Regarding the Church: a while back I read Machiavelli’s “The Prince”; it was a book I’d heard referenced from time to time, so I decided to read it for myself. One of the things that stood out to me was how Machiavelli treated the Church as just another European political power, and the Pope as just another monarch…

The recent James Bond films fall into the same trap. It used to be that there was an eeeevil person trying to take over the world, and the fun was in watching Bond outsmart him/her--as simple as that. In the last few films, the villians have been given these extensive backstories that tie them to Bond’s past, and it…

I dabbled in astrophotography back in the 90's—before everything went digital—and it was wickedly hard to get a photo of Saturn anything close to that clear. Nowdays, most people hook a webcam up to their eyepiece, use it to capture a minute or so of video, and then “stack” the individual video frames using a special…

Nicely done! Having dabbled in astrophotography myself, I know it’s not always easy to get decent clear pictures of the planets with a small scope.

StalePhish’s photo is pretty representative of what Saturn looks like through a small (2"-6" diameter) telescope, depending on how steady the air is.

Two of my favorite scores of Giacchino’s are for movies hardly anyone saw: “John Carter” and “Tomorrowland.” Giacchino’s music overall is kind of a mixed bag for me, but when he’s on, he’s amazing.

And possibly his appearance on Star Trek: Voyager. Though it was fun for what it was worth.

Interesting point.

I’ve always found it fascinating that a lot of movies/TV made in the 1960's portrayed a mostly postive future (Star Trek, 2001, etc.), even though there were some terrible things going on (race riots, Cuban missle crisis, etc.). Yet today we seem to create mostly dystopian fiction. It would be interesting to figure…

Fun fact: at a Star Trek convention Walter Koenig said that the lady who said “in Alameda” to Chekov was just a random passer-by who actually had no idea they were making a film. They had to chase her down to get her to sign a release.

One irony of this movie’s success: I remember hearing on a commentary track that, because Star Trek IV was so popular, the studio insisted on shoehorning a bunch of “humor” into Star Trek V, even though Shatner apparently wanted the latter to be a much more serious film. So STIV’s success may have contributed to…

Star Trek IV was my gateway drug to the franchise. I’d certainly been aware of Trek before this—and even vaguely recall seeing at least TMP and TWOK in the theaters as a child—but seeing this in the theater at 13, a time when I was just getting into sci-fi in general, hooked me into watching reruns of the original…

I’ve never been that into the Star Trek novels—most just don’t seem to capture the voices of the established characters that well, plus you run the risk that the next movie or TV series will contradict it and render it obsolete anyway.

Yet more proof that the animated series is underrated and full of all kinds of bizarre awesomeness.

One of the reasons I like DS9 best—and something I rarely hear people mention—is that Sisko is the only captain on any of the series who had a family. Kirk, Picard, and the others kept saying they were “married to their ship.” But Sisko not only juggled the needs of everyone on the station, he successfully balanced…

My personal favorite part of “Bride of Chaotica!” was when the characters on the holodeck were saying something like, “The lightning shield has disabled the ray gun on my rocket pack!,” followed immediately by a cut to Voyager’s bridge where Tuvok and Kim are saying something like, “The gravimetric gradient has caused…

Thanks for a fantastic article! For me, my interest in Star Trek (and sci-fi in general) came around 8th grade shortly after I discovered a love for the science of astronomy. That was also the year that Star Trek IV came out, which I saw in the theaters, and it got me started watching reruns of the original series on…

Thanks for the recap! This is indeed a great episode.

Exactly. I heard an interview with Suzanne Collins where she flat-out said that the books were inspired by the story of Spartacus.

I just re-watched that movie a few days ago, with my 3-year-old daughter who was seeing it for the first time. She absolutely loved it, and I was struck yet again by how perfect Wilder’s performance is. RIP.