What with some long hours at the office lately, it wasn’t until shortly before Farpoint that I found an opportunity to watch Starship Farragut’s “A Rock and a Hard Place”. In the episode, Captain Carter takes a shuttle on a prospecting mission, accompanied by an old girl friend. The episode is 17 1/2 minutes long, but most enjoyable nonetheless.
A few thoughts came to mind after watching the episode:
- The best line of the film: “That’s a moodbreaker.”
- What’s a picnic without a few Klingons? (Klingons, ants, is there a difference?)
- It’s not just the Enterprise. You can’t trust any starship captain with anything that has a back seat.
Actually, what struck me most about the episode is something that’s been missing from a lot of fan films. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but it sometimes feels fan films tend to take themselves far too seriously. I don’t think fan films need laugh tracks (unless maybe they’re doing an SF sitcom I guess) but making every episode deeply serious with a somber ending, just doesn’t work for me.
With “A Rock and a Hard Place” I think Team Farragut managed to hit the mark just about right. The episode (or is it a “minisode”?) had its relatively serious moments, but overall, it felt like a classic TOS episode with just the right amount of humor.
I hope they can manage to continue.
