This episode of Star Trek Continues takes an alternative look at what might have happened to the USS Defiant after The Tholian Web, making use of a divergence field so as not to contradict In a Mirror Darkly. It also features a guest appearance of Rekha Sharma, before her role in Star Trek Discovery. ----more---- Transcript Welcome to Nerd Heaven. I’m Adam David Collings, the author of Jewel of The Stars And I am a nerd. This is episode 102 of the podcast. Today, we’re talking about the Star Trek Continues episode “Still Treads The Shadows”. The description on IMDB reads The Enterprise becomes trapped on the edge of a rift in space where alternate universes meet and Kirk finds himself having to contend with a ghost from his past and danger in the present. This episode was written by Judy Burns It was directed by Julian Higgins And it first aired on the 1st of April 2017 And this one guest stars Rekha Sharma of Battlestar Galactica fame, and she actually appeared here long before she appeared in Star Trek Discovery. The Enterprise is investigating a nascent singularity. A gravitational wave engineer has been sent along to help them. This makes sense to me, while one of Starfleet’s primary missions is scientific, and they have their own scientists, if there is no expert on a given field on board, a guest may be sent with them. And if the leading expert on a field is a civilian, it makes sense that a civilian would go along to work with the crew. There’s a stronger than anticipated gravitational wave. It has consumed planets 3 through 8 in ten days and is about to destroy a moon. It seems our guest, Avi Samara, is on a first name basis with Kirk. She calls him Jim, then corrects herself. They’re detecting an interdimensional rift, like the one Kirk was nearly lost in back in The Tholian Web. They’ve detected a lifeform, it’s not on the moon as they first think, but on a ship. The USS Defiant. Well that’s interesting. Especially since we know what happened to the Defiant after The Tholian Web. It ended up in the 22 century of the mirror universe. (and that episode aired long before this series was thought of) Also when The Defiant vanished, there was nobody alive on board. Samara wants to go aboard to investigate, but Kirk denies her request without explanation. All the dead crewmen Kirk saw last time are gone. The bridge is empty. Bones has found the lifesign. It’s a much older looking Kirk. Cryonically preserved. A DNA scan suggests he’s not a clone because there’s no genetic drift. He’s literally Kirk. Samara’s research suggests that rogue singularities can move from universe to universe. The Defiant is stuck, halfway between two universes. Her engines have been modified over a long period of time to reach warp 15. Old Kirk arrives in the briefing lounge. All this time he thought they’d left him behind. Now he finds his old crew, still young, and …. Himself. Even old Kirk knows Samara, so they’ve known each other prior to this mission. Given their embrace it seems they were close. Old Kirk remembers the attempt to beam him back to the Enterprise, but he found himself back on the Defient. Samara suggests a divergence field. Two Kirks. Two Defiants. They don’t know where our Defiant went, (but we do) but this is the duplicate. The other defiant has been in another universe for 217 years. The big question is, who put Kirk in cryo? The old-age makeup isn’t bad. Along similar lines to what was done in the original series. But not at the level of what could be done today with a professional budget. And Vic does a good job of altering his performance, his voice, to help sell it. It would have been interesting if they’d been able to get William Shatner for this episode to play older Kirk. It would be a good way to bring him back, something he’s sometimes said he’d like to do if the role was more than a cameo. Fan productions have had original series actors appear in the past, and Continues is one of the most professional. Part of me wonders if they actually approached him. Before we can get an answer, a Klingon ship appears. They claim salvage rights over the Defiant but they’re struck with phaser fire from an unknown source and pulled into the anomaly The only other ship here is the defiant but there’s nobody on board. That’s when old Kirk appears and orders Uhura to open a channel to the defiant. Kirk speaks to someone called Tiberius. It appears to be an artificial intelligence. It speaks with Jim’s voice. It claims to be the protector of James Kirk. Samara speculates that given the time, the Defiant computer could have developed multi-tronic circuits. Which is a bizarre statement to me. Is she suggesting that the computer evolved? By itself? That’s a bit out there. Tiberius wants its friend back. It wants old Kirk to be returned. Old Kirk warns against firing at the ...
