"The Center Seat"
Star Trek: The New Voyages/Phase II
reviewed by Fred Dixon

The Star Trek: New Voyages production team put out a short 5 minute and 45 second vignette entitled "The Center Seat" in between "In Harm’s Way" and "To Serve All My Days." The action takes place entirely on the bridge of the Enterprise. The story finds Sulu returning from Starfleet command training to rejoin the crew (this explains his absence in the first Star Trek: New Voyages episodes). During this time, he was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. He immediately reports to the bridge and relieves Lieutenant DeSalle as the officer of the deck. DeSalle has apparently been attending "the school of hard knocks" during Sulu’s academic absence. The actors Ron Boyd and John Lim do a good job of conveying the tension of their characters’ current stations in life through their verbal sparring. I was especially liked their first exchange. They greet each other: "Vincent" and then "Hikaru". You could practically see the icicles hanging off their words. Then Sulu uses his new completed navigational thesis to take the ship out of Earth orbit, but due to poor calculations almost flies the Enterprise into a star. James Cawley makes a brief appearance as Kirk to reprimand the two for putting the ship in unneeded danger.

A major plot point is flawed. Sulu made a grossly negligent error in his navigational computations. It seems highly unlikely that someone of his experience and recent training would make such a cadet-level mistake. The science is a little off as well. The Enterprise approaches another star in less than minute from leaving Earth orbit. However, the main event was the LaSalle-Sulu bout, and that was well done. There were no references or borrowed dialog from the original show. The story gave some insight into two of the lesser explored characters. The special effects were good, but mostly recycled from previous episodes. The bridge set was and is well done. The soundtrack was decent, mixing new music with updated original themes. The acting was good. Lim managed to carve out his own take on Sulu and occasionally steal vocal tone that almost sounded like George Takei.Boyd has had a clear field with the vaguely realized DeSalle from the original series and does well. (Techie-nerdy note: listen to the background chatter when the Enterprise is in space dock and then departs. Most of it is a NASA rocket launch checklist--almost like they took some of the dialog from the Saturn V liftoff in the 1969 movie Marooned.) I give a grade of B for this effort.

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