Star Trek Continues #6: Come Not Between the Dragons

May 29, 2016

Continuing their run of independently fan-produced episodes following the story of the USS Enterprise and her crew, Star Trek Continues (STC) has released their sixth full-length episode.

STC’s goal is to bridge the gap between the third year of the Enterprise’s 5-year mission and the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (TMP). 10-13 episodes are planned depending on factors such as financing, fan-interest, etc.

Episode Synopsis

In this latest episode, a troubled creature pierces the Enterprise hull, pitting the crew against a pursuer that threatens to tear them apart. Guest starring is Gigi Edgley who you may recognise from Farscape.

Overall this episode has better visuals and set design than previous outings. However, the story does not have as thoughtful as plot as that of Divided We Stand nor does it have the the high drama of Fairest of Them All, two of the strongest episodes in the series though, for my money, Lolani is still be best to date.

Come not Between the Dragons is somewhat reminiscent of the “Galaxy’s Child” episode in TNG which also had a space organism and an imminent threat to the ship. But it’s not a rehash of that episode and approaches the subject matter in different ways.

The Enterprise is almost like an avatar for a child protection agency and it comes off as a bit corny, but that moralistic approach is actually very much in keeping with the ethos and approach taken by The Original Series (TOS) when it was tackling social issues.

STC is still creating stand-alone episodes like TOS rather than multi-episode story arcs, and now that we’re half way into the proposed season length, it’s becoming hard to see how they’ll complete the transition to the TMP era in just 4-7 episodes. 12 years elapsed between the events of TOS season 3 and TMP and future STC episodes may have to jump years at a time in that story.

STC remains the best quality fan produced series by far though. So if you haven’t watched any of the episodes yet because you have a low opinion of anything fan-produced, give it a shot. It looks absolutely authentic as the sets were built using the original TOS set blueprints and modern CGI technique mean ship and outer-space scenes look better than those in the original show. Plots are good but the show isn’t professionally produced so you can’t expect the level of quality you get from shows produced by the TV networks. That said, what STC does deliver is pretty amazing for the budget and skills they have available.

The Other Star Trek Continues Episodes:

BTW, these episodes, along with some other worthy fan-produced episodes and movies can also be watched on the Starfleet Academy site which also features documentaries about Star Trek, interviews with cast and crew, skits and sketches from various shows parodying Star Trek, convention panels and more. There’s now over 160 videos to watch and more are added each week.