Wow! Rittenhouse Does Women Right With The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary Trading Cards!

The Good: Impressive chase cards, Flashy common set, Some very cool autograph signers, Neat costume cards, Awesome sketch cards
The Bad: Somewhat irksome collectibility
The Basics: Rittenhouse Archives proves they still have a winning formula for Star Trek trading cards with their new "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" set!


Rittenhouse Archives has had the license to produce Star Trek trading cards for over a decade and a half and watching how the company has developed its products over the years has been fascinating to watch for both collectors and Star Trek fans. A decade ago, Rittenhouse Archives made the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek into a three-year affair, with four trading card sets commemorating the entire franchise and each of the three seasons of the original Star Trek. For the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, Rittenhouse Archives has produced three major trading card sets, plus one boxed set focusing on the 50th Anniversary traveling art exhibition. The fourth and (final planned, at least at the time of this review) 50th Anniversary tribute set from Rittenhouse Archives is the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set.

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a premium trading card set that focuses on the women of the entire Star Trek franchise. The final 50th Anniversary of Star Trek set is an obvious sequel to the very popular Women Of Star Trek trading card set released back in 2010 with a quality level meant to mimic the premium nature of the Star Trek The Original Series 50th Anniversary trading card set (reviewed here!).

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a magnificent set and it is the first set since I started splitting my rating system for trading cards to achieve a perfect score. This is an impressive, beautiful, trading card set and the only (comparatively minor) issue with it is its collectibility. Even with collectibility factored in, this is a near-perfect trading card set. The collector in me (I've been a trading card collector for almost as long as I have been a Star Trek fan) finds it unshakably problematic that with absolutely ideal collation, it would take 30 cases to assemble a true master set - and with this set, there's no cheating through Archive Boxes as the Archive Boxes do not include sketch cards, metal cards, or gold metal cards!

Despite the collecting gripe - a minor one compared to the other two 50th Anniversary sets that had more sketch cards and cut signature cards! - the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is an objectively perfect set that represents the pinnacle of Star Trek collecting!

Basics/Set Composition

"The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" is a set of high-quality trading cards that feature a sheen to them that makes them look like foil cards for most of the surface of the card. The set focuses exclusively on the women of the Star Trek franchise and expands the autograph set from the 2010 Women Of Star Trek, while introducing a new style of costume card and presenting some incredible sketch cards of the various women of Star Trek! For a television franchise that championed women in positive roles well before the sexual revolution began, the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary treats the women of the franchise right!

Properly assembled, the "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" set consists of three hundred seventy-one cards. The set is made up of one hundred common cards and two hundred seventy-one bonus cards, only eleven of which are not available in the actual boxes of "The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary" cards. Boxes of these cards consist of twenty-four packs with five cards per pack and highlighted three autograph cards and one costume card per box.

Common Cards

The common card set of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards consists of one hundred partially-foil cards. These cards were made on a premium card stock and each card features a front that has a high-quality image of the female character and a second image, in a picture window, non-sheen, that features the character paired with another character. The set is oriented entirely in landscape format and features cards for comparatively minor women in the Star Trek franchise - like Shahna, Madeline, and Erika Hernandez - and multiple cards of each of the most important women from the franchise - Uhura, Kira, Janeway, Dax, Crusher, etc. It is hard not to be thrilled with the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary common card set - after studying it, the only change I probably would have made to its composition would have been to swap one of the minor characters (my vote is Madeline!) for a card featuring Ezri Dax and Captain Sisko (the only Ezri card in the set is Ezri Dax and Dr. Bashir).

The backs of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards are well-written and most-frequently focus upon the relationship between the card's primary character and the character they are paired with. So, for example, card 7 details well the relationship Nurse Chapel had with Mr. Spock. Not limited to a single episode or incident, the card follows the many chances Chapel took to express her feelings for Spock and it gives a very complete view of that entire relationship! The cards are very well-written and the stand-outs and cards like 7 where the writers are able to show their mastery of the long arcs for the character, as opposed to simply detailing a one-off character's arc in a single episode. Despite having some limited characters based on their airtime, Rittenhouse Archives did an excellent job at fleshing out minor characters from fan-favorite episodes. As a result, both major women from "The Inner Light" are well-represented with common cards of their own!

This is one of the best-conceived, best-executed common card sets and it is nice to see that for its Star Trek: Voyager component, Kes was not neglected!

Chase Cards

The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards have a good balance of bonus cards and for the first time in a few Star Trek sets, there are bonus sets that can be assembled in a single case of cards. The premium quality cards include 271 bonus cards, 260 of which are found in the packs and boxes of the cards. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary bonus cards include: Metal Parallel Cards, Women In Command, Quotable Women Of Star Trek, Women Of Star Trek Gold Metal, Costume Cards, Autograph Cards, and Sketch cards.

The common card set of Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards was replicated as metal cards. This process has become more popular in recent years and the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary common set lends itself beautifully to metal card treatment. The metal cards are found only one per box, so with truly ideal collation, it would take nine cases to complete this subset! The truth, however, is that it is worth it. The metal cards are stylish and carry the images and border from the common set beautifully.

