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‘KHAAAAN!’: why Wrath of Khan remains the greatest Star Trek movie, 40 years on

A gloriously evil villain, big-screen shocks, mind-control space slugs! The film photon torpedoed everything that went before, leaving a legacy that has yet to be bettered

W hen JJ Abrams began rebooting Star Trek with a fresh cast and crew of the Enterprise in 2009, many hardcore Trekkers complained that the new movies lacked the Apollo-era optimism and vision of space adventure as one giant cosmic morality tale that, in their view, had made the long-running saga stand out from its peers. Gone were slow-paced allegories playing on contemporary western culture, its triumphs and its horrors. In were hectic space battles, time travel, a strange obsession with motorbikes and plenty of fisticuffs.

What many of these critics failed to notice, was that this dichotomy between Star Trek as blockbuster space opera and thinking-man’s sci-fi had been going on for at least three decades before Abrams even got his hand on the Enterprise’s tiller. And to this day, the series’ greatest movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, only succeeded because it broke all the rules expected from an episode of Gene Roddenberry’s creation.

The Nicholas Meyer-directed 1982 film, which celebrates 40 years since its UK release this year, was a low budget follow-up to 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. That film lifted a storyline straight out of the 1960s original series: something about a nefarious energy cloud later revealed as an ancient human space probe refitted by aliens that has subsequently achieved sentience and turned on Earth. The plot was so nebulous that even Spock struggled to work out what was going on. It duly picked up middling reviews and was a box-office disappointment for studio Paramount, largely due to its gargantuan (for the time) $44m shooting budget.

Out went Roddenberry (as producer) and in came Meyer to write and direct the project, with a much more frugal $12m budget. As well as including some juicy sci-fi stylings such as the Genesis terraforming program, Meyer, who knew nothing about Star Trek, spotted early on that the sequel needed an antagonist for William Shatner’s Admiral James T Kirk to face off against if it was to achieve the right level of big screen theatricality. The perfect solution was to bring back Ricardo Montalbán’s Khan Noonien Singh from the 1967 TV episode Space Seed, about a group of dangerous superhumans encountered by the crew of the Enterprise, who are left stranded by Kirk on an uninhabited but fertile planet.

At the time this is intended to be a merciful decision by the captain, an alternative to being sent to a penal colony for their crimes. But of course, we swiftly find out in Wrath of Khan that the supposedly perfect world picked by Kirk turned out to be in an unstable region of space, and that most of Khan’s people ended up dead or starving when a neighbouring planet subsequently exploded. Oops.

Cue a Melvillian battle between the two men as Khan takes out 15 years of frustration on his nemesis. Montalbán chews scenery like it’s an Ikea showroom made out of prime steak, yet crucially never slips too far into the realms of pantomime. The veteran Mexican actor remains a terrifying, vengeful force of nature, rage personified, throughout.

At the end of each episode of the original series, there was usually the sense that the Enterprise could fully reset, with danger averted and normal duties resumed. By contrast, the events of Wrath of Khan are so horrific that they can never be forgotten, and the level of threat seems to have been suddenly upped to warp factor 9.9.

Walter Koenig’s Chekov, along with newcomer Clark Terrell (captain of the USS Reliant) are mind-controlled by Khan using hideous space slugs that are painfully, and bloodily lodged inside their ears! Spock dies of radiation poisoning trying to restart the Enterprise’s warp engine! Khan himself is left to die once again after being summarily outwitted by his supposed inferiors. Where The Motion Picture was mildly intriguing, Wrath of Khan represents blood-pumping, big screen shock tactics on an epic scale.

Thirty years later, Abrams tried to recapture its magic with an effective remake, Star Trek Into Darkness. But even with Benedict Cumberbatch as a younger version of Khan (who crucially never got marooned by Kirk in the new timeline, so was really just a boring, big-headed eugenics experiment in human form) most of the original’s bloodthirsty lust for life and death failed to re-manifest.

Into Darkness was once voted hardcore fans’ least favourite Star Trek movie , a nadir for anyone who loved the original series’ more intellectual, cosmic musings. Yet it was all based on a movie that had to destroy everything that went before it, everything that fans expected from a Star Trek episode, just to keep the Enterprise from crashing down to earth for ever.

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Khan & every augment super power in star trek.

The superpowers of Khan Noonien Singh and Star Trek's Augments are impressive, but potentially deadly, perhaps justifying Starfleet's fear.

• Genetic augmentation in the Star Trek universe is illegal due to the dangerous powers displayed by Khan and his fellow Augments.
• Characters like Dr. Bashir and Number One have faced consequences and discrimination for their genetic enhancements.
• The Klingon Augments inadvertently caused a deadly plague that nearly wiped out the Klingon Empire, highlighting the risks of genetic engineering.

Genetic augmentation is illegal in the Star Trek universe, and the superhuman powers displayed by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his fellow Augments is a good example of why those laws exist. Star Trek: The Original Series first introduced the concept of the Augments in the classic episode "Space Seed", which introduced Khan as the future nemesis of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner). The product of 20th century genetic engineering, Khan and his fellow Augments ruled the Earth with an iron fist before in-fighting led to the Eugenics Wars and the eventual outlawing of genetic enhancements.

Even after his death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan Noonien Singh continued to cast a long shadow over Starfleet and the Federation long into the 24th century. The fear of others gaining Khan's superior strength and intelligence have inadvertently punished several Star Trek characters including Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds . Most recently, the USS Enterprise's Number One (Rebecca Romijn) was almost discharged from Starfleet due to the institution's fear of Augments and their considerable superpowers.

RELATED: Strange New Worlds’ Number One Trial Couldn’t Fix Star Trek’s Ban On Augments

10 Khan's Super Strength

When Khan took control of the USS Enterprise, he bragged that he had " five times " the strength of Captain Kirk. Fighting the superman in the Enterprise's engine room, Kirk was unable to defeat Khan in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, Kirk had to use a metal rod to beat Khan into submission. Later, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , he showed his superior strength once again when he lifted Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig), complete with bulky space suit, clean off the ground on the ravaged surface of Ceti Alpha V. However, Khan used much more of his cunning in his attempts to avenge himself against Captain Kirk.

9 Khan's Intelligence

In "Space Seed", Khan displays his superior intelligence by rapidly absorbing centuries worth of history. This allows him to catch up on everything that's happened since Star Trek 's Eugenics Wars , giving him the information he needs to launch a takeover of the Enterprise. Khan is shown to be a peerless tactician, which is why his Kelvin Timeline counterpart (Benedict Cumberbatch) was tasked with strategizing a war with the Klingons. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Khan quickly figures out how to use the USS Reliant and the Genesis device to unleash his vengeance on Kirk, though in his hubris, he failed to predict his own downfall.

8 Dr. Bashir's Intelligence

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" it was revealed that Julian Bashir was genetically enhanced as a child. Worried that "Jules" was falling behind the other kids at school, his parents took him to Adigeon Prime, a planet where DNA resequencing and genetic enhancement were permitted. Thanks to the treatments, Julian's IQ rapidly increased over two weeks, leaving him with superior intelligence. It was later implied that Bashir deliberately got questions wrong while studying medicine at Starfleet Academy to conceal his genetic enhancements from the organization.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 's Dr. Bashir later tried to rehabilitate a group of fellow Augments by offering them a chance to use their own superior intelligence to strategize a potential end to the Dominion War. However, this backfired when the Augments, and Julian himself, realized that the only way to end the war without further bloodshed was to surrender to the Founders. Bashir eventually stopped his fellow Augments from enacting this controversial plan, ultimately leading to the Federation's eventual victory, albeit after extensive loss of life on both sides of the conflict.

7 Dr. Bashir's Coordination

Julian's hand-eye coordination was also vastly improved by the genetic augmentations to his reflexes and vision. This is possibly why Bashir initially considered a career as a tennis ace before he eventually decided to study medicine. While at Starfleet Academy, he was the Captain of the racquetball team, a game he continued to play against his best friend Chief Miles O'Brien (Colm Meaney). Presumably, it was his superior coordination that led his team to win the Sector Championships in Julian's final year at the Academy.

6 Number One's Super Strength

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1, episode 3, "Ghosts of Illyria" revealed that Number One was genetically enhanced. As an Illyrian, Una was genetically engineered before birth and received further enhancements when she was a child. As it was part of their culture, Number One's trial interrogated Starfleet on their persecution of Illyrians due to their fear of another Khan Noonien Singh. One of the augmentations that Una received enhanced her physical strength, and she was able to carry Hemmer with ease when he fell victim to the contagion that ravaged the Enterprise in "Ghosts of Illyria".

5 Number One's Glowing Powers

Also in "Ghosts of Illyria", it was revealed that Number One could purge contagions from her body with an enhanced immune system. The effect of this purging was a glowing orange light which enabled her to heal herself. Unfortunately, because of the attention that such an ability would draw in a society which hated and feared Augments, Una nearly died from blood poisoning after her leg was broken as a child. It was only in the safety of her family home that she could use her abilities to fix the fracture.

4 Dal R'El's Multiple Abilities

Star Trek: Prodigy 's Dal R'El (Brett Gray) always knew he was different, and it was revealed in the episode "Masquerade" that he was genetically augmented. Engineered by scholars of Dr. Arik Soong (Brent Spiner), Dal contained the genetic code of 26 different Star Trek species. In "Masquerade", Dal's dormant genes were activated by an implant which allowed him to harness the superior abilities of just some of these alien races. He showed psychic abilities, superior agility, and strangely, the ability to produce a slimy blue substance. Dal's physical appearance was also altered, sprouting Spock-style Vulcan ears , a Klingon beard, and Andorian antennae.

3 La'an's Alcohol Tolerance

In the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 premiere, La'an Noonien-Singh subtly hinted at the future revelations about her own genetic enhancements. In an early scene on the planet Cajitar IV, La'an was seen engaging in a drinking competition with Kr'Gogh (Kyle Kass). La'an downed several mugs of Klingon blood wine, without the ill effects that other Humans usually suffer from. Star Trek Into Darkness ' Khan Noonien Singh was also able to tolerate vast quantities of alcohol, so she clearly inherited this from her ancestor. Presumably La'an has other, hitherto unrevealed powers beyond the ability to outdrink Klingons.

