Star Trek Mashups, Crossovers, And Other Parodies: Full Version
Star Trek Mashups, Crossovers, And Other Parodies: Full Version
GENERALIZED TREK MASHUPS AND PARODIES
"Spock's Bran"
Though reluctant to take Dr. McCoy's nutritional advice, Spock eventually adds more fiber to his diet when Bones constructs a Spock-control device with one button on it: EAT BRAN. Features the classic line, "Bran and bran! What is bran?"
"Return To Tomorrow Is Yesterday"
This story proceeds exactly as if it's the well-known episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" until the final moments, when evil spirit Henoch's mind is accidentally beamed into the body of Air Force pilot John Christopher. Christopher seems fine until he lands his airplane, whereupon he becomes an Amway distributor, because that's what bad people do, in my opinion.
"Darmok Time"
Identical to TNG's "Darmok" except that, in this edition, the Children Of Tama have one more colorful metaphor, which they make use of frequently: "Kirk and Spock beating the stuffing out of each other on Vulcan."
"Kitty On The Edge Of Forever"
Spot gets high on catnip, travels through the Guardian of Forever, and influences history. All dialog is replaced by appropriately-captioned photos of LOLcats. Examples: For Millionz Years I Awaits Question; Mnemonic Memory Serkit I Has It; Hai Edith nonviolence yr doin it wrong cuz world war twoz; Edith Keeler Must Dies Oh Noez!; Donchu kno wut u did?!?!?
"Charlie NX"
Charlie Evans shape-shifts into the form of the Enterprise from the television series Enterprise, hence the designation "NX." Porthos the dog urinates on something. Yeah, that's the entire story... but this is an episode of Enterprise, remember. With heavy reverb, Archer commands a disobedient Porthos to Stay... Stay... Stay... Stay... Stay....
"The Galileo Seven of Nine"
That's such an obvious title that someone else must've come up with it by now. They must also have written a really good mashup. Google will help you find it. I won't Google for it since I know that my own jokes would be put to shame. Waaah.
"A Private Little Battle To The Strong"
"Battle" is kind of like "War"--get it? Make up your own plotline here. Hint: Quark is the only being in the universe able to synthesize an antidote to a Mugato bite. He'll heal Captain Kirk... for a price.
MILDLY RISQUÉ (For-grownups-only bonus section)
"The Menagerie À Troi"
As The Keeper "speaks" the line "this is the female's true appearance," Deanna is reduced to an A-cup via an old-school match-dissolve rather than by CGI morphing. As a consequence, Deanna is not featured in any other Star Trek property basically ever. Except for Bad Star Trek, also known as Enterprise, in which Troi plays a holographic image of Riker. "The women!" shouts Spock at several moments, just because he feels like it. I do that too, sometimes.
"Where No Measure Of A Man Trap Has Gone Before To The Nth Degree"
Gary Mitchell is zapped by "purple energy" from a "galaxy," granting him "magical powers" and converting his brain into a top-of-the-line positronic net. This is fairly neato in a parlor-trick way until Starfleet brass dispatches a weaselly scientist who seeks to disassemble him. Elizabeth Dehner is played by super-Trekkie Megan Fox, who (it is rumored) had to learn the "space poetry" in this episode phonetically. Due to a scheduling conflict, Dwight Schultz was available for only twelve minutes, and so a planned cameo for Super-Barclay (seen in "The Nth Degree") was scrapped. Photo-stills from the unaired Super-Barclay sequences are among the most coveted Star Trek DVD extras, mainly because you can see Megan Fox in the background. Oh, and Megan Fox transforms into a salt vampire, a real vampire, a low-sodium vampire, a stripper, a pretend vampire, a pretend stripper vampire, a bad person named Jennifer, and a vampire disguised as an imaginary grain of salt. And also into a motorcycle that runs on "the ion power of salt!" Also, Vulcan has no moon, and Dirk Benedict is a Republican.
TOO CEREBRAL: Mindbenders
"Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror, Mirror," etc.