The first unique chase set for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards is the Women In Command chase set. The Women In Command chase set is a set of nine, landscape-oriented cards featuring a minor foil accent in the border that focuses on the influential women of Star Trek when they took command. Rittenhouse Archives aimed for precise with the set and, as a result, Uhura is not featured in the set - she never actually took command of the Enterprise (at best, she had command of a transporter station in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock). Number One from "The Cage" is featured and while it is odd that Saavik is card 9 in the set (chronologically, she should have been card 2), the cards are well-written and nice-looking and the set is comparatively obtainable at one Women In Command card per box.

Also found one per box are one of eighteen Quotable Women Of Star Trek cards. These cards feature a beautiful shot of the character featured on the card (different image on the front than on the back!) and a quote from the woman. The set is a good idea, but here Rittenhouse Archives is somewhat hoisted on its own petard. Rittenhouse Archives has released five different "Quotable" Star Trek sets, with additional "Quotable" cards being used as chase cards in other sets. As a result, Rittenhouse Archives has pretty well mined the franchise for great quotes. So, cards like QW9, which features Deanna Troi, has a quote from Troi that is hardly emblematic of the character. Conversely, it is somewhat shocking that the quotes for Major Kira (which provide some of her fundamental characterization) had not been used before! The Quotable Women set implicitly makes the argument that there is no point in a "Quotable" Star Trek: Enterprise set quite well, though the photography for this chase set is universally high and these cards look nicer than the common "Quotable" cards that made up the five "Quotable" Star Trek sets.

The style and quality of the Quotable Women Of Star Trek chase set is blended with the inherent value and quality of the metal parallel set for the Women Of Star Trek Gold Metal set. The landscape-oriented metal cards feature a big image of each major female character on the left, with a gold secondary image as the background on the right. These are magnificent cards and one of the tragedies of this subset is that fans can never collect this set and get them all signed (the subjects of three of the nineteen cards are now dead). Nineteen is a weird number of cards for a bonus card set, but Rittenhouse Archives makes it feel worthwhile with the quality of the Gold Metal set and the fact that they included Kes instead of culling the set at 18 major female characters.

One per box is a costume card in a new style. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary cards feature a portrait-oriented costume card style and they succeed in a way that is the opposite of the Quotable Women chase set; Rittenhouse Archives has done an amazing job in the past of representing main castmembers' traditional uniforms in their costume cards. The fifteen primary Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary costume cards feature recognizable and impressive female characters in their non-duty uniform costumes! As a result, Dr. Crusher gets two costume cards from her outfit from Star Trek: Insurrection and Torres has two casual costumes as part of her representation in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set. Even fan-coveted T'Pol is given a dual costume card from one of her alternate personas! The costume cards feel fresh and have some very cool variants, like Guinan's hat having noticeable variants and Vash's jacket featuring a number of different colors to her fabric swatch. Even Jennifer Sisko's costume has some cool variants! The costume card set is fleshed out by an exceptionally limited Yeoman Rand costume card that fills in a gap from the prior Women Of Star Trek set!

Each box of Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary had three autograph cards and the complete set featured 68 autograph cards. The autograph cards continued the style begun in the Women Of Star Trek set and featured some incredible signers. Vanessa Williams signed for the first time in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set and Whoopi Goldberg provided an autograph card as well! The Women Of Star Trek set was exceptionally comprehensive for the main cast of women of the franchise - almost every major female cast member from the various Star Trek series's signed an autograph card in the (at that time) new style of autograph card back then. The Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary fills in the gap of Roxanne Dawson, but leaves Nicole de Boer, Linda Park and Jolene Blalock absent from the Women Of Star Trek autograph card format. Despite that, it is hard to denigrate the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary autograph cards as they do include autograph cards from Yvonne Craig, Julie Warner, Susanna Thompson, Sharon Lawrence, Madchen Amick, and Meg Foster! First-time signers like Galyn Gorg and Laura Banks flesh out the set incredibly well, making this a must-collect autograph card set for fans of the larger Star Trek franchise!

One per case, there is a hand-drawn sketch card for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary. Thirty different artists contributed sketch cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set and there were some truly magnificent works from artists like Emily Tester and Kris Penix. I was impressed by how familiar sketch card artists Chris Meeks and Warren Martineck - best known for starship and technical sketch cards - adapted to the Women of Star Trek subject matters. Meeks, especially, creates some immaculate works that show he has the ability to render characters with beautiful depth and shading, not just ships! The sketch cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set are some of the best Rittenhouse Archives has ever presented! The sketch cards may create an issue with the set's collectibility, but tracking down 30 cases to assemble a sketch card set (if one lucks out on the collation!) creates a truly beautiful set!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Very few of the bonus cards in the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set cannot be found in the packs and boxes, but some of the ones that are not found in the boxes this time are bound to be the most coveted! There are eleven cards (fourteen, actually) that are not found in the packs and boxes, but because Rittenhouse Archives includes the printing plates as a complete set (which is very much a decent thing to do!), I count them as one card to chase. There are two promotional cards - the general-release P1 card and a P2 card that is exclusive to the manufacturer-released Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary binder. The promo cards follow a format that accurately foreshadows the common cards in the set.

