Untitled Star Trek Project

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 2, Episode 6. First broadcast on Monday 2 October 1995. Stardate: Unknown (2371). This week, I refuse to put more thought into this blurb than the writers put into this episode of Voyager.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 2, Episode 4. First broadcast on Wednesday 9 October 2002. Stardate: Unknown (2152). An unusual episode of Enterprise this week, with some satisfying serialisation, an inventive and inviting premise, and enough time to hang with the crew while they go exploring — all of which makes for a charming and entertaining 25 minutes. Sadly, the episode lasts 45 minutes.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 1, Episodes 1–2. First broadcast on Sunday 3 January 1993. Stardate: 46379.1. – Every time I throw this ball, a hundred different things can happen in a game. He might swing and miss, he might hit it. The point is, you never know. You try to anticipate, set a strategy for all the possibilities as best you can, but in the end it comes down to throwing one pitch after another and seeing what happens. With each new consequence, the game begins to take shape. – And you have no idea what that shape is until it is completed. – That’s right. In fact, the game wouldn’t be worth playing if we knew what was going to happen. It’s the first pitch of the game, and something groundbreaking and historic is about to happen. Which is why we’re still here, thirty-three years later.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 5, Episode 19. First broadcast on Monday 30 March 1992. Stardate: 45703.9. This week, Wesley faces a difficult choice. Option A: to help build another fortress of impunity to defend his privileged friends from the demands of justice and kindness. Option B: to tell the truth and expose them all to the consequences of their actions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he chooses the least fashionable option.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 5, Episode 6. First broadcast on Monday 4 November 1996. Stardate: Unknown (2373) and 4523.7. This week, the crew of the USS Defiant deploy some exciting new digital video technology to travel back to 1967 and inveigle themselves into a beloved episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It’s a perfect thirtieth birthday present for the franchise, reminding us that Trek isn’t about nerds watching the Romulans and the Federation shoot at each other — it’s about being cool and stylish and funny. In space. With great hair.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 5, Episode 6. First broadcast on Wednesday 18 November 1998. Stardate: 52143.6 (2375) and 2390. This week, Joe and Nathan stare in wonder at an episode of Voyager that gets everything right — a compelling hook, a couple of memorable and significant visuals, a clear and straightforward time loop premise, and a human story of guilt, atonement and forgiveness. One of the best episodes in Star Trek history.

Star Trek: The Original Series, Series 3, Episode 22. First broadcast on Friday 7 March 1969. Stardate: 5906.4. This week, a feculent alien rock-monster decides to make a TV episode to determine which philosophy is stronger — good or evil. To that end, he gets his friends to dress up as Abraham Lincoln and various racist stereotypes, so they can toss sticks and jabolite rocks at each other until it’s time for The Name of the Game to come on. We’ve seen it all before, but rarely with such an impressive lack of conviction.

Star Trek: Prodigy, Series 2, Episodes 19–20. First broadcast on Monday 1 July 2024. Stardate: 62314.8 and 5 April 2385. Oh, Dal, I wasn’t talking about now. The reason the universe needs you all together, that hasn’t happened yet. Things yet to come, wondrous and terrible things. But you’ll have to wait and see. It’s nearly time to say goodbye to the crew of the USS Prodigy as they fly off in search of new adventures. But before they go, they get to save Earth, Solum and the entire universe, while proving that it was their own bravery and ingenuity that won them the Protostar in the first place. It’s exciting, breathtakingly beautiful, bewilderingly complex and just incredibly entertaining. And we’re sad to see it go.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 2, Episode 1. First broadcast on Sunday 26 September 1993. Stardate: Unknown (2370). It’s Series 2, Episode 1 of Deep Space Nine, and so it’s time for the show to set off in a bold new direction, exploring its premise instead of simply being The Next Generation but in a shopping mall. First item on the agenda: rescue a very dull Bajoran war hero from Soledad Canyon. Second: give him Kira’s job.

