Video/Audio Interviews – Fan Film Factor

A fresh quartet of ANNA KELLEY episodes of TREK SHORTS! (video interview with NIMRAN SAUND and SAM COCKINGS)

SAMUEL COCKINGS, the British bastion of fan film fabrication, continues to pop out new releases of his TREK SHORTS fanthology series with the speed of tribbles on fertility drugs! And four of Sam’s most recent five offerings have starred the very talented NIMRAN SAUND as the fan favorite character of Anna Keeley.

What makes Keeley so wildly popular is a combination of Nimran’s captivating performances along with the fact that, thanks to Trek Shorts having no specific setting or time frame, the stories can and do jump around to various points in Keeley’s Starfleet career. We’ve seen this character at every rank from ensign to captain, growing and evolving as an officer and a person. And with the most recent Trek Shorts vignettes, we can add Cadet Anna Keeley (in her first year at Starfleet Academy) to the mix.

Speaking of the most recent three releases, they’ve come out in concert with the launch of Sam’s latest GoFundMe crowd-funding campaign, which is already nearly 3/4 of the way to its £4,000 goal (about $5,100). You can donate at the link below, and even just a little contribution will get Sam that much closer to his target…

https://www.gofundme.com/f/helps-us-make-more-trek-short-fan-films-in-2024

The three most recent Trek Shorts each focus on a story from THE LEGACY OF one of the starships Enterprise—THE NX-01…

THE NCC-1701-A…

And THE NCC 1701-C…

And all feature Sam’s typically gorgeous CGI effects shots.

The fourth recent Trek Short premiered back in March of this year and takes place mainly on Deep Space Nine, an unusual location for a Trek fan film due to the challenge of creating sets, even using CGI. But Sam and his team took on the challenge with some very impressive results. Take a look at LIVING THE DREAM…

By the way, you can watch more than two dozen Trek Shorts fan films on this playlist. They are all visually spectacular and form a complex, tapestry storyline across the entire series.

While I’ve interviewed Nimran Saund before, it was a in written text format, which is fine but doesn’t typically provide a true flavor of a person’s energy and presence. I’ve been wanting to get Nim in front of a Zoom camera for an in-person video interview for years, and now I’ve finally gotten the opportunity—along with Sam Cockings himself, of course. But this interview is primarily focused on Nim and the unique challenges of playing the same character at different points of a decades-long Starfleet career.

Nim is simply delightful, and this interview is absolutely worth checking out in its entirety…

From ITALY with LOVE AND HONOR…DELL’AMORE E DELL’ONORE is molto bene! (video interview with JACK PONISSI and his team)

I’m not certain if there has ever been a Star Trek fan film produced entirely in Italy before, but there certainly hasn’t been a major one of note…until now, that is. Benvuto a DELL’AMORE E DELL’ONORE, which translates to welcome to OF LOVE AND HONOR, an artistic fan film from showrunner and writer CARLO “JACK” PONISSI and director WALTER “WEBB” CHIORINO.

More than two and a half years in the making, this fan film got its start back in late 2021 with the launch of a crowd-funder. To show what they had in mind, a short teaser trailer was created with actors show in front of green screen and composited against TOS-era backgrounds, although their hope was to take in enough to construct some practical TOS set pieces. This was their teaser trailer from February 2022, dubbed in English to encourage donations…

Jack reached out to me for help in promoting the campaign, but sadly, the day they launched their GoFundMe, February 26th, Vladamir Putin ordered Russian troops to invade Ukraine. Crowd-funding an Italian Star Trek fan film seemed to be the last thing on anyone’s priority list, especially in Europe. Ultimately, they took in enough to buy some uniforms but nothing more, and any dreams of building TOS sets had to be abandoned. Jack himself ended up financing the lion’s share of the production costs out of his own pocket.

Later on, Jack once again requested my assistance in cleaning up the English translation of the script that they had created for dubbing with voice-over actors. While the original fan film that was just released is performed completely in Italian (a beautiful language that I love to hear spoken), they are also currently working on a dubbed English version that will be released some time in the near future. That will make Dell’Amore e Dell’Onore / Of Love and Honor one of the only Star Trek fan films to ever be produced in two different languages.

