Beyond the Farthest Star by: Samuel A. Peeples and directed by: Hal Sutherland

 

“Beyond the Farthest Star” is written by: Samuel A. Peeples and is directed by: Hal Sutherland.  It was produced under production code 22004, was the 1^st episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series, and was broadcast on September 8, 1973.

 

The fact that there is an animated version of Star Trek fascinates me.  It’s a project from Filmation and only lasted 22 episodes, but it’s clear the show had popularity enough in syndication to be commissioned, all with Gene Roddenberry’s approval but less of his general input as running the show was split between himself and D.C. Fontana.  It’s essentially a fourth season of Star Trek but in a very different form.  Intriguing matters further is Leonard Nimoy advocating for the inclusion of Nichelle Nichols and George Takei, meaning that the animated series reunites the entire cast except Walter Koenig who would provide one script.  “Beyond the Farthest Star” is the opening episode bringing back Samuel A. Peeples, writing his second script for Star Trek and his second pilot episode after “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, and the title to this one is particularly accurate.  After a brand-new theme that evokes the original Alexander Courage theme, the episode launches into a far more contemplative adventure with its own similarities to “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, the Enterprise finding a destroyed spaceship of alien origin and an incredible design.  While the animation on this episode and the show is often rough, it is a Filmation production from 1973 so the limited movement and shortcuts are expected, the backgrounds on this episode are particularly beautiful.  This is apparent on the ship which becomes the major set piece outside of the Enterprise (itself lovingly recreated with its own increase in technology), and it is a gorgeous and alien design, something that could not have been realized in live action.

 

Peeples writing a contemplative script, however well suited to the limited animation style actually suffers from being overwritten in terms of its dialogue.  This is a 24 minute episode, standard for animation, but every scene is packed wall to wall in dialogue, going back and forth between the characters yet still taking the time to getting to the main idea behind the episode, taking a whole seven minutes to get to the actual inciting incident for the episode.  Sadly these seven minutes aren’t really devoted to character beats, largely instead building the idea of the problem of the elevated gravity dragging the Enterprise off-course.  It also wouldn’t be Star Trek without a godlike alien which appears at the climax of the episode to reveal that the ship found had its crew nearly destroyed.  The idea behind the episode is great, but honestly the pacing of the dialogue is really the problem here, despite Peeples contributing several scripts to animation the sheer amount of dialogue sees all the actors struggling to get it all out in time.  There are points where it almost sounds like the characters are out of breath.  The animation does mean that William Shatner has to be reserved and James Doohan who is contributing extra voices of the non-regulars in addition to Scotty shows some of his own range as an actor which is great.

 

Overall, “Beyond the Farthest Star” is an episode that does exactly what it says it’s going to on the tin.  While the animation is limited, the weaker aspects of the episode is the fact that there is so much dialogue that the actors aren’t actually contending with well.  It’s a solid enough start, but the audience of children doesn’t quite work and there is almost too little happening in the 24 minutes of the episode, instead reintroducing the premise of Star Trek over really fulfilling the animation in terms of setting (the animators doing a lot of the heavy lifting on the expansive ship on-screen than any indication in the script).  6/10.

Star Wars: Brotherhood by: Mike Chen

 

In reviewing many of these Star Wars novels I believe I had made it quite clear that I’m not the biggest fan of the franchise.  I have seen all the numbered films at least once, the sequel trilogy in theaters with the general zeitgeist at the time.  My most controversial opinions on Star Wars are that Return of the Jedi is better than A New Hope and that The Last Jedi is the second best film behind The Empire Strikes Back.  I hadn’t read any of the books before doing these reviews nor seen many of the shows, so it feels like I have reached the first of the books where having some of that extra knowledge might have helped.  Brotherhood is a novel taking place in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith while novelist Mike Chen is clearly a fan of writing Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi with this expected familiarly with the extended universe under the new canon.  This is a novel where there are several plot and character beats written in such a way that the reader is clearly meant to understand larger implications and character appearances, likely from Star Wars: The Clone Wars which is a show I had not seen.  While nowhere near detrimental for the novel, this is one where Chen doesn’t go far enough to necessarily make readers unfamiliar with the character of Ventress understand her motivation outside of being a student of Count Dooku. There is just a lot of this novel that feels largely built around aspects of the universe Mike Chen loves.

