I've always thought "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" would be much better if it had a "CHiPs" ending. As, of course, would many others things as well.
Sadly, my many letters to Paramount Pictures suggesting this have thus far fallen upon deaf ears. But now, thanks to the magic of "what if", we can enjoy that very thing right now!
Video by Porfle Popnecker
"Star Trek" owned by Paramount Pictures
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it.
Thanks for watching!
(originally posted on 5/13/23)
Grace Lee Whitney played Yeoman Janice Rand...
...in eight episodes of the original "Star Trek" (1966).
She would return as Rand seven more times in "Star Trek" movies and episodes both official and fan-made.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Star Trek: Voyager/ "Flashback" (1996)
Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (2007)
Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II/ "World Enough and Time" (2007)
For Grace Lee Whitney (1930-2015)
Originally posted on 1/27/19
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Originally posted on 12/14/12
For those of us who caught it during its first run, almost every episode of "In Search Of..." was a guaranteed dose of pure "sense of wonder." Each week, host Leonard Nimoy explored the world's most tantalizing mysteries with an open mind, allowing us to bask in their intoxicating strangeness in an atmosphere free of rigid, buzzkill skepticism.
Now, Visual Entertainment Inc. (VEI) has collected all 152 episodes of this classic show, which ran from 1976-1982, in their 21-disc DVD collection IN SEARCH OF...THE COMPLETE SERIES. I reviewed a screener with two half-hour Nimoy episodes, "In Search Of...Mayan Mysteries" and "In Search Of...UFO Coverups", both pretty representative of the show as a whole.
Low-budget photography makes this independently-produced syndicated show look older than it is, but it was that way even when it was new. No matter, since the fascinating subject matter and wealth of both exclusive film footage and well-chosen stock shots easily make up for this. Nimoy, one of the finest narrators of all time, lends the show much-needed gravitas even during its most outlandish forays into the unknown.
The Mayan episode poses a series of teasing questions about this mysterious ancient people such as: why, if they incorporated the wheel into their children's toys, didn't they employ it for practical purposes? How did they conceive such complicated systems of mathematics and astronomy, among other things? And why did they suddenly disappear from recorded history?
Even more up my alley is the look at UFO cover-ups, which opens with some familiar footage of a possible flying saucer but focuses mainly on the famous Roswell, New Mexico incident. Actual interview clips of Air Force officer Jess Marcel, a major participant in the purported saucer crash investigation, and footage of Hangar 18 itself, where the wrecked saucer and alien bodies are said to have been housed, make this of special interest to UFO enthusiasts.
There's also a first-hand account from a scientist who claims to have been taken to the crash site by U.S. Air Force officials and is only now breaking his silence. As usual, the show is aggressive and non-apologetic in its insistence that anything is possible regardless of how farfetched it may seem to the skeptically minded.
In addition to the 152 regular series episodes, the VEI collection also includes two Rod Serling-hosted "In Search Of..." specials which aired in 1972, plus the entire eight-episode run of the 2002 reboot with "The X-Files" star Mitch Pileggi. The screener I watched contained one from 1972 and one from 2002.
"Twilight Zone" creator and host Serling takes us on an exploration of ancient astronauts that covers all the familiar territory in highly compelling fashion, including the baffling stone heads of Easter Island and the enigmatic Nazca lines in Peru. While the Serling episode is quite similar to the later Nimoy series, the flashy Pileggi-hosted show from 2002 is the sort of lurid exploitation fare you might see on SyFy, with gruesome stories about stigmata, Haitian zombies, and murder scenes haunted by restless ghosts.
While I can't speak for the entire collection as a whole, the picture and sound quality of the 4-episode screener I watched was good for a low budget syndicated series from the 70s. You may be bugged by the VEI logo in the lower right hand corner but I forgot it was there after awhile.
Being a loyal viewer of the show back in its heyday, I can personally attest that, content-wise, the rest of "In Search Of..." is chock full of fun and often spooky stuff about the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, conspiracy theories, unsolved murders and disappearances, bizarre phenomena both natural and supernatural, and just about anything else that this weird world has to offer. While learned astronomer Carl Sagan may consider the subject at hand to be unsupported by "a smidgen of compelling evidence", you'll probably find an avalanche of it in IN SEARCH OF...THE COMPLETE SERIES.