Similarly, there are 2 different casetoppers. The casetoppers are metal replications of the P1 and P2 cards and are found only one per case. Like the standard metal parallel cards, the casetopper metal cards are quite pretty.

In recent years, incentive cards have become incredibly important to collectors and the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set is no different in that regard. There is a six-case incentive autograph card that continues the Legends Of Star Trek autograph format. For the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set, the Legends Of Star Trek autograph is a Nichelle Nichols autograph, which is a great tribute to the pioneering actress.

The real drool-worthy component of the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is the 9-case incentive sketch card. Esteemed sketch card artist Charles Hall took the image captured in the picture window portion of each common card and replicated it as a painted art sketch card for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary. Charles Hall made artwork for these cards that is jaw-dropping good in its quality. Hall picked up subtle background details and included immaculate depth and shading for these sketch cards. They are the true gem of this set and the quality of them is astonishing!

There is an exclusive Women In Command Rittenhouse Rewards cards available for die-hard collectors who exchange wrapper points for the card. The WC10 card features Erika Hernandez from Star Trek: Enterprise. Hernandez is a comparatively minor character and makes for an underwhelming rewards card. There were plenty of other women in command - many of them villains, come to think of it, like Donatra from Star Trek: Nemesis or planetary leaders who might have made an intriguing rewards cards if one had to go with obscure - but the addition of a tenth card to a nine-card set seems pretty superfluous as it is. Despite that, Rittenhouse maintained the quality of the chase set with the reward's card. It is completely Monday Morning Quarterbacking, but as I wrote this, it occurred to me that the Rewards card should have been Captain Tryla Scott. Obscure? Absolutely! But die-hard Trek fans will know that with one-line, she became an essential Woman Of The Star Trek franchise - she is the captain who beat Jim Kirk's record to become the youngest Captain in StarFleet! Furthermore, using her as an incentive card would have been particularly clever as she was a character not utilized anywhere else in the set.

The other four bonus cards are exclusive to the archive box. Found only in the archive box was a Teri Garr autograph card in the Women Of Star Trek format. Also exclusive to the archive box was a WCC27 Seven Of Nine costume card that continued the Women Of Star Trek costume card set, much the way the WCC16 card in the boxes did. Rittenhouse Archives surprised fans with an Archive Box exclusive throwback costume card that they did not announce prior to the set's release! The archive box included a variant WCC11 from the Women Of Star Trek set with a variant fabric swatch from the previously-released version! Also one per box was a set of four printing plates used to make the common cards for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary set!

Overall

Ultimately, the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading card set is a fitting tribute to its subjects that rewards trading card collectors with a truly impressive set worth tracking down for their collections. If Rittenhouse Archives never does another set focusing on the women of the Star Trek franchise, this is a fitting way to immortalize the heroic women; if Rittenhouse Archives ever revisits women of Star Trek as the subject for a trading card set, it sets the bar impossibly high!

This set culls images from:
Star Trek
Star Trek: The Next Generation
The Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
and Star Trek: Enterprise

This is a trading card set I proudly stock in my online store. To collect it, please check out my Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary Trading Card Inventory!

10/10 (objective), 8.5/10 (with collectibility factored in)

For other card reviews, be sure to visit my trading card review page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The 10 Essential Star Trek Experiences! (Happy Star Trek 50th Anniversary!)

| | | The Basics: The Star Trek franchise is massive and if one were to try to distill the incredible franchise into ten works, these are the pieces everyone ought to experience!


Happy 50th Anniversary Of Star Trek! Fifty years ago today, Star Trek made its debut on NBC with the episode "The Man Trap" (reviewed here!) and that led to the creation of a massive franchise set in a common fictional universe's 22nd, 23rd, and (most significantly) 24th Centuries. To celebrate the Star Trek franchise, I thought it was the perfect time to explore just why so many people have fallen in love with the Star Trek universe. I have been a Trekker for more than twenty-five years and celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek is a pretty big holiday in my household.

In celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, I decided to contemplate the entire franchise and all of the varied experiences I have had with watching, reading and otherwise studying the Star Trek franchise. I got to thinking about what was essential in the Star Trek franchise and I thought I'd give the answer the classic "desert island" question. In trying to winnow down the massive Star Trek franchise down to only ten items, I had to make some very difficult cuts. The incredible Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Hard Time" (reviewed here!) was a tough cut to make, as was the brilliant two-part Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes "Chain Of Command" (reviewed here!) and "Chain Of Command, Part II" (reviewed here!) had an insular subplot that non-fans would just not appreciate, despite its absolutely essential anti-torture message.

After all of the cuts and contemplation, after fifty years of all things Star Trek, the ten absolute essential Star Trek experiences are:

10. "The Measure Of A Man" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? An early second season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure Of A Man" finds the Enterprise docking at a starbase on the frontier where a scientist comes aboard to take custody of the ship's android officer, Data. Dr. Bruce Maddox wants to experiment upon Data and when the incredibly intelligent android doubts the scientist's methods and balks at the proposed experiments, Data attempts to assert his bodily autonomy. Maddox presses the issue and Data resigns from StarFleet in order to protect his life, which leads Maddox to assert that as a sentient machine, Data is property, not a person. What follows is a court case where Data's right to self-determination is decided.