2 The Klingon Augments' Plague Powers

Star Trek: Enterprise 's genetically enhanced Klingon variants also gained the superior intelligence and strength of Augments like Khan and Bashir. However, an unfortunate quirk of the augmentation process also allowed them to spread a deadly plague that nearly wiped out the Klingon Empire. The Klingon scientists accidentally enhanced the Lenovian flu carried by one of their subjects, causing the virus to become an airborne plague. Alongside respiratory problems, the plague also caused victims to lose their proud Klingon cranial ridges, a change that provided a canonical explanation for the flat headed Klingons from Star Trek: The Original Series.

1 Malik's Super-Strength And Ruthlessness

Arik Soong believed that Star Trek 's Eugenics Wars were a result of Humanity's inability to use genetic engineering responsibly, and stole a clutch of Augment embryos to prove his point. Sadly, the uprising led by Malik (Alec Newman) against the Klingon Empire cast doubts on Soong's hypothesis. Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula) enlisted Soong's help in convincing his Augments not to start a war between Earth and the Klingons. Like Khan Noonien-Singh before him, Malik was incredibly strong, hyper-intelligent and utterly ruthless, meaning that a peaceful solution was never on the cards. After attempting to kill Soong, Malik was shot dead by Captain Archer, and the Federation failed to be convinced of the benefits of creating superhumans for another century.

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Published Nov 16, 2023

Enterprise’s Ambitious Arcs

Revisit the birth of the Federation with these classic Star Trek: Enterprise storylines.

StarTrek.com

From The Original Series ' “ The Menagerie ” duology to the lengthy struggle against the Dominion as depicted in Deep Space Nine , the Star Trek franchise has never been a stranger to epic, multi-episode story arcs. Discovery and Picard have even been organized into season-long narratives, where each year’s adventures are dedicated to pursuing a specific plot.

However, no other Trek series has attempted what Enterprise accomplished in its popular fourth season — a year’s worth of episodes almost entirely divided into mini-arcs consisting of two- and three-part storylines. These installments served as exciting entries in the NX-01 Enterprise ’s journey while simultaneously connecting the show with other elements of Star Trek lore.

Let’s look back on the intriguing escapades chronicled in its final season.

1. The Temporal Cold War (" Storm Front " and " Storm Front, Part II ")

"Storm Front, Part II"

Fresh off of a yearlong search for the Xindi superweapon, Captain Archer and his crew found themselves transported back in time to a distorted version of Earth’s Second World War by the 31st Century temporal agent Daniels. Hoping to stop a cadre of 29th Century operatives from manipulating the timeline, Daniels once again enlisted Enterprise to intervene in the Temporal Cold War. Unbeknownst to anyone, the Suliban Silik stowed away on the mission and assisted Archer in foiling the plot spearheaded by an alien known as Vosk. The successful resolution prompted Daniels to send Enterprise to its proper time period.

This duology acted as the conclusion to Archer’s dealings with both temporal agents and the Suliban, two groups who the captain encountered on a fairly regular basis during the early phase of Enterprise ’s travels. According to Daniels, Vosk’s defeat helped bring about the end of the Temporal Cold War, a conflict that tied directly into Discovery ’s third season. Once Michael Burnham arrived in the 32nd Century, she learned that the war resulted in a ban on time travel. The disarray caused by the numerous temporal factions also distracted the Federation in the years leading up to The Burn.

2. The Augment Crisis (" Borderland ," "Cold Station 12," and "The Augments")

"Cold Station 12"

After genetically-enhanced humans attacked a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, Archer recruited their adoptive father, Arik Soong, to accompany Enterprise on an excursion to capture the Augments and prevent a war between the Federation and the Empire. Soong initially sympathized with his children, but his son Malik’s grandiose ambitions ultimately led the scientist to realize that the Augments were too dangerous to roam the galaxy. Enterprise narrowly managed to intervene before Malik released a biological weapon over a Klingon colony, and the remaining Augments were presumed to have perished along with their vessel.

This trilogy supplied a wealth of background information about the Augments and the Eugenics Wars, subjects that were initially touched upon as Kirk battled Khan Noonien Singh in The Original Series episode “ Space Seed ” and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . Links to The Next Generation -era also abounded, as Arik Soong was an ancestor of Data’s creator Noonian Soong. Upon returning to prison at the end of the arc, Arik mentioned that he intended to shift his focus to cybernetics and artificial lifeforms. While Starfleet temporarily averted a war with the Klingons, a conflict between the two powers ensued a century later during Discovery ’s first season.

3. The Vulcan Reformation ("The Forge," "Awakening," and "Kir’Shara")

"Kir'Shara"

A faction known as the Syrannites received blame for a deadly bombing at Earth’s embassy on Vulcan, so Archer and T’Pol set out to locate a potential suspect named T’Pau. The two encountered Syrran himself, who transferred Surak’s katra to Archer on his deathbed. At the same time, Vulcan Administrator V’Las raised the stakes by firing on Enterprise and accusing the Andorians of planning an invasion. Archer halted the hostilities when he located the Kir’Shara, which stored Surak’s true teachings, and smuggled the artifact to the High Command. Soon afterward, V’Las held a secret meeting with a Romulan operative to discuss reunification.

First introduced in The Original Series episode “ Amok Time ,” T’Pau appeared as her younger self in this arc, while Syrran’s interrogation of Archer featured questions originally heard in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . The dissolution of the High Command and reformation of Vulcan society opened the door for improved Earth-Vulcan relations and paved the way for the Coalition of Planets. While V’Las’s discussion about reunification implied a Romulan takeover of Vulcan, the concept nevertheless suggested a connection to Ambassador Spock’s desire for a diplomatic reunion in The Next Generation two-parter “ Unification .” Discovery ’s “ Unification III ” established that Spock’s peaceful efforts prevailed centuries after his death.

4. The Federation's Preamble ("Babel One," "United," and "The Aenar")

"United"

A starship of unknown origin utilized holographic technology to hide its true identity so that it could destabilize diplomatic relations between humans, Andorians, Tellarites, Vulcans, and Rigelians. Unbeknownst to those species, the craft was under the remote command of Romulan Admiral Valdore. With Archer’s leadership, the Andorians, Tellarites, and Vulcans joined Enterprise in a hunt for the elusive vessel. Having lifted the veil on the plot, Archer and Shran learned that a captured Aenar was controlling the vessel and worked alongside the pilot’s sister to convince him to destroy the experimental Romulan weapons.

As its title suggested, the first entry in this trilogy began with Enterprise transporting a Tellarite delegation to Babel, the same location that Captain Kirk escorted Federation dignitaries to in The Original Series episode “ Journey to Babel .”

Additionally, the cooperation Archer organized between the local species acted as another cornerstone for the Coalition that would be founded in the coming years, particularly in light of the alliance initiated by the Andorians and Tellarites. Although Archer and his associates never definitively proved the Romulans were behind the attacks, Romulus’ interest in interfering with Earth would later resurface during the war that Spock described in “ Balance of Terror .”

5. The Klingon Contagion (“ Affliction ” and “ Divergence ”)

"Divergence"

In order to halt a devastating virus ravaging the Empire, the Klingons abducted Doctor Phlox so that he could work to find a solution. Outraged when he learned the virus had been caused by Klingon experimentation with DNA harvested from Augment embryos, Phlox refused to partake in any efforts to create Klingon Augments. Luckily, Phlox’s Klingon counterpart Antaak devised a method of halting the virus without amplifying the subjects’ intelligence or strength, a process which was accelerated when Archer allowed Phlox to use him to produce antibodies at an expedited rate.

This two-parter is primarily remembered for illustrating why Klingons appeared without cranial ridges in The Original Series. Antaak mentioned a potential for reconstructive surgery, which would also explain why Kor, Kang, and Koloth appeared with intact ridges on Deep Space Nine . The episodes cleverly incorporated information from the Augment arc that occurred earlier in Enterprise ’s fourth season.

While not specifically named, Malcolm Reed contacted a former employer who was clearly an agent of Section 31, an organization that would be further explored in DS9 and Discovery .

6. The Mirror Universe (" In A Mirror, Darkly " and " In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II ")

"In A Mirror, Darkly"

Set entirely in the Mirror Universe, this duology held the unique distinction of being a prequel to The Original Series episode “ Mirror, Mirror ” and a sequel to “ The Tholian Web .”

The two entries cataloged the Terran Empire’s fight against rebels a century before Kirk made his trip to this alternate dimension while also following up on the disappearance of the U.S.S. Defiant that took place in Tholian space. The alien uprisings foreshadowed the Terran Empire’s demise that was predicted by Mirror Spock and showcased in DS9’s own ventures into the Mirror Universe. These events also connected to Emperor Georgiou’s rule in Discovery , as rebels plagued the Empire in her era, as well.

7. The Coalition Confrontation (" Demons " and " Terra Prime ")

"Demons"

With a conference taking place to discuss the creation of a Coalition of Planets, John Frederick Paxton sought to foil the peaceful proceedings and spread the xenophobic message he shared with Colonel Green, a version of whom was initially seen in TOS’ “ The Savage Curtain .”

Paxton harvested Charles Tucker and T’Pol’s DNA to clone a Human-Vulcan child as a means to stir up anti-alien sentiments, but Archer and his crew defeated Paxton and succeeded in keeping the diplomatic meetings on track. The conference formed the seeds of a Coalition, which eventually gave birth to a Federation that endured into the 32nd Century. Although Tucker and T’Pol’s daughter perished, Phlox discovered that it was due to a cloning error rather than DNA incompatibility. This information explained the future presence of Human-Vulcan children, including our beloved Mister Spock.

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This article was originally published on April 17, 2021.