Following a transporter mishap in a video rental store, the classic episode "Mirror, Mirror" is recursively joined to an infinite quantity of slightly distorted copies of itself, resulting in a confusing yet entertaining romp in which almost all of the dialog sounds like an Altman film in an echo-chamber since the Truly Good characters are compelled to speak lines almost identical to those of the strikingly similar Somewhat Good characters at the same moments--and likewise for the few True Neutrals in the middle of the good guy/ bad guy spectrum and the Almost Evil and Totally Chaotic Evil characters rounding out the bunch. Only those rare moments resembling the sublime epiphenomenon in which a high school cafeteria falls silent as everyone finishes a sentence at the same moment provide any respite from the otherwise constant din. These are actually the best and most meaningful parts of the episode, just as the "silent cafeteria" moments were the best and most meaningful parts of high school, unless you were an athlete, in which case you probably got several blowjobs, you lucky frakker. The utterly un-exploited Halkans (with their mineral resources in no jeopardy whatsoever) look on in bewilderment, both at the seemingly endless panoply of near-identical Trek-character duplicates and at the high-school football players in a nearby parking lot, one of whom is a beardless, exuberant Ronald D. Moore in disguise. (His disguise: horn-rimmed glasses and a fake beard.) Little-known fact: in maybe the 1960s or something, Douglas R. Hofstadter and Jorge Luis Borges collaborated on an uncredited second draft of this episode. (That fact is little-known because it's made-up.)
"Spectre Of The Day Of The Conscience Of The Dove Of Mercy"
Lenore, murderous daughter of murderous Shakespearian actor Anton Karidian, violates Melkotian space and, as punishment for her transgression, is stricken with multiple-personality disorder. Believing herself to be the entire Clanton gang (the personalities of each individual resurface at odd intervals), she steals a revolver and plots to kill all of the Klingons in the galaxy. Her rage is enhanced by a rotating glowing entity that feeds on negativity and goes "woo-woo." Guess who finally stops the bloodshed? The Organians, who are actually Princess Leia's adoptive family. Confusingly, Carrie Fisher guest-stars as Hicks from Aliens.
"For The Obelisk Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky"
The asteroid deflector on the American Indian planet is able to deflect one and only one asteroid... Yonada! And Yonada is not even on a collision course with the American Indian planet until Dr. McCoy tries cordrazine as an experimental remedy for his mystery illness, and bumps the "do not touch this button ever" button in Yonada's control room. Then he dies. Eight times! This much-remarked-upon sequence was adapted by Nolan Bushnell and a team of anonymous Atari programmers into the classic arcade game "Centipede." (You thought I was going to say "Asteroids!")
"Yesteryear's Enterprise"
Spock is replaced by an Andorian, and travels back in time (Spock does, not the Andorian) to seek the aid of his (Spock's) beloved Teddy Ruxpin "iChaya," which has been loaded with a specially-encoded cassette tape belonging to the Ferengi Mafia, who wish to sell the Teddy Ruxpin on fBay, which is the Ferengi eBay, only more so than regular eBay. (Philosophical note: if a Ferengi were in the Mafia... how could you tell?) Hot on his trail: Denise Crosby and Gabriel Koerner. This is the most visually arresting Star Trek episode (even more so than "The Thorazine Web") because of the jarring inconsistency between the Animated Trek and the live-action TNG. This aspect is never commented upon: it is simply taken for granted. Also remarkable is the only moment in all of Trek in which a Classic Trek-style communicator beeps inconveniently, giving away a concealed Gabriel Koerner, who angrily opens the communicator and shouts, above the noise of a howling Vulcan sandstorm, "Piotr, this is the worst time you could have called! Go away!" (Why he would get a call from Chekov's imaginary brother is never specified.) You Gen-Y whippersnappers probably don't even know what a Teddy Ruxpin is. Those were the days, I tell you... those were the days. But times change, doctor... times change.
"The Trouble With The Tardiness Of Tribbles"
The episode that dares to ask, what if the Tribbles were camera-shy? Worse, what if they refused to exit their trailers on the Desilu lot until the contract negotiations were finalized? Due to the ongoing absence of the Tribbles, galactic futures markets collapse due to a glut of uneaten quadrotriticale, the fermentation-products of which (the grain, not the futures markets) are eventually distilled into Bacardi™ "Romulan Ale 151." As a result, more alcohol is consumed in this episode than in the entirety of Star Trek V, which is an accomplishment.