Here's a rundown of the three WORST episodes of "STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES" (as chosen by me) with commentary by a roundtable consisting of some of my distinguished Facebook friends. (We talked about the three BEST episodes HERE.)
(Originally posted on 10/25/13)
3rd worst "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode of all time--"The Way to Eden", aka "Space Hippies."
Charles Napier and Skip Homeier help make this one a real treat. Skip plays a charismatic guru conning a bunch of futuristic flower children into thinking there's an Eden planet out there somewhere and they can reach it by hijacking the Enterprise.
Before that happens, however, Spock tunes up the old Vulcan harp and jams with them in an impromptu musical concert that sounds like cats running around on a set of rusty box springs. The "hippies" in this case are straight out of the DC Comics "Totally-Out-Of-It" notion of how hippies should look, act, and, God help us, speak.
Porfle Popnecker: And you had to figure out which Lazarus you were looking at by keeping up with his Band-aid or whatever.
James Cole: The editing was incomprehensible - and if you look closely, Lazarus's beard on the planet doesn't match how it looks on the ship. It's like twice as thick.
Porfle Popnecker: The whole episode is twice as thick!
Paul Sanchez: I kinda liked the basic concept, but yeah. the production of it was a mess.
Paul Sanchez: And don't diss on ST:The Motion Picture. I love it. Those uniforms were the logical update from the TV show-- practical, yet comfy-- so sure, you could sleep in them too.
Porfle Popnecker: All that was missing was the footies!
Porfle Popnecker: I actually have a much higher opinion of the first movie since the release of the Director's Cut on DVD.
Paul Sanchez: Oh that cut is great. It all gels. Robert Wise had never made a BAD movie-- when allowed.
James Cole: Friends of mine worked on the Director's Edition DVD. It's a far superior cut of the movie - it works great.
Porfle Popnecker: And the addition of a countdown to self-destruct at the end adds some actual old-fashioned suspense like the original series had.
Paul Sanchez: Porf's fave part is when Chekov gets an owwie and screams like a little girl.
Porfle Popnecker: Yeah, that's the most thrill-packed moment in the whole movie.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this discussion! You can check out the follow-up, "The Three Best-Ever Episodes of 'Star Trek: The Original Series'" right HERE!
Here's a rundown of the three BEST episodes of "STAR TREK: THE ORIGINAL SERIES" (as chosen by me) with commentary by a roundtable consisting of some of my distinguished Facebook friends. (We discussed the three worst episodes HERE.)
(Originally posted on 10/26/13)
3rd best "Star Trek: The Original Series" episode--"Journey to Babel."
Spock's parents (Mark Lenard, Jane Wyatt), lots of aliens, lots of intrigue, and a nail-biting ending.
Guest stars Reggie Nalder and William O'Connell play Andorians (white-haired, blue-skinned aliens with antennae), who may be responsible for sending a "kamikaze"-style attack ship after the Enterprise as it transports ambassadors (including Spock's father, Sarek) to a peace conference.
During an ambush in a corridor, Kirk (William Shatner) gets to do his stupid drop-kick move where he ends up on the floor with his back to his opponent (and, sure enough, gets stabbed in the back).
Fitz Fitzstephens: We have much in common.
Paul Sanchez: Like several TREK episodes, the music WAS the scene burned to memory. Yes, that countdown march used in "Doomsday" (and a few others) was a fave. Original Trek had so many well done music cues.
Porfle Popnecker: I have the musical score on cassette.
James Cole: Sol Kaplan's score is incredible - and like all the best scores for the show - themes were re-used and cues were "tracked" in later episodes.
Porfle Popnecker: Especially that distinctive "DUH-DUM, DUH-DUM, DUH-DUM"!
Porfle Popnecker: Even the transporter is given its own little theme (also reused later as in "Obsession"). And early on when Scotty's fooling around with some electronics that flare up, that gets its own musical flourish as well.
Bob Shell: I hated this episode.
Porfle Popnecker: No, you said you loved this one, remember?
Bob Shell: Oh, I thought this one was "The Dumbsday Machine." I liked this one, it was great.
Porfle Popnecker: No, that's what they would've called a "Simpsons" parody of it if they ever did one.
Thanks to everyone who participated in this discussion!
