It is time again to bring back The Great Links, TrekMovie’s collection of the latest bits of Star Trek in the zeitgeist. This week we have video of Seth MacFarlane doing his impressive Kirk impression, Dilbert getting Treknobabble, a Star Trek sermon, some TOS sidewalk art, a Pony/First Contact mashup, and the lists of the week. Check it all out below.
GREAT LINKS: WEEK OF MAY 22, 2011
Trekkie Celeb of Week: Seth MacFarlane on being Trekkie (+ Kirk impression)
Family Guy, American Dad, etc. creator Seth MacFarlane is always inserting Star Trek references to his work. In this video from a Paley Center Family Guy panel in March (but just uploaded to YouTube), MacFarlane talks about his love for Star Trek, and how it has influenced his work.
Lists of the week: io9’s Top 10 & UGO’s Wanted Treknology
Last week io9 took on the challenge of picking The 10 Best Star Trek Episodes, which were (counting down):
10) Mirror, Mirror (The Original Series)
9) The Void (Star Trek: Voyager)
8) The Inner Light (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
7) In the Pale Moonlight (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
6) The Trouble with Tribbles (The Original Series)
5) Darmok (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
4) City on the Edge of Forever (The Original Series)
3) The Visitor (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
2) The Best of Both Worlds Part 1 and 2 (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
1) Balance of Terror (Original Series)
And in another Trek list, UGO offers Star Trek Tech We Hope Comes True, with 25 selections, their top 5 were:
5) The Great Teacher ("Spocks Brain")
4) Warp Drive
3) Transporter
2) Sympathetic Magic ("Cat’s Paw")
1) Flux Capacitor (Back To The Future tech referred to in two episodes)
Comic of the week: Treknobabble on Dilbert
Speaking of Treknology, last Friday’s Dilbert comic features some Treknobabble from Wally.
Wally Treknobabbles The Boss
Sermon of the Week: The Gospel According To Star Trek
Do Star Trek and religion mix? The answer is yes according to Salem Oregon minister (and avvowed Trekkie) Rev. Chuck Currie, who earlier this month devoted a sermon to Star Trek titled "The Gospel According To Star Trek: A Sermon On The Resurrection." Watch it below.
Craft of the week: Redshirt DS Cozy
Looking for a place to store your Nintendo DS that shows your Trek love, then try out SheViolentlyKnit’s Star Trek Redshirt DS Cozy on Etsy.
Photo of the week: Trek sidewalk art
Photographer Chase Tingley found this piece of Star Trek art "in some guys driveway" on 7th Ave in San Francisco (via SFist).
Video of the Week: Pony Trek: First Contact
OK, here is an unusual mashup. Star Trek: First Contact with My Pretty Pony (from MrAnalpfropfen on YouTube)
Send in your links
TrekMovie will try and keep up with weekly (or bi-weekly) "Great Links" articles. So please send in links where you see Star Trek connections out there in the universe. Send them in to tips@trekmovie.com. You can also send in links to @trekmovie on the Twitter.
How can you list the top episodes of the original show and skip “Journey To Babel”?!
And whoever created My Pretty Pony clearly did a LOT of drugs.
It would be interesting to see Seth MacFarlane poke fun at Star Trek!
Seriously one of the best impressions of Kirk I’ve ever heard.
My Shatner is better ;)
I think that Twilight(enterprise) should be on the list of great episodes.
I would include, Yesterday’s Enterprise and All Good Things…
Love Seth!
Three words. The Doomsday Machine.
“Darmok” was a good episode, not sure that it belongs in the top ten though. Same goes for “The Void”. “Yesterday’s Enterprise”, “Space Seed”, “Twilight”, “The Tholian Web”, “All Good Things…” should have been included as well.
The Void is an incredibly run-of-the-mill episode. I was shocked they picked that one. ‘Equinox’ or even ‘Year of Hell’ would have been a far better choice.
“Scorpion”, “Timeless” are two other “Voyager” episodes better suited for the list.
I find the sermon Funny and interesting, got to get this guy on Trek Movie sometime to talk about how Trek Influenced him more!
Ponies !
Ponies everywhere
Flux Capacitor but no Holodeck? Really?
That preacher’s delivery is a little bit like Shatner.
And you don’t have to he “obsessed” to go to a convention.
8 Good choices. You do realize that the evil V’rnekz are behind these lists. They KNOW we’ll spend valuable time arguing about them, while they mount their invasion of Earth.
I like Seth MacFarlane, but I hope for his sake he’s listening to others. Sometimes, he just gets so damn lazy in his gag-writing, and reliance on shock and gross-out material. It’s not funny. Period. Other times, the stuff can be hilarious. Yes, I’d love to see him do more Trek.
Sounds like the Reverend keeps saying Star Trak, not Trek. Anyway, only one TOS episode directly references God that I can think of; in “Bread and Circuses” as Uhura points out near the end of the ep.
@Driver (16): “Who Mourns for Adonais?” also referred to God. In it, Kirk says, “Mankind has no need for gods; we find the One quite adequate.”
Whaddya know…. Futurama was right. Trek IS a religion.
;-)
I’d love to hear McFarlane do Kirk’s “Risk is Our Business” speech. I initially thought that’s what he was going to do.
Shatner is the bar-none best at taking heavy, cliche-ridden dialogue and turning it into music. He alone is the primary reason Hollywood trolls London’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre when it needs a mustache-whirling, pontificating villain.
Of course, Nimoy’s no slouch. Think I’m lyin’, does ye? Grab a friend and see how far you manage to get through a gem of a scene like THIS:
KIRK: What have we got, Mister Spock? A magnetic effect which produces a winking-out phenomenon. A mysterious, unidentified source of radiation on the planet. Lazarus, a walking powder keg. Your rip in the universe. A so-called murdering humanoid.
