The State of Star Trek 2022 We long called the 1990s the golden age of Star Trek. From 1993 to 1999, two series overlapped one another on the airwaves and, once The Next Generation left the small screen, we even got doses of three incarnations of Gene Roddenberry’s vision from time to time. But it all came to an abrupt end in May 2005, with the final episode of Enterprise. J.J. Abrams would later step in and tease us through the fallow years until the battle among streaming services offered...

Star Trek: Lower Decks after two seasons. When it was announced that a Star Trek comedy was being developed—and that it would be animated—the news was met with a bit more trepidation than usual. Could Star Trek and comedy really mix? Was Rick and Morty-style humor really appropriate for Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future? In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek take a broad look back at the first two seasons of Star Trek: Lower Decks and discuss how the...

Marking our 10th anniversary. Many people say that time flies. Doctor Tolian Soran said that time is the fire in which we burn. Whichever you subscribe to, time moves forward and people—as well as their views—change. On May 31, 2011, we aired the first episode of The Ready Room. What began as a singular podcast hosted by two hew-mons—C Bryan Jones and Greg Harbin—evolved into the Trek.fm network and more than 30 shows. In this episode of The Ready Room, airing on the 10th anniversary of the...

Adil Hussain interview. We’ve all lived through extraordinary times over the past year, and we’re still trying to find our way back to the world we remember. The same can be said for Michael Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery after their jump from the 23rd to the 32nd century. In both cases, catastrophe turned life upside down. But when Burnham finally came in contact with remnants of the Federation she had left behind, she met a man of extraordinary patience, Aditya Sahil, who...

Looking Back at Discovery Season Three. When Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery emerged from their Red Angel-created wormhole into the 32nd century, things didn’t go quite as planned. Terralysium was not in the neighborhood and temporal wackiness left Michael and the ship a year apart. But once reunited, they set off on a grand adventure to find what was left of the Federation. They also had to solve an unexpected mystery: the cause of a disaster that put an end to the carefree days of...

Discovery Season 3 preview. The third season of Star Trek: Discovery is finally here after a pandemic-induced delay. At least we didn’t have to wait 930 years. That’s how much time has passed for most people when the crew of the USS Discovery arrives in the Beta Quadrant after their jump to put the sphere data permanently out of reach of Section 31’s Control AI. This temporal shift—along with a new logo—represents a reboot of sorts for the series going into its third season. In this episode...

Lower Decks midseason review.   After a long wait and much speculation on what an animated comedy take on Star Trek might mean, we’re now halfway through the first season of Mike McMahan’s Star Trek: Lower Decks. And in a short time, the adventures and banter of Beckett Mariner, Bradward Boimler, D’Vana Tendi, Sam Rutherford—and even Durango and Ron Emmanuel Docent, Jr. —have won over many fans, even some who were highly skeptical going in.   In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C...

Expanding the Star Trek universe. Star Trek content has been blossoming in recent years, and franchise showrunner Alex Kurtzman recently talked to Deadline and Variety about the rapid expansion. After years of no voyages on TV—and just a slow trickle on the big screen—the studio is showering fans with series after series, with more to come. In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek use Kurtzman’s interviews from the Star Trek Emmy promotion campaign as the...

Lower Decks pre-launch thoughts and Star Trek Emmy nominations. After almost five decades, Star Trek is returning to animation under the guidance of Mike McMahan, writer and producer of the Cartoon Network animated comedy series Rick and Morty and creator of the Hulu animated series Solar Opposites. What does he have in store for Star Trek fans? In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek explore the upcoming series and what it could mesan for the franchise, as...

Picard Recap and Strange New Worlds. The first season of Star Trek: Picard is behind us, and Jean-Luc Picard has a new body to carry him through Season 2. But before we speculate on what that might mean and where the La Sirena crew are headed, we must consider the broader impact of Patrick Stewart’s return on the health of the franchise. In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek look back at the full season of Star Trek: Picard and share our feelings on the...

Midseason Picard. Seeing Patrick Stewart on screen once again in the role of Jean-Luc Picard has been a dream come true for fans—particularly those who grew up with Star Trek: The Next Generation. But while the opening scene brought us two familiar faces aboard a familiar ship, this new series is far from a return to TNG. Nearly twenty years after the film Nemesis, Picard finds himself in the midst of a mystery involving old enemies and Starfleet that is unlike the one in which he served....