The Italian version currently has English subtitles which you can turn on tp display in YouTube. As you can see when you watch the film (below), the sets and props are minimal. Indeed, Dell’Amore e dell’Onore / Of Love and Honor feels more like a filmed stage play, which only adds to the unique European flavor of their presentation. In many ways, this film carries the look and feel of an independent foreign film that one might see in a small art house theater showing international fare. It is certainly not your typical Star Trek fan film! Take a look…

“CERRITOS, LOST” from TREK SHORTS is a live-action STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS fan film! (audio interview with SAM COCKINGS and MARIE-LOUISE SVALENG)

Before we go any further, just a quick heads-up that the latest annual TREK SHORTS crowd-funding campaign (for 2024) is now up and accepting donations. This year’s goal is £4,000 (about $5,000 in the U.S.), and CGI cobbler SAMUEL COCKINGS is already two-thirds of the way to that goal in just a week! If you’d like to help Sam keep on producing this terrific series of fanthology films, here’s the link to contribute:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/helps-us-make-more-trek-short-fan-films-in-2024

Sam’s latest offering, released at the end of this past April, was created specifically to show support for STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS, which is officially reaching the end of its planned 5-year run after this upcoming fifth and final season.

Some fans have chosen to call this a cancellation, although that is not technically true. Star Trek TOS was canceled, as the original plan was for a five-season run, and the show ended after only three seasons. TNG, DS9, and Voyager, each completed their runs after seven years, and few fans use the word “canceled” to refer to those shows and their finales. Enterprise, on the other hand, was unceremoniously canceled after just four seasons, having failed to make it to seven seasons as its older sibling series did.

But enough semantics! The fact remains that many, many fans (including yours truly along with Sam Cockings), greatly enjoy Lower Decks and very much want to see it continue past this final announced season. And yes, I signed one of the many online petitions. But such efforts tend to yield minimal and unreliable results—especially when the streaming industry is contracting rapidly while the board of directors of Paramount desperately tries to sell off the corporation.

So Sam decided to try something a little more flashy to get the attention of Paramount and CBS Studios: he made a Lower Decks fan film! Last year, after the announcement of the cancellation of STAR TREK: PRODIGY—which absolutely was being canceled after only a single season—Sam leapt into action and, in the span of just six days, created and released the first-ever Prodigy fan-film: FLIGHT OF THE PROTOSTAR.

Of course, neither fan film could feature the actual animated characters from those two series, but the ships were certainly fair game! And with some clever writing, Sam was able to tie these two films into the overall plot lines of each series to create an engaging story. Indeed, his latest Lower Decks fan film, CERRITOS, LOST, conveys a wonderful tongue-in-cheek comedic flavor to match that of the streaming series. Take a look…

The film features fan favorite actor and showrunner of INTREPID, Scotland’s own NICK COOK playing Captain Daniel Hunter, as well as the evil A.I. character Grathar. A number of other frequent and infrequent Trek Shorts actors are part of the film, as well, but this is the first time that Sam’s girlfriend, MARIE-LOUISE SVALENG, has appeared in front of the camera. In previous Trek Shorts releases, Marie has voiced Starfleet historian Dr. Louise Nilson, but she had yet to appear on screen.

THE ICARUS MANEUVER expands the AXANAR saga of THE FOUR YEARS WAR! (video interview with MARK EDWARD LEWIS)

PRELUDE TO AXANAR debuted in 2014 and awed fans with its production quality, acting, costuming, make-up, sound, music, visual FX…the whole shebang. The 20-minute “mockumentary”-style fan film became iconic, a new level of achievement to strive for. And with a cliffhanger ending, fans eagerly awaited the continuation of the saga of the Four Years War between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.

And they awaited…and they awaited…and they awaited some more.

Now, a decade later, all of the live action footage of the 19 actors and actresses who will appear in the two 15-minute AXANAR sequels has been shot and is in the can. The project has officially moved into the post-production phase with completion and release scheduled for later on this year. Yes, 2024 will see the long-awaited conclusion to the cliffhanger from ten years ago.

However, a settled copyright lawsuit with ALEC PETERS from 2017 has unfortunately ensured that Axanar will not be the full-length feature film that it was originally intended to be. And that means that many of the jaw-dropping VFX created back in 2015 and 2016 will never see the light of day because Axanar is now limited to a total runtime of a half hour.

Enter MARK EDWARD LEWIS.

