Tag: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Reviews, Star Trek

How I Learned to Stop Worrying About ‘Star Trek’ Canon and Enjoy the Big Dumb Mystery

Zhouweiwen

As we are halfway through our return to the 25th Century, we can pretty much settle into the rhythm of Star Trek: Picard. It’s a bit of a clunky narrative but a lot of fun character work for new and returning players. Most discouraging but perhaps least surprising is for all the things Season 3 has done to get us those wonderful character moments, it can’t escape the Kurtzman of it all and has at its center a big dumb mystery around Jack Crusher.

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Fandom, Star Trek, Streaming

All Good Things…

Shawn Taylor

As soon as I was exposed to it, I was a rabid fan of Star Trek. We share a birthday, September 8, and a value system that holds art and science as equals. Trek was more to me than a fandom. It was a vision of our shared future world that was achievable. Maybe not warp drive and phasers, but philosophically and materially achievable. While I loved the Original Series, it was The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine that seemed to realize R. Buckminster Fuller’s (one of my favorite thinkers) dream of universal equity.

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Star Trek, Television11 Comments

What I’ve Learned: Star Trek at 50 (Me at 44)

Shawn Taylor

It is no secret that I love Star Trek. My daughter asked me why. I told her the following: I love it for its aspirational nature, its optimistic outlook for humankind, it’s marrying of science and art, and its borderline Shakespearean drama. I also love it for its horrible effects, its over-emoting, and the sheer high-corniness of most of the story lines. To me, Trek is the epitome of important television1. It entertained me. It made me think. It spurred me to action. Trek and Raiders of the Lost Ark are directly responsible for my pursuing undergraduate and graduate education. I learned things from Star Trek. Our conversation got me thinking about what I have learned from Trek.

So in the spirit and honor of Cal Fussman’s “What I’ve Learned” column in Esquire magazine, Star Trek’s 50th and my 44th, I want to share “What I’ve Learned: Star Trek Edition.”

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Literature, School of Hard NOCs, Sci Fi3 Comments

Sankofa, Survival, and Science Fiction: A Graduation Speech

Walidah Imarisha

This keynote speech was delivered at the Portland State University Multicultural Graduation Speech, June 12, 2015 in Portland, Oregon.

It is such a privilege to be at this year’s Portland State University Multicultural Graduation — I look forward to this graduation every day, to celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our students of color. I am so honored to be the keynote speaker, and to have been chosen by the student leaders to do so. Yall know the Cultural Resource Center student leaders are phenomenal, so this is definitely an honor!

This is such an incredibly important time for each of us here — students obviously, but also parents, friends, family, faculty, and staff. It makes me so happy to see so many brilliant students I’ve had the opportunity to get to know graduating here today. This is a time to celebrate the immense amount of work and sacrifice and dedication that got each of you graduating here.

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Star Trek, Television7 Comments

Star Trek is a Television Program — Period

Shawn Taylor

In the last few months, there has been plenty of talk about Star Trek. Whether it is the news that Simon Pegg (Star Trek reboot-verse Scotty) has been hired to make the franchise less “Star Trek-y” or Popular Mechanics’ wonderful “8 Things a New Star Trek TV Series Must Have,”  or the legion of fan films, or Adam Savage’s construction of the Enterprise’s Captain’s chair, or the frequent talk about how Trek has influenced the real world — all this, but there is no Trek property. No show. No amusement park. No decent toys to speak of. Just speculation, scuttlebutt, and rumor. Yes, there is a new film coming sometime in the future, but do we really need it? Continue reading “Star Trek is a Television Program — Period”

Star Trek, Television2 Comments

The Sisko, Part Three: Star Trek Into Blackness

Robert S.

I hate Roots.

Never read the book, can barely watch more than 30 minutes of the mini-series, and have no intentions to expand my exposure any further. Granted, I have no personal beef with Alex Haley, and who doesn’t love LeVar (Geordi!) Burton? In fact, I offer a respectful nod to the effort it took to even get it slotted on to major network programming (apparently, SOMEBODY called in a few favors that year). But nonetheless, unapologetically, I’ll pass.

Why?

Because in a way, I’ve already read the book. Already seen the movie before. I’ve been exposed to this kind of content, and it pretty much hits me like cold oatmeal (that is, I’m willing to accept it if nothing else is around, but damned if there aren’t better options for my palate). The tale is just all too familiar: noble Black man/woman/child protagonist (sometimes a combination of the three) courageously trudges through the muck and mire of unspeakably cruel acts, spurred by bigotry and ignorance affixed to various unsavory points in human history. Somehow this person (usually) manages to overcome at least some of these atrocities en route to some point of affirmation that he/she/they are worthy of more than the inhumanity they’ve endured from myriad social forces conspiring against their very existence, and ultimately we the audience are asked/expected to walk away with some kernel of insight into, or at least a basic acceptance of the relevance of Blackness (be it in this country or abroad) to our existence, and why we should “never, ever forget…”

Sound familiar?

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Star Trek, Television5 Comments

ST:NOC Revealed – Day Five

Jenn

Capt. Benjamin Sisko (Capt.) and Deep Space Nine
Capt. Benjamin Sisko (Capt.) and Deep Space 9

It’s Day 5 of ST:NOC and, at last, the full ST:NOC crew is revealed for your viewing pleasure! Joining the rest of our ST:NOC crew is Captain Benjamin Sisko in the captain’s chair! Also, our NOCs voted Star Trek‘s only space station locale — Deep Space Nine — as the franchise’s Best Starship.