Star Trek: Discovery, Series 5, Episode 4. First broadcast on Thursday 18 April 2024. Stardate: Unknown (3191); also 2256, 2257, 2258, 3189 and 3218. This week Michael and her new first officer Commander Rayner are caught in a time loop carefully designed by the Krenim to give Michael the chance to prove that her approach to leadership is the correct one, as usual. Meanwhile, Joe gets a surprising present.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 4, Episode 13. First broadcast on Monday 4 February 1991. Stardate: 44474.5. Many years ago, Joe and Nathan were offered a contract by a shadowy devilish figure, who promised them 180 episodes of peace and prosperity until her return, when she would demand their eternal servitude, mostly consisting of admiring her smile and the fabulosity of her hair. Honestly, they can both see the upside.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Series 1, Episode 1. First broadcast on Thursday 15 January 2026. Stardate: 853724.6 and Unknown (3190s). This week, the children of Earth face a difficult and precarious future — one that they didn’t create but that they must nevertheless endure. And now there’s a new Star Trek series where that’s basically happening too. But in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, these kids have hope: some weird and kindly people are here, with patience and empathy, determined to help them find a way through.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 23. First broadcast on Wednesday 3 May 2000. Stardate: Unknown (2376 and 2371). This week, Joe and Nathan struggle to find exactly the right word to express their feelings about this episode.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 2, Episode 10. First broadcast on Wednesday 27 November 2002. Stardate: Unknown (2152). Another astonishingly dull and unambitious week aboard Enterprise, as Hoshi Sato is accidentally transported into a high-concept plot that we’ve seen done better half a dozen times in the last fifteen years. Things liven up slightly ten minutes from the end, when we are treated to the dumbest line of dialogue in the history of the franchise.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 4, Episodes 1–2. First broadcast on Monday 2 October 1995. Stardate: 49011.4. This week, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine starts again — with a second pilot episode two and a half years after the first one. It’s The Best of Both Worlds, but much faster, funnier and more confident. And this is only the beginning. Again.

Star Trek Movie #5. Release date: 1989.Stardate: 8454.1. The quintessential odd-numbered Star Trek film, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier roared onto our screens in 1989, delighting and enthralling basically no one at all. Still, despite the glacial pace, the lack of incident and the horrendous special effects, it has something to say — something about the love and friendship between weird and grumpy old men who have known and annoyed one another for decades. And if you’ve got that, who needs Sha Ka Ree?

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 14. First broadcast on Wednesday 2 February 2000. Stardate: Unknown (2376). Tom, Harry, Neelix and Chakotay somehow return from a space mission with PTSD — and with memories of an armed conflict which might not even be theirs. All this goes just about as well as you’d expect, with inexplicable flashbacks, studio sets pretending to be outdoor locations, some odd gurning by Ethan, and some characteristically unpleasant shouting from the Worst Robert. But in spite of it all, there’s a point to be made, and some last-act location work lifts the whole thing considerably.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 3, Episode 26 / Series 4, Episode 1. First broadcast on Monday 18 June 1990 and Monday 24 September 1990. Stardate: 43989.1. This week, a seminal moment in the history of television appears to be taking place at 0.5× speed.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 2, Episode 18. First broadcast on Monday 22 May 1989. Stardate: 42823.2. “Terrible beyond terrible.” Ronald D. Moore “Here lies a colossal mess of a show, mixing serious (albeit unrealized) science fiction with broad, less-than-funny comedy.” Jamahl Epsicokhan, Jammer’s Reviews “Sometimes you just have to bow to the absurd.” Jean–Luc Picard “That was fun.” “Yeah, I thought that was great.” Joe and Nathan, Untitled Star Trek Project

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 6, Episode 11. First broadcast on Saturday 3 January 1998. Stardate: 51408.6. This week on Deep Space Nine, Dukat (Kathy Bates) and Sisko (James Caan) crash land on one of Star Trek’s less convincing standing sets, and then have a proper talk about their Feelings and Values. (Antipathy, and for one of them, Racism.)

