Today is Sunday, September 8th, 2024: Star Trek Day! This important Church of Trek holiday commemorates the date that the first episode of Star Trek: The Original Series was broadcast in the United States: September 8th, 1966.
To mark the occasion, Comics Beat’s Star Trek Team is sharing either our favorite Franchise ships, or our favorite series. Please join in the comment section or on social media and let us know what which ships and shows are your favorite. Live long and prosper, friends!
What’s your favorite Star Trek ship?
For me, the only possible answer to this question is the U.S.S. Cerritos. This relatively small vessel is a California class ship tasked with performing Second Contact missions. Both inside and out, it’s clear that the same amount of resources are not expended on the Cali class vessels as are allocated to the “A-list” ships. This became especially obvious in the Star Trek: Lower Decks season 3 finale, in which we saw dozens of other Cali class ships. Clearly, they were all produced from the same mold, with only some paint-job flourishes to distinguish them from one another. But as impressive as the upper decks ships are, I never really felt like I could ever call a Starfleet ship home… until I was introduced to the Cerritos. Sure, the bridge may not have carpet or a fancy captain’s chair like the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, but hey: I hear the Mexican food in the Cali class replicators cannot be beat. Forget San Francisco. I’m leaving my heart on the Cerritos. — Avery Kaplan
From the moment the USS Defiant decloaked in the Deep Space 9 episode “The Search, Part I” I was hooked, as Captain Sisko said when she was first introduced to the crew “She may have flaws, but she has teeth!” Unlike other Federation starships the Defiant came with new innovations like ablative armor and a cloaking device, making a very powerful statement that she was here to kick ass and take many names. Designed to fight the Borg, she was critical in the defense of the Alpha Quadrant, taking on ships 2-3 times her size and holding her own, being the tip of the spear and eventually expanded her mission role to do some science and exploration. Watching the Defiant is always a visual treat, from saving Odo and Garak in “The Die is Cast” with her pulse phasers blazing to Sisko weaving her in and around Terok Nor defending the Terran rebels in the Mirror Universe episode “Shattered Mirror” in a duplicate Defiant. The Defiant isn’t high on amenities but she could take on the tough assignments and get the job done going from an experimental ship to a class of ship. While not the original Defiant, the legacy of this ship deserves her place in the Fleet Museum. — George Carmona 3rd
Captain Jonathan Archer isn’t perfect and neither is his ship, the NX-01. Both leader and machine have to rely on their crew more than most in Starfleet’s history, but without that forced reliance on others there would be no Federation. Interestingly, because Archer’s Enterprise was one of the greatest challenges the Star Trek art department ever faced that’s also how the NX-01 design process worked too, requiring a whole fleet of concept artists including John Eaves (check out these early designs!), Doug Drexler, Herman Zimmerman, and Mike Okuda. According to STAR TREK — Designing Starships: The Enterprises and Beyond, edited by Ben Robinson, the NX-01 presented numerous artistic challenges as Earth’s first true starship in addition to having to meet demands from producers that the ship had to be able to continue to evolve as the story of its crew evolved. But in the end that flexibility in ship design paid off, giving me one of my favorite Star Trek episodes, Enterprise season 2, episode 9, “Singularity,” in which Archer asks his engineer Trip Tucker to redesign his captain’s chair. In the episode everyone gets obsessive about a single task, which is the redesign of the chair for Trip, but it’s also the beginning of the cupholder in the captain’s chair. — Ollie Kaplan
What’s your favorite Star Trek show?
While my initial inclination was to go with something from Lower Decks like Avery, since that was the series that converted me to being a Trek fan, I’m going to go with something fairly recent and show some love for Star Trek: Prodigy. While I’m sure there is no shortage of Dal and Gwyn shippers, I’m going to have to highlight the romance between Maj’El and Zero that was introduced in the most recent second season. Showcasing the romantic feelings of Vulcans isn’t new entirely, but to have a relationship with a Medusan is definitely quite inspired. I was a little bummed that the Zero/Maj’El relationship kind of fell by the wayside for the second half of Season 2. But considering everything the show creators packed into those episodes, I completely understand. I know a lot of us are hoping for Prodigy to continue in some form. In which case, I also hope for more development of the Zero/Maj’El relationship. — Taimur Dar
The majority of the Star Trek Franchise movies and shows are currently available for streaming on Paramount+. For both seasons of the excellent Star Trek: Prodigy, you’ll want to Proto-warp over to Netflix. And to celebrate Star Trek Day 2024, the pilot episodes of every Franchise show but Prodigy are available to stream free on Paramount partner platforms.
Keep up with all of The Beat’s Star Trek coverage here.