 

Chen’s love of The Clone Wars does mean that Brotherhood’s main character thrust is the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan, the format of the novel largely switching between their points of view each chapter.  There are a handful of other point of view characters who get chapters, partially to move the plot when the pair of Jedi aren’t involved and what partially feels like a way to fill up space and make the novel a full length novel and not an oversized novella.  Luckily two of the other characters given points of view are eventually paralleled with Anakin and Obi-Wan so Chen can ring much of Anakin’s potential paths out in the open knowing which path he will eventually choose.  Anakin and Obi-Wan are characterized incredibly well by Chen, really capturing this master and student dynamic and continuing a theme of these novels of looking at the hypocrisies baked into the Jedi Order.  This is a novel where Anakin gets an unofficial apprentice whom he influences and sees almost far too much of himself in.  There is this scene where the younglings featured, though I’m not entirely sure if these are the ones to be slaughtered in Revenge of the Sith, but it’s a particular highlight because it shows so much of Anakin’s potential.  Chen also somehow manages to capture a lot of what Hayden Christensen was going for in his appearances that wouldn’t come through on-screen due to a lack of direction.

 

Overall, Brotherhood is honestly a novel that I quite like.  Where it excels is doing what the title builds, exploring the bond of brotherhood between our protagonists despite the pair largely being apart.  Where Mike Chen doesn’t quite work is getting wrapped up in continuity that he clearly enjoys but makes a reader like me feel often like I am out of the loop.  The middle of the novel has this tendency to drag quite a bit in a way that just doesn’t work as well for me.  The first and final acts however largely make up for it making for quite the enjoyable reading experience.  8/10.

The Cage by: Gene Roddenberry and directed by: Robert Butler

 

“The Cage” is written by: Gene Roddenberry and is directed by: Robert Butler.  It was filmed under production code 1, was aired specially for the 25^th anniversary of Star Trek, the 80^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 4, 1988.

 

If we’re being technical I have already discussed “The Cage” before in its adapted form into the series proper as “The Menagerie”, and there I discussed quite a large amount of how the episode is amended quite well into the show outside of an incredibly ableist ending and the stretching to the length of two episodes.  The fact that Star Trek managed to have two pilot episodes commissioned was an unheard of feat, largely because “The Cage” as a pilot impressed executive producer and head of Desilu Lucille Ball so “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was produced.  Watching “The Cage” after going through the rest of Star Trek is a particularly interesting experience because on paper this is an episode that lays out a lot of what Gene Roddenberry wanted to do with the series, something that a pilot should do on the surface.  There is the large crew of characters working in harmony with a largely diverse cast (though very few characters are named on screen, Majel Barrett’s Number One being one of the few strong female characters of the series as a whole), exploring the galaxy.  It’s a largely contemplative experience watching “The Cage”, Robert Butler is in the director’s seat and his work here includes several lingering shots couching the episode in the trappings of the science fiction films of the time.  There is an extended sequence as the Enterprise is traveling achieved by overlaying a starfield over the bridge while Alexander Courage’s main theme kicking in to depict the travel.  It’s a sequence that is a budget saver so there doesn’t have to be new model shots commissioned for the pilot.  Model shots for the Enterprise are saved for the title sequence and a genuinely impressive transition from the titles, an early version of the Star Trek titles without the voiceover but still with theme, to the Enterprise bridge set by actually zooming into the top of the model and using chromakey to transition to the set.

 