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 1, Episode 20. First broadcast on Wednesday 3 April 2002. Stardate: Unknown (2151). This week in Star Trek: Slow-Witted White Men, no one turns into a salamander, gets trapped in a board game or has sex with a ghost. In fact, no one does much of anything at all — at least not anything that anyone will remember 23 years later.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 4, Episode 16. First broadcast on Wednesday 18 February 1998. Stardate: 51652.3. This week, we are properly introduced to Voyager’s latest Intransigent Alien Antagonist, in preparation for a thrilling two-part epic in a couple of weeks’ time. And things go pretty well, on the whole, despite (or perhaps because of) some interpersonal conflict between two important cast members and their characters.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 1, Episode 3. First broadcast on Monday 5 October 1987. Stardate: 41209.2. An unexpected but not unprecedented miracle turns water into booze on board the Enterprise-D, and soon the entire crew is horny, depressed, or facing an awkward meeting with HR on Monday. After all this, Joe can’t see how this show becomes a hit, but Nathan thinks he can. Bottoms up, everyone!

Star Trek: The Original Series, Series 1, Episode 18. First broadcast on Thursday 19 January 1967. Stardate: 3045.6. Gornfest 2025 continues this week on Untitled Star Trek Project, as we head back to 1967 — when the Gorn were just a single rubber lizard in a spangly minidress and the Federation was barely a glint in Gene L. Coon’s eye. Iconic, memorable and visually striking — this is why nerds still podcast about the show 58½ years later.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Series 2, Episode 10 / Series 3, Episode 1. First broadcast on Thursday 10 August 2023 and Thursday 17 July 2025. Stardate: 2344.2. This week, Strange New Worlds asks the question, “What if The Best of Both Worlds, but with higher production values, more modern narrative techniques, and much better hair?” The answer might surprise you.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 7, Episode 13. First broadcast on Wednesday 10 February 1999. Stardate: Unknown (2375). It’s the 1990s — the era of the Consulting Psychopath — and so when a pretty young lieutenant is shot dead in his locked quarters, perky newcomer Ezri Dax decides to investigate — with the help of her crap-haired and murderous previous host Joran. It’s all very light and implausible, but we get a few laughs, Ezri gets a big gun, and the regular cast (except Cirroc) get their usual DS9-style character beats.

Star Trek: Discovery, Series 1, Episode 3. First broadcast on Sunday 1 October 2017. Stardate: Unknown (2256). This week, disgraced Starfleet officer Michael Burnham falls down the rabbit hole, where she finds an unsettling mirror image of her previous life: a crew regarding her with suspicion, a captain manipulating her with falsehoods, and a Starfleet obsessed with operational security. And then the slavering monster shows up.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 2, Episode 8. First broadcast on Monday 30 October 1995. Stardate: Unknown (2372). This week, Voyager is beset by a bunch of crazy Star Trek crap — involving china cups, sandwiches and curly-headed moppets, for the most part — but after 45 minutes we still have no idea why it happens or how we should feel about any of it. Still, Kate is awesome, as usual, and that counts for quite a lot.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 4, Episode 13. First broadcast on Friday 4 February 2005. Stardate: Unknown (2154). This week, the middle episode of a mid-range arc in the middest of all the shows in the Star Trek franchise. Trip and Malcolm are trapped in various rooms pressing buttons, while the Tellarites and Andorians are on their usual space alien bullshit. Harmless.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Series 2, Episode 9. First broadcast on Thursday 3 August 2023. Stardate: 2398.3. Strange New Worlds jumps genres this week to create something hitherto inconceivable in Star Trek: a high-stakes space problem that can only be solved with a massive, heartfelt musical finale.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 7. First broadcast on Wednesday 10 November 1999. Stardate: 53167.9. This week, the crew of the USS Voyager awaken an ancient evil and unleash it upon the Delta Quadrant: the Vaadwaur, a phantom army that appears out of thin air, destroys entire colonies, and vanishes in the blink of an eye — but whose soldiers’ physiognomy is such that few men can find them afterwards.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 4, Episode 23. First broadcast on Monday 13 May 1996. Stardate: 49904.2. There’s a get-to-know-you buffet at 1930 this week, as the crew of the Defiant team up with the Jem’Hadar to fight some Jem’Hadar rebels who want to take over the Galaxy. And, surprisingly late in the series, we get the first appearance of Jeffrey Combs as Weyoun.

