At a hefty fifty-one minute runtime, this episode, The Pilgrim of Eternity, is nothing insubstantial. It continues the story of an original series episode, Who Mourns of Adonais, featuring the appearance of the aliens who once presented themselves as gods to the Ancient Greeks trying to regain the worship of the humans, the worship that once sustained them. This time around, the prominent guest character from that episode, Apollo, played once again by Michael Forest, appears on the Enterprise immediately after her crew is forced to destroy a mysterious structure in space. Even though it has been only two years since the encounter with Apollo, and even though Apollo is practically immortal, he appears to have aged at least forty years, and he is dying. He tells a story of how his people built the mysterious structure, an artificial realm meant to feed Apollo and his people the energy they need to survive, but it malfunctioned and began draining them of their energy, killing all but Apollo, who only survived because he was able to escape to the Enterprise. Apollo claims that his hardships have changed him and that he no longer seeks worship, and instead only wishes to live out the rest of his days with mortals and asks Kirk and the crew to allow him to settle on a planet with inhabitants resembling the Ancient Greeks that Apollo once knew.
Kirk, however, is hesitant, as if Apollo is lying, allowing him access to a primitive planet and its people would, well, allow him access to a primitive planet and its people. However, he decides to give Apollo a chance to interact with the crew, to see if he can glean if Apollo is sincere. Meanwhile, Apollo forms bonds with Uhura, and a new Character, Dr. Elise McKennah, the ship's new councilor, the first ship's councilor in Starfleet. Apollo does interact with the crew, enthralling a group of off-duty officers with songs and tails of Ancient Greece, and begins to absorb their admiration, returning him to something closer to the villain that he was. When Kirk tries to stop him, he attempts to smite Kirk. It is only the reaction of his new friend, Dr. McKennah, that reminds him that what he is doing is wrong. Apollo allows himself to be confined to sickbay and even asks Dr. McCoy to remove the organ that allows him to transform admiration and worship into power, which comes to be known as the "god organ". McCoy does so, and Apollo is thought to have lost his powers until he revives Uhura, who has died in an accident.
Surprisingly Apollo is even stronger after such an act, even though he assumed the effort would kill him. This leads Apollo as well as the Enterprise crew to surmise that Apollo can also feed upon the energy of self-sacrifice, and that the god organs was only something of an appendix, getting in the way. Apollo is deposited on a primitive Earth-like planet where he can do good.
This episode was pretty good. The acting was more professional overall than the acting on other fan series, and averaged out to be pretty good. The effects were high quality for a low-budget production, and were pretty good, the only standout effect being a brilliant CG reconstruction of the original Enterprise by Doug Drexler. Overall the episode was pretty good. That's it. I liked it, and I'll watch what they come out with next, but the next episode will have to be something more than this to keep me coming back, as I had some serious issues with the production as a whole.
First, though, let's talk about what I liked about this episode. Forest as Apollo was the highlight of this episode, aside from the Enterprise model. He stole every scene he was in from every other actor, period. He was commanding and professional, and I loved his every appearance. Vic Mignogna as Kirk was also a highlight. No offense to the amateur actors of Phase II, but this is simply the superior original series Kirk in the modern day. Kim Stinger as Uhura was also a delight. She invoked the original portrayal of the character so much that I sometimes felt like I was actually watching a young Nichelle Nichols in the role yet again. Chris Doohan in his father's iconic role of Scotty was also impeccable. A remarkable guest appearance by Jamie Bamber, Apollo in the remake of Battlestar Galactica, as a redshirt no less, got a good chuckle out of me, and Marina Sirtis as the voice of the computer was a great homage to the late Majel Barret Roddenberry in that role, as Majel's character in Star Trek: The Next Generation was Marina's character's mother. Also, the inclusion of a ship's councilor, and the appearance of a primitive version of the holodeck, were both great nods to the spinoffs. The sets were all great, feeling like they'd all been lifted right out of the old show, and the lighting and direction were television quality. There was a lot to like here, but there was also a lot here that really frustrated me.
First of all, Chekov gets practically zero screen time. Second, both Todd Haberkorn and Grant Imahara were, sadly, only hit and miss as Spock and Sulu respectively, and I simply couldn't see Larry Nemecek as Dr. McCoy at all. Also, while the gorgeous Michele Specht of Aperture R&D, was great as Dr. McKennah, I felt that the script sometimes didn't know what to do with her, just shoving her into the story wherever it could, and giving her far too little an introduction. Which brings me to another issue: the script. It felt like an original series script, but I think this was to its detriment, as it felt too much like an original series script. Things like the "god organ", "worship energy" and "self-sacrifice energy" were really lame and often made me cringe, as the were simply mcguffins and little more. They could have been any kind of technology or anything else less vague and more plausible, and yet they are given only casual mention with no attempt to understand them. This felt like lazy writing to me, and it prevented me from suspending disbelief completely. Also, while looking back at a previous episode was a good idea, this episode didn't really feel like it expanded upon anything of any real significance to the overall series, which is something that Phase II actually does, and does pretty well. If the show is going to be called Star Trek Continues it had better continue the story, move it forward, rather than do what this episode did and just rehash plot elements as the original series often did already.
Overall I enjoyed this team's foray into the vast, often-confusing realm of my favorite SciFi property, but it didn't blow me away. Maybe I am judging it too harshly and comparing it too much to other fan productions, but this is something that I cannot help. While there is nothing wrong with watching this series as well as Phase II, I did expect a bit more out of this more professional and experienced team than what I usually got out of episodes of the latter series, and I don't feel that I did, at least not consistently. I hold out hope that STC will improve, as all fan series tend to with time, and even if it doesn't, I will still watch. Still, based on the pilot episode, the show is, as I mentioned before, only pretty good. I give Star Trek Continues an average rating of 6 out of 10.
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