Jay Stobie (he/him) is a freelance writer, author, and consultant who has contributed articles to StarTrek.com, Star Trek Explorer, and Star Trek Magazine, as well as to Star Wars Insider and StarWars.com. Learn more about Jay by visiting JayStobie.com or finding him on Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms at @StobiesGalaxy.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Nicholas Meyer Says ‘Ceti Alpha V’ Star Trek Mini-Series About Khan Is Still “Just Sitting There”

| April 20, 2022 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 129 comments so far

Nicholas Meyer became a Star Trek legend after directing the highly-acclaimed 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , from a final script he wrote without any credit. He went on to co-write Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and return to the director’s chair for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . In 2016 he came back to the franchise as a consulting producer for the first season of Star Trek: Discovery .

While he was working on Discovery Meyer also developed a mini-series about Khan Noonien Sigh set on Ceti Alpha V, which told the story of what happened to Khan in between the TOS episode “The Space Seed” and Star Trek II . He went on to write out a three-part mini-series for Ceti Alpha V . Over the last few weeks, Meyer has taken to Twitter and Instagram to post videos answering common fan questions about his career in and out of Star Trek. These offer some insights into that Khan mini-series and more.

Ceti Alpha V mini-series is “just sitting there”

In one video Meyer talks about the one Star Trek story he would still like to tell, as he outlines his Ceti Alpha V concept, and how he thought his script “came out pretty good,” but after handing it in, he “never heard from anybody again.”

The world of @StarTrek is so big. Many have imagined additional stories. Here's the one I’d still like to tell. pic.twitter.com/syi23uXEmf — Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 8, 2022

How Star Trek changed him

Meyer didn’t know a lot about Star Trek before his involvement in the franchise and in a pair of videos he explains how this worked to his advantage. He says that “the purpose of art is to teach you to love life, and I think Trek does that pretty well.”

As the #StarTrek “newbie” – back in the day – I tackled everything anew, having missed so many things in the past. Do you rediscover the show when you rewatch it? – Part 1 of 2 of my thoughts… pic.twitter.com/LilypOqf6F — Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 13, 2022

Here's the second part of my thoughts on being the "newbie" on #StarTrek and how it influenced my work on it. pic.twitter.com/N4vCm1JRMb — Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 13, 2022

Why he was wrong about Spock’s death

In his most recent video, Meyer talks about his “original conviction that Spock should die and really be dead at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .”

What do you think? Should have Spock remain dead after #TheWrathOfKhan ? #StarTrek pic.twitter.com/IuRQOBvPD6 — Nicholas Meyer (@NicholasMQ) April 16, 2022

To keep up with Meyer, follow him on Twitter and Instagram and maybe he will answer one of your burning questions.

Find more news and interviews about Nick Meyer at TrekMovie.com .

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Jesus this is getting to be Star Wars level random: You know those weird ants behind the bar in 10 Forward? Well there will be a 10 part miniseries about their amazing adventures and how they became a piece of artwork in the Federation flagship’s most amazing bar! Weird Ant Colony: A Star Trek Series!”

It’s not random. Fans have always wondered how Khan & co. survived there. Not sure how the most famous villain in 56 years of Trek compares to an ant colony.

Planet blew up, they survived in the hull of the botany bay, he lost his wife, some of his men. It’s really not that hard to imagine. I guess if people need to see it then that’s fine. But to be honest it seems like filler. And famous yes, but he is overblown… he was a B list villain on the original series and they had to choose him because besides Mudd, there weren’t many villains that were worth revisiting in the film.

that’s why a 3 episode limited series is a great idea – essentially a long-ish film as opposed to a 10 episode story that could easily be a film but is drawn out to Peter Jackson Hobbit levels of unnecessary extras * cough * Picard * cough * Disco * cough *

Yeah! I mean unless they managed to put themselves in a transporter buffering pattern it’s pretty clear how they survived. It’s not hard to imagine at all. We would just see the details of it basically.

That would have been cool – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Mudd!!!

“ Fans have always wondered how Khan & co. survived there. ”

Pretty much no one has ever wondered that. It’s not a mystery and has never been a big point of fan discussion.

Well, I was wrong to generalize, but I’m sure man fans have contemplated how they managed to survive, considering the love fans have for STII. And it is indeed a mystery, cause that survival story has never been told. I’d much rather a Stargazer or Worf or DS9 Season 8 or some other shows before a Ceti Alpha V show, but I’d definitely welcome a 3-hour mini-series written or produced or directed by Meyer. Might not be most fans #1 choice, but who wouldn’t welcome such an event?

so many fans wondered about it they already wrote a book – in the top 100 Star Trek books on Amazon fwiw –

“To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh” – Greg Cox 

“ Pretty much no one has ever wondered that.”

Don’t generalize. You do not speak for everyone. After reading the comments, it is obvious that some people have.

Been watching Trek since the mid-70’s, I’ve not had any interest in knowing how Khan spent his days in exile. A couple minutes of exposition in WOK was sufficient explanation.

I hear ya. The United Federation of Planets, chocked full of strange new worlds…..but if some Trek alumni thinks that the fans really want is a series about the craftspeople who made the shiny gold spaceship models in Picard’s ready room, they’ll write a script.

No need to wonder about Khan. If you’re curious, there’s a novel. It’s a serviceable and still enjoyable read, and a lot of what you might expect. I prefer the double novel about Khan’s time on Earth. It’s really a Gary Seven/Roberta Lincoln story and it’s just great. There is no need for a mini-series, just read the novel by Greg Cox.

Nick Meyer… when I first read about your “original conviction that Spock should die and really be dead at the end of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” I was like 6 years old in 1987 and thought you were wrong. We love Spock, we need Spock. But I’ve come to (grow?) believe you were right then and wrong now. What the world needed was Star Trek II: The Series which I feel would have blown Star Wars away. We needed Admiral Kirk and the future heading out to explore an exciting full of potential but dangerous universe filled with epic unknowns like the impact of Genesis. This is what Star Trek III should have been, not the resurrection of Spock and what had been before. You gave Spock the ultimate send off… and they ruined it with III (which I still think is an awesome movie). Savvik and David Marcus were a breath of fresh air and hinted on how Trek could have continued. You invented an exciting world where it was Horatio Hornblower in space again. Instead Spock came back, we got Star Trek IV… but it really dumbed down the series outside VI. I love Star Trek III, IV and I love Star Trek VI, but it was not worth three decades of subpar Trek (okay, DS9 was good) for nine hours of IV and VI. Even III, the end result is they made the Klingons the Romulans with cloaking devices to the determent of all following series (you get a Bird of Prey, they get a Bird of Prey, everyone gets a Bird of prey!). I now read the Mirror Universe DC comics at the time and realize had you not brought back Spock, II would have been more powerful, and the follow ups could have continued the story that was II. You could have even brought back mirror Spock if you wanted Nimoy back but honestly you had the follow up to Spock in a totally alien Vulcan-Romulan named Saavik. You had future Kirk in a scientist learning about what Starfleet was all about with Marcus. You had Sulu and Chekov wanting to be a Captain, and Admiral Kirk trying to find his way post 5 year mission in a world where exploration is hitting some road blocks. For VI even Harve Benett who just HAD to bring back Spock didn’t even want to do the original crew but an academy show, so again, you didn’t need to bring back Spock to.. bring back Spock! We kind of got that with III and IV. IV was a great funny movie. Unfortunately it also led Trek to deevolve into nonsensical time travel loops (why not go back and stop WW2?). Yes, Trek has been funny, but it’s usually been situational comedy. Now it’s just blandified and Star Wars is just destroying it given the complete unrealization of any Horatio Hornblower/Wagon train to the Stars exploration of the frontier action. I strongly urge for you to consider the Kevlin verse. There is nothing stopping anyone from using the Kelvin crew in an alternate universe during the movie era and re-start the motion picture series around the time of ST II. Or a total Trek reboot, hell, they don’t even need to call it Star Trek. I do support the Ceti Alpha V series but only to fix Kahn after into Darkness… They took a situation where Kahn that could have tricked Starfleet Command into believing they needed him to keep the peace and they instead made him this poor guy just trying to find his family, just horrid. Bring back Kahn the mastermind unraveled only by his own ego please. I’d put the analogy on actual space exploration too. What we thought we needed was flying hotels to near Earth orbit and wasted time, capital and crews on the space shuttle just so we could look at it and say it looks like plane (regardless of how tiles fall off the tank and smash into the wing and the crew is not safely on top of the stack to eject on a launch failure). Also flying up and down to the space station… didn’t really push anything. What we really needed was to push rockets that could land and fuel tankers in orbit. We need to push the final frontier.

“IV was a great funny movie. Unfortunately it also led Trek to deevolve into nonsensical time travel loops (why not go back and stop WW2?).”

When the crew of The Bounty was in 1986, Khan was alive. Kirk: “Hey, let’s bump off Khan while we’re here and none of this shit will have happened!”

You mean bump off the guy who caused Spock’s death and resurrection and the reason for the everyone to be on the Bounty in 1986 in the first place? And that still leaves the whale probe out there. If they’re not in that particular place and time…

Annorax would like to have a word with you.

Why would the life of Kirk’s son not be on par with the lives of anyone on Earth? What are we, Stalin?

As a matter of fact, I am Stalin. Thank you for noticing. It’s been a rough 70 years in the cryofreeze.

Oh well. Good thing Kirk, Picard or any Trek didn’t go back in time to stop you from killing all those millions then or we wouldn’t have your post! That is probably why all those people had to die in the holodomor regardless of time travel!

Yeesh, way to bring down the room…

Oh that was supposed to be some dark comedy. Humor, it is a difficult concept.

Stalingrad: alumnus of Joseph Stalin High School

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed IV when I was 6.. but as a 40 year old you have to ignore the whole plot. Great character development but bad Star Trek. With Star Trek II you had great character development AND good Star Trek, as it was meant to be.

So now we finally know when Khan met Chekov!!

While I don’t agree with you on the current state of Trek affairs, I’m also of the opinion that Spock should have remained dead at the end of WOK. That cast the die four four fairly pedestrian movies and wasted a marvelous opportunity to establish a new direction for the movie franchise.

I love TWOK- it is the very best adventure of the OG crew and probably the best 2 hours of Trek yet. Still, I have zero interest in a survival show where I already know exactly who does and doesn’t survive. Especially as it won’t star a young Ricard Montalban as Khan.

Nicholas Meyer is a great storyteller and I love his take on Trek: swashbuckling but appropriately military. Nautical but nice. If only he were cut loose on an original storyline instead of being left out of everything.

