Fannish Ramblings

Starship Farragut premiered their first-ever episode this past Friday as part of the Farpoint convention in Hunt Valley Maryland.

The first episode, titled “The Captaincy,” is set in the same time frame as the original Star Trek series and introduces the new crew of the Constitution Class starship, USS Farragut. In this first episode, the Farragut is dispatched to investigate the loss of a survey vessel and its crew and a possible Klingon incursion into Federation territory. At the same time, a new captain and crew must learn to work together.

Despite a few rough edges, it’s still a wonderful first story and doesn’t drag at all. The 48-minute runtime feels like barely half that. It’s that engaging. The only large complaint I had was a one-sided battle where it seemed like the one side never realized their opponents weren’t defending themselves. On the other hand, it was interesting to note that this episode made very little use of indoor sets, spending most of its time outdoors. (Either that, or else the film crew went to a great deal of trouble to create a quite realistic indoor forest.)

Likewise, the CGI effects are fantastic. Clearly the Starship Farragut crew has learned from those who have gone before them. The attention to detail paid off with the result that starships looked real without any obvious “computer edges” and weapons fire that seems quite believable.

A bonus item to watch for is a cameo appearance by the cast of another fan film series. Perhaps we’ll see other crossovers in times to come.

The episode is scheduled for web-release on February 23. Starship Farragut reportedly plans to release additional episodes at a rate of two per year. The series stars John Broughton as Captain “Jack” Carter; Mike Bednar as Executive Officer, Commander “RT” Tacket; Holly Bednar as Chief Engineer Lieutenant Commander “Mike” Smithfield; Paul Sieber as Security Chief Henry Prescott; and Tonya Bacon as Communications Officer Lieutenant Alissa Moretti. The recurring villain in the series, Klingon Commander Kruge is played by Mark Hildebrand.

It’s a terrific first outing for Starship Farragut. We can only hope for more of the same.

Following an inquiry into whether Leslie Fish had any upcoming performances in the Baltimore area (I’m not aware of any), I set out to see if she had an official web site anywhere. I didn’t find one, but I did manage to get distracted by what seems to be the officially unofficial Leslie Fish biography as well as a sampler of her filks (including the one which she apparently wishes we’d forget).

At about the same time, thanks to Gavroche, I became aware of the Funny Music Project (aka “The FuMP”) which offers an assortment of comedy songs on a rotating basis. (Although I’ve never played any of the RPGs mentioned in the song, Possible Oscar’s “Talk Nerdy to Me” is definitely catchy.)

From there, it was off to iTom where Tom Smith is posting a new song every week and in the course of just a few months has accumulated enough material to release two new albums. Not everything will appeal to everyone, but compare it to the mainstream where an artist will take two years to put out an album that doesn’t appeal to everyone and no matter how you slice it, it’s still impressive.

So the bottom line is, I don’t know Leslie Fish’s con appearance schedule. If anyone does know it, drop me a line and we’ll see about getting her added to the convention list. In the meantime, I have some new music to listen to.