"Encounter At Very Farpoint"
Location work proves too costly due to the great distance involved, and the camera gear is seized by customs in, like, some other space-universe in outer space or whatever. The sets, props, and costumes are hauled away... as garbage! Result: the screen goes blank for two hours, which is really a vast improvement over the original episode, if you think about it.
DISSING VOYAGER AND ENTERPRISE: A Rewarding Indoor Sport!
"Resistance"
A very special educational episode of Voyager in which Tuvok and B'Elanna teach the audience about Ohm's Law. They then electrocute Neelix, but (this being Neelix) no one notices.
"Even Worse Case Scenario"
B'Elanna Torres discovers a holodeck program depicting every episode of Star Trek Voyager (including "Even Worse Case Scenario" itself) playing from beginning to end without interruption, and she is forced to watch while Clockwork-Orangically fastened to a chair. What chair? The mind-emptying chair from "Dagger Of The Mind!" This appalling experience leads to greater empathy for the rest of us. No more Voyager! Yay!
"Terra Subprime"
Peter Weller solves the mortgage crisis with his jet car.
BONUS CROSSOVERS: STAR TREK PLUS OTHER STUFF
BONUS CROSSOVER #1: STAR TREK PLUS PULP FICTION
"The Royale With Cheese"
By precisely calculating the dimensions of the patches on the dead astronaut's uniform, Riker concludes that the U.S.A. went through a conversion to the metric system between "2033 and 2079 A.D." ("That is a... bold statement," replies Worf.) Due to the "disruptive influence of the Metric System," Riker quits using stardates and is shunned by his colleagues, turning to a life of hard drugs and street crime in the grimy alleyways and Regulan bloodworm-infested sewers of Wrigley's Pleasure Planet. The episode's iconic finale shows a bedraggled Riker playing his trombone beneath a stone archway as passersby fail to make eye contact and pitch a few coins into the worn velvet interior of his open instrument case. Thud, go the coins. "Bless you," Riker croaks between trombone-toots and fits of TB-type coughing. This scene is made even more poignant by the fact that several of the pedestrians are Andorians, which means that each is avoiding looking at Riker with a grand total of four eyes apiece--except for this one Andorian, "Sid," who wears an eye patch over one of his antennae, which is never explained, kind of like Khan's single glove. In the final indignity, a belligerent Andorian (not Sid--he's off on an errand) informs Riker that Andorians 1) dream always of conquest, and 2) don't use the metric system. The closing subtitles are shown without customary music, accompanied instead by Riker's trombone-playing, as forlorn as a dying foghorn.
BONUS CROSSOVER #2: STAR TREK PLUS THE BEATLES
"The Enemy Within You Without You" (or, "I Just Couldn't Come Up With Anything For 'The Inner Light'")
During the 1966-'67 sessions for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, George Harrison is split into two entities as a result of an accident involving "... a little too much LDS" and a transporter pad. Turns out, the Bad George actually is guilty for leading you astray on the road to Mandalay. This explains several apparent continuity breaks in the Beatles' madcap TV movie Magical Mystery Tour, in which Rudyard Kipling has an invisible cameo, kind of like in Gunga Din. That joke makes total 100% sense in a parallel universe. Same with Magical Mystery Tour.
BONUS CROSSOVER #3: STAR TREK PLUS STAR WARS
"Patterns Of The Force"
Somewhat similar to Star Wars: A New Hope except that the stormtroopers are, um, SS Stormtroopers. ("Looken Sie, sir--Tseons!") And the soundtrack uses the actual music of Richard Wagner, rather than John Williams' vastly more accessible and enjoyable score. The film takes a horrific left turn when little R2-V2's restraining bolt is removed, annihilating London completely. Lucas' Triumph Of The Will references make waaaay more sense in this version, not that that's a good thing. Again, Carrie Fisher guest-stars as Hicks from Aliens. This episode explains the apparent discrepancy between original Klingons and new Klingons: all Klingons were scalped by The Inglorious Basterds, who evidently received garbled orders, because, in this scenario, the Nazis are the Nazis, not the Klingons. (I made a Tarantino reference a moment ago, and I just had to try to outdo myself.) After the mass-scalping, all surviving Klingons went to the same trendy Los Angeles salon to get their heads re-done. So... that's what's up with the Klingon foreheads. You heard it here first.
