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Silly but nostalgic, this UPN special from 1999 throws a bone or two to hard-core fans of sundry
Star Trek television series and feature films.
Seinfeld's Jason Alexander hosts, playing a faux James Tiberius Kirk and perfectly capturing the peculiar music of William Shatner's authoritative curtness and halting pontifications. Alexander's
Enterprise captain is on a mission to note popular choices of longtime viewers in a number of areas, from "ultimate one-liner" to "best episode," with the winners previously selected via online voting. Naturally, one is going to take issue with many of the lists--"great beauties" is dominated by Kirk's various conquests, for instance--but that's half the fun, and in any case several categories are total no-brainers: Has there ever been a better
Trek villain than Q (John DeLancie)? Speaking of the latter, DeLancie is the most ubiquitous presence in a welcome blooper reel culled from
Deep Space Nine and
Voyager, the erudite actor of stage and screen hilariously elocution-challenged at times. (The other delightful revelation is visual proof of those rumors that Tim Russ, who plays the starchy Tuvok on
Voyager, is the biggest cut-up in
Trek production history.) Besides that unexpected treat, there's a fine tribute to the late DeForest Kelley,--Dr. McCoy on the original series--including a couple of non-
Trek moments featuring the once-busy character actor opposite Bette Davis and Henry Fonda. As for the "best episode" award, well, the debate over the greatest of
Star Trek shows will not likely be satisfied by this program's somewhat dubious winner. Let the argument rage on.
--Tom Keogh
