Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Usually, I don’t review fan productions of a favourite sci-fi TV show that I love watching, as I tend to focus on the official productions being made. However, I feel ‘Star Trek Continues’ is a web series worth talking about, as it’s a show I’ve enjoyed checking out on YouTube and I’m glad I’ve seen it all.

‘Star Trek Continues’ is an unofficial direct continuation of the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series, featuring Captain Kirk and the original crew of the starship Enterprise. Even though it’s not officially produced by Paramount, I personally feel ‘Star Trek Continues’ is a very worthy follow-up to the 1960s TV show.

I find it superior than some of the recent ‘Star Trek’ shows made today, as it emulates the visual and storytelling features that match well to the original TV show. The series was produced between 2013 and 2017, and it consists of eleven episodes. I have enjoyed all of the eleven episodes in the series. 🙂

What I like about ‘Star Trek Continues’ is that it manages to bridge the gap between the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series to ‘The Motion Picture’, the movies after it, and ‘The Next Generation’. This is when the series shows the rest of the Enterprise’s original five-year mission ‘to explore strange new worlds’.

The series was developed by Vic Mignogna, who plays Captain Kirk in ‘Star Trek Continues’. His enthusiasm for playing Captain Kirk as well as working on the show in terms of its behind-the-scenes production clearly shows. I do like how he manages to emulate William Shatner in his performances.

The rest of the cast are pretty good too, including Todd Haberkorn as Spock, Chuck Huber as Dr. McCoy (Larry Nemecek played Bones in the first two episodes of ‘Star Trek Continues’) and Chris Doohan, who is the son of actor James Doohan, plays his father’s character Scotty, which is a treat. 🙂

There’s the late Grant Imahara as Lt. Sulu, Kim Stinger as Lt. Uhura and Wyatt Lenhart as Chekov, who gets promoted from ensign to lieutenant junior grade in the series. The series also introduces us to Michele Specht as Dr. McKennah, a psychologist who becomes the first full-time ship’s counselor.

This was fascinating to check out in the series, as the role of counsellor about a Federation starship was introduced in ‘The Next Generation’ with Deanna Troi being the counsellor. It was nice to see an ‘Original Series’ version of a ship’s counsellor aboard the Enterprise and how Kirk coped with that. 🙂

There are some familiar ‘Star Trek’ cast and crew who appear in certain episodes of the series. John de Lancie (well-known for playing Q in certain ‘Star Trek’ shows) plays a guest character in the ninth episode ‘What Ships Are For’. Marina Sirtis voices the Enterprise’s computer in ‘Star Trek Continues’.

Marina Sirtis played Deanna Troi in ‘TNG’. It’s fitting she voiced the Enterprise computer, as Majel Barrett voiced the Enterprise computer in ‘TNG’, ‘DS9’ and ‘Voyager’. Michael Dorn, who played Worf in ‘Star Trek’, voices the Mirror universe’s Enterprise computer in the third episode ‘Fairest of Them All’. 😀

Speaking of ‘Fairest of Them All’, I enjoyed how that episode was a continuation of the ‘Mirror, Mirror’ episode but from the Mirror Universe’s point of view. This is especially when Spock attempts to overpower the Mirror version of Captain Kirk and take command of the Enterprise and its crew. 🙂

Michael Forest, who played Apollo in ‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’, returns to reprise the world in the series’ first episode ‘Pilgrim of Eternity’. Incidentally, Kipleigh Brown plays a character called Lt. Barbara Smith in the series, and she happened to be a yeoman in ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’.

Martin Bradford plays Dr. M’Benga in two episodes of the series, and I’ve seen the character lately in Seasons 1 and 2 of ‘Strange New Worlds’. It was very nice to see more familiar guest stars appear in certain episodes, including Lou Ferringo who played the Hulk in ‘The Incredible Hulk’ 1970s TV series.

Lou Ferringo appeared in the second episode ‘Lolani’. The fourth episode ‘The White Iris’ features Colin Baker, who plays the Sixth Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’, and Nakia Burrise, who played Tanya in the ‘Power Rangers’ series. I liked how that episode was a follow-up to certain original series episodes. 🙂

This includes ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’, ‘The Paradise Syndrome’ and ‘Requiem for Methuselah’. The two episodes of the series form the two-part finale called ‘To Boldly Go’, and it was such a delight to see Nicola Bryant (Peri in ‘Doctor Who’) guest-starring as a villain in that story.

I like how ‘To Boldy Go’ concludes ‘Star Trek Continues’, particularly with it being a follow-up to ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ as well as setting things up for Kirk when he becomes an Admiral and dons the uniform that we would see him wear in ‘The Motion Picture’. It’s so well-put together.

‘Star Trek Continues’ is a web series I highly recommend checking out on YouTube. If you’re a fan of the original ‘Star Trek’ TV series featuring Captain Krik, Spock, Bones and Scotty, then you’ll have no trouble enjoying this web series, especially as it emulates the feel and spirit of the original TV series.

Thanks for reading!

Please check out ‘Star Trek Continues’ via their website or on their YouTube channel. Here’s the first episode of ‘Star Trek Continues’ called ‘Pilgrim of Eternity’ for you to check out.

Enjoy!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