"Star Trek: Phase II/Continues"

STAR TREK: NEW VOYAGES/PHASE II
-created by james cawley and jack marshall
2004-2016
STAR TREK CONTINUES
-developed by vic mignona
2013-2017
These twenty-one episodes, which continue the voyages of the classic TREK, are the only fan films to merit consideration. The production values are startlingly good (particularly STC, which almost looks like a perfected version of the original), the acting competent, and the writing tantalizingly close to good. They take on issues of social relevance, even arguably outdoing DS9, VOY, and ENT (the STC episode on immigrant hatred stands out). The shows are peppered with cameos by TREK/genre actors (marina sirtis, john de lancie, michael dorn, denise crosby, grace lee whitney, william windom, malachi throne, anne lockhart, rekha sharma, gigi edgley, jamie bamber, colin baker, michael forest, john winston, and erin gray...plus christopher doohan as scottie in STC, and creative contributions by dorothy fontana and david gerrold). The stories return to the galactic barrier, the mirror universe, the Defiant, Orion slavers, and introduce a ship's counselor. STC culminates the five-year mission with kirk accepting promotion. Both productions are clearly missing the writing touch of a visionary, to say nothing of lapses in plot structure and plausibility. One wishes they might have strayed further from the "big three", and devoted episodes to uhura or scotty (chekov and sulu get a turn in the sun, with koenig and takei onboard). STP2 particularly suffers from revolving-actor syndrome in the leads, and their scotty is unfortunately reminiscent of dan aykroyd's rendering. But the dialogue is generally competent, and the devotion to the original almost breathtakingly expressed (with a charming mix of state-of-the-art graphics and intentionally clumsy alien costumes). One STC episode starring lou ferrigno as an orion captain, even cracked my franchise-wide marathons. Not brilliant, but brilliantish.