"Come What May"
Star Trek: New Voyages
reviewed by Fred Dixon

Having found Starship Exeter online, I was also pleased to discover that more original Star Trek was in store with Star Trek: New Voyages. STNV was a bit more ambitious in several ways. First, they were continuing the five-year mission of the Enterprise with the original characters. This invites direct comparisons to the original itself. Second, STNV had the clout to enlist original series stars (both supporting and guest). Third, STNV had access to Hollywood level special effects. Producers Jack Marshall and James Cawley were obviously very serious about their original Star Trek. STNV already had two productions out by the time I found them in early 2005, "Come What May" (2003) and "In Harm’s Way" (2004). Let’s take a look at "Come What May" first.

The production values were good. The digital Enterprise looked good, and they did some nice effects. Especially nice was the Enterprise’s departure from the space station. The Enterprise stayed fixed in the frame while the space station and starfield faded in the distance. However, the ship repair sequence at the end was video gamey, and the turbolift effect was used three times. The sets were well realized and extensive. There was a full bridge, security cell, briefing room, "captain’s office" and transporter room. The uniforms looked good, and the props appeared to be on par with the originals. Original music was used, but unfortunately it was mixed with movie and Star Trek: The Next Generation tracks. The soundtrack often seemed uncoordinated with the action.

By taking on the original characters, the acting and actors of STNV must be reviewed on their own merits and with comparison to cultural icons. James Cawley plays Captain Kirk. He is not the same physical stature as William Shatner. He tries to imitate Shatner at times. Cawley is a professional Elvis Presley imitator, and his big pompadour (sans pointed sideburns) was somewhat distracting. Jeffrey Quinn as Spock had the look of a Vulcan and gave a properly modulated performance. John Kelley is fine as McCoy, although sometimes he appeared to reading lines rather than saying them (nice touch with the pinky ring–-I never noticed DeForest Kelly wore one until I saw STNV). Jack Marshall played Scotty with a very mild accent. Seeing Chekov, DeSalle, Rand, Uhura, and Chapel played by other actors was slightly disconcerting as well. My frequent impressions with the entire cast were they didn’t look exactly right, sound right and had vary degrees of acting skill.

The guest cast was made up of original series stars John Winston (Kyle in the original series, but here playing "Captain Matt Jefferies") and Eddie Paskey (this time playing an admiral and father of Leslie). It was good to see these actors in Trek again and have more lines than they had in the entire run of the original series, but these cameos had little to do with the story at hand. They seemed to be appendages. On the other hand, the casting of Winston and Paskey were bound to be crowd pleasers. Also included in the guest cast was the former editor of the Star Trek fan magazine Communicator and www.startrek.com contributor, Larry Nemecek. Larry’s contributions to Star Trek are notable, especially Star Trek: The Next Generation writers using his research materials as references. Casting Nemecek certainly didn’t hurt in appealing to the hard core fan base.

The story itself was a hodgepodge of introduction to the New Voyages world of Star Trek, exposition of production team’s knowledge of Star Trek history, and a thin story line. I viewed "Come What May" again while writing this review because I could not get the plot straight in my mind since it played such a small part in this episode. It got lost in the proceedings. Look, we are Star Trek! Hey, we’ve got the original characters! See the digital rendering of the original Enterprise and other ships! Here are stars from the old show! We duplicated the sets! We make frequent historical references according to the "canon"! The quotes from "Where No Man Has Gone Before ("irritating game of chess", "terrible, having bad blood like that" and adding the famous cut line "someday you will to learn to enjoy it") and from "City at the Edge of Forever" ("before your sun grew hot in space") served no purpose to the story. We get the idea that this is supposed to be the Enterprise and original Star Trek.

The story, such as it is, finds the Enterprise answering a distress call after an attack on a Federation colony. Captain Kirk and crew are assigned to investigate and in the process discover a menacing enemy named the Monat in a Borg-like ship. They find help from a fetching and powerful alien woman called Onabi who consorts with an atom-shaped entity referred to as Ahn. However, the Enterprise and crew are mere bystanders. We meet the new actors playing the original roles. They display their knowledge of Star Trek. However, Onabi and Ahn drive off the Monat and leave the cast to their future "New Voyages".

I’ll give "Come What May" an "A" for effort and a "C" for execution. I appreciate the hard work of fanfilm productions such as New Voyages to provide us with free original Star Trek. They labor without compensation. They keep the concept alive. Their only reward seems to be that they actually got to be in a Star Trek episode.

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