Mark is the co-director of the Axanar sequels, along with being one of the sound effects people on the original Prelude. He was also the sound designer on INTERLUDE, the fan-film-of-a-fan-film from 2021 that took place in the Axanar Universe and told a tale of the Four Years War. Interlude was written and produced by me, although it was filmed on the U.S.S. Ares bridge set in Lawrenceville, GA and featured three of the actors (plus one voice actor) who would also appear in the Axanar sequels.

Even though Alec and AXANAR PRODUCTIONS are constrained to two 15-minute sequels by the legal settlement, CBS and Paramount never had a problem with Interlude because it was produced by a different production company (two, actually): FAN FILM FEATURES and AVALON UNIVERSE.

Following that precedent, Mark Lewis has done something very similar. Utilizing the Ares bridge set, actors, and some of the production crew for Axanar, Mark is also using some of those original VFX (many of them, actually) to tell yet another story that takes place during the Four Years War: THE ICARUS MANEUVER. Although written by and featuring Alec Peters as Garth, Icarus was directed and produced by Mark using his own production company and resources.

Mark is a former Hollywood professional with extensive experience, and what he has put together is a six-minute tour de force with production quality and immersion within the action that is seldom seen in Star Trek fan films. Although taken down from YouTube by CBS/Paramount, the film is viewable on the Axanar website.

THE FEDERATION FILES: “MOTHER” is based on STAR TREK screenwriter LARRY BRODY’s unsold story idea for VOYAGER! (video interview with DAN and KELLY REYNOLDS)

This is pretty cool! Back in 1968, with a newly-sold novel under his belt, LARRY BRODY (and his wife) moved to Los Angeles to see if he could break into Hollywood as a writer. A science fiction fan, Larry was soon pitching stories for the third season of Star Trek. Although none of his ideas was optioned, in 1972, legendary story editor DOROTHY “D.C.” FONTANA bought Larry in to pitch directly to GENE RODDENBERRY for the upcoming Star Trek animated series.

One of Larry’s stories—which ultimately became “The Magicks of Megas-Tu,” the eighth episode of the animated series that aired in 1973—intrigued Gene, who had wanted to do an episode about the Enterprise encountering God. Ultimately, the network wasn’t comfortable with featuring God in a children’s cartoon, and so the main omnipotent alien became the devil instead.

By that point, Larry’s notoriety as a Hollywood screenwriter was flourishing, and by the end of the 1970s, he was also a producer on the TV series Police Story. Over a multi-decade career, Larry would produce for eight other television series as well as writing dozens of scripts for shows like The Six Million Dollar Man, The Streets of San Francisco, Police Woman, The Fall Guy, The New Mike Hammer, Automan, Walker: Texas Ranger, Diagnosis Murder, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Silver Surfer, and Spawn (to name a small few!). And in 1995, Star Trek: Voyager was added to that list with a second season episode about Chakotay titled “Tatoo.”

Larry Brody isn’t the first Star Trek scriptwriter to also work on a Star Trek fan film. That list also includes the aforementioned Ms. Fontana along with tribbles-creator DAVID GERROLD and TNG and DS9 episode writer MARC ZICREE. But since the fan film guidelines came out in 2016, no Trek writer has been associated with a Star Trek fan film…until now, that is.

THE FEDERATION FILES is a “fanthology” Star Trek fan series created by DAN REYNOLDS and GLEN L. WOLFE, co-owners of the TOS sets at WARP 66 STUDIOS in northern Arkansas. Since 2016, they have released fourteen fan films spanning the long history of Trek‘s prime universe from the 20th-24th centuries:

Their fourteenth release, the first since December of 2022, was an adaptation of a story that Larry Brody pitched for Voyager titled “MOTHER.” Set during the TOS-era, their latest production has a very Star Trek “flavor”…

While Larry himself was not available for an interview, I did have a chance to sit down with Dan Reynolds and his wife Kelly to discuss how “Mother” went from Voyager story idea to fleshed-out script to full TOS fan film. The following video also includes a fun rarity in our community: a fan film blooper reel. You can watch that segment starting at the 19-minute mark of this interview…

STARFLEET [JOBS] looks at STAR TREK from a fresh, new perspective… (video interview with STEVE SHIVES)

One of the great things about Star Trek fan films is that many of them approach Star Trek from new and fascinating directions…whether it’s a fan series about a crew of Klingons or Romulans on board a warship, a look at classic TOS episodes from the point-of-view of a redshirt ensign sitting in her quarters on deck 7, or a Star Trek parody featuring talking puppets rendered out in 3D.