Vote for your own favourites after the jump!

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Star Trek, Television1 Comment

ST:NOC Revealed – Day Four

Jenn

Commander Spark (First Officer), and Quark and Guinan (Barkeeps)
Commander Spock (First Officer), and Quark and Guinan (Barkeeps)

Welcome to Day 4 of ST:NOC, and it’s an all-alien reveal in the categories of First Officer and Counselor/Chef/Shoulder to Cry On!! Tune in tomorrow for the final day of ST:NOC, when we tell you the winner (by an incredibly razor-thin margin) of our choice for Captain, as well as our vote for best Starship!

Vote for your own favourites after the jump!

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Star Trek, Television5 Comments

The Sisko, Part Two: Unapologetic Blackness

Jenn

Star Trek appeals — across generation, across gender, across language, across nationality — because from the very first episode it offered a bold, optimistic vision of the future; a vision so distinct from our own contemporary 21st century world as to seem at first glance to be more fantasy than science fiction.

Forty-seven years later, Star Trek endures for many fans precisely because of this fantastic quality. Five centuries into the future, humanity has forged a “more perfect union” with hundreds of alien races to build (and maintain) a peace that spans most of explored space and across one-fourth of the galaxy. In fact, the constant theme of Star Trek across all five series and twelve movies is one of unity: above all else, Star Trek is the story of community united across race, gender, class and even species to build a brighter tomorrow. Most of our favourite Trek adventures detail the struggle to overcome the obstacles that impede unity — whether barriers of language or distance or culture or war or time — through technological innovation, political wrangling, or personal ingenuity.

The prize for this unity is clear through Roddenberry’s vision: the United Federation of Planets offers its members an end to poverty, disease, and even war.

But, rarely does Trek interrogate the cost of that unity.

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Origins4 Comments

A Series of Carefully Selected Moments Over the Course of 35 Years

Robert S.

In all sincerity, I actually attempted to construct this in a more conventional narrative form, with the initial phase being the following series of roughly dated bullets. Upon completion, I realized the bullets actually covered my “nerdom coming-of-age” origin tale better than any formal composition.

So yeah, in all it’s abstract glory, here you go:

  • 1980s… My Saturday Morning line-up for a decade was (in no particular order): Spidey and his Amazing Friends, Captain N: The Game Master, The Get-Along Gang, Pole Position, Fraggle Rock, The Gummi Bears, Danger Mouse, Inspector Gadget, Mighty Mouse (The New Adventures), Garfield and Friends, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, ReBoot…

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Star Trek, Television

ST:NOC Revealed – Day Three

Jenn

Lieutenant Julian Bashir (Chief Medical Officer) and Lieutenant Commander Worf (Chief of Security)
Lieutenant Julian Bashir (Chief Medical Officer) and Lieutenant Commander Worf (Chief of Security)

It’s Day 3 of ST:NOC, and we’re revealing our surprise picks for Chief Medical Officer and Chief of Security — both men who are perhaps most noteworthy for having won the heart of a Dax! Read more and vote your favourites after the jump!

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Star Trek, Television1 Comment

Wounds, Spoons, and Ridges: The Education of Miles O’Brien

Zhouweiwen

Lieutenant Stiles is a one-off character. He only shows up in “Balance of Terror” to be a bigot and learn the error of doubting Mr. Spock. He’s Federation. He’s Starfleet. But he’s not main cast. So it’s easy to think of him as an aberration. None of the crew — especially Kirk — evince any sympathy for Stiles, and so we don’t have to either. We don’t relate to Stiles.

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Star Trek, Television8 Comments

The Sisko, Part One: Our Living Black Manhood

J. Lamb (Snoopy Jenkins)

When I was a teenager, I liked to skip church.

My parents attended different Baptist churches in my hometown, vibrant, bright places of worship where suburban Blacks developed a respectful, life-affirming, joyous relationship with a living God. Each Sunday meant uptempo gospel music, dedicated Bible study, and hour-long sermons on the spiritual uplift offered through Christian precepts. This was the Black church: fine clothing, expensive hats, smiling children, gaunt deacons, relaxed tresses, choir robes, public praise, Negro spirituals, religious supplication, spiritual uplift. For my neighbors, for my mother, church was the emotional recharge, the soul cleansing needed before Monday morning’s journey into corporate White villainy. I don’t pretend the same of my father; I always found his belief an extension of his duty to family and country. Still personal, but reserved, stately, imperial.

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Origins, Star Trek9 Comments

My Grandfather Was My Dealer

Shawn Taylor

torpedo2Aside from being the most physically powerful man that I know of, my maternal grandfather was also the first nerd of color I ever met. He was enamored of all things weird, off-center, having to do with outer space, other worlds, or the possibility that a monster just might rise out of the sea. He was my gateway drug to sci-fi. My grandfather is directly responsible for getting me hooked. It started with television. It started with Star Trek.

The earliest — actually, the most coherent — memory that I have of my grandfather is of us, in my grandparents’ basement, watching the “Arena” episode of the original Star Trek series. I’m not sure what triggered it, but he had some serious issues with the Gorn.

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Movies, Star Trek, Television1 Comment

It’s Star Trek Week, and the Best is Yet to Come…

The Nerds of Color

…And babe, won’t it be fine?

If you haven’t heard, it’s Fashion Week in New York City, but we don’t care about that. And by now, Shark Week has jumped the shark. The new hotness that’s blowing up the web? Star Trek Week.

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