Probably easier and cheaper to just fold in the lore/vague idea behind the mini series into the Khan character in SNW, making the project moot.

No, no Kahn in SNW. Kahn was on the Botany Bay at the time, leave him where he belongs. I DO wish Meyer had been in charge of Into Darkness. They had a chance to have Kahn back but even bigger and badder.. and they blew it. I don’t know how they could, but they did. That is the power of TNGification and bad political analogies.

If Khan is referenced in SNW … shakes head…. I just can’t

A Khan descendant is among the main characters, so it’s a safe bet he will be.

I’m okay with Kahn’s descendant. Just no Khan. Please….leave him into the cryrotube where he belongs to be found by Kirk.

I would make peace with the idea that SNW is a not-so-stealth reboot of Star Trek: The Original Series.

which – you know – if they would just say it and then do it – great. Let’s go for it.

But don’t tell us on one side of your mouth that it’s prime timeline canon and then clearly violate prime timeline canon with the other side of your mouth. That’s just disrespectful to anyone that’s paying attention to the franchise as a whole.

I totally agree. They wouldn’t lose anybody if they just said that. They might even gain some new eyes who would feel glad to not have the “pressure” of the series lore going into it. But when you’re an IP manager and not an artist with a vision or even a leader, it’s tough to take a stand or declare a direction. Too many other masters to serve, too much risk in making any changes to the status quo you’ve inherited. So, it just comes out as aimless, mealy-mouthed yet corporate-approved content sludge.

I been saying since Discovery they should’ve just rebooted the whole thing once they decided to do more prequels. People hated how much they screwed up canon with Discovery and while I think they will do a better job with it with SNW, trust me, they are still most likely to screw it up and throw things in there that really really shouldn’t be in there. For some reason they can’t help themselves.

Ack they wouldn’t would they? I thought they said SNW was prime timeline or whatever that means in the multiverse. Wishful thinking but I cannot and will not subscribe to your interpretation of that in favor of a reboot. Lol I’m even okay with them replacing Pike with Kirk and doing some early TOS missions with Gary Mitchell coming on board, etc. At the very least we will always have TOS and Star Trek II, III, IV and VI.

agree – Khan descendent can know of Noonien and heck, everyone else can except Uhura and Spock

They could *refer* to Khan. Malik did so in one of the augment episodes of “Enterprise.” Or maybe he just referred to the Botany Bay. I don’t remember.

I just rewatched those episodes like a week ago and Malik did name Khan specifically.

Yep. Akiva Goldsman himself hinted as much. (There’s a Hollywood Reporter article from 2/1/22 where he’s quoted)

I mean how could they not when they have one of his freaking descendants on the ship? If you do reference him, yes, it would be breaking canon in a big way. But if you don’t reference him, why is that character even there then? It’s so strange.

But she can’t be an augment herself. They made that pretty clear when Dr. Bashir was found to be one and nearly lost his career over it and that’s a century later. Khan’s direct relative with augment abilities serving on the flasgship of the Federation breaks all kind of canon if that is the case.

I’m really hoping that after 200 years her heredity would be so diluted with normal human descendants that there is virtually no augment genes left in her.

The assumption is that she’s one of his distant descendants. That might not be the case. She could be from the same genetically-engineered “batch” as Khan and either a “sister” or not actually related to him at all (both could explain the “Noonien Singh” name). Maybe she didn’t manage to escape on the Botany Bay but was cryogenically frozen on Earth instead during the final days of the Eugenics Wars, which would explain the references to her traumatic childhood, feelings of isolation etc.

Or maybe she really is Khan’s daughter in the literal sense (Khan was Indian, but his first wife may not have been, hence La’an’s potentially mixed ethnicity).

In any case, Tiger2 is correct about the possible canon-violating implications of La’an being an augment, but SNW may find a way around that issue just like Bashir ultimately wasn’t fired from Starfleet on DS9.

They should have had the Fake Khan say stuff like, “On Earth . . . 200 years ago . . . I was a prince, with power over millions.” Also, they should have cast an actor who looked/was more like Ricardo Mendelbaum.

My personal thought is that Starfleet having lost Vulcan with the Federation on the verge of collapse (they didn’t save a whole founding world!) and with the Klingon Empire on the rise in in an alliance with the returning Romulans. Then you have a starship find Khan who then says he is a strategic genius and wants to help for peace. Little do they know he isn’t interested in helping Starfleet but using Starfleet to his own ends and taking over the galaxy. Sure he does some good, but only to backstab everyone in the end with his team of Eugenic superminds all in key posts! It’s Kahn but with a whole fleet of starships and power over millions this time! You have Kirk getting strange orders on the frontier and only he can save the day. That’s more what I was expecting from Into Darkness.

That’s a better idea than what we got for sure, but also *in* what we got, they ditched the only interesting idea they started to get into — Kirk & Khan being on the same side! That was interesting. Khan clearly using Kirk to get back his “family,” but Kirk could’ve also used him to knock out the cancer growing within Starfleet, setting up a final showdown where Kirk gains the upper hand (rather than die) and either banishes Khan and his people to a planet in the Ceti Alpha system or negotiates an uneasy truce that allows Khan and his people to make their own way.

Turning Khan into a mustache-twirling villain at the end was just so dumb. He and Kirk had parallel arcs — both of them realizing how important their “families” are to them and the recognition that they need to change their behavior in order to sustain and build upon those relationships — and it just would’ve been more interesting if it came down to both of these warriors realizing that the way forward is to stand down.

Yes that would have worked too! If you wanted you could do both, have had even Kirk thinking Khan was a good guy as McGivers did. Indeed Kirk in Space Seed did treat Khan originally with honors as a historical figure from the past. If Starfleet came to you and was like “This is the strategos, our strategic genius that is saving the Federation from the Klingons” I could see Kirk following orders at first and how insane would that be… Kirk taking orders from Khan! I lean towards Khan being the ultimate villian, but fair enough. In either scenario Into Darkness does it wrong because they spent half the film making him into a good guy wanting his family back versus big bad Starfleet. Then they take out big bad Starfleet and everyone is like… wait a minute, this poor Khan guy is supposed to be a bad guy. Your idea is way superior if you wanted to go the other way and keep Khan just trying to save his family.

Yeah, Khan helping Starfleet fight the Klingons was right there. No need for subspace beaming and the Enterprise having to go into Klingonistan to get him.

What I don’t get is why Admiral Marcus thought Fake Khan, a guy who had been asleep for like 200 years, could design and build starships, no matter how smart he was. For one thing, he didn’t know bubkes about warp drive. Maybe Marcus gave him the same technical manuals that Kirk gave to Real Khan.

I could buy that (Marcus thinking Kahn was a strategic mastermind). Kahn has a genetically engineered super mind. What I couldn’t buy is Kahn all good and not using that power to take over the Fédération and to have power over millions again. Nope just wants his family back while beaming from Earth to Qo’nos. Gag me with a horrid nonsensical political analogy no one now can follow at all.

Yeah just a stupid idea all around. That makes no sense. And Khan was a ruler, he wasn’t an engineer or a scientist. So what would he know that actual 23rd century trained engineers wouldn’t know exactly? Reading a few technical manuals in Space Seed doesn’t mean he knows how to build a ship lol. It’s such a weird leap in logic.

“And Khan was a ruler, he wasn’t an engineer or a scientist.”

Well, they do sell rulers for engineers. You can get them at Staples.

Montalkhan figured out how to hijack the Enterprise after spending a couple of hours with the tech manuals, so why not? The leap was that Cumberkhan was going to build bigger faster bad ass better ships and weapons in this huge black ops facility in our own freakin solar system that no one happens to notice???

No, don’t want to see Khan (or any of the other TOS Trek super beings) in SNW.

They should make it. And give the lead to someone doing good drama. They could even connect the series to climate change and show how a green planet becomes a dessert hell.

“and show how a green planet becomes a dessert hell”

When your planet becomes a dessert hell, you can have your cake and Edith too.

You’re KEELing me with these posts. Stalin grad was weapons-grade stuff, kudos.

For a long time I thought Nestor Carbonell would have made an excellent Khan, but now I think he might be aging out of the role. Carbonell is one of those underrated actors who does solid work in everything he does but doesn’t seem to get the kudos he richly deserves.

A few years ago I read someone’s suggestion that a certain actor would be ideal to play a younger Khan. I don’t remember the name of the actor, but at the time I told a friend about this idea — she looked him up on The Google and was like, “OMG, yes.” I just looked up Nestor Carbonell and agree with her (if indeed he was the actor whom she looked up). I don’t know anything about his acting chops, but he definitely looks like Khan from “Space Seed.” (More so than Cumberbatch, certainly, but there are probably more than a thousand actors who look more like young Khan than Cumberbatch does.)

Carbonell would have made an excellent Khan about 10-15 years ago during the time of Into Darkness but now he’d be considered too old. I think he passed 50 years. He had a memorable role in Lost.

You’re right about Carbonell being underrated. I don’t think he’s the right option for Khan — there are more suitable choices, as I’ve just mentioned in my reply to Navamske — but I do think Carbonell would actually make a great Starfleet captain. I even recommended him in a Trekmovie comment a couple of years ago when listing suggestions for a Hispanic captain in the lead role.

A few years ago I read someone’s suggestion that a certain actor would be ideal to play a younger Khan. I don’t remember the name of the actor, but at the time I told a friend about this idea — she looked him up on The Google and was like, “OMG, yes.”

I was pretty vocal about the subject here on Trekmovie, so on the off-chance that the suggestion you’re referring to was actually from me, the name of the Indian actor I’ve repeatedly suggested is Hrithik Roshan.

If so, then yes he absolutely is by far the best choice to play a younger Khan.

It’s a great concept, possibly a great survivalist story to tell as well but not under the current regime.

The suits will force it to become generic pish.

He gave us 3 great films. Let’s leave it like that and let him just write a book about it. That way he has full control.

…but that book about Khan was also already written (and isn’t terrible) so…there’s that

If they do go ahead with another Khan show, i hope they can come up with a South Asian actor to play him instead of a Mexican or Englishman – no disrespect intended to either Montalbon or Cumberbatch who both did an admirable job portraying the augment leader.