Contemplative is perhaps the best word to describe “The Cage”.  The Talosians as a species are Roddenberry’s comment on stagnation in the place of emotional serenity.  It’s fascinating since an aspect that would be carried through the series is Spock’s serene, emotionless state coming into conflict with his human half.  It’s a conflict that drives his character, but in “The Cage” it is largely absent from Leonard Nimoy’s performance.  That conflict of emotion is also attempted to play out through Jeffrey Hunter’s Captain Pike’s temptations by the Talosians.  The fantasies of temptation are all in an attempt to elicit and study that emotion.  It’s also clearly an attempt for Roddenberry to show the different types of settings he imagines Star Trek visiting, though in terms of integrating it with the plot it largely doesn’t work since they are disjointed fantasies.  The episode also attempts to use the female crew members as equal temptation for Pike which is a particularly Roddenberry plot point and where the episode largely suffers because the female characters have a tendency to become objects.  Number One as a character actually rises above the low bar set for female characters on Star Trek and especially those written by Roddenberry, though is still reduced by the Talosians to an object.  Roddenberry also still writes Vina's fate as ableist, even more ableist here as not only is she physically disabled but she is given her own fake Pike in the end to be in love with and this is treated as a perfectly pleasant ending and as a disabled man myself it feels even revolting for 1965 when this was made.  Butler as a director struggles with a script that while full of conflict of Captain Pike versus the Talosians, it doesn’t actually build enough of an arc for driving the plot forward.  It’s also an episode that overran the standard length for a pilot by nearly fifteen minutes, much of which would likely have been cut out like it was in “The Menagerie”.  This has a knock on effect of making the episode feel longer than it actually is in several ways, especially since instead of the Enterprise as a fresh new ship on a five year mission, there is the sense that Pike has been at this for far too long.  Everything feels a bit too old for a fresh new show.

 

Overall, while it has its problems, especially in the second half I believe I prefer “The Menagerie” at least for the first half’s added material of our main characters reflecting.  “The Cage” is one of those pilots with a lot of potential that it just plain doesn’t fully reach because of Roddenberry’s desire to be contemplative science fiction which would have largely limited the audience.  It’s contemplative nature means the episode standing on its own actually lacks the necessary dramatic through line which was done in a much better balance for “When No Man Has Gone Before”.  “The Cage” is honestly like seeing a picture of an old friend as a child, you can recognize them but there’s a lot that are some things about them now that are missing.  5/10.

Palace of the Red Sun by: Christopher Bulis

 

Peri Brown is a Doctor Who companion who has always drawn the short straw in terms of her stories.  Her entire arc on television should be about wanting something more from life but then producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward decided the direction of the show needed to be a darker one and Peri as a character would be one for the dads.  The character was often dressed in a sexually revealing way, directors especially male directors would shoot episodes to emphasize this, and the characterization would suffer.  With the Wilderness Years there is a chance to largely attempt to correct this, but that isn’t always the case.  Christopher Bulis as an author wrote multiple novels featuring Peri across both Doctor Who past doctor ranges: State of Change was his first for the Missing Adventures range and that saw a return of Peri transforming into a bird a la Vengeance on Varos while The Ultimate Treasure for the Past Doctor Adventures under BBC Books but Palace of the Red Sun is perhaps the weakest in terms of what it puts Peri through.  This is a book that largely starts well for Peri, having her examine why she stays with the Doctor and how her antagonistic relationship with him is something that she is actually getting some good from.

 

The opening chapters of the novel actually have the Doctor and Peri on a tranquil vacation which Bulis clearly demonstrates an ability for fun banter before the novel then shifts into the plot.  The plot of Palace of the Red Sun is what you would come to expect from a Christopher Bulis novel, there is a subjugated class on a planet where one half is in light and one half is in dark, the Doctor and Peri are separated and have to find the dictator and overthrow him.  The underclass are basically savage humans saddled with Peri for much of the novel and this is where the just plain uncomfortable elements of the novel really come into play.  This is a book where once again Peri’s plot is just there so she is sexualized, Bulis believing that to temper that is to continually have Peri quip and try to resist, but this is a book which builds to a point where Peri is going to be married off by integrating with a tribe of natives.

 

The Doctor’s plot is inciting an uprising amongst the service robots of the palace’s large and well kept gardens.  This could be interesting if there was really anything to say about the different structures of an empire and expansion, the empire is essentially one palace encompassing half the planet, but Bulis doesn’t make much of it.  The closest the novel gets is an attempt at debate on the nature of life and the ability for robots to overcome their programming and gain their own sense of life, however the characterization of the robots is incredibly one note.  Bulis doesn’t really make enough distinction even between the three classes of robots in the novel and by characterizing the Sixth Doctor as blustering he is the one that largely takes over.  Palace of the Red Sun is also a novel that largely suffers from having very little plot to sustain itself, there is a reason this review started with a discussion of Peri because she’s the character that gets the most devotion and time, even if that is spent poorly instead of examining who Peri is as a character.  The villain is essentially a stock character and one of the characters from The Ultimate Treasure makes a reappearance here, taking up his own plotline that honestly feels more akin to something Dave Stone would write on an off-day than anything Bulis had done.