Originally posted on 11/22/2016
Often I'll like a movie better upon repeat viewing, but rarely have I gone from "disappointed" to "delighted" as drastically as I did during my second look at STAR TREK: BEYOND (2016).
The trouble is, the darn thing is just so dense, so packed full of action, dialogue, special effects, etc. which are all edited together like a Tsui Hark movie but without the light-fingered finesse. To be honest, I missed so much of the story details and subtleties the first time around that much of what I saw seemed like a jumbled mess. (Plus, Zachary Quinto's Spock wig looks pretty bad this time.)
Not so upon second viewing, one free of the need to decipher the plot points that go sprinting past in competition with the constant barrage of sound and fury and motorcycles and demolition derbies with starships instead of jalopies. (The wig still looks bad.)
Originally posted on 5/19/09
As a self-described "Trekker" since "Star Trek: The Original Series" first warped into syndication, the prospect of this movie inspired in me feelings of both keen anticipation and dread. For years, many of us Trek fans have wanted a movie about the Starfleet Academy days of the original crew, but we wanted it to be true to the spirit of "Star Trek" while adhering to established canon.
Nowadays, however, such sentiments are likely to cause you to be labeled a "diehard Trek supergeek" and berated for being such a dour spoilsport nitpicking over details instead of sitting back and letting this flashy new thing carry you off on a wave of giddy delirium. Well, I don't mind being called a geek, but when other geeks call me a geek, then they need to shut up. In other words, you really can't point out the mote of dust in someone else's eye if you have an action figure stuck in yours.
Anyway, I went to see director J.J. Abrams' big, new, glittering, pulsating, eye-popping STAR TREK (2009) movie today, and I must say first of all that it is a grandly entertaining cherry-red fire engine of a space flick. Watching it is like getting up on Christmas morning and finding out that Santa Claus really went all out on your house because you were extra good that year. There's an endless parade of stunningly imaginative set design, amazing special effects, and some action setpieces that made me glad sci-fi movies were invented. The new USS Enterprise looks great on the outside, and the bright, snazzy interiors felt like home after I had some time to settle into them.
Star Trek's writers always had fun with Spock's character...
...especially all the little quirks and idiosyncrasies that made him so much different from humans.
But in this particular episode, they may have gone just a bit overboard.
Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Star Trek's writers often enjoyed having a little fun with Spock's character...
...usually by contrasting his precise, stoic manner with that of his emotional human crewmates.
But in this episode, it's possible that they went just a tad overboard.
Video by Porfle Popnecker. I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
Originally posted on 9/6/11
Lightweight chills may semi-scare you when you learn the SECRETS IN THE WALLS (2010), a Lifetime Channel ghost flick that takes us by-the-numbers into familiar fright territory.
Jeri Ryan stars as Rachel, a divorced mom raising daughters Lizzie and Molly in a cramped city apartment. A new job takes her to one of those quiet, tree-lined neighborhoods where she ends up buying a large old house after getting the full B.S. treatment from a smarmy real estate agent. At first, it seems the place is just perfect, until Rachel and the girls discover that it's haunted.
As is often the case, the scenes which gradually introduce the supernatural element into the characters' lives are the spookiest. It's only later when the filmmakers have to start showing and explaining more that things get less convincing and more contrived. A latter-half plot twist really pushes the whole thing to a new level of incredulity.
Till then, though, we're treated to a rather politely unsettling thriller that zings us with a few minor jump scares, plus some creepy situations revolving around a hidden room in the basement which hides a decades-old secret. Claiming the basement as her bedroom, teenage daughter Lizzie (Kay Panabaker, "CSI", "No Ordinary Family") is the focus of the haunting, with her "night terror" ordeal providing the most effective chills in the entire story. Later, when that thing I referred to happens, she proves a rather generic presence even when trying to be menacing.
All of the characters are pretty shallow, with the still-striking Jeri Ryan ("Star Trek: Voyager"'s Seven of Nine) serving as both the standard strong-single-mom and the derisively eye-rolling skeptic type who always irritates me by condescendingly poo-pooing any notion of the supernatural until it hits her right over the head. Peyton List as Molly performs her current specialty, which is being somebody's cute little blonde daughter as in the recent BEREAVEMENT.