Well, Nick, you’re in good company. Quinton Tarentino thinks he had a pretty spiffy Trek treatment as well. Michael Dorn is apparently still furiously peddling more Worf centered Trek, too.

Whoa, whoa, Nicholas Meyer I think is in a league of his own having written and directed the penultimate Star Trek movie, something no one else in the entire world through the entire history of the universe has done.

Penultimate means “next to last.”

Sorry, that’s just me who now basically sees Star Trek II as the beginning of the end of good Trek (with III, IV and VI being the end). Edit – okay, DS9 was really good too. For most that should read ultimate Star Trek movie. Nicholas Meyer has written and directed the ultimate Star Trek movie – something no one else in the entire world through the entire history of the universe has done.

Catches lightening in a bottle. AKA one hit wonders in the music industry, I believe. That Nick Meyer?

The Nick Meyer that had written a best selling Sherlock Holmes book prior to directing anything (thus, proving himself capable of taking an existing universe and making something good and profitable – oh and the screenplay for the film of the novel, which he also wrote, was nominated for an Academy Award…so…)

The Nick Meyer that re-wrote the screenplay to Time after Time. Another well received genre film.

The Nick Meyer that recevied an Emmy nomination for directing a made for tv film a year after Khan.

The Nick Meyer that recieved seven Emmy nominations for ‘Houdini’.

The Nick Meyer who is responsible for writing / directing two of the generally speaking, most revered Original Cast Trek films.

To recap: An Oscar nominated, multi-Emmy nominee and multi-Saturn award winner.

THAT Nick Meyer.

With all that talent, you’d think he’d be busy and in demand. Apparently not, or he’s just super picky about his projects. That Nick Meyer.

He was also given a job on Discovery and fired a year later.

Nick Meyer is an accomplished film maker, but the problem is everything you cited was decades ago. He hasn’t done anything worth wild in the last 30 years.

Fans have to face the reality that maybe his ideas today just aren’t very good. I’m not saying that is the case, I’m only saying it’s a possibility. But as I said, nothing with his stint on Discovery came to be. They may have passed on the Khan project because they read it and felt it either wasn’t very good or not something interesting enough to put money into it. He pitched a movie to them and that was rejected too.

Even if you get away from Star Trek, what has he been involved with in ANY project in the last 3 decades?

If I were a writer, I’d take getting fired from the Disco writer’s room as a badge of honor ;)

As to what he’s done – as I said, 7 emmy nominations and a writer’s guild nomination for a show he wrote in 2014.

I don’t know why I have to defend NM – he’s done more than anyone here ;D

Well maybe, but it sounded like he wanted to stay on the show. I mean they were paying him, so that’s probably reason enough.

And no one is putting Nick Meyer’s talents down. We’re just stating the reality. Hollywood is a very competitive and cut throat industry. There are people who have won Oscars or made films that went on to make hundreds of millions of dollars in theaters and many of those still struggle to get projects off the ground if they haven’t done much in the last few decades.

And we’re only talking about Nick Meyer now because he did Star Trek (and did it well). But the average person has no idea who he is or probably never seen anything he’s ever done if they are under 30. My guess is most Star Trek fans has only seen his stuff from Star Trek since nothing he’s done has been very mainstream and certainly not very recent.

And yes my point still stands. Maybe his new ideas for Star Trek just wasn’t considered that great. I’m not saying that’s the case but if they were, I think some of them would’ve been considered OR they ask him to come up with other things if the projects sounded interesting enough but just not what they are looking for like this Khan show.

Now all that said, I had no idea about the show he was involved in and got a nomination for it, so I stand corrected. That’s great, it still doesn’t mean the guy can just write his own checks either. He’s very far from the Spielberg’s or Eastwood’s of Hollywood today.

Also we have to understand the fact that the Hollywood of today versus the Hollywood of Nick Meyer’s day are wholly different and his style of filmmaking and writing probably is not considered “woke” enough for todays Hollywood. I think this is a big reason why the producers didn’t really want to continue with Meyer and why I think Tarantino’s version was shelved as well. There is a certain imagine that the current Trek showrunners want to have of Star Trek and they won’t budge from that image for any “big name” directors.

Had to go there, did you? Here’s a thought – maybe the obvious answer is actually the right one. It’s a stinker of a concept, and CBS rightly said ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you”.

I don’t know, maybe, but reading between the lines, I feel like there was something more than “stinker of a concept” at work here. Those darn NDA’s are probably preventing Meyer from saying too much.

“He was also given a job on Discovery and fired a year later.”

I assume this refers to Nicholas Meyer; for some reason I can’t scroll up to the earlier posts in this thread.

I don’t know exactly why Bryan Fuller left “Disco” or what he contributed to it, but it was probably unfortunate for the future of the show. Fuller does brilliant work. BTW, it was likely he who named SMG’s character — he has a habit of giving his female protagonists male names, like George Lass in “Dead Like Me,” Charlotte “Chuck” Charles in “Pushing Daisies” (a fantastic show), and Jaye Tyler in “Wonderfalls.”

“Well, Nick, you’re in good company. Quinton Tarentino thinks he had a pretty spiffy Trek treatment as well. Michael Dorn is apparently still furiously peddling more Worf centered Trek, too.”

Michael Dorn’s character retires from Starfleet and opens a seafood restaurant in San Francisco in “Star Trek: Fisherman’s Worf.”

I am not even the tiniest bit interested in seeing that get made.

Nor I. We know Marla McGivers dies while on Ceti Alpha with part of his crew. Khan meets his timely death, on the USS Reliant, while wearing Michael Jackson’s missing glove. It will cost around 30 mil to make this 3 episode mini series and core Trekkies will watch it. Then, we will nitpick it to death, like we always do. Nick Meyers, like Eugene Roddenberry, were listed as producers just as a publicity stunt to get us core Trek fans interested in DSC. If TWOK gets a 4K redo, we just MIGHT see this get made. I just don’t see Paramount suits ponying up the $$. I don’t see Kurtzman assigning personnel to produce it. Just write the book, Nick. I’ll pay for the hardcover. I admire Nick Meyer’s talent. The business person in me understands why this is just a script languishing in development hell.

Apparently it was intended that McGivers would appear in TWOK, but sadly Madlyn Rhue had multiple sclerosis and was using a wheelchair while the film was being written. Harve Bennett wrote her part out of the movie, believing that it would be “unfair” to recast the role. FWIW, and no disrespect intended to the late Ms. Rhue, but it probably made for a better story that McGivers had died, and particularly the way she died — it gave Khan more to be pissed at Kirk for than just “Hey, he made me live in a cargo container for 15 years.” I thought it was a nice touch that throughout the film Khan wears a pendant of the Starfleet symbol — since he obviously has no love for Starfleet, it was clearly in honor of his late wife.

BTW, Madlyn Rhue and Ricardo Mendelbaum played a married couple in an episode of “Bonanza.”

Actually the wheelchair aspect (at that time) is bull. The geniuses who are all about not printing the legend at Facttrek have resoundingly refuted Bennett’s claim — https://www.facttrek.com/blog/rhue — not that it had much weigh for many of us to start with. Dramatically, Khan would be limited, not augmented, by McGivers’ presence, so I can’t imagine Meyer sticking with that character when cobbling together his drafts, because it would have softened Khan in a way that, while interesting, wouldn’t have driven the narrative in the way it needed to be driven, fueled by her death.

“Khan would be limited, not augmented”

I see what you did there.

Interesting, thanks. Is that facttrek thing a reliable site?

Utterly reliable. I know one of the two primaries there and I find him both committed and trustworthy.

They also own up to their own occasional inaccuracies instead of certain other folks who make up more stuff to cover their errors.

I second what kmart said. They’re a good pair of diligent academic-minded Trek fans. They have a long standing reputation for that kind of work which started on TrekBBS, and then spun off into their older blog startrekfactcheck , and then their efforts were reborn as facttrek.

this will be infinitely better and more interesting than a section 31 garbage

True but that’s not saying much at all. Everything about that section 31 show will defy canon from it’s very inception

I would much much rather watch Meyer’s Khan Ceti Alpha V mini-series than the Michelle Yeo-centered Section 31 series that absolutely no one asked for or wants, minus some fans of Disco. I would want the Khan show to also show flashbacks of his rise to power and the Eugenics Wars, prior to his leaving Earth in 1996. I don’t care if Picard retcons the Eugenic Wars as being in the 21st century. Meyer’s show can ignore that and re-retcon it back to the 1990s. Star Trek is Science FICTION, we already know that there was no Eugenics War in the 90s or that one will begin in 2024-25 either. It’s clear that the Star Trek timeline is not the real-world timeline and that’s absolutely fine with me, it’s meant to be entertainment not a real-world documentary. So YES PLASE, make Meyer’s Khan Ceti Alpha V series.

I didn’t even consider that a Ceti Alpha V show might include flashbacks. That… isn’t such a bad idea, I’d go as far to say that the story should center more in the past, with mostly bookends or other “flash fowards” to Ceti Alpha and could mirror the rise and fall of Khan on Earth and Ceti Alpha V at the same time.

My biggest problem with Trek is that it’s been unwilling for +3 decades to just accept that *we do not live in the Star Trek universe*.

I think science fiction fans can handle keeping the Eugenics Wars set in the 90s. Trek Universe is not our Universe. I don’t think the writers are capable of that kind of original thinking.

Did Picard really retcon the start of the Eugenics wars to be decades later than it was established?

I didn’t even consider that a Ceti Alpha V show might include flashbacks. That… isn’t such a bad idea, I’d go as far to say that the story should center more in the past, with mostly bookends or other “flash fowards” to Ceti Alpha and could mirror the rise and fall of Khan on Earth and Ceti Alpha V at the same time.

I agree that would actually be a clever way to handle this, including making the show mainly focus on the Eugenics Wars (that might require an HBO-level budget and extremely skilled writers, but anyway…). Retconning the timeframe to merge the Eugenics Wars with World War 3 could be explained by showing PIC-era Section 31 tinkering with the timeline, including S31 playing a direct-but-covert role in Khan’s rise and fall on 21st century Earth. There’s plenty of current real-world geopolitical stuff that could be extrapolated for timely story ideas too.

