Strange
Counterpoints
STAR TREK:
THE FINAL FRONTIER REDUX
• DOWNLOAD ORIGINAL (1999) VERSION OF “STRANGE COUNTERPOINTS”
• READ ORIGINAL (1999) VERSION OF “STRANGE COUNTERPOINTS”
ONLINE
I’ve threatened to do something like this on countless occasions. But nobody believed me, and rightly so,
because in the entire history of Star Trek: The Final Frontier, I’ve only gone
back and tweaked a handful of
episodes, and even then… the changes were minor. You probably couldn’t even see the
differences if I told you (and if I could remember, because at this point, I
certainly don’t). But “Strange
Counterpoints” has always been a bit of an enigma. I’ve always boasted that it’s easily one of
the best, most-pivotal moments in TFF’s history, yet
the actual quality of the written word was noticeably below the TFF
standard. Granted, Season One was—in
general—not as well written as Season Five, but “Strange Counterpoints” always
seemed to stick out like a sore thumb, even if episodes like “In Pursuit of
Justice” were, arguably, even more crappily written. So
I finally decided to rectify that error, and some seven years after its initial
release, “Strange Counterpoints” is at long last the episode it should be. The writing still isn’t perfect by any
means—given the source material, it was rather difficult to straighten out some
of the mess. But it’s a definite
improvement.
At its very core, the episode is exactly the same. I’ve just taken the time to embellish upon
the episode. Substantially. The original episode clocked in at 12,673
words. That was about average for TFF
back in 1999. The new and improved
version is 14,661 words—about par for the course during Season Five. So what, exactly did I do with those 2,000
new words if the episode is exactly the same?
The devil is in the details.
While TFF seemed well-written back in 1999, I can assure you—it was
not. Take this passage, for example:
After tapping a short sequence of commands into the computer, sending it
all the targeting and dispersion data it would need to complete the task,
Keller touched the large button labeled ‘fire,’ and then sat back in her chair
to watch the fireworks begin.
The beam was a terribly luminescent shade of salmon, and forced Keller to
temporarily shield her eyes from it until they could adjust to the intense
light. They never completely adjusted,
however, as each time she looked away, Keller found an
annoying spot in her vision where the beam’s rays had temporarily stunned the
rods and cones in her eyes.
Still, spots and all, it was an incredible sight to behold. The swirling beam drove into the distortion
like a hot knife through butter, generating a hurricane-like maelstrom around
its shrinking perimeter.
“It’s working,” Keller said as she glanced down at the sensor
display. “The distortion’s size is down
to ninety-five percent… ninety… eighty-five…”
Pleased that her course of action had turned out to be superior after
all, Keller finally allowed herself to gloat.
She smiled deviously at Christopher for several seconds, basking in her
own evil satisfaction. But to her
dismay, the moment was cut short by the computer’s urgent call.
The above passage essentially embodies most everything that was wrong
with TFF back then. It was often too
wordy for its own good. This was to give
the illusion of length. Instead, it
often provided some rather long and ultimately confusing passages that wound up
saying nothing at all. Check out the
rods and cones in the second paragraph—totally unnecessary. Another thing I liked to do was use big words
that nobody was even remotely familiar with; this particular section isn’t much
of an offender, but while redoing the episode, I stumbled across a few words
whose meanings were lost upon even ME.
This gave TFF a bit of fake-eloquence.
But honestly, who uses words like “lexicon” in everyday language? Who even knows what “lexicon” means? (Well… in the most basic sense, it means...
uh… “language”).
So when it came time to completely redo “Strange Counterpoints,” the
biggest task was to simply iron out all of these little crinkles. You’ll note that I’ve strived to keep as much
of the original text intact—you know, for posterity—it just flows a lot better
now. I’ve also added a lot of new detail
and description to the episode—and that’s the bulk of the new material. In places, it’s only one or two new words,
but they certainly make all the difference.
Ah… and I’ve also deleted all references to the color salmon. That’s an example of fake eloquence. “Pink” is just as descriptive and sounds so
much better than some ridiculous fish reference in the middle of deep
space. Salmon has NO place in deep
space. End of story.
Anyway, the passage below is from the redone episode. You will duly note that it plays out almost
exactly the same as the scene above… only better:
With a few quick keystrokes, Keller sent the computer all the targeting
and dispersion data it would need to complete the task at hand. Once it successfully processed the data, the
computer chirped, and Keller tapped the large reddish button on her console
labeled ‘FIRE.’
A blazing beam of ragged pink light suddenly shot away from the
shuttle. Keller was forced to avert her
eyes for a moment while they adjusted to the intense light—but they never did,
and each time she looked away from the beam, she found a terribly annoying spot
in her vision.
Still, spots and all, it was an incredible sight to behold. The pulsating deflector beam drove into the
distortion like a pestilence, generating a wispy, hurricane-like maelstrom
around its shrinking perimeter.
“It’s working,” Keller said as she glanced at the sensor data flittering
across her computer console. “The
distortion has shrunk about fifteen percent.”
Christopher nodded his approval.
“Good.”
Infinitely pleased with herself—and her little victory—Keller allowed a
devious little smile to creep across her face.
Christopher certainly took notice, but before either one of them had a
chance to react, a few shrill sensor alerts blared from the computer.
I have always said that “Strange Counterpoints” is THE episode that
defines The Final Frontier. In
retrospect, that sentiment might not be entirely true, because most episodes of
TFF are nothing like this. That being
said, “Strange Counterpoints” is easily ONE of the defining episodes. I think if I had to pick one specific episode
to say, “Yeah, this is exactly what The Final Frontier is about—this is THE
defining episode,” I’d have to go with “Meridian Dance” in Season Two. It has some pretty deep character
development, huge space battles, an intricate plot, some nice political
machinations… “Meridian Dance” has everything.