Star Trek’s second golden age. The mid-1990s were a glorious time for Star Trek fans. With The Next Generation transitioning from the small screen to big, Deep Space Nine paving the way for serialized storytelling on television, and Voyager taking us to the other side of the galaxy, fans were spoiled for choice. But such riches don’t always last, and when Enterprise was cancelled in 2005, it seemed that Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future might well become part of TV’s past. As we enter...

Looking Back at Discovery Season Two. We reflect on the story that never happened, the crew that never existed, and how the show’s sophomore mission did—or did not—change the Star Trek universe.

Future Trek. Along with Larry Nemecek, we ride a subspace shockwave through a list of Star Treks to come, from Discovery to Picard to Ceti Alpha V … and much more.

Patrick Stewart’s Return, Kelvin Trouble, and Discovery Changes. We discuss some of the biggest news to come out of Star Trek Las Vegas 2018 along with what we see as the maturation of CBS’s approach to Star Trek.

The Expansion of Star Trek. Larry Nemecek joins us to discuss Alex Kurtzman’s new deal with CBS, the studio’s plans for new Star Trek content, and the possible return of Patrick Stewart. Plus, we remember Harlan Ellison.

Proto-TNG and the Pike Memo. Larry Nemecek joins us for an in-depth look at the 1986 memo that presents a version of Star Trek: The Next Generation that is very different from the one we know.

DS9 at 25. Larry Nemecek joins us to look back at 25 years of the series that turned the Star Trek model on its head and ushered in a new age of storytelling.

Discovery Post-Premiere. Larry Nemecek joins us to revisit some of the topics from our last discussion, including Klingons, Vulcans, and the business side of Discovery.

Star Trek: Discovery Latest Details and Summer Con Preview. We’re just two months away from the launch of Star Trek’s seventh venture onto the small screen: Discovery. As summer heats up and convention season kicks into gear, news about the series, images from the set, and interviews with creators are bringing us new details and stirring the pot of speculation more feverishly than ever. In this episode of The Ready Room, C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek get together to discuss some of the...

The Cloud Minders. Kirk has a history of getting involved in the domestic disputes of other worlds and trying to set the locals straight. That’s why the little Federation clean-up ship is always trailing the Enterprise. Of course, when the planet in question is a member of the Federation, is refusing to do its part to help another member world, and is torturing its own people, it’s a lot easier to justify stepping in. That’s what happened in the third-season episode “The Cloud Minders.” In...

Vanishing Point. Sometimes it would be nice to have a transporter. What Star Trek fans hasn’t had that thought? But would we really want to be disassembled atom by atom and put back together somewhere far away? Hoshi certainly didn’t in the second-season Enterprise episode “Vanishing Point,” but it was her only way out of a deadly situation. In this episode of The Ready Room, host C Bryan Jones is joined by Justin Oser, Aaron Harvey, and Luke Weir to discuss Hoshi’s eight-second mental...

Workforce. We all want to escape from our lives sometimes. What if you could really do it? What if you couldn’t remember the life you left behind? And what if it was all against your will? That’s what happens to the crew of the Starship Voyager in the seventh-season episode “Workforce.” In this episode of The Ready Room, hosts C Bryan Jones and Larry Nemecek are joined by Kay Elizabeth Shaw of To The Journey and Bruce Gibson of Literary Treks to discuss this story of the Voyager crew’s...

Star Trek: Discovery and a Look Back at 50. The premiere of the next Star Trek series may be delayed, but there’s still plenty to talk about. In this episode of The Ready Room, host C Bryan Jones returns from medical leave and hops on mic with Larry Nemecek to discuss some of the news from the past eight months. Looking at Star Trek: Discovery, we delve into the time period, ships, stories, writers, characters, casting, production, delays … and imagine the return of a classic alien. We also...

Crossover. Sometimes actions can have unexpected consequences. Such was the case in The Original Series when Kirk convinced Mirror Spock to turn the Terran Empire from evil to good. Only he didn’t know it. Kirk had the best intentions, but maybe there was a reason the Terrans were the way they were. We learned the result of Kirk’s speech in the Deep Space Nine episode “Crossover,” the first of many trips to the Mirror Universe for the DS9 crew. In this episode of The Ready Room, we’re...