[Nils Jacob Holt Hanssen]

Major Trekkie here 🙂 . STAR TREK is without a doubt my favourite film and (first and foremost) TV “thing”.

My first exposure to it was watching a few episodes of the The Original Series at a classmate’s home back in the 70s (it ran on Swedish television, which they had). I also saw most of the movies when they came out, but I didn’t get seriously hooked until I got my first VCR in the early 90s and started buying THE NEXT GENERATION episodes on VHS. It took off from there – I think I had some 60-70% of all the episodes that were released on VHS (TOS, TNG, DEEP SPACE NINE, VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE), and now I have basically everything that’s ever been released on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K (except the animated shows – not really my thing). I guess it says something about my level of fandom that I have 14 DVDs and Blu-Rays with documentaries about STAR TREK. 😉

THE NEXT GENERATION is still my favourite, and I’m currently into a full re-watch on Blu-Ray (soon finished with season 5).

Nick mentioned many of the reasons I like STAR TREK in his excellent post above. I love the moral dilemmas and philosophical discussions, the fact that a group of people can actually work together to solve a problem (scientific, cultural, technological, diplomatic, military etc) without being at each other’s throats, the urge to explore (space, science, other cultures, the human condition…), and the joy the characters seem to feel while engaged in all of this. In fact, “joy” is for me very much what STAR TREK is about.

Related to that, I find it refreshing that TREK is one of very few science fiction franchises with an optimistic and hopeful view of the future, arguing that, yes, if we get our act together here on this planet, brighter and better times lie ahead. Of course, with the current state of the world, this now seems more impossibly utopian than ever before… But one can always hope.

As for the music… well, Goldsmith’s TMP score is among my all-time favourites, and his other TREK scores are very enjoyable also, although I think none really compare to his first one. There is something to enjoy in all the other TREK movie scores too, but I can’t say I play the ones by Giacchino a lot… And for some reason I’m particularly fond of Dennis McCarthy’s GENERATIONS – which probably is a somewhat dissenting opinion (we discussed it here).

The TOS scores are iconic, of course, and I have the 15-disc set from La-La-Land. There is some terrific stuff there, although much of it does have that “60s TV scoring” sound, which isn’t really my favourite style. McCarthy, Ron Jones, Jay Chattaway and others did some great work from TNG to ENTERPRISE, but the strict limitiations set by the producers on what the composers were allowed to do make a lot of it sound very similar, and sometimes a bit bland (Jones more or less ignored this, which is why his TNG music is so great, and which is also why he was fired in season 4).

Of the recent series, from DISCOVERY onwards, I think Jeff Russo did really well on PICARD and the ongoing STARFLEET ACADEMY, as well as Nami Melumad on STRANGE NEW WORLDS.

And sorry but I think Giacchino also nailed the scores better than Goldsmith

Yes, that’s definitely another dissenting opinion! 🙂 But fair enough, of course.