Star Trek: Picard, Series 2, Episode 6. First broadcast on Thursday 7 April 2022. Stardate: Unknown (12–13 April 2024). This week: a party. The crew of La Sirena turn up at a lavish black-tie gala for some top-quality character work, only to be overshadowed by an incredible musical number by Alison Pill and a lovely scene of kindly encouragement from Patrick Stewart. But then they find themselves overshadowed, in turn, by the ineffable hotness of Santiago Cabrera.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 1, Episode 17. First broadcast on Sunday 23 May 1993. Stardate: 46925.1. Three plots for the price of one this week on Deep Space Nine. In reverse order of importance: (C) we all stand around in Ops talking about the computer; (B) Julian gets some funny lines and a pleasantly unsurprising character arc; and (A) Odo and Lwaxana are trapped in a lift together with nothing to do but some amazing and even quite moving acting. Underrated, but mostly by people who don’t enjoy things that are good.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 6, Episode 15. First broadcast on Monday 15 February 1993. Stardate: Unknown (2369). When Q first turned up on the Enterprise bridge in 1987, he came to teach all of humanity a lesson about its terrible past. But this week his mission is more personal: to teach Picard how much he owes his young, undisciplined self, and to remind us that youth is silly and difficult, and that the people living through it deserve our respect. (On that topic, if you wish to see the inspiration for Joe’s preferred 1990s hairstyle, you should check out the cover of Star Trek: The Next Generation — Boogeymen (1991) by Mel Gilden.)

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 5. First broadcast on Wednesday 20 October 1999. Stardate: Unknown (2376). Sometimes everything just comes together — a dull script, routine design, a generic score, perfunctory direction, an uncharismatic leading man and a guest star’s strange and flaccid performance. Meanwhile, on Star Trek: Voyager, Tom screams at his long-suffering girlfriend after falling in love with a car or something.

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series 5, Episode 10. First broadcast on Thursday 19 December 2024. Stardate: Unknown. This week, we witness the ascension of Star Trek: Lower Decks, as it finishes its run on television and becomes a show fuelled by interdimensionality itself — decoupling its superpositions and spriralling off into an infinite number of unseen quantum possibilities. It’s funny and heartwarming and visually arresting, of course, and we can’t imagine what life would be like without it. Engage the core!

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series 5, Episode 7. First broadcast on Thursday 28 November 2024. Stardate: 59499.6. This week, Tendi and T’Lyn learn the usual Star Trek lesson about co-operation and competition, Boimler and Rutherford learn that Starfleet uniforms are less absorbent than is sometimes necessary, and Mariner learns that the real Inner Light experience comes from the friends (and murderers) we meet along the way. And Data shows up too, is just as delightful and wise as we always expect him to be.

Star Trek: The Original Series, Series 3, Episode 12. First broadcast on Friday 6 December 1968. Stardate: 5121.5. A series of urgent production catastrophes this week, as we arrive at Paramount Studios with no set, no lines for our female guest star, and a script with no story and no plot. Can these omnipotent bum-headed aliens help us out?