I should add that I haven’t seen PIC Season 2 yet, so I don’t know if that show has already retconned the start of the Eugenics Wars or how it explained this.

A Khan show set on Ceti Alpha V? Not necessarily the best idea (unless Meyer intends to include some unexpected plot twists, eg. Starfleet accidentally or deliberately blew up the planet’s neighbour during an early version of the Genesis Project), and in any case Greg Cox’s excellent novel already told the story very well.

A Khan show based on the ideas you, I and the good Captain Gomez have suggested? Now that’s where things could get interesting ;)

Khan on Ceti Alpha V just sounds boring. We already know that he won’t escape the planet or really accomplish much much of anything. He and his friends will just be dying there, and rereading Moby Dick for fifteen years. A Eugenics War show could be cool, but I don’t see any point to Ceti Alpha V. I’d definitely prefeer Section 31 to tthis.

I don’t know, A&E has managed to milk ten years of interest in Storage Wars, so maybe Khan waiting around for the Federation Abandoned Storage Locker Auctioneers to show up might be interesting to….well….someone.

Budget for Storage Wars <<<< Budget for any nu Trek

Look, Meyer is responsible for my all-time favourite Star Trek Movie, but I prefer Star Trek shows to be centered on the Federation and Starfleet.

I think most people. That seems pretty obvious over how excited everyone got over the first episode of Picard this season and the Stargazer. Now many are begging for a Stargazer spin off. NO ONE is begging for a Ceti Alpha Five show for a reason. ;)

And that’s because while some fans (like me) really like the idea of seeing different aspects of the Federation, colony life and so on; my guess is the great majority just want to see Starfleet officers doing things on a starship and have crazy adventures on it. And if you put them on one named Enterprise, even better. ;)

And the Ceti Alpha V idea is removed from all of that. It’s just a bunch of people marooned on a dead planet that we already know how it ends. That’s only interesting for the most hardcore group of fans out there and that doesn’t even interest a lot of them as this board shows.

Nick should get his TV series I’m sure P+ or Amazon or both combined can find the $30-40M this needs to get made for TV!

Look, I like Wrath of Khan, but imo it’s not the best movie. That probably makes me a bad Trekkie lol.

But even if it is the best movie, what is the point of a Ceti Alpha V show? What does it add to the franchise? Especially since SNW for some reason has a Khan descendant already.

I’m glad this project doesn’t seem to be moving. Hopefully the S31 project grinds to a halt too. Neither would be a plus for the franchise.

I would favor anything Nick Meyer does. I loved his Star Trek and his Sherlock Holmes. I don’t understand to this day why Hollywood never made better use of his talent. Would love to give him one more shot at the goal. By the way, I find it interesting that he and Gene Roddenberry butted heads about their approach to Trek, but BOTH of them approached it as “Horatio Hornblower in Space”.

The big difference is that Gene Roddenberry believed in the perfection of humanity. Nick Meyer did not.

Perfectability is I think the right word, but since I don’t believe in humanity even achieving much above mediocrity (though the folks fighting for Ukraine are certainly delivering excellence in admirable levels), I won’t take you to task for it.

Well, that wasn’t really within the scope of my comment, I was thinking more about the format and tone of the Meyer movies (and Kirk’s character) vs the tv show vs the Hornblower novels. As far as the perfectability of humanity, Roddenberry may be right that it might be possible but only after we almost destroy ourselves.

“It’s just sitting there.”

GOOD! Let it sit for all of eternity for all I care.

I like Nick Meyer and I would love to see him do something in this franchise again since it clearly didn’t work out with Discovery. But it would be nice to do something new and innovative instead of rehashing a one-note story we all know how it’s going to end. And TPTB probably felt the same way and why it never went anywhere.

I’m sure it has been suggested before, but since Meyer likes to play with existing tropes, it seems to me that a nice meshing of Meyer, military and TREK has been in plain sight all the while. He should have been the one to take on Garth of Izar , not that thieving nincompoop who besmirched and ruined fan films with his ongoing fleecing and non-delivery of product (which is apparently also very applicable to his prop sales business.)

I could imagine Garth as the subject of a miniseries that has him starting out like Michael in THE GODFATHER, a bright shining hope for the future, and winding up like … well, you know how he wound up. From my read of Steve Inhat’s portrayal, Garth actually possesses some of Khan’s more interesting attributes, but there’s also so much more (am a big fan of Ihnat, he was in everything during the 60s — along with William Windom and William Schallert and almost-Decker Robert Ryan, he was in HOUR OF THE GUN, played a bad guy in IN LIKE FLINT and got to kill Richard Widmark in MADIGAN after being an utter monster in a sea of monsters in THE CHASE — but died very young.)

You’re not wrong with that observation. He’d likely also be a good fit for a short treatment (very, very short) of the Romulan war.

Give him that shelved Jenderson script about the Rom war and tell him, you have 12 days to fix this! Then see what happens. BTW, I had never seen anything Jenderson had written before this last week, but I finally watched all of BAND OF BROTHERS (he wrote a few of them.) Tremendous series, was engaged throughout.

Meyer has done some great work that I love, not just in Star Trek but outside it as well. That said, I really don’t want a Khan show.

“Meyer has done some great work that I love, not just in Star Trek but outside it as well. That said, I really don’t want a Khan show.”

It would be a Khan job.

Better that than a Han Solo series, as that would be … (drumroll please)

a Han Job …

(probably only offering modest satisfaction at best.)

Best Headline Ever: A few years ago there was some kind of competition involving tightrope walkers traversing the Han River in South Korea. A newspaper reported on this event under the headline “Skywalkers Cross Han Solo.”

“Better that than a Han Solo series, as that would be … (drumroll please) a Han Job …”

If they did make a film or a series with that title, I wouldn’t want to be there for the shoot.

Well, at least, this has me thinking about picking up To Reign In hell. it’s been awhile.

I read To Reign In Hell a long time ago. As someone who doesn’t really read any of the Trek expanded universe novels I actually found it to be a very well written story that held my interest. It was also one of the most depressing things I ever read as the whole situation Khan and his people were thrust into was impossibly hopeless and what happens to Khan’s people at the end of TWOK actually feels like a blessing in disguise compared to their lives on Ceti Alpha V.

I think any TV treatment of that era would by necessity be similarly dour and largely hopeless. It probably would be fascinating to see but also not particularly fun to watch and I wonder if one of the reasons the project is languishing is precisely because it may also be a dark story.

I know I’m in the minority here but I’d be down with a 3 hour event series about Khan. I enjoy the new series but considering how serialised shows were supposed to be liberating for the franchise they actually feel more restrictive and the filler episodes are more detrimental to their respective series than they ever were in the nineties. I’d like to see them being more flexible with the formats. If there’s enough story to fill 10-13 hours then that’s fantastic, have a season long arc but if there’s not then just tell a story in as many episodes as it takes. I know the idea of Khan midquel is not the most inspiring idea, there’s definitely stories and characters that I’d rather see but I bet if it does ever see the light of day it will end up surprising and pleasing a lot of the naysayers and it would open up a door for exploring other corners of the Trek universe.

This would be a great idea (the Greg Cox novel and IDW comic are great) and could be marketed as a direct prequel to the iconic TWOK (and pleasing middle chapter between Space Seed/Trek II) and if Meyer were to direct it would be even more amazing. Who for Khan? Well wed definitely be at the ‘get me a young Richardo Montalban’ stage of Richardo’s 5 act theory! I hope Kurtzman comes to his senses and greenlights this project and allows Meyer to ‘indulge himself’

If this was going to be made about 10 years ago I would have suggested Nestor Carbonell for the role of Khan. Now he would be too old though so I don’t know who could star currently.

I still think it won’t work like Star Trek II, no Kirk as a foil in the story. Its not about our heroes or the Enterprise family so why should we care? Where are the stakes, no Spock dying. No Kirk getting humbled and having his ass handed to him when he doesn’t raise shields in time. No realising he put himself up on a pedestal as a genius when he nearly cost his entire crew their lives. No dining on ashes like when he had to lay Spock to rest.

It could be interesting. ST2 Khan is more maniacal and driven than SS Khan. Might be worth seeing that transition. At the same time, we’re buried under so many reboots, revisits, prequels, backstories, and so on, that I’m not sure we need another one.

I don’t understand the criticism about us already knowing how it turns out. Isn’t that everything nowadays? How is that different from Discovery (season 1 & 2 anyway)? Or Enterprise, which got a lot of criticism but mostly about its overall quality. One big complaint about ENT was that it didn’t feel like a proper precursor to TOS, at least until its last season. And outside of Trek? Madalorian is very good, even though we know a lot of how things must turn out eventually.

But whatever. It’ll never happen. Meyer isn’t one of the cool kids and doesn’t get to play with the nice toys.

Ikr, what a lazy argument. Its like every prequel ever. why bother with literally ANY prequel in that case.

it would be a fun thing to do, I guess wed have something of a recreation of TOS at the start possibly seeing the Enterprise and some security guards marooning Khan and his followers on CA5. then CA6 blowing up and CA5 turn into the sandy wasteland, attack of the eels, leadership challenges, Joaquin/Joachim finally cleared up, SS Khan gradually morphing into TWOK Khan.. and potential flashbacks to the eugenics wars.

as for Meyer not being one of the ‘cool kidz’ and someone like Alex Kurtzman is determining if he gets to make more star trek or not, is both hilarious and upsetting in equal measure.

I think there’s just not a lot of cultural hunger for Trek right now. So a show that promises to tell the story of Khan is going to get met with lukewarm reactions. It doesn’t help that they dilute the mystery by having Khan’s descendants in a new show, and reference to augments already out, and of course the STID debacle.

Still, in another context, without the current empty-calorie state of the franchise, a SS -> TWoK saga could have been interesting.

Regarding Meyer, I know nothing but what I read on sites like this, but based on things he’s said in interviews and knowing what I do know about how TV production is made nowadays (and how big American corporations function from firsthand experience), I have little doubt he’s seen as outdated and not in sync with the new ways of thinking about characterization. His lens is too different. But that’s just an interpretation in this particular case.