Why Is It Essential? "The Measure Of A Man" is a strong ethical argument that holds up incredibly well. There is a lot of Star Trek that did not age well and "The Measure Of A Man" has moments of melodrama between Captain Picard and the officer representing the Judge Advocate General that play poorly, but they are not enough to rob the episode of its vitality. Instead, "The Measure Of A Man" has great character conflict and an ethical dilemma that successfully explores the ramifications of having ethics. The struggle between Data and Maddox is not about resolving a simple conflict; it leads to an argument about what comes next, what the ramifications are of devaluing life.

9. "The Survivors" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? An early episode of the third season of Star Trek The Next Generation, "The Survivors" has the Enterprise arriving at a colony world that was attacked and the entire world's population was wiped out. While investigating the destruction, the Enterprise discovers one family and their property have survived entirely unscathed. The mystery of how and why they survived perplexes the Enterprise crew and the mystery is intensified by a psychic attack upon Counselor Troi. As Captain Picard investigates the loving couple who survived a planetary genocide, he uncovers a horrific truth.

Why Is It Essential? No one else would probably find "The Survivors" essential, but it is truly an immaculate work of what Star Trek stands for. "The Survivors" explores the nature of guilt and consequence, it is a profound statement on love and the grief that plays out exceptionally well, time after time. "The Survivors" puts Picard at the mercy of someone he does not understand and his final statement to Kevin Uxbridge is a simple, eloquent moment where Patrick Stewart adds an entirely new dimension to Captain Picard with his delivery. After so many episodes of Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation where StarFleet seems virtually invincible and the sole occupant of the moral high ground, "The Survivors" redefines StarFleet's jurisdiction and there is a brilliance to the episode's simplicity and it's contrasting moral sophistication.

8. "Mirror, Mirror" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? In the second season of Star Trek, four members of the Enterprise crew teleport through an ion storm and end up in an alternate universe. There, they find that they are part of a warship that is set to wipe out an entire planet's population to eliminate the roadblock to strip mining the planet. With the ion storm dissipating, which will prevent the crewmembers from returning to their native universe, Captain Kirk risks his life to take a moral stand to prevent the genocide of the Halkan people. With assassins threatening Kirk and the others, Captain Kirk allies with his counterpart's partner to use reason and an alien weapon to delay the destruction he has been ordered to carry out.

Why Is It Essential? Star Trek managed to take a basic science fiction premise like multiverse theory and do something more than just give Spock a goatee (though it does that, too!). "Mirror, Mirror" is an episode that seems like a simple gimmick episode, but it is both character-driven and portrays a higher sense of ethics. "Mirror, Mirror" is pretty much the gold standard for multiverse episodes not only for the way it spends time with Captain Kirk and his team in the Mirror Universe, but for Spock's explanation for why their counterparts absolutely failed to integrate when they were beamed up to the Enterprise. There are not a lot of episodes of the original Star Trek that manage to use the entire ensemble cast (despite the mythology, only Star Trek only had three stars in the opening credits and the episodes were very heavily biased toward Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock); "Mirror, Mirror" is, arguably, the best to showcase the acting talents of the entire cast.

7. "Frame Of Mind" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? In the sixth season of Star Trek The Next Generation, Commander Will Riker is sent on a mission to a planet where he is wounded and ends up in an insane asylum. Prior to the mission, Riker had been involved in performing in a play that was set in an asylum and his sense of reality rapidly begins to break down. As Riker transitions between the play rehearsals and the alien asylum, he struggles with his sense of reality. With his apparent mental breakdown progressing, Riker must choose which reality is real, potentially risking his entire brain and life!

Why Is It Essential? Long before Brannon Braga absolutely gutted the Star Trek franchise, he wrote some masterful episodes of science fiction television. "Frame Of Mind" was his creative peak and Jonathan Frakes used it as an opportunity to act the hell out of it. Not at all about the reversal at the end, "Frame Of Mind" is incredible for the process, the thrill of discovery. And Jonathan Frakes dominates on the acting front. Sure, there is more to a great hour of television than an amazing performance, but seriously, Jonathan Frakes is that good as Riker transitioning between the two very different realities and making those transitions have an effect on his character.

6. Imzadi By Peter David (reviewed here!) - What Is It? Opening in the future, Admiral Riker is a miserable old man, crushed by the weight of losing one true love, Deanna Troi. Set in the future, the past when a young Will Riker met Deanna Troi, and the present when the U.S.S. Enterprise is on a mission that costs Troi her life, Imzadi becomes a time travel adventure as Admiral Riker decides to violate all of the rules of time travel by going back to save Troi's life. Pursued by authorities from his own time, Admiral Riker risks everything to change reality out of his sense of loss and love.