So THAT is THE defining episode (and one of the best episodes
ever).
Getting back to “Strange Counterpoints,” it really was revolutionary for
its time. In order to establish TFF as
something more than Just Another Star Trek Fan
Fiction, I knew that I had to take some creative risks. The previous episodes, while acceptable, were
fairly conservative. They did little to
challenge the standard Star Trek Fan Fiction mold—in fact, they fit within that
mold quite nicely. While occasionally
interesting, the plots were nothing special; the characters were generic—you
could have very easily swapped them all around and nobody would have
noticed. This was not a trend I wanted
to continue, so with “Strange Counterpoints,” I set out to create something
that challenged the Star Trek norm. I
wanted to do something that had NEVER been done—but instead of coming up with
some newfangled technological gizmo, I decided to keep things really
simple. The episode would use only two
characters. ONLY two
characters. Deep Space Nine came close do doing this with Dukat
and Sisko with “Waltz,” while
This episode also started to develop the characters of Christopher and
Keller. Previous episodes only managed
to hint at their personalities. This is
when I started to really flesh these two out, and make them actual people. The original 1999 version of the episode did
a fairly decent job of this; it sent Christopher and Keller on the journey they
needed to take and ultimately got them to where they needed to be for their
relationship to bloom in later episodes.
But there were some things that were just a little off. Christopher’s
engineering knowledge was a bit much; Keller was a bit too cocky. And both uttered some ridiculous lines that
were WAY out of character (or just WAY stupid).
In the 2007 revision, I’ve smoothed out these kinks. Christopher is a bit more reserved when it
comes to his engineering skills; Keller isn’t nearly as cocky. And the WAY stupid lines are gone completely—though
I think some moderately stupid lines managed to survive.
For this newly updated version of
the episode, I also started to flesh out how the characters actually looked,
physically. But just a little. For a very long time, I tended not to
describe our beloved heroes in depth, instead leaving the vast majority of those
details up to the imagination. But by
the time Season Five rolled around, I had a pretty clear picture of everyone in
my head, and started to provide actual descriptions; thus, I decided to gently reinforce that in
the earlier episodes now that I had the chance.
Most male readers don’t quite agree with the look I’ve chosen for
Alan—blonde hair, blue eyes, a bit of a pretty boy. But I think it’s logical. First, Alan is NOT a gruff and tough manly
man—that’s Lucas. Second, I felt very
strongly that Alan should simply BE different from Picard
and Kirk, etc. He didn’t need to be a
clone. If Alan Christopher was to be the
heart of TFF for five years, he needed to be his own person. So I consciously made him atypical from any
starship captain we’ve seen in the past.
He’s got a wicked sense of humor.
He’s very lax. And he’s a
blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretty boy.
(So… yeah, he’s an exact clone of me).
The women seemed to like it.
(Definite clone of me).
This 2007 revision also corrects many of the glaring errors that were in
the 1999 original—most notably, Alarin III. Way back in 1999, Alarin
III was a Class J planet. I had intended
for that to mean “J is for Jungle,” but little did I know, Class J planets were
already established (in “Starship Down” [DS9]).
“J is for Jovian.” As in… a gas giant. Yeah.
Slight mistake. And while I am
often willing to overlook Mr. Roddenberry’s official rules, I am not so willing
to overlook the official continuity.
Thus, the Class J planet has been redesignated
Class L.
Another terminal error that has apparently plagued MANY of TFF’s earlier episodes is the character of “Ramsey.” While going through Season One to
edit/proofread/embellish, a mysterious character named “Ramsey” has shown up
all over the place, often times in the same episode (and even in the same
scene) as a completely different character (both male and female versions of
Ramsey have existed). I don’t know how
or why this happened, but… it’s insane.
It’s a brain fart of epic proportions.
Complicating matters is the fact that Jason Ramsey—the character I
intended to actually be named Ramsey—is referred to as Jason Stinson on several
occasions, in several different episodes, including “Strange Counterpoints” (it
has been changed to Ramsey for the 2007 edition). I also glimpsed a Jason Brantley reference
somewhere down the line. Interspatial
anomaly? Section 31 cloning
project? Author stupidity? The world may never know…
In 1999, I didn’t exactly go out of my way to drop little Easter eggs
into the episodes. As such, there were
NONE in “Strange Counterpoints.” But in
Season Four, and especially Season Five, I inexplicably started dropping them
left and right. I might have gone overboard
a little bit… but many of these references were obscure, so maybe not. Anyway, “Strange Counterpoints” is now home
to a handful of little Easter eggs, most of them related to Stargate
SG-1. I’m a latecomer to the Stargate universe.
VERY late, since SG-1 is already done and over with. But I’m catching up on DVD; currently in the
midst of Season Five… so you’ll note a lot of SG-1 episode titles litter
“Strange Counterpoints.” I know that I
added a few of them, but the only one I can remember off the top of my head is
“Between Two Fires.” That’s the one
where the Goa’uld wipe out the Tollan
(I just love how the Asgard wanted the Tollan to corroborate the claim. O’Neill’s response was dead on). Too bad I couldn’t wrench “Wormhole X-treme!” into the text.
So, that’s “Strange Counterpoints.”
It is perhaps one of the most anomalous episodes of TFF known to
exist. The plot is ultra simple. It uses only two characters. It’s almost entirely self-contained. It’s unlike any other episode, yet it somehow
demonstrated the very best that TFF has to offer. I guess different really is good.
Return to Main • Return to
Archives