Molly, it turns out, is psychic and senses what's going on in the house although naturally Mom chalks it up to an overactive imagination. Thanks to writer's convenience, Rachel's new co-worker Belle (Oscar nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste, "Without a Trace", TAKERS) is also a "sensitive" and offers to help, giving us a psychic duo to double-team the invasive entity. Molly, of course, sees it popping up all over the place in the early scenes, which gives Peyton List plenty of chances to act scared.
The script by William Penick and Chris Sey is almost a checklist of comfortably familiar elements, some of which I've already mentioned. They include (1) the real estate agent pawning off a haunted house on an unsuspecting buyer, (2) the "strong" single mom who is also (3) an annoying skeptic, (4) the sensitive child who can see ghosts and (5) whose strange drawings concern her teacher, (6) the secret room that's been walled off, (7) the medicine cabinet mirror that reveals a ghost when opened, and (8) the "main character digs up a shocking old news story at the library" scene. And when the real estate agent mentions that the house is the only one in the neighborhood with an open staircase, you pretty much know that sooner or later someone's going to fall over the railing.
The DVD from Vivendi is in widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound. No subtitles, but closed-captioning is provided. No extras.
Not great by any means but not bad enough to avoid, SECRETS IN THE WALLS is easy-to-take entertainment for viewers who want to shudder at some mildly spooky happenings without being taken too far out of their comfort zones.
Originally posted on 8/12/09
Another of CBS/Paramount's sampler sets containing premiere episodes of various TV series, T.V. SETS: BEYOND THE ORDINARY takes us back to our first encounters with the sci-fi and paranormal shows "Star Trek: The Original Series", "The 4400", "Medium", and "Joan of Arcadia." Actually, "ST:TOS" was the only show that I'd previously encountered, making this a journey of discovery which proved quite enjoyable--mostly.
As any Trekker worth his high-water pants can tell you, "Star Trek: The Original Series" had two pilot episodes--"The Cage", starring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Christopher Pike, and "Where No Man Has Gone Before", which introduced William Shatner as Captain James Kirk. The show's television premiere, however, was "The Man Trap", chosen by NBC to introduce the series to the world because it had a scary monster in it.
It's also one of the most glum and dreary of the first season episodes, telling the story of husband-and-wife archeologists on an alien planet who, for some reason, resist getting their annual physicals from Dr. McCoy and clearly don't want any outsiders around. The woman, Nancy Crater (Jeanne Bal) happens to be an old flame of McCoy, who acts like a lovesick puppy around her. The man, Dr. Crater (Alfred Ryder), is hostile and evasive.
Strangely enough, although the doctor still sees Nancy as the young woman he once loved, Kirk perceives her as a graying middle-aged matron while the security man accompanying them (Michael Zaslow) sees her as a hot babe he once had a fling with on Wrigley's pleasure planet! When this doomed "red shirt" follows her outside and later ends up dead, with every trace of salt sucked from his corpus, Kirk deduces that something's up. As the episode progresses, more sodium-free bodies begin to pile up until finally our heroes have a showdown with the grotesque, sucker-fingered "salt vampire" that's now loose on the Enterprise.
I've seen this episode roughly, oh, ten-thousand times, but it's nice having this crystal-clear remastered version. It's also interesting to watch since it's one of those revamped episodes in which the original special effects have been digitally "improved." I've been curious to see what this process looks like and now I have a better idea, although "The Man Trap" doesn't really feature any space battles or other effects that warrant the George Lucas CGI makeover treatment. Mainly we just see new, improved shots of the Enterprise circling the planet. The new stuff looks neat, but I'm old-fashioned and like the original effects better.
"Medium" begins with the words: "There really is an Allison. Really." And indeed, Allison DuBois is credited as the technical advisor for the show. Who is she? As we discover in the pilot episode, Allison (Patricia Arquette) is a happily-married mother of three who is an intern in the district attorney's office and wants to be a lawyer. She also happens to be a psychic who communicates with the dead. The latter, as you might guess, proves to be a hindrance to her professional ambitions until her abilities are recognized as genuine and she is allowed to utilize them to their fullest extent. This, however, comes later.