Why Is It Essential? No one writing Star Trek novels before Peter David looked at the episodic, unrelated, episodes in the franchise and managed to tie them together with plots, references and asides like Peter David. Imzadi is funny and tragic and clever in a way that endures as only great literature can. Intricate and character-driven, Imzadi effectively explores the depths of love and loss in a time-travel adventure that transcends pulp fiction. Indeed, when the greatest flaw a book possesses is that it gets a character's middle name wrong (Riker says his middle name is "Tiberius;" when Peter David wrote the novel, Riker had been referred to in the show as William T. Riker, it wasn't until years after the book was published that an episode defined the "T" as "Thomas"), you have a bona fide masterpiece. Imzadi is the gold standard for what a writer can do when not bound by a television budget for sets, make-up, special effects, and guest actors. Peter David writes a work that is appropriately complex and clever, with a narrative voice that entertains even as it drives the reader to empathize.

5. "A Piece Of The Action" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? Late in the second season of Star Trek, the U.S.S. Enterprise visited the planet Iotia. Iotia was once visited by another starship and now, years later, the Enterprise crew is horrified to learn that the entire planet has modeled itself off of Chicago Mobs of the 1920s. When Kirk and Spock are taken hostage, a caper ensues with their escape, rescue, and capture by rival gangs. In trying to stay alive, Captain Kirk has to try to put the societal evolution of the planet back on its natural course.

Why Is It Essential? Science fiction can work amazingly well when it utilizes humor and "A Piece Of The Action" is an excellent example of that. After a season and a half of Captain Kirk and his crew spouting the Federation's non-interference directive (the Prime Directive), the viewer is treated to seeing why the Prime Directive is important. The result of interfering with the natural evolution of a society is presented with humor and menace and "A Piece Of The Action" manages to find the right balance of it. Like "Mirror, Mirror," it utilizes the ensemble cast well and it is an episode that allowed William Shatner to go wild with his performance of Captain Kirk and have the occassional over-the-top nature of his acting not at all detract from the episode.

4. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan / Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (reviewed here! and here!) - What Is It? The two movies, viewed together, open with an aging Admiral Kirk feeling unsatisfied with life, wondering what his purpose in life is after being promoted out of being a starship Captain. Admiral Kirk accompanies Captain Spock and the Enterprise, crewed by cadets, on a training mission. While on the mission, a research outpost contacts the Enterprise with a crisis; a starship they work with is coming to take a potentially dangerous scientific device without authorization. The Enterprise rushes to help only to discover that the U.S.S. Reliant has been hijacked by one of Kirk's old enemies. In trying to stop a man who is smarter, stronger, and more dangerous than the Enterprise crew, Captain Kirk finds his sense of purpose, but loses his closest friend. In the aftermath of tragedy, Captain Kirk and his friends struggle to save Dr. McCoy and Spock's lives, risking their careers and lives against a new, vicious adversary.

Why Is It Essential? Technically, it is a cheat as they are two movies, but they actually hold up much better playing off one another to make one solid narrative. Plus, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock was Leonard Nimoy's directorial debut and Christopher Lloyd never gets enough credit for his portrayal of Klingon Commander Kruge. Aging and obsession are masterfully presented with a strong character-driven narrative and the full cast illustrates the depths of their character in a powerful story about loyalty. There is a reason Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan is considered a classic . . . and it's not just Ricardo Montalban's bare chest. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock find the absolute right balance between action, character complexities, and ethical dilemmas.

3. "The Inner Light" (reviewed here!)- What Is It? At the end of the fifth season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Enterprise encounters an alien probe that knocks Captain Picard unconscious. While his body lies unconscious on the Bridge, fed a stream of data from the probe, Captain Picard wakes up on an alien planet. He is told his name is Kamin by his wife and that he lives on the planet Kataan. After years of rejecting what appears to be the truth, Kamin accepts that the time he recalled aboard the Enterprise as Picard was a fever delusion and he starts a family and studies the environment to discover that Kataan is on the verge of a devastating climate change.

Why Is It Essential? It takes a lot to make a story that is insular to a character that is also incredible to viewers who are not invested in that character; "The Inner Light" finds that perfect spot. Fans of Star Trek The Next Generation were used to Captain Picard as a somewhat emotionally-withheld character who disliked children and was never in a successful romantic relationship. "The Inner Light" completely redefines the character and is a brilliant exploration of "the road not taken." "The Inner Light" effectively explores how, given a chance, a person can completely redefine themselves and create a life that is unexpectedly satisfying. "The Inner Light" is a Patrick Stewart performance that absolutely captivates the viewer and the guest cast that surrounds Stewart is surprisingly impressive, rising to his caliber. "The Inner Light" uses a minimal science fiction concept to explore real character drama.

2. "The Visitor" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? The fourth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine shifted immediately from its burgeoning war story arc to a powerful character-driven piece with "The Visitor," which focused on Jake Sisko. Opening in the distant future, Jake Sisko is a writer living in seclusion when he is sought out by an aspiring writer. Jake tells the story of how he became a writer and why he stopped writing; he lost his father. But when Benjamin Sisko was lost, so many years ago, he did not simply die. As the grieving Jake Sisko tried to move on with his life, his father would appear periodically, apparently trapped in another dimension. Guided by grief, Jake gives up his promising career to study subspace physics in a desperate search to find a way to recover his father . . . a pursuit that takes him his entire adult life.