The franchise is as strong as ever right now. You’re just an angry internet nerd

You’re the one resorting to personal attacks but I’m the angry internet nerd?

Show me any creative endeavour where the criteria for success — amongst its fans ! — is heavily invested in business models and involves the word franchise — and I’ll show you an at-best compromised aesthetic vision. Quantity of product is meaningless if there is no quality control, unless you’re deliberately setting out to limit yourself to grinding out sausage.

So, to take your words and mean-spiritedness right back at you, you’re just a overly-defensive, trek-loving lemming. Quit sucking on Paramount’s teat and get some real nourishment, that way you’ll finally realize what real food tastes like instead of hungering for TrekDonald’s.

I am also curious about the definition of “strong” being used here. Back in the days before streaming and even TiVo, you could safely gauge a show’s success by its ratings. Watching one show meant you passed up on watching another. It was as close to voting with your wallet as you could do. At its peak, TNG was pulling in ~11M viewers per episode.

Nowadays, viewing numbers don’t mean as much. Between viewing on demand and fewer episodes of any given series to compete for time, sheer audience numbers don’t tell a clear story.

TOS and TNG were popular enough to justify multiple decent-budget Hollywood movies. I don’t expect Discovery movies any time soon.

“Ikr, what a lazy argument. Its like every prequel ever. why bother with literally ANY prequel in that case.”

Well that’s the thing, the majority of people who don’t like this idea usually don’t like idea of prequels in general. There are a lot of fans out there who didn’t want to go backwards at all and DIDN’T like the idea of Enterprise and Discovery. Many only wanted shows and films to continue after Voyage or Nemesis. I was certainly one off them. Now I have grown to like both shows over time (to different degrees) but if I had my way neither would’ve ever existed to begin with. I would’ve said the same thing about a Pike show a few years ago as well. So it’s not a lazy argument, many people just really shun the idea of prequels and especially given Star Trek hasn’t done one yet in a truly satisfying way for even people who DO like prequels.

And this Khan show just sounds worse than those because at least Enterprise and Discovery were new entities, just set in earlier time periods. We had no idea who the characters were and what would become of them. We know every important detail about Khan that matters and why it’s not an appealing idea for a lot of fans.

But I’m not speaking for all of fandom either and if they actually made it, sure, most of us will watch it anyway lol. And it was only 3 hours so not a huge deal. But I just feel they can put their energy to something more original or better use.

Will it explain how his followers mysteriously got decades *younger* in between?

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The Augments

• Episode aired Nov 12, 2004

The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan. The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan. The Augments have yet again escaped. While Dr. Soong wants to hide the embryos, Malik has an entirely different and way more cruel plan.

• LeVar Burton
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• 14 User reviews
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• Trivia This three-part story arc established that in the 22nd century, genetic engineering was completely banned on Earth after the Eugenics Wars, even for genetic research which could be used to cure critical illnesses. At the end of the story, Archer expresses his hope to Dr. Soong that research into genetic engineering that could cure life-threatening diseases would actually be resumed. According to Dr. Bashir in Doctor Bashir, I Presume (1997) , by the 24th century genetic engineering was indeed used by that time to treat serious medical conditions, though trying to genetically engineer Humans with "superior" abilities was still banned.
• Goofs The Universal translator does not translate the Klingon word Qapla' when the Klingon patrol ends the transmission with Enterprise.

Dr. Arik Soong : [Upon hearing a message from Archer, whom Soong was told was dead] He sounds pretty confident for a dead man.

• Connections Referenced in Inglorious Treksperts: The Best of All Worlds: Trek's Greatest Seasons (2022)
• Soundtracks Where My Heart Will Take Me Written by Diane Warren Performed by Russell Watson Episode: {all episodes}

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• Aug 24, 2019
• November 12, 2004 (United States)
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A friendly reminder regarding spoilers ! At present the expanded Trek universe is in a period of major upheaval with the continuations of Discovery and Prodigy , the advent of new eras in gaming with the Star Trek Adventures RPG , Star Trek: Infinite and Star Trek Online , as well as other post-57th Anniversary publications such as the ongoing IDW Star Trek comic and spin-off Star Trek: Defiant . Therefore, please be courteous to other users who may not be aware of current developments by using the {{ spoiler }}, {{ spoilers }} OR {{ majorspoiler }} tags when adding new information from sources less than six months old (even if it is minor info). Also, please do not include details in the summary bar when editing pages and do not anticipate making additions relating to sources not yet in release. THANK YOU

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Singh ordered him to prepare the rest of the surviving Augments under Khan's rule for transport aboard the Botany Bay in 1996 . ( TOS - Khan comic : " Issue 3 ")

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• TOS - Khan comic : " Issue 3 "

The first 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds' trailer is here with a cowboy Pike

The new Trek spinoff beams in May 5 on Paramount Plus.

The first teaser trailer for the next live-action "Star Trek" spinoff, "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," has beamed in from Paramount Plus and it looks to be a cowboy adventure to the stars. 

" Star Trek: Strange New Worlds " stars Anson Mount as Captain Christopher Pike, the first captain of Trek's iconic USS Enterprise starship (before Kirk was even out of Starfleet Academy) and will warp on the Paramount Plus streaming service on May 5.  The new series will focus on Pike's days in command of the Enterprise and include Rebecca Romijn star as Number One, the ship's first officer, and Ethan Peck as Science Officer Spock.  

All three characters (and their actors) debuted in season 2 of "Star Trek: Discovery." Check out our Star Trek streaming guide to see where to watch "Discovery" online to catch up on the characters in "Strange New Worlds." 

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Based on the teaser , "Strange New Worlds" is bringing some cowboy action to the Star Trek franchise. It opens with Pike on horseback, galloping across a snow-covered ranch dotted with windmills as a shuttlecraft arrives. 

"Chris, I need you back, Captain," a voice says, hinting that Pike's been retired (his bushy, gray beard is a big clue) but apparently there's a Federation problem only he can solve. 

We then see a series of flashes of tantalizing alien planets — including some of the "strange new worlds" Trek is known for — as we hear Romijn's voice read out: "No matter how many stars there are in the sky; no matter how many galaxies swirl beyond our own; no matter what the mathematical probabilities, or the number times we say we are not alone in the universe; our first visit from the stars is always the province of children's stories and science fiction — until one day, it isn't."

The trailer closes with quick looks at the Enterprise crew in action. They beam down to a planet in spacesuits and walk around, then view shifts to a lush planet where a crowd has gathered and see a paper cutout of the Enterprise transition into the starship itself. The final view is of Pike himself as he gazes into space out a viewport. 

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"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" is the third new live-action spinoff to join Paramount Plus's Trek TV revival, which began with "Discovery" (now in its fourth season). It follows "Star Trek: Picard" (which just returned for season 2) and also two new animated shows: "Star Trek: Lower Decks," a comedy for adults, and " Star Trek: Prodigy," a series for kids produced with Nickelodeon. 

"Strange New Worlds" will bring some new characters into the mix alongside old favorites, who've been recast. Celia Rose Gooding will portray a young Cadet Nyota Uhura (the character originated by Nichelle Nichols on Trek's Original Series in 1966), while Jess Bush will portray a new version of Nurse Christine Chapel (who was portrayed by Majel Barrett) and Babs Olusanmokun) as Dr. M'Benga. 

We'll also meet Hemmer, an Andorian (Bruce Horak); Lt. Erica Ortegas (Melissa Navias); and La'An Noonien Singh (Christina Chong), who sounds like a relative of the fan-favorite Trek villain Khan Noonien Singh from the Original Series  and "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" will beam to TV screens, exclusively on Paramount Plus , starting on May 5.

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Recap / Star Trek Enterprise S 04 E 06 The Augments

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Archer has approached the primary junction in the centre of Cold Station 12. He has forty seconds to divert the power to the secondary relays, so that he can seal off the lab and prevent many dangerous pathogens from infecting the people in there. He succeeds, but he's still in danger. Enterprise can't beam him up due to interference with the central core, so T'Pol gives the order to fire at a hatch to decompress the central core. They do so, and Archer is blown into space and instantly beamed aboard.

The Bird-of-Prey which the Augments stole crosses Klingon space. Soong enters, and Malik updates him, then asks him about the Enterprise , which Malik says is holding its position. Soong claims that Archer isn't "foolish enough" to follow them, but Malik thinks Archer is dead. This makes Soong very angry since he said not to kill anybody without his order, and when Malik tries to justify himself, Soong threatens to throw him into a "targ pit" for a month. He orders Malik to engineering to repair a piece of equipment which the Enterprise crew broke, but Malik is unsure since he isn't an engineer. Soong tells him that he's smart and will figure it out on his own.

Meanwhile, T'Pol has evacuated the away team from the station and removed all signs of infection from Archer. In sickbay, Archer, T'Pol, Phlox, Trip, and Malcolm discuss ways to stop the Augments. Malcolm notes that there are six Klingon patrols that will intercept Enterprise if it follows the stolen Bird-of-Prey, so the crew decides to sneak past by faking a Klingon warp signature. T'Pol reports that Dr. Lucas and his team are returning to Cold Station 12 to clean up the pathogens, which they estimate will take over a year.

On the Bird-of-Prey, Soong plans to take the Augments to an area flooded with supernova radiation, known as "Klach D'kel Brakt" to the Klingons and the "Briar Patch" to the humans. There are at least two habitable planets there, and the radiation would make them hard to find. Malik doesn't want to hide again, but Soong points out that they need to keep the embryos safe. Malik thinks that there's no point in hiding, since Starfleet won't give up until they find them. Soong asks Malik what he would do, but Malik doesn't know; he just points out that Khan also ran away and it ended badly. Soong decides to head for the Briar Patch anyway.