BONUS CROSSOVER #4: STAR TREK PLUS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
"The (Battlestar) Pegasus"
Helena Cain would be eager to welcome the Galactica back to the Colonial Fleet, but, due to the constraints imposed by this crossover, the Battlestar Pegasus spends almost the entire episode trapped inside an asteroid due to the unlawful use of transphasic transtater intercontinental pumpernickel-plated lenticular isolinear phase-cloaking. (See, Helena? That's what happens when you order a "jump to anywhere" while using transphasic transtater intercontinental pumpernickel-plated lenticular isolinear phase-cloaking.) However anti-dramatic this may seem, it conveniently sidesteps a potentially thorny issue (Get it? Lt. Thorne? Thorny?): if the Battlestar Pegasus somehow were freed from that asteroid, we'd expect the TNG characters to spend some time discussing the fact that Admiral Cain looks a heck of a lot like Ensign Ro. So here's a quick list of things that don't happen in this episode:
Data is not revealed to be one of the "Doral" Cylons disguised as an awkward android. Riker doesn't shave his beard, dye his hair gray, and become Col. Fisk. Neither does Tigh turn into Picard or vice-versa. One of the "Simon" Cylons does wear a VISOR and fake out Enterprise security into thinking that he's LaForge, but that happens in a subplot unrelated to the non-discovery of the Battlestar Pegasus. Baltar doesn't suddenly become completely normal during a visit to the holodeck. (See, he has these projections in his mind most of the time, and I thought that Baltar going to the holodeck might produce kind of a double-negative. But that doesn't happen, so forget it.)
BONUS CROSSOVER #5: STAR TREK PLUS V
"Star Trek V" (that's 'vee', not 'five')
Reptiles with peel-off faces invade earth and eat guinea pigs. Gross! Climactic scene: Shatner confronts the alien leader Diana (or maybe it's Anna in the newer version), demanding to know, "... excuse me... what would lizard-people want with a starship?" Diana's calm, cogent reply: "We're trying to return to our home, a Nazi gangster lizard planet orbiting the star Sirius. A starship would help greatly. Many thanks in advance for any help you can lend."
BONUS CROSSOVER #6: STAR TREK PLUS BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (again)
"The Alternative Fraktor"
Good Number Six and Bad Number Six have an awesome blonde-versus-blonde chick-fight in a nebula for most of the episode. Or in a nebula inside a TARDIS inside the Tomb Of Athena where the crushed E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Atari 2600 cartridges are housed. Who cares? It's two lingerie models getting into a fight! Patrick McGoohan does not break up the tussle, nor does he assert that he is, in fact, Number Six. Do you know why? Because the Good Number Six and Bad Number Six eventually start making out in hyperspace... FOREVER. A classic episode.
BONUS CROSSOVER #7: STAR TREK PLUS CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO
"The Deadly Years Assassin"
In a horrifying episode of "gothic" mid-1970s Doctor Who, The Master suffers the ill effects of really, really, really premature aging due to the influence of a "bad comet." He regenerates 317 times. This is a ten-hour serial, featuring long Steadicam tracking shots of the TARDIS interior resembling those from The Shining. Adric dies repeatedly, because that seriously cannot happen often enough, and it's more gratifying each time it takes place.
BONUS CROSSOVER #8: STAR TREK PLUS FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS
"Friday's Night Lights"
Yawn. Football again. Capellans are good at football because they're tall.
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So that's all for now. I hope everyone enjoyed reading this.
LEGALESE
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UNUSUAL APOLOGY THAT YOU PROBABLY WON'T FIND IN ANY OTHER ARTICLE EVER:
I'm a big fan of Gabriel Koerner's, both for his special effects work and for his appearance in Trekkies all those years ago, and I don't want him to be upset by the fact that I didn't spell his name as "Köerner"; however, since I'm faaaaaairly certain that following an umlauted German vowel by the letter 'e' is the equivalent of using an umlaut, I'd consider the umlaut to be a pleonasm in this context, and therefore both redundant and redundant as a consequence and as a result.