SPOCK: True, Captain, but more significant to me is the fact that our ship’s instruments are specifically designed to locate and identify any object in our universe, be it energy or matter.
KIRK: But by using those instruments you were unable to identify the source of the radiation on the planet.
SPOCK: Correct. Which would seem to be impossible.
KIRK: Are the instruments in order?
SPOCK: Perfect working condition.
KIRK: Then what you say leads obviously to one alternative. The source of radiation is not from our universe.
SPOCK: Nor in our universe, Captain. It came from outside.
KIRK: Outside? Yes, that would explain a lot. Another universe, perhaps in another dimension, occupying the same space at the same time.
SPOCK: The possible existence of a parallel universe has been scientifically conceded, Captain.
KIRK: All right. What would happen if another universe, say a minus universe, came into contact with a positive universe such as ours?
SPOCK: Unquestionably a warp. A distortion of physical laws on an immense scale.
KIRK: Which is what we’ve been experiencing. The point where they come into contact, couldn’t that be described as a hole?
SPOCK: Indeed. I point out that a hole in the universe or in a simple container can either allow the contents to escape
KIRK: Or what is outside to enter. The invasion that Commodore Barstow suspected.
SPOCK: There has been no evidence of a large-scale invasion.
KIRK: But a small scale invasion, Mister Spock. What is your analysis of the mental state of Lazarus?
SPOCK: Difficult, Captain. One moment, paranoid, the next, calm, mild, rational. Almost as if he were two men.
KIRK: Yes, two men. Different, but identical. And a hole in the universe. No, not a hole, A door.
SPOCK: Through which these two beings are somehow enabled to pass.
KIRK: Take a look at Lazarus. One minute he’s at the point of death, the next he’s alive, well, strong as a bull.
SPOCK: The cut on his forehead. First he has it, then it’s gone, then he has it again.
KIRK: Which is physically impossible for one man.
SPOCK: Quite right. Unquestionably, there are two of him.
KIRK: What’s going on? This leaping from universe to universe. This wild talk about a murdering creature who destroys civilisations What’s the purpose?
SPOCK: Jim, madness has no purpose or reason, but it may have a goal. He must be stopped, held. Destroyed if necessary.
KIRK: I don’t follow you.
SPOCK: Two parallel universes project this. One positive, the other negative. Or, more specifically, one matter, the other antimatter.
KIRK: Do you know what you’re saying? Matter and antimatter have a tendency to cancel each other out. violently.
SPOCK: Precisely. Under certain conditions, when two identical particles of matter and antimatter meet
KIRK: Like Lazarus. Identical. Like both Lazarus’, only one is matter and the other antimatter. If they meet.
SPOCK: Annihilation, Jim. Total, complete, absolute annihilation.
KIRK: Of everything that exists, everywhere.
Turning THAT into anything close to watchable TV took talent!!!
All good things should be on the list.. Best of both worlds should be #1. Darmock is a good choice. I also think that Chain of Command should be on the list. In the Pale moonlight is a great DS9 Choice I love that eppisode. The eppisode with Jake Sisco loosing his father then spending the rest of his life trying to get him back should be on there too… Shows the powerfull bond between father and son.
@21:
The episode you are talking of is called “The Visitor.” It’s number three on that list.
The Doomsday machine. Yes.
Gotta love Seth!
It’s “My Little Pony”, not “My Pretty Pony”
The new series was created by the woman who did “Powerpuff Girls” and “Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends”. They are apparently are big Trek fans, they did an entire episode of their first season based on “The Trouble With Tribbles” (My Little Pony episode was called “Swarm of the Century”.
@25
The fact that you know all that is scary. Pedobear would be proud.
I have somewhat a problem with that list. The DS9 episode Trials and Tribbleations was probably one of the best ever.
Just my two quatloos.
Seth’s Kirk voice is so good it could be dubbed over footage of Shatner and it might fool some people.
I love the episode “Darmok” for One Thing. While it may be a somewhat pedestrian “can’t we gert along” story in some ways, it is only episode I can recall where they acknowledged that langauges are not just different “codes” for the same concepts, but can result from completely different wasy of THINKING about things.
And Paul Winfield.
OK, Two Things…
Oh – and tacky. invisible monsters
OK, Three Things…
(NOBODY expects the Tamarian Inquisition!)
#20 The only thing missing was “Arrrrgh”
Missing BND
Void was a great episode, but I wouldn’t put it as the top Voyager episode. “Timeless” or “Living Witness” would be my pick for #1 Voyager episode.
C’mon, Balance? Never shared the appeal others have for that ep. It’s good, but be honest, when you think great TOS eps quickly off the top of your head, don’t you automatically get these?
Doomsday
Amok
Tribbles
City
Mirror
Ent Incident
Circuses
Okay, Circuses might be a reach, but it’s one you’ll throw in and watch on a rainy day, am I right? Good fun.
Okay okay, replace Circuses with Babel. There.
Are we done?
I’m done.
Very good impression, he did not exaggerate much that a lot of people do when they trying to do Kirk.
since McFarlane and team had such success with the Star Wars parodies, rumors have it he has been trying to get permission from Paramount/CBS to do some Trek ones. He has mentioned many times he is big fan of Trek…
There’s been post here on TM.com before concerning this…Id like to see it
Ironically, he needs something fresh on the show. Ive been trying to watch Family Guy for the past few seasons and it is just not as good as the early years. American Dad and now The Cleveland Show are much funnier…IMO.