Why Is It Essential? This is the ultimate Star Trek franchise tearjerker. "The Visitor" is a love story and it is a profound statement on the importance of having a loving parent. "The Visitor" is a great example of a powerful character study that has a universal message that makes incredible use of a minor science fiction conceit to reveal something deep and true. More could be said about "The Visitor," but it might be the greatest Star Trek experience worth experiencing rather than analyzing.

1. "Duet" (reviewed here!) - What Is It? The penultimate episode of the first season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finds an alien ship visiting the station with a Cardassian who requires medication. The need for the medication instantly draws the attention of First Officer Kira Nerys, who claims that for the Cardassian to need the medication he must have been at the site of one of the most horrific examples of genocide during the Cardassian Occupation. Kira imprisons the Cardassian and as tensions arise outside the station about the legality of the Cardassian's detainment, the crew works to confirm the Cardassian's identity. Kira has either imprisoned an innocent Cardassian filing clerk . . . or one of the greatest war criminals of the Occupation.

Why Is It Essential? It is virtually impossible to make a compelling hour of television where the bulk of it is two people simply talking to one another. The idea of creating an episode of Star Trek where the plot action is a prisoner identification seems like a recipe for boredom and disaster. Star Trek Deep Space Nine not only makes it work, but it creates a truly brilliant episode. Nana Visitor and Harris Yulin play off one another immaculately and their banter is a writer's dream. "Duet" is essentially an allegory episode that explores (in metaphorical terms) the effects of the Holocaust and the idea of national culpability. And, on the opposite side, "Duet" is a knock-out episode that defines Kira Nerys; a woman who has been fueled by racism and anger who is forced to look at a man she perceives as an enemy in an entirely different way. The emotional journey is intense, viewing after viewing. Like all of the best moments in the Star Trek franchise, "Duet" is smart, well-performed, character-driven and blends social commentary with a statement that reveals something profoundly important and human.

For other Star Trek articles, please visit:
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek The Next Generation
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Deep Space Nine
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Voyager
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek Enterprise

For other Star Trek reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Set That Hedged Its Bets: The Star Trek Genesis Collection!

The Good: Limited quantity, Some cool characters, All foil
The Bad: Inconsistent composition, Not limited enough
The Basics: With twenty-seven foil cards, the Star Trek Genesis Collection had the potential to be awesome, but was diluted by elements that had nothing to do with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan.


As Decipher was struggling in the early 2000s with financial issues and a reconstruction of the company that had built itself on the strength of its Star Trek and Star Wars gaming products, they tried to raise capital fast. Rather than coming up with some full new sets, they released a few limited edition sets. For Star Trek, they released The Genesis Collection, an all-foil limited edition set that the company sold directly. Unfortunately for fans who were either collectors or players, The Genesis Collection is an unfortunately erratic set. Instead of committing to its premise, which one might assume had to do with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan - or even the original Star Trek films – The Genesis Collection is all over the place.

While the Genesis Collection is compatible with both the first and second edition of the Star Trek CCG , it acts only as an accent piece to established decks. Because there are random characters, like Kira Nerys (Bajoran) and Jasad (Cardassian) and Dilemmas that have to do with Benjamin Sisko’s journey as the Emissary, there is no sense of cohesion to the set.

Basics/Set Composition


The Genesis Collection was one of the last expansions from Decipher, Inc. and it was one that straddled the Second and First Edition formats, though it looks like a Second Edition set. Focusing, loosely, on the characters, events and scenarios of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and some of the other Star Trek movies, this twenty-seven card limited edition all foil set was initially released directly from the manufacturer exclusively to the U.S. marketplace. Rapidly gobbled up through the secondary market by overseas players and collectors, the twenty-seven card set was oft-delayed by the troubled manufacturer.

With twenty-seven cards, the Genesis Collection set is small and scattered. Each pack has the same twenty-seven cards (one each) and is numbered as if it were a full set. The numbers for the set make it the 11th Second Edition set. The set is comprised entirely of foil cards, which adds some additional inherent value to the set.

The set is broken down with twenty-seven premium cards thus: 7 Dilemma (cards that form the objective challenges for the game, like encountering a Subterranean Barrier), 5 Events (cards depicting long-standing challenges within the game, like a No-Win Scenario), 1 Interrupt (which make for fast turns in the game, like having to scream out “Khannnnn!”), 1 Mission (cards that provide the “board” and points for the game, in this case – predictably – The Genesis Planet), 11 Personnel (1 Bajoran, 1 Cardassian, 5 Federation, 1 Klingon, and 3 Non-Aligned), and 2 Ships (1 Borg, 1 Federation).

Playability

The Genesis Collection introduced no new card types or scenarios to the game. In the First Edition, there were cards that mimicked all of the best cards in the Genesis Collection. The Genesis Collection serves to reintroduce the key film moments from some of the First Edition into the Second Edition. With only 27 cards, though, the Genesis Collection is not playable on its own. It is very much an accent piece for collectors, as opposed to a playable deck or even a full enhancement to Second Edition players.

