Star Trek: Hidden Frontier – 101 – Enemy Unknown Part 1
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Star Trek fan series have multiplied around the web like rabbits on Viagra. The pioneering series that showed fan films can have story arcs, recurring characters, and good computer graphics was Hidden Frontier. A spin-off of a private series known as Voyages of the USS Angeles, which you can only see if you know someone who worked on it or at a lucky screening, Hidden Frontier became an epic series on its own, and helped inspire many other fan productions. The production lasted seven seasons, and spawned several other Trek series and even an original science fiction series. Like all projects, there is improvement over time, one that mirrors the actual Star Trek series as well. Early episodes of The Next Generation are laughable, and Enterprise was almost unwatchable until season three. As TarsTarkas.NET will be covering the entire run of Hidden Frontier episodes, we have to start at the beginning. A beginning that will look pretty bad once we get to later productions. But a beginning never the less. There is no shame in these being not technologically sound. Judging the earlier episodes, we will keep in mind the technology of the time. The important thing is if the show is entertaining, not if the makeup is professional. That is the main criterion in which we will be making our judgments. Superb CGI effects cannot save a terrible script. But if things are fun, we have nothing to fear.
Episodes of Hidden Frontier are available online at HiddenFrontier.com. You can also see their other series and participate in their forums. All of this stuff is free, so you got to give them props for having so much free entertainment.
Things to know:
USS Excelsior – The USS Excelsior is a Galaxy-class III dreadnought that looks suspiciously like the Future Enterprise from the episode All Good Things…. It is the flagship for Captain Knapp as he spreads his anger across the Briar Patch and gets into fights with Blue Space Jawas.
Deep Space 12 – Deep Space 12 is the new starbase built to deal with the Ba’ku stuff from Star Trek: Insurrection. Captain Knapp is in charge, and we don’t see much inside the station this season.
Briar Patch – The Briar Patch is a region in Sector 441 made of supernovae remains, false vacuum fluctuations, metaphasic radiation and planets including the Ba’ku planet. It was was seen in Star Trek: Insurrection. Most of the action takes place in this area, because fans demanded more information about the Ba’ku. By fans I mean they just built off the last movie (at the time) because Voyager was too terrible to use at all.
Anything else we will cover as we go along, or you can just spend time browsing the Memory Alpha website if you aren’t a super Star Trek nerd and don’t get the in-jokes.
Let’s get boldy going! Episode 101 – Enemy Unknown Part 1
We are writing these episodes as we go, with no future knowledge of events episodes down the line. That also means we might get annoyed at something plot-wise that is explained in the very next episode. That won’t stop us from getting annoyed! We will only be going with what information is available on screen. That being said, this is the introduction episode that takes place a year prior to the setting of the rest of the season, and introduces the threat of the Grey as well as a few cast members. As an opening introduction, will it serve its purpose? Read on and find out!
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