Oh, the creative possibilities of fan films are nearly endless!

And the latest fresh idea comes from YouTuber and Podcaster STEVE SHIVES, whose channel has nearly 200K subscribers and more than 3,500 videos!!! Most of his videos deal with pop culture, sci-fi, politics, religion, and of course, Star Trek…nothing that anyone would ever get particularly passionate about, right? But the guy is REALLY hilarious and deeply insightful. If you’re a liberal (like me), his political content is totally on the money. And if you’re a conservative, well, stick to the Star Trek stuff (trust me on this).

Anyway, in April of last year, Steven began releasing what he describes as Star Trek “skits” but I’ve decided to classify as Star Trek fan films because, honestly, they totally are. His first one, STARFLEET LAWYER, was a 15-minute “interview” with Commander Richard Tuckman, Esq., an officer and attorney in the Starfleet Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) corps. Steve plays the role with a sardonic, amusingly resentful flair, as an attorney on a starship turns out to be one of the least respected individuals in the crew. It turns out that captains and first officers always seem to think they’d do a better job as lawyers than someone who is actually trained in law (think: “The Measure of a Man”). As the interview goes on, Tuckman gets increasingly drunk, increasingly sardonic, and increasingly hilariously resentful.

Two months later, Steve was back as Chief Petty Officer Jimmy Gruniger, the Chief Custodian aboard the U.S.S. Knoxville. About as different from lawyer Richard Tuckman as you can get, Gruniger loves his job, even though it’s one of the messiest ones on a starship. But this STARFLEET JANITOR is about as lovable as can be, and just as hilarious as his high-brow predecessor from the previous skit. Take a look…

In October, shortly after the Writers Guild strike ended but while the Screen Actors Guild was still striking along with the United Auto Workers, Steve introduced us to Crewman First Class Albie Milano, STARFLEET UNION REP for the enlisted personnel in the Vehicle Maintenance Department. “Wait!” you say. “How is there a union rep if the Federation doesn’t use money in the future?” Steve deals with this question by setting this interview shortly before the launch of NX-01 in the 22nd century. But it isn’t just about the money. It’s about safety initiatives like installing inertial dampeners and gravity nets throughout the entire ship, and a host of other reasonable concerns. And everything is delivered with an Italian flavored Bronx accent by yet another unique and lovable character.

Directors’ commentary for CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS from the AVALON Universe… (video interview with JOSHUA IRWIN and TYLER DUNIVAN)

The AVALON UNIVERSE fan series got its start back in 2018 with the production and release of GHOST SHIP. While driving back to northwest Arkansas after a shoot at the TOS sets in Kingsland, Georgia, showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN got an idea for a fan film that would be a crossover of multiple Star Trek realities. And thus was born the fan film that would ultimately become CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALBURS, which was finally released in December of 2023 after more than two years of production. (You can view all Avalon Universe fan films on this playlist.)

The project required over half a dozen different film shoots that were combined with shoots for two other Avalon productions: the already-released KNIGHTS OF THE VOID and the still-t0-be-completed series finale THE ONCE AND FUTURE CAPTAIN. Indeed, Crisis has turned into one of the most ambitious Star Trek fan film projects to date, with nearly 75 fans involved in its creation, including more than THREE DOZEN actors and extras, many of the actors playing multiple roles (doppelgängers from different realities), and a few of them even appearing alongside themselves in the same shots!

In this way, Crisis is unquestionably one of the most technically challenging Trek fan films to date, tackling not only multiple Star Trek realities like the Mirror Universe and Kevin-verse but also other sci-fi franchises like The Orville, Stargate, Babylon 5, Galaxy Quest, Back to the Future, Battlestar Galactica (both versions!), Star Blazers, Battle of the Planets, Andromeda, Red Dwarf, and even Spaceballs! Heck, it’s even got Elvis!!! Crisis also contains clips from more than two dozen other fan films both past, present, AND future. There literally has never been another fan film quite like Crisis…and very well might never be.

With so many hands of deck, Crisis also holds the distinction of being one of the most cross-collaborative Star Trek fan films since YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL, which combined the efforts of fan filmmakers from dozens of different series in multiple countries. Crisis likewise brought together multiple people from numerous fan projects including CONSTAR, THE FEDERATION FILES, TALES FROM THE NEUTRAL ZONE, STARSHIP ANTYLLUS, PROJECT GEMINI: CROSSROADS, TREK SHORTS, INTREPID, and STARSHIP ARMITAGE.