Rule Changes

This little set came with no rulebook or official rule changes. Those who continue to play have found errors on eleven of the cards, which have been fixed on the virtual decks that players still produce and play. As a result, this seems rather impractical, and uncomplicated, for play.

Highlights

Fans of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan would be hard-pressed to find a better card in the Genesis Collection than the Khan Noonien Singh card. Khan is a Non-Aligned Personnel card and a powerful one at that. In addition to being smart and strong, when he is played, he reduces the opponent’s attributes. Gracing fans with a beautiful image of Ricardo Montalban, the Khan Noonien Singh card is the best of the set.

Collectibility

Players will find the Genesis Collection to be eminently problematic to play with as far as the game mechanic goes. Collectors might like how limited the set is, but it is incredibly unsatisfying to look at the set when it’s in binder pages. The set looks terrible when displayed because it has no thematic cohesion, despite the cool foil nature of the set. Fortunately, after the much delayed first printing, the second (more common) printing was released and the sets are not so hard to come by as to make them impossible to find, though this certainly was not an overproduced or overprinted set. Instead, this seems to have struck the right balance as it is easy to collect - as it is all in one place - but not so common as to make it worthless.

The Genesis Collection has hovered right around its original release price, not appreciating in value largely because soon after it was (finally) released, Decipher went bust and the player base shrank dramatically.

Overview

The Genesis Collection is an ideal set to cherry pick from. Arguably one of the best collections to get singles from, the set might not hold together thematically, but it has some cool and powerful cards to play and they do look good. That makes it worth it more for players than collectors, so it is not entirely worthless.

The Genesis Collection was released between Captain’s Log (reviewed here!) and These Are The Voyages . (reviewed here!)

This set culls images from a number of Star Trek sources, but mostly Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, reviewed here!

This is a set of cards I proudly sell in my online store! Check out my current inventory at: Genesis Collection CCG Inventory!

5.5/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Best Is In The Middle: Star Trek Aliens Trading Cards Confound And Delight!

The Good: Great concept, Decent images, Good overall value, Decent chase
The Bad: Common card set is irksome, Virtually impossible to complete the set!
The Basics: The Star Trek Aliens trading cards are a tremendous concept, with pretty awesome chase cards, but a problematic common set and a disturbing lack of collectability for avid card collectors.


Star Trek trading cards have come a long way from when I started collecting them in 1991. Like many people who started collecting back then, I was happy when the trading card companies evolved beyond the simplistic trading cards and into more intriguing card designs – both for common sets and chase sets. I have had issues with how the trading card collecting industry has gone in recent years, which were well-detailed in my reviews of Rittenhouse Archives’ Star Trek: The Original Series 40th Anniversary Series 1 (reviewed here!) and Star Trek (2009 Movie) trading card sets (reviewed here!). So, with the release of Star Trek Aliens, the latest Star Trek trading card set by Rittenhouse Archives, we are already way, way beyond the point where complaining about collectability of the card sets is a truly legitimate – or germane – complaint (Star Trek trading card collectors who might be able to create true master sets have been reduced from 50 to 25 to 5 over the last decade!).

So, there is some irony in Star Trek Aliens, a set that is clearly designed for those who love Star Trek and who thrill to collect, but that seems to service best a middle-ground of collectors. Star Trek Aliens is notable in that it has one of the coolest concepts for a card set, but has one of the most haphazardly produced common card sets; it has amazing chase cards and the first Whoopi Goldberg autographed card, but sketch cards of such incredible rarity that several of the artists produced less than 25 sketches. Those looking for sensibility or who enjoy collecting are likely to find the set to be a troublesome boondoggle, but those who just go with the flow and have a more casual approach are actually bound to find a lot that leaves them legitimately excited about the set.

Basics/Set Composition

As the name, Star Trek Aliens indicates, this card set explores the many aliens of the Star Trek franchise. Not limited to just the original Star Trek, this was an incredible collection of Star Trek cards that featured images, autographs, and sketch cards from all five television series as well as the Star Trek film franchise. With 7000 numbered boxes and a presumed 80 archive boxes, Rittenhouse Archives has created a product that is clearly designed to hold its value in the marketplace.

Star Trek Aliens trading cards return card collectors to the more image-packed sets that Rittenhouse became known for a decade ago. Packed with bonus cards that ranged from foil and die-cut cards to sticker cards to the grails – thirty different hand-drawn sketch cards by different artists, Star Trek Aliens is bound to be a favorite for many Trekkers. The Star Trek Aliens trading card set, when properly assembled, includes three hundred sixty-eight cards, of which ten are not available in any of the boxes! This was a virtually impossible set to complete, so collectors that do will end up with a virtually priceless Star Trek artifact.

The Star Trek Aliens trading cards were released in packs of five cards. There were twenty-four packs per box and a dozen boxes in a case. This was a set that, like most contemporary Rittenhouse Archives releases, had 6-case, 9-case and 18-case incentives.

Common Cards

Out of the three hundred sixty-eight cards in the Star Trek Aliens trading card set, one hundred are considered common. The common set focuses on, as the name suggests, the aliens of the Star Trek franchise. Oriented in a landscape format, Star Trek Aliens has the sensible format where the backs are upside-down from the fronts, so when they are placed in a binder, when one flips the page, they may read the backs of the cards, without having to further manipulate the binder. All of the cards feature the usual UV resistant coating to prevent fading.

