The Bonding.

Few writers played a larger role in shaping modern Star Trek than Ronald D. Moore, but his first foray into Roddenberry’s universe came in the form of a spec script that was turned into the early third-season episode “The Bonding.” It’s a story that is often forgotten, but one that offers the first glimpses of the cerebral, introspective, and philosophical stories that came to define The Next Generation. In this episode of The Ready Room we discuss “The Bonding” and a number of issues that are addressed in the episode including the practice of carrying families on starships, coping with the inevitability of death when exploring the unknown, and why children in Star Trek look like little adults. We also explain the apparently extremely simplistic Klingon ritual known as The Bonding.

In news we cover the third trailer for the TNG Remastered project, George Takei’s casting on Celebrity Apprentice, the new Bandai “Next Phase” expansion set for the Star Trek Deck Building Game, the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain in the next movie, and we preview the final two tracks from Five Year Mission’s Year Two. Plus we reveal yet another of our 1,000 rejected plots for Star Trek IV.