"Revelations"

New rumors on Star Trek X, Voyager and Series V

April 26th, 2001

What a week. A whole bunch of little tidbits and official snippets appeared in the last seven days, confirming earlier rumors on the topics of the year (Voyager's finale, series V and Star Trek X), but also revealing very surprising, up to now unknown facts. For your personal amusement, I will choose a rather climactic structure for the upcoming news... means, I keep the best things for the ending ;-)

So let's start with Star Trek X, a project with heard very little about for quite a while, most likely due to its "hibernation" status. The script, written by John Logan based on a story by Rick Berman, John Logan and Brent Spiner (the Data actor - what boosts the possibility that our favorite android will be finally killed in the tenth feature film, after Spiner had specifically asked for this development in Star Trek IX which was rejected by Berman), is ready, and filming will begin this fall, immediately after the impending strike is over, to ensure the movie can hit the theaters in spring or summer 2002 - a very late premiere date which may bring the movie in competition with Star Wars Episode II, but also makes the fans more enthustiastic about this intended "greatest of all Trek movies". Well, if they are aiming this goal they should change the title as first. The most recent news revealed that the movie is currently called "Star Trek X: Nemesis". To borrow from B'Elanna in "Author, Author": Now that's creative. [/sarcasm] In fact, this would be the most unimaginative title since "Star Trek: Insurrection".

Yes, we all do know that the movie will feature the most charasmic villain since "Star Trek II", intellectually and strategically a real match for Captain Picard, not only resembling Khan Noonien Singh, but also the very well-thought adversary Annorax from Voyager's two-parter "The Year of Hell".
This comparisons are not from me, but were made by Logan himself in the most recent Star Trek Communicator, raising the hopes of most fans that the next movie is indeed written by a true afficionado of the saga, someone who knows all the episode, all the characters, all the twists and all the little bits and pieces that make up the Star Trek universe; someone who might bring fresh blood to the ailing franchise. In the interview, Logan also hinted that a famous TOS species he personally likes very much will have a second renaissance in Star Trek X, most likely the Andorians.

The Romulans, the Andorians, a species we still know near to nothing about although they are members of the Federation since the very beginning, a strong enemy driven by real motives rather than simple evilness or revenge (as Khan), many scenes in space, and the rumored wedding of Riker and Troi - the upcoming feature film indeed deals with so many interesting, compelling topics that it's hard to believe it won't be successful. The long break since the last movie (in 1998) alone guarantees that. And for the believers: yes, it's again an even-numbered movie! As for the title - "Nemesis" is most likely only a working title. Like they changed "Star Trek IX" to the bad (from "Prime Directive" to "Insurrection"), this time it may very well be the other way round.

As I compassionately stated in the last article, we have lots of part official, part rumored pieces of information on Voyager's finale as well, but are still lacking the whole, great picture of what the final two hours will be *really* about. However, with more and more tidbits officially confirmed or revealed, this picture is getting clearer and clearer. So Kate Mulgrew herself revealed that the finale will not only see the return of Voyager's arch enemy - the Borg -, as officially confirmed by Kenneth Biller, but also a final confrontation with the Borg queen, underpinning the semi-official press kit information on "Endgame".

However, the real surprise is the fact that the queen will be played by "Star Trek: First Contact" star Alice Krige rather than Voyager's "queen actor" Susanna Thompson, who was the head of the Collective in both "Dark Frontier" and "Unimatrix Zero". As far as I have experienced it, many fans are very enthusiastic about the return of Krige and regained hope for the finale, and indeed, to include an experienced actress like Alice Krige, who portrayed the Borg queen in the eigth feature film with wonderful malice and seductiveness, it may add much-needed texture to the finale. As for the queen having been killed in "First Contact"... we really still don't know what the queen of the Borg collective *really* is. Is she simply a "promoted" drone, or is she the embodiment of the entire collective, carrying their thoughts, their consciousness, and executing the common will, with her physical appearance being generated if needed.
The feature film strongly hinted the latter one (that would make it possible that everytime a queen is killed, immediately another one is somehow "produced", equipped with the united mind of the collective), with the queen being some sort of a god-like "super-being" that is completely different from the humanoids and as well the other Borg drones (that definitely applies to her physical appearance that is much more cybernetical and only faintly resembles that of the standard drone). However, while she was still intellectually superior and very alien in "Dark Frontier", with her incredible calmness and soft movements, her unique way of speaking and emanation of power and (sort of) omnipotence, she became a rather talkative, slapdash enemy not really superior to Voyager's crew in "Unimatrix Zero", something we certainly have to blame the two-parter for. I hope they will bring back not only Alice Krige, but also the queen she portrayed, or, of course, another "copy" of her.

It was again Kate Mulgrew who confirmed another rumor and another part of the press-kit "Endgame" synopsis, respectively: she said that there will be two Janeways in the series finale. This finally seems to back up the rumored time travel aspects of the two-parter, which might show us the crew of Voyager on the verge of the 25th century, 23 years after they've made it to Earth. I've changed my mind a bit concerning this part of the story. It is indeed an excellent way - and the only one I can imagine with only two hours left for showing Voyager in the Alpha quadrant - to include some "post-homecoming" impressions to the finale, avoiding an all-too-simple end with Voyager approaching Earth and fade to black.
A doubled Janeway (resembling the situation in "Deadlock" back in season 2) might also include that the "visitor from the future who travels back to enforce a final confrontation between Voyager and the Borg - perhaps to thwart the Collective's ultimate plan to assimilate mankind -,  is indeed Janeway herself.

