New Voyages Backstory
If you don’t know what New Voyages is, then find out. You don’t know what you’re missing.
I decided to check out one of the fan films I had been reading about on TrekToday not long after New Voyages released their second episode.
I decided to start with the first episode, ‘Come What May’. The acting was poor, the plot was shaky at best, and the lighting was terrible. It was more-or-less what I expected, a self-aggrandizing fanboy orgy. But a couple things caught my eye and made positive impressions. The sets were excellent, the guest stars were entertaining, the navigator DeSalle was interesting, the special effects pretty good, and the costumes were perfect. At the end of the episode was a trailer for the next episode set to the song War. I was just about to pack it in, having satisfied my curiosity and having a few laughs but this trailer caught my attention. It looked, well, it looked phenomenal. I decided to give it a chance and downloaded the second episode. If nothing else I could see if they did indeed improve upon their first outing.
‘In Harm’s Way’ had a very involved and somewhat confusing plot. Story wise it was very “fannish” but Peter David’s been called “fannish” so I tried not to hold that against it. The acting and effects had both improved significantly; they seemed to have resolved most of their lighting issues. There were exciting and chilling moments…such as these exchanges…
Kirk: “How do we know your correct history’s the right one, the best one?”
Spock: “Because, Jim, here in your timeline billions of people are dead.”
McCoy: “All this for a history we don’t know, for people we may or may not become? Captain, call it off while you still can”
Scott: “It’s time to ring the dinner bell. Alright beastie, come and get it” (and the special effects orgy that follows)
Guardian: “Many such journeys are possible”
As well DeSalle had more to do and began to form a real character, I also greatly enjoyed watching Kargh and Pike. The ships didn’t move quite right but it was still fun to watch, the special effects having improved a fair bit. It was much more fast-paced than the first episode. I knew my fellow fans of the show would appreciate it. And it got me to thinking, if they could improve this much over one episode imagine what the next one must be like. Then began the waiting game. I shared the episode with Burton and Jon who both enjoyed it but as time passed, I felt a loss of momentum.
Then along came Centre Seat in March 2006; a 5 minute vignette that gave me exactly what I wanted, more of that De Salle guy. It was good stuff but only served to whet my appetite for more.
Then came the announcement, Walter Koenig was going to be in the next episode, ‘To Serve All My Days’. The waiting game got harder. It came out in November and I remember waiting for it to download. It was great. They had taken it up another notch and not just by virtue of having the real actor and original series writer, everything continued to come together. And Kargh was back which I was happy to see. I still had some slight issues with John Kelly’s performance and I felt Cawley could stand to rein it in a little but by and large I found myself wondering, how can this get any better?
You’d think I had learned my lesson to stop underestimating these guys. Come back tomorrow to find out just how wrong I was.