Enterprise prepares to enter Klingon space, with Trip having changed the warp coils to fool the Klingons. Meanwhile, on the Bird-of-Prey, Soong, in his impromptu lab, tells Malik to stop challenging his authority. Malik thinks that a "son" should be allowed to "disagree with his father", but Soong tells Malik that he has to trust his decisions, noting that he used to have faith in him. Malik claims that back then, he was just a naive kid. They begin talking about the embryos, only for Malik to get mad when Soong reveals that he's engineering them to remove any violence. This starts an argument between them because Malik sees it as needless tampering, but Soong sees it as ironing out the mistakes.

A ship approaches, which is revealed to be Enterprise , and Archer readies his torpedoes and orders Soong to drop out of warp or else. They fight for a bit, but Soong doesn't want to fight as the Enterprise is much more powerful than the Bird-of-Prey. He flies it near a gas giant and launches a shuttle piloted by a Denobulan into the atmosphere, saying that the shuttle pilot will be okay but only for the next four or five hours. Thus, Archer lets Soong escape, but tells him it isn't over.

The Enterprise goes to save the Denobulan, while Soong and the Augments do repair work. Malik reveals that he cloaked the warp signature and then tells Soong about the twenty-four canisters of biogenic agents he beamed from Cold Station 12. Soong is shocked and Malik tells him that he can use the biogenic agents to make a bio-weapon. Soong thinks Malik wants to fire it at the Enterprise , but he actually wants to fire it at a Klingon colony called Qu'Vat, thus causing a Klingon/human war. Soong points out that this is mass murder and tries to order Malik back to the bridge, but Malik won't budge.

The Enterprise succeeds in rescuing the Denobulan, then enhances the sensors and finds the Bird-of-Prey. T'Pol talks to Trip, noting that he's been avoiding her since she got married, and he replies that he's adjusting, but that he's proud of her and that due to their species, they'd have made a bad couple anyway. A machine then starts beeping, revealing a subspace disturbance that may be from the Bird-of-Prey.

In bed, Malik tells Persis that he wants to steal command from Soong. She isn't sure, but he says that Soong will "never be one of [them]" and is still angry about Soong's refusal to let him start a war and altering the embryos to make them "weak and docile". He eventually talks her into going along with the mutiny and they and two others lock Soong in his quarters.

A Klingon ship detects Enterprise and Archer tries to trick them by pretending to have Chancellor M'Rek on board for a negotiation with the Orions. The Klingons ask why he doesn't have the transponder on, but he claims he needs to keep a low profile, threatening to make the Klingons work on a garbage scow if they tell their superiors, to which the Klingons leave.

Persis explains to Soong why she went along with Malik: he would have killed her otherwise. Soong understands and says that if Malik deploys the weapons, it will confirm people's biases about Augments and kill a lot of people. He tries to think of a plan to disable a key ship system, but eventually both agree that he needs to get off the Bird-of-Prey, so she sends him off in an escape pod.

The Enterprise picks up the pod's distress beacon and brings it onboard with Soong in it. Archer puts Soong in the brig, where Soong tries to explain why he came back and get Archer to stop Malik. Soong claims that if he had been there when the Augments were teens, Malik wouldn't have gone bad, but Archer believes that "superior ability breeds superior ambition".

Archer decides to believe Soong, who helps them track down the Augments despite T'Pol's concerns that it's a trap. Meanwhile, Malik has found out that Persis helped Soong escape and attacks her, eventually killing her with a knife. T'Pol finds a Klingon battle cruiser, who recognises them as an Earth vessel due to the high speed interfering with the fake warp signature and having heard a hail from them. They, led by a captain named Magh, want to board the ship, believing the Enterprise crew to be malevolent even when Soong tells them in Klingon that they're not. They use the grappler to pull a bit of nacelle off the Klingon ship, disabling it, and then move on.

Malik scans the colony and finds three population centres. He decides to detonate over the southern hemisphere, since that's where two of them are. However, the torpedoes guidance systems wonk out and Enterprise shows up. Unfortunately, he manages to launch the bio-weapon due to problems in the Enterprise 's engines, but thankfully, the Enterprise manages to destroy the weapon.

The Bird-of-Prey fires back and damages all of the Enterprise 's weapons except the aft cannon. Archer wants to fire at the bridge, but Soong points out that the bridge is protected, while the power grid is vulnerable. He tries it, and it works, then Malik explodes the ship, preferring to die than be imprisoned.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Artistic License – Geography : Trip mentions that his parents have moved from Panama City, Florida to Mississippi. This implies that their old home was destroyed in the Xindi attack. However, Panama City is located in the Florida panhandle. The probe's weapon strikes near Lake Okeechobee, which is in the far south of the state.
• Attack Its Weak Point : Soong points out a vulnerable spot on the Bird-of-Prey for Enterprise to target.
• Bittersweet Ending : All the Augments die, and Soong is deeply saddened by their loss. As he's returned to prison, he mentions to Archer that he's going to refocus on cybernetics. The episode ends with him grabbing his paper and pencil, beginning work on an artificial lifeform that he estimates will take a generation or two to finish.
• Malik brings up the SS Botany Bay and its complement of Augments, including Khan Noonien Singh . Soong dismisses the ship as a myth.
• Soong wants to take the Augments to one of the inhabited planets in a nebula he calls "the Briar Patch."
• Soong also mentions that the area is referred to by the Klingons as "Klach D'kel Brakt," which was the site of a major battle between the Klingons and Romulans referenced in " Blood Oath ."
• Soong decides to start the groundwork on an artificial lifeform. His grandson will complete his vision with Data .
• Chekhov's Gun : We'll be seeing Qu'Vat colony again before the season is out.
• Deadpan Snarker : Soong's reaction to a hail from Archer after Malik said that he was dead from the pathogens. "He sounds pretty confident for a dead man."
• Dramatic Irony : Soong decides to establish a new colony with the Augments on one of the planets in the Briar Patch. The Ba'ku would have already settled in the area by this point.
• Trip modifies Enterprise 's warp signature to look like a Klingon ship.
• Malik plans to do this by destroying a Klingon colony, which will then be blamed on the humans.
• Heel–Face Turn : Persis is the only one who does not side with Malik, and is killed for it.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople) : It turns out that the Briar Patch and Klach D'kel Brakt are the same nebula. Soong says that his choice of name is catchier.
• It Only Works Once : Archer manages to bluff a Klingon patrol. Later, as a result of pushing the engines too fast, they're detected before he has a chance to do this again.
• Living Lie Detector : Malik deduces that Persis helped Soong escape because only four people know the codes for the internal sensors and they were the only two not on the bridge. He then notes that Persis's heart is beating faster, which gives her away.
• The Mutiny : After chafing against Soong's authority, Malik finally seizes control.
• Mythology Gag : The shot of Malik activating the self-destruct is framed in almost the same way as Khan activating the Genesis Device.
• Not Quite Dead : Malik is presumed dead after he self-destructs the Bird-Of-Prey, but he really slipped onto the Enterprise to murder Soong for his betrayal. Archer, a mere human mind you, shoots him dead just before he does.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure : One of the Augments doesn't recognize the name "Briar Patch." Soong replies that he should have read more of the books he left.
• Refuge in Audacity : Archer tells the Klingons that Chancellor M'Rek is on his ship. It actually works.
• Sadistic Choice : To get the Enterprise off his and the Augments' backs, Soong has the Denobulan pilot from the previous episode bundled into a shuttle and launched into the atmosphere of a gas giant. Her craft is left caught between two thermal layers, giving her about four or five hours to live — long enough for Enterprise to rescue her, but they can't do that and chase the Bird-of-Prey at the same time.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism : With the Bird-of-Prey critically damaged, Malik overloads the dilithium matrix.
• Shoot the Bullet : Enterprise destroys the Klingon torpedo with one of her own.
• Thrown Out the Airlock : After isolating the control room from the pathogens, Archer has himself spaced to avoid being infected. Because Space Is Cold , Enterprise beams him up half-frozen.
• Torso with a View : Archer uses a rifle to shoot a small hole straight through Malik.
• Would Hit a Girl : Malik kills Persis with a knife.
• Star Trek Enterprise S 04 E 05 Cold Station 12
• Recap/Star Trek: Enterprise
• Star Trek Enterprise S 04 E 07 The Forge

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Alec Newman

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Alec Newman ( born 27 November 1974 ; age 49) is the Scottish actor who played Malik in the Star Trek: Enterprise fourth season episodes " Borderland ", " Cold Station 12 " and " The Augments ". Newman also narrated the audiobooks for the English-language editions of the Star Trek: Prometheus trilogy. He is well known to science fiction fans for his role as Paul Atreides in the Sci-Fi Channel mini-series Dune in 2000 and Children of Dune in 2003, the latter of which also featured Alice Krige and Steven Berkoff .

Born in Glasgow and raised first in Scotland and later in England, Newman was initially eying a career as a professional soccer player until an injury forced him to reconsider. He joined London's National Youth Theater at the age of 17 and later attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Upon completing his studies, Newman broke into television in both Scotland and England. This led to his feature film debut in the 1999 British drama G:MT Greenwich Mean Time and his American debut in 2000's Dune mini-series.

Newman had a supporting role in the 2002 English horror film Long Time Dead . He also appeared in the English TV movie Night Flight , in which he played the young version of the lead character, played by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country 's Christopher Plummer . In 2003, Newman had roles in three films produced in Britain: The Death of Klinghoffer , Bright Young Things , and the starring role in The Principles of Lust . In 2004, he returned to American television, appearing on Tru Calling and playing Drogyn in two episodes of Angel , one of which was directed by James A. Contner . He then played the title role in the mini-series Frankenstein .

Newman co-starred with Mädchen Amick in Four Corners of Suburbia and with David Clennon , Zoë Saldana , Gabrielle Union , and Clarence Williams III in Constellation , two American dramas released in 2005. He more recently co-starred with Star Trek: Voyager guest actor Michael Shamus Wiles in the 2007 sci-fi film The Gene Generation . He also appeared in two Doctor Who audio stories, by Big Finish Productions , with Colin Baker and Tom Baker – his involvement with Big Finish led to his hiring for the Prometheus licence.

He starred in the 2009 British series Hope Springs , and appeared in ten episodes of the long-running drama series Casualty between 2008 and 2010.

External links [ ]

• Alec Newman at Wikipedia
• Alec Newman at the Internet Movie Database
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)