As for the rumored Seven/Chakotay romance... it's rather unlikely that they include this in the present time-line, now that we know for sure that "Natural Law" will *not* include any romantic relations between these two characters. Unfortunately, to my mind the same applies to the much-wanted Janeway/Chakotay relationship as well. After years showing both "as friends, not more", that has been confirmed in both "Shattered" and "Worcforce", it would appear similarly contrived. Perhaps this "romance evolving amidst peril" is restricted to the (possible) future timeline only - no matter if its J/C or S/C - making the development more credible (many things can happen in twenty years) while keeping all options for possible Voyager feature/tele films in the future. The same has been done with Beverly and Picard (a very similar "long-term friendship romance") in TNG's finale "All Good Things...". Sadly, we all know what happened afterwards (in the three TNG movies): nothing...

Anyway,  it is irrevelant at the moment whether I like the mentioned aspects of "Endgame" or not - I also said in the last issue that we can't allow us to rashly evaluate something we haven't seen yet. Even if the finale will have some dark spots (and the death of Joe Carey in "Friendship One" this week that caused an uproar in fandom really seems to underpin this) and feature well-known ideas from other episodes, it may still be great. We can't say it's good or bad only based on a few pieces we now definitely know, and even if we had read the script we still couldn't assess the final product - since an episode lives not only from the story, but to a large degree from the performances of the actors, the production values, the pacing etc.

And after these extensive analyses on Star Trek X and Endgame rumors and relevations, one might not believe it, but the best is yet to come. 
In the last article, I tried to evaluate the new rumor that series V *may* play some time before the foundation of Starfleet and the Federation and listed a few points why I think this is more than a rumor, but finally the real thing. Now, only a few days later, we know for sure (well, 99 per cent), that this it is indeed the series V premise! The internet has proven again that it provides and spreads information at transwarp, with a whole bunch of semi-official series V confirmations and revelations having appeared since the previous week-end - while we ironically still don't have any official word on this, even though Variety announced on Monday that we might get a Paramount announcement for "Star Trek: Enterprise" (which really seems to be the official title after several independent, credible sources have used it) as early as this week.

In any event, I have believed in the "Pre-BOTF" premise since it emerged about two weeks ago (it was this "gut feeling" plus some analytic expertise), and only hours before the (to my knowledge at least partly genuine) script review appeared last Friday, I got an own confirmation that the there-mentioned pre-Federation setting, the crew as appeared on the infamous casting sheet in March and the involvement of the Klingons in the pilot is 100% true. I can't talk more on this (I still believe in promises), but it actually isn't necessary. Too many news sources, too many Star Trek insiders (among them Majel Barrett Roddenberry back in early April and most recently George Takei) have verified the Pre-TOS premise of series V - I say it just can't be a fake anymore. It would be the most sophisticated misinformation campaign ever, a full-fledged conspiracy of producers, actors and independent organizations, which seems highly unlikely.

We may have to accept as well that the casting sheet is genuine - after all these stories about the Bakula negotiations (which may be the reason for the still-missing official announcement) and the T'Pau casting. I don't have to repeat that I think the names of the characters are silly and their background is bluntly rehashed from TOS and other Trek shows, that I think that this "masterpiece" presents the most nationalistic (mostly American) and masochistic (two women, five men!) cast ever. I simply have to trust in the producer's rationality and hope that they have changed some aspects - made another male character female, for example.

Anyway, we inevitably have to accept what they deliver us, if we like it or not, so let's deal with the pilot review instead. Actually, it looked more like a general series V teaser to me, since it doesn't say much about the pilot script itself (only the basic storyline) while including many aspects about the series V setting, continuity and technology.
The involvement of the Klingons, for example, was a big surprise, confirming some already-rejected rumors from early April mentioning that first contact would be made with the Klingons in the series V pilot. While it's a bad idea to bring back the most-overused enemies of Star Trek history (even more than the Borg, since they've appeared for more than thirty years in all series and many feature films!), if you think about it, it's a logical decision. As mentioned before, a series set in the early 22nd century would be extremely different from all Trek we know only because of this premise, so they most likely want to include some familiar aspects. The Klingons are the only familiar adversaries that could appear at that time (the 2218 first contact was only conjectural, based on an interpretable line in the TOS episode "The Day of the Dove"), since the Cardassians and Ferengi are obviously "24th century aliens" and the Romulans haven't been (visually) seen by mankind until the middle of the 23rd century ([TOS] Balance of Terror), with first contact having been made a few years before 2161, that means still a few years after the series V pilot.

The latter point shows us that series V might be the first Trek series with a somewhat "pre-destined" development, since the basic chronology of this time has already been established. So we may see Romulan first contact in one of the later seasons, and the preparations for an alliance between mankind and Vulcans (which seem still to mistrust each other in the pilot) and other species in the finale. Do you also see the slight parallels to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine"? A first contact in the pilot (Klingons vs. Prophets), and a growing understanding between different species working together (mankind and Vulcans vs. Bajorans and Federation, "Archer" and "T'Pau" vs. Sisko and Kira). While Deep Space Nine pretty much ruined this original premise (which was intended to show the Federation membership of Bajor in the end) in the later seasons with conflict after conflict and "surprising twist" after surprising twist, series V might be successful IF the producers and authors can resist the temptation for mindless action and contrived developments, possibly showing us "the best of both worlds", i.e. the most-loved features of both sister series: the "classic Star Trek values" sense of wonder, science & technology and peaceful exploration of space from Star Trek: Voyager and the inter-species-relations and political aspects of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

That is what DS9 fans and Voyager fans, TNG fans and TOS fans currently unites: the honest hope that series V will fulfil the expectations and present a new, yet familiar Star Trek.

Christian Rühl

Webmaster - Star Trek Dimension