Back in the day, boys and girls, there were such things as newsgroups. I don’t know if they still exist, because they were soon supplanted by web forums and blogs on nearly any subject you can imagine. Back in the late 1990s, when I was working late hours as a radio broadcaster, I had plenty of free time to kill when all my friends were either at work or asleep. I discovered a newsgroup called alt.tv.startrek.tos, where I encountered many other STAR TREK fans like myself. This happened around the same time the Sci-Fi Channel began airing the original episodes, which had been remastered and augmented with new wraparound segments containing interviews with cast and crew members. William Shatner hosted the episodes, which were seen in 90-minute primetime slots.
I got to watching the Sci-Fi Channel telecasts every night and then going on alt.tv.startrek.tos to see what everyone else was saying. Soon I was writing—not reviews, really—but just general observations about the episodes. I didn’t write about all of them, just occasionally.
Recently, I found them archived somewhere online and decided somebody may find some value in them. I’ve decided to repurpose them as blog posts, which will occur here on an occasional basis. These posts were originally written around 1999. I have augmented them somewhat to provide brief plot synopses, writer and director credits, etc. Since they were originally written in a less structured manner and sometimes as replies to earlier newsgroup posts, I have edited them a bit to make them flow better. Some information has come from sources other than me, including William “Mr. K” Kenlon, but these posts are pretty much original material written by me.
So, enjoy reading what I wrote about STAR TREK more than a decade ago. Your comments are, as always, highly welcome. I will reproduce the posts in alphabetical order. Not every episode will be covered.
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4 comments:
Sweet! I hope there's thoughts on "Lights of Zetar" hiding in there.
Dude, I read these when you posted them! I rarely posted on atst (I probably went by the nick The Avocado Avenger back then, IIRC) but did read the group a lot and would specifically search for your summaries when I was trying to remember which episode had which plot. They were invaluable and I'm sure still are.
Remember when SciFi had those weird reruns several years ago which also showed the chats from people on their chatroom scrolling on the bottom? I shamefully admit I loved that.
Cannot wait to read all your summaries again. I thought they were probably gone forever since Usenet archives are iffy. I'm glad you're reposting them!
Stacia, I can't believe anyone remembers this stuff. I barely remember newsgroups, period! Google Groups has integrated the Usenet archives, which is where I found these TREK posts. I'm not certain how complete those archives are though.
There are still active newsgroups at Google. I subscribe to three of them at present. You have to filter the trolls away somehow, some way to get to the info you want.
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