 

Overall, Palace of the Red Sun is a novel with the glint of potential had this been with a more skilled novelist.  Christopher Bulis excels when sticking to traditional Doctor Who and even then he can be incredibly hit or miss when it comes to that.  This is a book that just cannot sustain its standard Past Doctor Adventures page count full of characters I do not care about and a plot that had already been done better before in prose and on television.  3/10.

Star Wars: Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade by: Delilah S. Dawson

 

Delilah S. Dawson’s Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade is the Star Wars book that I think ticks almost all of the boxes that I was missing as I read more of the Star Wars books.  Set during and in the immediate aftermath of the prequel trilogy, this novel is a look at the rise of the Empire from one of the survivors of the Jedi, surviving by becoming part of a group of Jedi tasked with ensuring the destruction of the order takes place after the initial massacres.  The Inquisitors are the Emperor’s elite group of essentially brainwashed ex-Jedi into being an elite group of bounty hunter assassins.  As far as I can tell this is one aspect of Star Wars largely explored in the current canon with only some mentions in the Legends canon, and as an idea it makes a lot of sense.  It helps explain how certain Jedi could survive and giving several options for authors to explore, but perhaps what makes Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade work for me is its focus.  Delilah S. Dawson has a central protagonist she is tracking the entire life of, though a character not created by Dawson whose ending had to be recounted in the epilogue of the novel.  The epilogue of this novel is where due to Iskat Akaris being introduced and subsequently killed in a comic book, those events have to play out.  As a chapter it is problematic because it is Dawson trying to fit her story into a larger story and the loop for the character has to close, but in doing so it is disconnected in style and in plot from the rest of the novel.  Only the final line feels particularly like Dawson is writing something original, tying into themes of the cyclical nature of violence and corruption making the epilogue at least make sense even if it is largely set apart from the rest of the novel.

 

Dawson as an author has an incredibly intimate style of writing as well as pouring much of her own life experience in different ways into her novel.  Iskat Akaris is far from a self-insert character, she is very much characterized in her own unique way, but with every good author there is some of Dawson in her character, prefaced in a very touching forward to the novel.  Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade is largely exploring the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order and a subtle aspect to how Palpatine was able to corrupt other Jedi and bring them to his cause to become Inquisitors.  This is all through Iskat’s perspective, the perspective of a woman trying to discover her identity and freedom.  Iskat does not know her own species, being given to the Jedi Order at a very young age and being from a species on the outskirts of the galaxy.  The numerous roadblocks to Iskat discovering her identity and family is initially the bureaucracy of the Jedi Order until Palpatine’s takeover and then it becomes the control of the Inquisitors over themselves.  Iskat is a woman who yearns for freedom, believing at several points in her life that different things will gain her that freedom, though the common throughline is discovering her identity.

 

 Iskat as a character is not so much easily manipulated, but is less able to devote herself to the very strict ideals of the Jedi, letting emotions rule herself and eventually let rage in slowly.  Dawson is brilliant at moving that line that Iskat will cross throughout the novel, the first time happening at the end of the first part of the novel before slowly pushing and pushing it.  Iskat becomes a woman able to manipulate those around her to gain her trust which is the clear cliff that leads her down the path to becoming an Inquisitor.  One other aspect explored, however briefly, is the fact that certain Inquisitors are not Inquisitors by choice but by explicit brainwashing.  This brainwashing is not the cult like brainwashing of the environment of the Sith that all Inquisitors are subjected to, but a torturous brainwashing that implies the torture continues afterwards to keep people in line.  It’s an environment that promotes anger, backstabbing, and violence in Iskat which adds to the tragedy of her inability to truly find her identity after getting what she wants, until she finds a horrific one in the end, all leading up to the point where she is going to fall which is honestly great.

 

Overall, Inquisitors: Rise of the Red Blade was a particularly good surprise, Delilah S. Dawson working so well at writing this character study.  The fact that it is a standalone that doesn’t need much knowledge of Star Wars on the whole definitely helps, Dawson recaps even the film information in the worldbuilding and writes as if she is writing her own science fiction world instead of a media tie in.  Iskat is a compelling protagonist and while this review didn’t discuss it, her relationships with others is what helps Dawson elevate this novel into something amazing.  9/10.