Downloaded and burned the new Star Trek – New Voyages fan-produced episode, “World Enough and Time.”
Pretty damned nifty, overall.
They set up a nice frame story featuring Captain Sulu on the Excelsior (featuring George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney), but the majority of the episode is set during the Original Series, and a plot featuring an accident involving the transporter and hyperdimensional fields, which results in Sulu living 30 years of his life stranded on a planet, while only 30 seconds pass on the Enterprise. This way, the story can featuring Takei playing an older Sulu (that you see on the poster), and also feature the daughter he has during those 30 years.
I won’t go into more detail on the plot. Download it and watch it (it’s available as a torrent, or you can stream from the site linked above).
The special effects are as good as you get in professional productions — CGI work has become a real equalizer. Aside from the performances by Takei and Christina Moses (his daughter), the majority of the acting is….well, fan-quality, to be kind. Some of it passable, some of it isn’t. In a way, it kind of reminds me of Renaissance Festivals. A wide array of quality, balanced largely by the enthusiasm shared by the entire cast.
Very cool, though, and with the growing involvement of Trek actors and writers, the series is sure to continue its established episode-to-episode improvement.
I watched the available episodes a month or two ago. THey’re not bad. Not bad at all.
Considering that it’s fan based and not being done by a studio, I think it’s damned good. After all, professional actors are, well, *professional actors*. You can’t expect a pro performance out of someone with a regular day job who hasn’t had butloads of acting lessons.
Hell, these days it’s a little much to expect that from most professional actors anyways.