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.
Yesterday a German news station had a major image fail. While covering the US Navy SEALs operation to kill Osama bin Laden they mistook a Star Trek fan-made emblem for the Maquis for the actual SEAL Team Six emblem. Check it out below.
April Fools Day is as good a time as any to bring back The Great Links with a look at the few online Star Trek pranks today. And keeping with the funnies, we take a look at some recent Star Trek themed web comics and some funny new video mashups. So dive in below.
Fringe, the FOX sci-fi show from Star Trek’s JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, has been renewed for a fourth season. Despite lower ratings and a move to Friday, Fox is still firmly behind the show, giving it a full season order. Plus Orci and Kurtzman’s other TV show had an extended Star Trek reference on it this week. All the details below
Today saw another intersection between poltics and Star Trek. This time it was conservative commentator Glenn Beck who used the Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain" to set up a discussion on good vs. evil. Check out the clip below.
Today the astronauts on Shuttle Discovery got a special bonus Star Trek wakeup call. We have previously reported that the original Star Trek theme was voted to be one of the final wakeup calls, but that wont be until next week, but this morning NASA sent up the fight song from Amok Time. Take a listen below.
Another high profile actor has expressed interest in appearing in the 2012 Star Trek sequel. This time it is recent Golden Globe winner Paul Giamatti who wants to know what it will take to land a job as a Klingon. In other famous face as Klingon news, Brit actor and humorist Stephen Fry joined a production of Hamlet in Klingon for a new documentary. Details and photos below.
Actor Christian Slater showed his Star Trek fandom two decades ago with a Star Trek VI cameo, and now he is bringing his inner Trekkie to his new Fox sitcom Breaking In, where he worked in an original series Star Trek captain’s chair for his character. Check out a clip of Slater and his Kirk chair below.
This week the big news in computers is Watson, IBM’s new supercomputer that took on the champions of Jeopardy, and won. And it turns out that this revolutionary new technology is yet another giant leap inspired by Star Trek. Details below.
This week has brought another intersection between Star Trek and politics. This time in a public hearing over marriage legislation in Maryland an argument was made warning of a future Data-like android from Star Trek: The Next Generation being able to marry.
The NBC spy series Chuck has has a few Star Trek reference and guest cameos over the years, with another coming last night, in the form of a Vulcan nerve pinch ‘learned from Star Trek’. Check it out below.
Another video treat for the day comes from an ABC News interview with comedian Will Ferrell, who reveals that he began his career doing Star Trek comedy. Watch Will sing the theme to Star Trek below.
Star Trek fans are notoriously nitpicky and an Australian news site found that out this week and went so far as to publish an apology for getting their facts wrong in an article talking about Enterprises.
Just a week ago we reported how the Texas Supreme Court had cited a Vulcan axiom in an official decision, and now today comes news that Vulcans have shown up again, this time in oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, hearing a case on video game violence.
We have a special Halloween themed image of the day that takes a "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" look at LeVar Burton and finds that Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Geordi LaForge is at the nexus of the horror universe. Check it out below.
Star Trek has been influential in pop culture and society for over four decades, but now it has gone a step farther to becoming a legal precedent. In a new ruling, the Texas Supreme Court has specifically cited the "the needs of the many…" axiom from Star Trek II. Details below, plus exclusive reaction from Wrath of Khan writer/director Nicholas Meyer.
While many geeks may prefer the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory for their cultural references, the NBC comedy Community, also airing at 8PM on Thursdays, is also full of pop culture, including last night’s episode which dipped into Star Trek. And next week it looks like they will have more Trek fun. Watch the clips below.
2010 continues to be the year of the Klingons. Today the Empire appears to have invaded British politics, with a Star Trek-themed discussion on a UK panel show about how the Klingons would fit into the government. Watch the clip below.
The nerdy CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory is well known for referencing sci-fi and especially Star Trek, and so to announce their move from Monday to Thursday they made a Trek-errific promo, check it out below.
The image of the day is an infographic from today’s edition of the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, which has a two page spread using Star Trek characters to explain how municipal politics work in the town of Lund.
It has been a while since TrekMovie has done a Great Links collection, so it is time to catch up. This week we have links looking at the summer movies as TNG episodes, Trekkies topping another list, two instances of Kirk-inspired audio, a Trek-inspired toilet and more, including Spock the dog.
There are many lessons that can be learned from Star Trek. This has now been recognized by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs who have gone to the final frontier to get out a message about how to avoid the flu.
The venerable UK sci-fi magazine SFX is celebrating their 200th issue with a countdown of the top 200 sci-fi and fantasy characters based on polling from the magazine readers. They have released Top 20 polls in a number of categories, with Star Trek’s Mr. Spock coming out on top in the Favorite Alien list, but Captain Kirk is only 12th in the favorite hero list? More details below.
A Star Trek-themed video is going viral today featuring a Trek fan who decided to add lyrics to the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Check out the TNG song below.
William Shatner has shown he is the master of TV, film, commercials, music, and now photobombing! Today’s photo of the day comes from last week’s Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, where Bill bombed like the best of them.
Today’s image of the day comes from cartoonist Dave Perillo who was inspired by tomorrow’s opening of the action movie The Expendables, which reminded him of the "the one true expendables"…you know the ones he is talking about.
We all love Spock’s viewer on the bridge of the USS Enterprise. The mysterious viewer would give Spock all sorts of info to help Kirk and crew. However, was Spock’s viewer also an ergonomic danger? Well some Trekkie at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab created a handy infographic using lessons from Spock and Uhura to help with your monitor position.
The photos of the day for today are two great photo-mashups of two great shows re-imagined as two great Star Trek shows. We have Captain Mal Reynolds in the 23rd century and Captain Don Draper in the 24th century. Check them out below.
This week two comedy shows on two sides of the Atlantic went to the final frontier for gags. The more elaborate of these was the finale episode for the fourth season of the UK’s The IT Crowd, with a Star Trek sex tape. USA Network’s Psych also dipped into Star Trek, using Geordi’s VISOR.
There is more and more evidence that there is some kind of Klingon invasion going on. Recently a Klingon warning was found in Scotland, and last week the Klingons took over a San Diego Trolley station. Now a cave tourist attraction in Australia has come under the thumb of the Empire and will soon be providing self-guided audio tours in Klingon. Find out how Star Trek goes underground below.