The finished fan film is, to say the least, stunning. Some fans have called it a game-changer. I just call it a heck of a lot of fun to watch and enjoy, which you can do right now…

Such a complex production of this kind of quality requires a great deal of skill and experience in filmmaking to successfully complete. Fortunately, both Josh and Tyler work professionally in the entertainment industry. But a fan film like this also deserves some special attention when doing an interview.

As such, this time I’m going to do something different than usually do. I’ve noticed a growing trend among fan film podcasters lately of watching the release with the creator(s) and having them comment as it plays. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with Josh and Tyler.

AVALON UNIVERSE releases their 12th fan film: KNIGHTS OF THE VOID! (video interview with TYLER DUNIVAN and JOSHUA IRWIN)

These guys again??? Well, yeah. AVALON UNIVERSE produces a LOT of high-quality fan films! In fact, they’ve just released their 12th completed production in less than five years…with another major release just a couple of months away. That’s more than two-and-a-half fan films per year, folks! (You can watch them all here on this playlist.) So it’s no wonder I’ve published a ton of blogs focusing on showrunner JOSHUA IRWIN and, more recently, his co-director and one of the stars of Avalon, TYLER DUNIVAN.

Tyler appeared in the first two Avalon releases, GHOST SHIP and AVALON LOST, but then he left the series for a period of time—with his character of Captain Derek Mason being killed off. Mason’s love interest, Engineer Jamie Archer (played by actress VICTORIA ARCHER), was then killed off in the following episode, DEMONS, as that actress also asked to leave the series.

Of course, no death is necessarily permanent in Star Trek (paging Captain Spock!), especially when the actors want to come back to their roles, and so both Tyler and Victoria returned to play resurrected versions of their characters a few episodes later in COSMIC STREAM. Since then, both characters have also appeared in a post-credit sequence in the episode AGENT OF NEW WORLDS.

Now, once again, Mason and Archer get an episode all to themselves…well, themselves, a Starfleet crew, and an unexpected visitor. KNIGHTS OF THE VOID is the latest release from the Avalon Universe…

Sadly, there will only be two more Avalon Universe fan films before the series reaches its always-planned conclusion. The first of the two releases will be CRISIS ON INFINITE EXCALIBURS, due out in just a couple of months with an incredible multiverse crossover that is, I predict, going to be talked about throughout many genres of fan films for a LONG time! And then the series will conclude with THE ONCE AND FUTURE CAPTAIN, coming at some point in 2024.

What is particularly interesting (and impressive!) about these final three fan films is that they were shot simultaneously! I don’t mean back-to-back over a single long weekend. There were actually five separate shoots during which scenes for multiple productions were filmed during the same set of shooting days. In fact, according to Josh, there are still two or three shooting days left for the remaining two films in order to get some pick-up shots.

With such a demanding production schedule, Josh determined that there was simply too much for him to coordinate during the shoots all by himself. So Tyler stepped up and offered to direct the actors and their performances while Josh focused more on the technical aspects of the scenes, although Josh still did some directing of the actors, as well.

How did this tag-teaming work and work out? Discover the answer to this question and many others as Tyler and Josh return to their Zoom screens for a lively discussion of Knights of the Void, the upcoming Crisis on Infinite Excaliburs, and other enlightening stuff…

Two new TREK SHORTS: “FALLEN HEROES” and “LEGACY OF THE ENTERPRISE B” (video interview with SAMUEL COCKINGS and MARCUS CHURCHILL)

SAMUEL COCKINGS is certainly the Speedy Gonzales of Star Trek fan films…assuming Speedy Gonzales is from Great Britain. Sam produces fan films so quickly that I barley cover one release when another two take its place!

Actually, this time it’s three, but this blog deals with only two of them, which I’ll explain shortly. But first, a little background on Sam and his TREK SHORTS fanthology series…

Unlike some fan filmmakers, Sam doesn’t have access to practical (physical) Star Trek sets—which is actually a GOOD thing! Without being locked into a specific era of Star Trek like TOS or TNG/DS9 or Voyager or PRODIGY or PICARD, Sam ends up having access to ALL of them!

How?

