held at the studio since the 1950s to announce that Academy Award–winning director Robert Wise would helm a $15 million film adaptation of the television series.

With the cancellation of the new television series, the writers rushed to adapt the planned pilot episode of Phase II, "In Thy Image," into a film script. Constant revisions to the story meant that new versions of the shooting script were distributed hourly. The Enterprise was completely redesigned inside and out; costume designer Robert Fletcher provided new uniforms and production designer Harold Michelson fabricated new sets. Jerry Goldsmith composed the score, beginning an association with Star Trek that would continue until 2002. When the original contractors for the optical effects proved unable to complete their tasks in time, effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull was given carte blanche to meet the December 1979 release date. The film came together only days before the premiere; Wise took the just-completed film to its Washington, D.C., opening, but always felt that the theatrical version was a rough cut of the film he wanted to make.

Released in North America on December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom criticized the film for its lack of action and over-reliance on special effects. The final production cost ballooned to approximately $46 million. The film earned $139 million worldwide, falling short of studio expectations but enough for Paramount to propose a cheaper sequel. Roddenberry was forced out of creative control for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. In 2001, Wise created a director's cut for a special DVD release of the film; a team remastered the audio, tightened and added scenes, and used new computer-generated effects to complete his vision.
A Starfleet monitoring station detects an alien force hidden in a massive cloud of energy moving through space towards Earth. The cloud destroys three Klingon warships and the monitoring station en route. On Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit; its former commander, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral and works in San Francisco as Chief of Starfleet Operations. Starfleet dispatches the Enterprise to investigate the cloud entity as the ship is the only one in intercept range, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.
Kirk takes command of the ship citing his experience, angering Captain Willard Decker, who had been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise's new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the science officer, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines almost destroy the ship. The tension between Kirk and Decker increases when the admiral demonstrates his unfamiliarity with Enterprise. Spock arrives as replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge all emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud.
The Enterprise intercepts the energy cloud and is heavily damaged by an alien vessel. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic doppelgänger, a probe sent by "V'ger" to study the crew. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history. He becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which has Ilia's memories and feelings buried within. Spock takes a spacewalk to the alien vessel's surface and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the vessel is V'ger itself, a living machine.
At the heart of the massive ship, V'ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned, and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved consciousness. Spock realizes that V'ger lacks the ability to give itself a focus other than its original mission; having learned what it could on its journey home, it finds its existence empty and without purpose. Before transmitting all its information, V'ger insists that the Creator come in person to finish the sequence. Realizing that the machine wants to merge with its creator, Decker offers himself to V'ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V'ger, creating a new form of life that disappears into another dimension. With Earth saved, Kirk directs the Enterprise out to space for future missions.