She gets her first chance to prove herself when a dubious Texas Ranger named Captain Push (FULL METAL JACKET's Arliss Howard) reluctantly requests her help in the case of a missing child. Howard, who seems to have actually listened to how Texans talk before taking the role, gives his usual strong performance and goes from hostile skeptic to amazed believer in plausible fashion. Arquette herself does a nice, low-key job in the lead role and it's gratifying to see her character's self-confidence pay off as her visions are proven correct again and again. This is a self-contained episode with a satisfying resolution, and I can see how it would make for a successful series.
Not so promising is the 2003 pilot for "Joan of Arcadia", about a teenage girl (Amber Tamblyn) who suddenly starts getting stalked by God. That is, various strangers begin approaching Joan and claiming to be God in different guises, and giving her "errands." Why Joan? Beats me, since she's just your typical angsty, emo teenager. I guess God couldn't resist the bad "Joan of Arc" pun and she was the closest candidate. But it seems to me that the original Joan had to do more than a few errands to rate the title.
The first sign that this show isn't going to be on my favorites list is the use of that awful "God on a bus" song by Joan Osborne as its theme. Then we get Joe Mantegna in full smarm as Joan's police chief dad at a crime scene where a serial killer has dumped a body. Are we eventually going to have serial killers dumping bodies on every freakin' TV show? There's also Mary Steenburgen at her most irritating as Joan's mom, and Jason Ritter, who was recently pretty good in Fred Durst's THE EDUCATION OF CHARLIE BANKS, as Joan's wheelchair-bound brother Kevin. Joan's most important accomplishment in this episode is to inspire Kevin to look for a job and get his life in gear again. Which is great, but on a Joan-of-Arc level it ain't.
Joan's conversations with God are on the cutesy and coy side. "I don't answer the 'why' questions," God tells her after she grills Him with stupid questions. "So, what if I don't do what you tell me to?" she asks. "Am I going to burst into flames?" George Burns and John Denver already did this routine a long time ago, and better. The best exchange in this vein is probably when Joan asks to see a miracle as proof that the guy she's talking to is really God, and He points to a tree.
Speaking of which, what's the "point" (see, I can make bad puns, too!) of this show? God tells Joan to get a job in a bookstore, working for the guy from GALAXY QUEST who worshipped the Alan Rickman character (Patrick Breen), so I guess this will be part of her divine task--helping people who like to read. I know, it's just the pilot and it sets us up for what will probably be a grand life adventure for Joan. But this episode is all I have to go by, and it just doesn't give me that vibe. Now, if the series ends with this Joan actually getting burned at the stake, then I'll take it all back.
Since I live on that weird planet filled with strange alien beings who don't have cable TV, I'd never seen an episode of "The 4400." The premise always sounded fascinating to me, though, and it was a distinct pleasure to watch the feature-length first episode in which a huge, comet-like ball of fire blazes its way to Earth and then comes to a stop over a lake, whereupon it deposits exactly 4400 people who have mysteriously disappeared over the last sixty years or so.
To them, it seems like they've only been gone for an instant, but the fact that years, and in some cases several decades, have elapsed means that their personal lives have been pretty much destroyed. And in addition to that, they're viewed by the government and the public at large as a potential threat. This fear proves somewhat well-founded when, one by one, the 4400 begin to display strange and sometimes destructive new powers. So, in a way, it's a little like "The X-Men" but without the spandex.
Naturally, the Department of Homeland Security gets into the act. Head guy Peter Coyote pairs up a couple of mismatched field agents, rumpled loner Diana (Jacqueline McKenzie) and deeply troubled Tom (Joel Gretsch), whose wife is divorcing him and whose son is still in a coma after witnessing the abduction of his cousin Shawn (Patrick Flueger) three years earlier. This odd couple supplies fun and quirky character moments together while investigating the latest scary and weird events surrounding the returnees.
This is an awesomely intriguing idea for a series with lots of potential for good stories. The premiere episode is handled very well and features several dramatic and suspenseful subplots. Michael Moriarty is great as a man whose anger over the various injustices resulting from his 35-year absence manifests itself as lethal waves of energy. Conchita Campbell plays eight-year-old Maia, who was gone the longest (since 1946) and can now see the future. Her strangely serene character is mysterious and compelling, like most of the characters and events in this gripping story, and it's frustrating that the episode ends just when it's getting interesting. So, just as those sneaky people at CBS/Paramount intended with this sampler DVD, I now want to buy the first season of "The 4400." Or at least borrow it from somebody, heh heh.