Well, Sam is an accomplished CGI master, specializing in animation but also knowing a bit about 3D modeling and having access to a number of skilled 3D modelers. Together, they have managed to create countless digital backgrounds of bridges, transporter rooms, mess halls, shuttles and runabouts, you name it(!) from two centuries of Starfleet history. And all of this along with starships and enemy vessels for spectacular outer space VFX. Watching Sam’s CGI animations is truly like watching fine art!

So all that’s really left for Sam to do is write scripts and film actors against green screens, right? Actually, there’s SO much more that he does, including properly lighting the green screen shots (not easy!), making digital adjustments during post production to levels for both the actors and the digital backgrounds to look seamless and realistic, equalize sound, add music, edit, and a ton of other little things…and still get these fan films out faster than I can cover ’em! Oh, and there’s one other thing that Sam does, and that’s direct. Sam has aligned himself with a number of very skilled actors, adding a wonderful depth and quality to already-high-quality productions.

If you’d like to watch any or all of Sam’s Trek Shorts fan films, you can access them from this YouTube playlist. One of Sam’s most recent projects was the quickly-written-then-filmed-then-edited-then-released FLIGHT OF THE PROTOSTAR, the first-ever Prodigy-era fan film That one I managed to cover, as it was just after Prodigy had been canceled. But three other of Sam’s films haven’t gotten their own blogs yet. I am now going to remedy that for two of them.

The two Trek Shorts in the spotlight today both star MARCUS CHURCHILL, also of Great Britain, who has been appearing in Sam’s Star Trek fan films ever since the 2013 shooting of the green screen footage for TEMPORAL ANOMALY, which was finally completed and released in 2019. Since then, Marcus has reprised his role of Sam Harriman (at different ranks during the character’s career) in a number of other projects for Sam. One of the most recent was FALLEN HEROES, a retelling of the film Star Trek Generations from a “lower decks” perspective. Take a look…

Let’s get a taste of NATURE’S HUNGER… (video interview with JOSE CEPEDA and his crew)

Back in 2015 when I first began covering Star Trek fan films, there were quite a few fan series that had already been churning out new releases for over a half a decade. Now, only a handful of those productions are still around, although new ones have sprung up to take their place, and the world of Star Trek fan films is currently thriving.

One of those fan series that was around back in 2015 actually got its start way back in 2010, and it’s STILL churning out new fan films thirteen years later! I am referring, of course, to NATURE’S HUNGER, which was originally STAR TREK: NATURES HUNGER (and no, the lack of apostrophe in the original title is not a typo on my part). Showrunner JOSE “JOE” CEPEDA lives just south of Atlanta, GA and writes, directs, edits, does many of the VFX, supplies costumes and props, and stars as Captain Ramses of the U.S.S. Crusader.

When I launched Fan Film Factor in 2016, Nature’s Hunger remained on my list of fan series to cover. But as I do with all the fan productions that I feature, I wanted to first watch every film that they had released. This was easier said than done, however!

As you can see from their YouTube video page, even as early as 2016, they had already posted nearly a HUNDRED separate fan films and videos. Many were quite short and experimental—sometimes only a minute to a few minutes in length. But a small number were 15 and even 20 minutes long, and their most recent offerings are 45 minutes and over an hour long!

I began watching through each one, noticing the this series was the purest form of fan film where the love of the genre and desire to create their own Star Trek far surpassed their budget and resources. In other words, these weren’t slick and polished “top tier” fan films but rather very grass-roots, guerrilla-level green screen productions with lots of heart and whimsy.

Oh, and speaking of gorillas, Nature’s Hunger often threw caution and canon to the wind as they crossed over with such other “realities” as Planet of the Apes, The Silence of the Lambs, and even The Wizard of Oz. Indeed, young Dorothy Gale, after being rescued from Oz by the crew, decides to join Starfleet! So, yeah, this is a very unique fan series and perhaps not for everyone. But if you can appreciate sincere effort and respect the obvious adoration they have for Star Trek, there is a LOT to enjoy about this fan series.

Granted, it took me quite a while to make it through everything that they had released. Along the way, I saw multiple versions of the crew finding and rescuing Dorothy, along with seeing the starship shift (without explanation) from everyone serving on board the U.S.S. Enterprise to being on the U.S.S. Crusader. (Hey, it’s a fan series, folks!) I also learned what the title Nature’s Hunger refers to…