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 4, Episode 21. First broadcast on Monday 29 April 1991. Stardate: 44769.2. This week, Jean Simmons strides imperiously onto the Enterprise bridge, accompanied by her executive assistant, her scary stenographer, her daddy issues, and a terrifying sense of self-righteous rage. Unmissable.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 3, Episode 23. First broadcast on Wednesday 19 May 2004. Stardate: Unknown (2154). It’s the second last episode of the Xindi arc, which can only mean one thing: a big, dumb spectacle in which we’re all trying to prevent a bunch of lizards wearing slinkies from hurling a massive lethal wiffle ball into planet Earth. Fortunately, Connor, Jolene and Billingsley are here with some acting for us to enjoy as well.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 6, Episode 7. First broadcast on Monday 10 November 1997. Stardate: 51247.5. This week, Worf and Jadzia celebrate the triumphant 150th episode of Untitled Star Trek Project by setting a date for their wedding, holding one fun party and one excruciating one, punching a future mother-in-law in the face, calling off the wedding, calling it back on again, and having sex with that handsome young lieutenant from the USS Sutherland. Or was that last one just us?

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 1, Episode 26. First broadcast on Monday 16 May 1988. Stardate: 41986.0. This week, Joe and Nathan are woken from 380 years of cryosleep to discover that the world has changed forever: the ship’s captain isn’t friendly and welcoming like Captain Stubing, some of their ports of call have been scooped in their entirety off the surface of the planet, and those people in that scary green cruise ship over there look very unfriendly indeed.

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 1, Episode 16. First broadcast on Monday 22 May 1995. Stardate: 48846.5. Two B-plots on Star Trek: Voyager this week, each one more forgettable than the other. In the A B-plot, Tuvok is unreasonably mean to four obnoxious misfits, while the B B-plot is somehow about cheese.

Star Trek: Discovery, Series 2, Episodes 13–14. First broadcast on Thursday 11 April 2019 and Thursday 18 April 2019. Stardate: 1050.8. The whole of Discovery Series 2 has been leading to this: a baffling and possibly ill-advised decision to catapult the show 930 years into the future. (Spoiler: it turns out better than we could have dared to imagine.) On the way though, we get to experience breathtaking CGI, some vertiginous camerawork, and more heartfelt and prolonged emotion than the entire history of the franchise to date.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Series 5, Episode 6. First broadcast on Monday 28 October 1991. Stardate: 45208.2. This week, it’s The One Where the Entire Crew is Taken over by an Orgasmatronic Video Game. Oh, and Wesley’s back as well. It’s Star Trek, at the very top of its (don’t say it) Game.

Star Trek: Lower Decks, Series 5, Episode 2. First broadcast on Thursday 24 October 2024. Stardate: 59376.9. Everyone learns a valuable lesson this week: Boimler learns about the perks and perils of being the fun boss, Tendi learns what it takes to be a kick-ass swashbuckling aunt, and T’Lyn learns why, how and how much Rutherford and Tendi love each other. Even the gardener bot gets a little arc. (Good for him.)

Star Trek: Voyager, Series 6, Episode 25. First broadcast on Wednesday 17 May 2000. Stardate: Unknown (2376). This week, Star Trek remembers that its two most important jobs are scaring children and giving us hope for the future. It doesn’t do either of these particularly well in The Haunting of Deck Twelve, but the whole thing is fun and confident enough to entertain us for forty-five minutes. And sometimes that’s enough.

Star Trek: Enterprise, Series 2, Episode 3. First broadcast on Wednesday 2 October 2002. Stardate: Unknown (2152). A change of pace for Star Trek this week, as the writers of Enterprise decide to explore the rightly-neglected relationship between Captain Archer and his completely featureless Armory Officer, Malcolm Reed. As so often happens, people get strapped to a bomb, Romulans utter muscular threats, and the most interesting members of the crew are completely sidelined.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Series 6, Episode 24. First broadcast on Wednesday 20 May 1998. Stardate: Unknown (2374). This week, Miles and Keiko struggle to work out how to react when their daughter ruins a perfectly pleasant family picnic by plummeting accidentally into an high-concept science fiction premise. Meanwhile, back on the station, their son falls foul of a sudden sitcom outbreak, banging his head on a table in what seems, in context, to be a comparatively sensible and comprehensible accident. It’s all a lot of nonsense, of course, but the people are nice, and everything turns out for the best.