Star Fleet is 40 today!

[Shane]

Hi there, hope everyone is well.

Well, it's October 23rd 2022 and that means Star Fleet is 40 years old today (based on its first UK transmission). I still remember watching the first episode on an October Saturday Morning. I loved Battle of the Planets and Thunderbirds, but this was something else. I instantly fell in love with it and over the years have had periods of what can only be called fanaticism for this great show.

It's incredible to believe that it's nearly 20 years ago now when I found myself heavily involved with Star Fleet fandom and amassed, at the time, quite the collection of collectables and memorabilia. They are long gone now as life and interests change, but i will always have a soft spot for Star Fleet.

I've actually been watching Star Fleet again recently for the first time in a long time while building Gary Cass's rather amazing X-Bomber model. What a great year for Star Fleet with the X-Bomber exhibition and new realistic Star Fleet models!

A big thanks to Andy for starting the whole online information resource and Crash for continuing the online fandom to this day after 20 years.

Happy Birthday Star Fleet

[Crash]

Hi Shane! It's great to hear from you.

I set up Ruby to remind people of the show airing dates and other things, when she's not bossing the visitors around.

I remember when I first saw Star Fleet on VHS, thinking that, although it was the same format as Thunderbirds and Terrahawks, it was amazing in its own way.
I think part of it was how Star Fleet was more of a journey of adventure and discovery: a bit like the Odyssey, unlike Anderson shows, which typically started out from the same point in each episode.


What have you been working on?

Do you have a continuation of Revenge of Makara, or will it always be left as a cliffhanger?
I also need more of your great illustrations to put on the site.

I hope you don't mind me stealing your Emma Steel character for Rain Song.

How is life with you?

[Shane]

Hi Crash, good to hear from you too.

Well done on a great day of Star Fleet X Bomber images on facebook.

I totally agree that Star Fleet was more of an epic adventure, with it's continuing serial style story. Much different to Terrahawks, for example, but then you can, by and large, watch most episodes of Terahawks out of order. I think the problem with Star Fleet is that it had such a definitive ending it would always be difficult to do a sequel without having to undo a lot of things and of course bring back the Alliance threat. I think we all did very well with our fan fics, especially after watching the Star Wars sequel trilogy where everything is reset and rebooted while devaluing a lot of the great characters from the original trilogy. Not a fan.

Yes, my own fan fic (written 10 years ago) ended on a cliffhanger, but I did start on it's sequel - The Council of Evil and you can still find the first 2 chapters of that on this forum. Hey, I may go back to it, just to finish the story. No worries about Emma, I remember you had plans for that character a while back.

[Crash]

Well, I think you should finish it.

I can't take credit for anything that goes on over on the book of faces. Nothing to do with me anymore, I'm afraid

I don't think I know a single person that found the Star Wars sequel trilogy to be any good.
The prequels had their problems because it was like watching Titanic where you already knew the ending, but at least they were good for memes.

For me, the Empire Trilogy of books by Timothy Zahn and the X-Wing series of books, plus the earlier Lucas Arts games were about the the only worthwhile expansions on the original films.
Rebels is a good animated series though. That's quite hard not to like.

Look at what they've done to Star Trek at the same time. Everything since Enterprise has only served to make Enterprise look not-so-bad by comparison.
The only decent thing is Lower Decks - that's quite funny.

It's interesting that, in the expo catalogue that I ordered from Goodsmile, it has details about the concept of Star Fleet, right back when it was originally supposed to be an anime...
There's a concept character called Marie Crest, who reminded me a lot of Emma Steel.
She does very well in chapters 4-6 of Rain Song, if I remember right.

[Shane]

Ah, my apologies, I assumed you were involved in the Facebook Star Fleet X Bomber page. A lot of exhibiton images were uploaded on Sunday night.

If I remember with the fanfics, Vanessa had an idea for a continuation of The Revenge of Makara which would have seen Steam Punk versions of some of the characters. My Council of Evil story was going to be a shorter tale that set this up and allow for a potential reboot of Star Fleet to a more ongoing series approach with Emma Steel and a new team.

I'm sure there is very little interest in reading more of this fan fic compared to how long it takes to write, but I may finish The Council of Evil at some point if nothing else.

[Crash]

Needs the proper promotion, that's all.
This is one of many areas where xbomber.co.uk could do better - promoting the works of the fans.

But, as the last independent Star Fleet site that gets frequently updated, it also needs frequent feedback from more people so that I can see better what it should do to try and help the fanbase out.

I keep remembering as well that the site wasn't originally intended to carry out any of those jobs, but only to act as a showroom and delivery mechanism for the game that I was writing.


I used to do quite a bit on the book of faces for the two Star Fleet groups.
There was a good thing which was Star Fleet Saturday which was just Star Fleet news/info on any topic, which seemed to go down well.

In the end, I got very tired of mainstream social media and closed all my accounts last year.
The Star Fleet groups were great and it was nothing having to do with them that caused me to leave.

This is why it's so nice that Dan Hitchin, who runs the more active group writes to me often to let me know what goes on.
So we share quite a lot of content and info back-and-forward that way.

Another thing I did earlier this year was the building-in of the Sphider search engine for the site - to reduce the site's dependency on big tech.

I have well over 600 images from the expo on the site. I'm still busy tidying them up ...

[AndyThomas]

(Un)fashionably late but hello Shane! Somehow that anniversary escaped me as my birthday is around the same time. It's great that Crash has been able to keep the flame alive and I smile quietly to myself when the Facebook community acts like it was the first online thing! How soon they forget! I was just looking at the toys article Justin Palmer did for the site to identify the rather brilliant Dai-X I've picked up and if anyone were in the market for an X-Bomber from that era https://www.leicestervintage.co.uk/ might still have one if you give them a call. Also well worth checking their tour video out here: https://youtu.be/zsfkOAlCqXI?t=2407

[Serenity]

I have mixed emotions when I think of my first viewing all those years ago.

I saw the first episode live. I wasn't feeling well, had been spewing all morning, so my mum put it on, mainly as a distraction for me. Absolutely loved it, I was hooked from the get-go. I was 6 at the time, and although I'd seen plenty of the Gerry Anderson shows already you could just tell that SF was a different beast. I remember patiently tuning in every week, crying my eyes out when Dr Benn bought it, cheering when Dai-X finally trashed Makara's battle-cruiser, and then being gutted when the series comes to an end. I know it was repeated once, but I think that was it(?), and then I remember scouring the TV listings for years in the hope that it would get another airing, and it never did. Eventually, I got a hold of the complete series via the US VHS tapes, but they were truncated so it was good, but lacking. And then finally, obviously we got the DVDs.

Both of our kids have seen the series, and despite them not liking much retro kids TV (they're not much for the Anderson shows sadly), they both enjoyed SF. We try to watch it at least once every year, never gets old!

Thanks to all and everyone who's kept the torch alive down the years. I'm lucky that I have very fond memories of my childhood, and SF was a good part of that. The website, and the forum, I remember finding them and being so thrilled that there were other people out there who not only enjoyed the series as I had, but continued to keep its profile visible, especially in the times when the show didn't enjoy the exposure it's had in recent times.

[Crash]

Great post,

Btw, we're running a Star Fleet Skype: either end of this month or next - keep an eye out on the forum, would be awesome to chat about the show,
I'm watching the show again now in the upscaled version, and I never noticed that Lee has an ice cream with him when he's sitting in the snowmobile on Pluto.