“Boldly Go!” – Caltech’s 2 1/2 Hour Star Trek Musical Parody
Last year the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California premiered Boldly Go!, a live musical parody of Star Trek. Here is how they describe the show:
A musical of both substance and comedy, Boldly Go! follows the intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise, along with some new characters, on an exciting and hilarious adventure. Assumptions will be confronted, paradigms challenged, alliances tested, and new contacts made – whether for good or ill as yet to be seen. And it’s all set to a side-splitting tour de force of musical mayhem!
Performances were held at Caltech in February and March of last year and now the university has released the full musical online.
More Great Links
Wasp named for Odo
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s shape-shifting constable has been honored by entomologists. “Phanuromyia odo” is the new official name for one of a group of newly discovered wasps found in the tropical region of the Americas. Live Science reports:
One of the newbies is now called “Phanuromyia odo” after the character Odo, a shape-shifting Changeling in the sci-fi television series “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.” Though P. odo doesn’t morph its body into various shapes, the individuals in the species do sport a range of variable features. In fact, there was so much variability that, at first, the researchers thought they were dealing with two separate species.
Meet Phanuromyia odo
Video of the week: Klingon invades Jeopardy
Our last Great Links had Klingons invading a kids show in Germany. This week we have Klingon showing up on the long-running game show Jeopardy, with one of the contestants showing off his skills by singing “Happy Birthday” in Klingon.
Craft of the week: DIY Android amulet
The website Hackaday features a project on how to make an android amulet as seen on the Star Trek episode “I, Mudd.” They also have a helpful video showing how it was done.
Star Trek’s best episode decided? + Star Trek lists of the week
The official Star Trek website held a poll to determine what the best episode of the Star Trek franchise is, and the winner was the TNG episode “The Best of Both Worlds.” Rounding out the top 5 were “The Inner Light” (TNG), “The City on the Edge of Forever” (TOS), “In the Pale Moonlight” (DS9), and “All Good Things…” (TNG). No Voyager or Enterprise episodes even made the top 10.
Locutus says “Best of Both Worlds” is perfection
Speaking of top lists, Innerspace, a show on Canada’s Space Channel (which airs Star Trek reruns) ran a segment this week on their picks for the top 5 Star Trek classic episodes, with “City on the Edge of Forever” coming out on top.
Yet even more Star Trek lists for the week:
- CBR: Captain Picard’s 15 most iconic moments
- Blastr: Captain Kirk’s 14 most memorable facial expressions
- Looper: Blockbuster ideas that Star Trek did first
- Blastr: 11 unforgettable first contacts from Star Trek
No love for Beyond from Hugos or MTV
Our final links for the week are actually links without Star Trek. The finalists for the World Science Fiction Convention’s Hugo Awards have been announced and Star Trek Beyond was not nominated. Nine of the previous twelve films in the franchise had been nominated (the exceptions being Star Trek V, Nemesis and Into Darkness). MTV Movie & TV Awards nominees have also been announced, and again no Star Trek Beyond. Both of the previous Kelvin-universe films picked up two nominations from the MTV Movie Awards.
McCoy is not pleased with award snubs
That’s it for this week, keep up with all of TrekMovie’s tracking of great Star Trek links.
@”Caltech’s 2 1/2 Hour Star Trek Musical Parody”
2.5 hour musical parody!? Yikes. I like musicals … but 2.5 hours? And a parody!?
Yeah, my time limit on Trek parody is usually about three minutes…
Perhaps they’re speaking in code, a la Wrath of Khan?
It’s hard to beat Robot Chicken’s version of the Wrath of Khan, at 1 min 40 seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iauuuhpSfRQ
I wish someone would explain why they think “All Good Things” as a good finale or even good episode. Are they overwhelmed with emotion when they offer Picard a seat at their poker game? I mean, what is it? As TNG episodes go it was as best mediocre. And as a finale it was weak and unrewarding for me. So how about it those who think it is awesome? I know this is opinion but there has to be a reason beyond, “It was just good”.
All Good Things was good to me because for once, TNG’s producers didn’t try to resolve anything with technology alone. Picard solved the conundrum he was facing by using his brain (when he realized he was facing a paradox), not by the pressing of a few buttons.
In other words, Trek at its finest.
OK FLB.
I did like that the ship’s computer didn’t tell them what to do (as it did far too often).
But the way I saw it was Picard still did nothing on his own. It was Q who spoon fed him EVERYTHING the entire episode.
Not really seeing the point of these “10 best episodes” lists. First, even though I am not a huge fan of VOY or ENT, I think both shows produced episodes that legitimately rank among the best of Trek. That one kind of ties into my second point, which is: on what basis do we decide what constitutes a best episode? Is it content? In that case, stuff like TNG’s Measure of a Man or DS9’s Far Beyond the Stars certainly belong on top of that list. Is it execution? DS9’s Way of the Warror, VOY’s Year of Hell or ENT’s In A Mirror, Darkly should be on top of that list. No disrespect for BoBW here, I love it like anyone else, but the only reason those episodes make the top ten is because they always do. Think of three iconic TOS episodes, it’s the one with the Guardian, the one with the Tribbles and the Mirror Universe. They are certainly memorable, but I doubt they are TOS’ best (maybe except City on the Edge of Forever).
The polls on the official site tend to skew very heavily in favor of TNG, probably because it was the most watched series among non-fans and casual fans. Even TNG’s *costumes* win polls. (The site and polls are clearly not written by fans, but that’s another story.)
Don’t get me wrong: TNG was a good series, and the five TNG episodes here were excellent, and at least three belong in the top ten. But Best of Both Worlds ranking above City on the Edge of Forever? Five TNG episodes and only two (also great) DS9 eps, from a series that included “Duet”? And only two TOS? I dunno.
It’s also interesting that a comic ep from both TOS and DS9 make it in, but none from TNG…did TNG have really comic eps?