Another seasonal interlude accompanies the transition from the first season of TOS to its second. While the first several episodes take a bit to finally settle down into the familiar tone of the show and the characters that play there, the second season is when it really picks up warp speed. The stories are almost without exception top notch, the cast energized and at peak performance, and myriad tweaks align it into the highly recognized program so well regarded today. Chekov takes his seat, little changes subtly improve the sets, and the captain even gets a new shirt.
As the clock ticks inexorably towards next year's estimated release, the suspense behind the upcoming Star Trek XI movie continues to build. Rumors are becoming less objectionable and casting options more solid (just do it!). Up from rumor into informed speculation on subjects astronomical comes the exciting announcement of a extrasolar planet not much larger than Earth located in a habitable zone (meaning its expected temperature range should include that interval in which water is liquid). Though the existence of Terran extremophiles allows the possibility of life inside our own system, this discovery kicked up additional significant interest. Hopefully new work will follow researching these new bounds on the Drake Equation. Things could be looking up for life all over!
Closer to home, late last year Atlantis and Discovery enjoyed enormous success installing new truss segments and solar power supplies (contributing to the one good surge going on). Unfortunately construction of ISS in space ground to a halt as a freak hailstorm materialized over its target, dinging the foam covering the solid rocket booster badly enough to postpone the return of Atlantis for almost half a year. While subsequent flights stack up and crew assignments are shuffled activity continues onboard, with new endurance records set by Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and a recent "running" of the Boston Marathon by Sunita Williams. (Don't ask about the wasabi!)
Creative, resourceful, and patient only when they have to be, fan efforts have improved to the point of substantially slaking the thirst for Trek adventures with the recent New Voyages epic "To Serve All My Days" and the wildly anticipated (and delayed) quasi-professional effort "Of Gods and Men," reviews of both coming soon. I'd also like to take a sentence and point out the growing Star Trek tribe as we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of TNG and the twenty-fifth of "The Wrath of Khan." So far, so fast, and we've barely gotten started. How cool is that?