Star Trek Aliens cards are distinctive in that they are very white; the front of each card features a white bar at the top and bottom and the backs are dominated by white space for the card text. Each card focuses on a single character and the fronts feature three images (one large taking up the left two-thirds of the card, and two smaller images stacked on the right side). Cards range from the popular and familiar alien characters like Spock, Guinan, Worf, Kira Nerys, Odo, Seven Of Nine and T’Pol to the memorable guest characters or recurring characters, like Worf’s son Alexander, the Talosians, Hugh the Borg, Gul Dukat, Shran, and Annorax. Fortunately, Star Trek Aliens does not include too many ridiculously obscure characters, though choices like Alexander the dwarf from “Plato’s Stepchildren,” Ambassador Ves Alkar (from “Man Of The People”), and Firek Goff are far less recognizable or influential in the pantheon (in discussing this with my wife, for example, we came up with five more worthwhile characters/aliens than Ves Alkar!). For the most part, though, Star Trek Aliens features the favorite and best alien characters of the Star Trek franchise.

The Star Trek Aliens common card set is fairly well written. The back of each card features a blurb on the relevant character with enough information to make them seem vital and memorable and encapsulate most of the character’s arc.

That said, Star Trek Aliens is one of the most flawed common card sets to be produced by Rittenhouse Archives in years. First, there is no rhyme or reason to how the set is organized (except in the most general sense). Cards go through the Star Trek franchise from Star Trek to Star Trek: The Next Generation to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, etc. But then after Star Trek: Enterprise, there are the Star Trek film aliens, followed by ten random characters (possibly fan favorites?). Within the various series’, though, there is no consistency; the Star Trek and Star Trek movies aliens are presented in chronological order of their characters’ appearances. The other four categories have no such order to them. Second, the cards do not make good use of the entire arc of several of the characters. For example, card 16 – Alexander Rozhenko – presents Alexander as he was played by John Stuer a disproportionately high number of times (Stuer appeared only in “Reunion,” Brian Bonsall played him several more times and even Marc Woden, who took the role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine played him for two episodes . . . and his iteration of the character is not featured at all!). Some of the other key characters who were recast – Daimon Bok and Tora Ziyal – do not have all the versions of the character represented (Bok is an amusing example as the second actor to play him signed autograph cards for the set, but is not featured on any of the common cards!). Rather hilariously, there is no Ezri Dax card in the common set!

Finally, there is a strike against the Star Trek Aliens set for those who are avid Star Trek card collectors: the images. Star Trek has a rich amount of material and Rittenhouse Archives has done an impressive job of getting incredible images in the past. But with Star Trek Aliens, they have begun to reuse their material and that is bound to be frustrating for collectors who actually like looking at their collections. For example, on the Leeta card, one of the five images is instantly recognizable as the shot that was the subject of the Leeta card for the Women Of Star Trek In Motion set! Furthermore, cards like the Guinan and Troi cards both feature images on the common cards identical to the images on the autograph cards!

Chase Cards

Fortunately for collectors, there is so much more to card collecting now than just common card sets! In boxes of the Star Trek Aliens trading cards, there were two hundred fifty-eight bonus cards and they range from cool retro-sticker cards to unique works of art created by thirty sketch card artists. For the first time in Star Trek trading cards, collectors were pressed to collect artists as opposed to specific sketches! With absolutely ideal collation, the Star Trek Aliens trading cards would take thirty CASES (360 boxes!) and an archive box to complete the set! The set included bonus cards like parallel, “Quotable” Klingons, First Appearances, Sticker, Alien Ships, Autograph, Badge, and Sketch cards. The boxes of these cards are packed with value from the sheer number of bonus cards in them!

The first chase cards are the parallel cards. One per box, collectors found a common card that was replicated on slightly thicker cardstock and had a gold bar on the front of the card and an individual collector’s number stamped into the back of the card. The gold parallel set is limited to 100, so getting all one hundred cards replicated in gold parallel versions is a task in and of itself!

The four most common chase sets each required almost an entire case to complete! The nine “Quotable” Klingon and First Appearance cards and the ten Alien Ships cards were each found one per box, while the eighteen Star Trek sticker cards were released 1:16 packs, so with a single case, one could actually assemble a set. The “Quotable” Klingons cards are somewhat disappointing in that they are identical to one another, save the text on them. Featuring a cool background, but with identical Klingon symbol and communicator images on the fronts and backs does not make the set one of the more distinctive chase sets. The First Appearance cards are beautiful foil-enhanced, die-cut cards that feature multiple neat images of the first episodes that featured seminal Star Trek aliens like the Vulcans, Klingons, Romulans, Cardassians and Borg. Similarly, the embossed Alien Ships set is beautifully rendered with both matte and gloss aspects that accent the blacks of space that the ships are featured on and they look amazing. As with prior sets that included retro-sticker sets, the Star Trek sticker cards are a lot of fun! Having big sticker images of Guinan and Troi are enough to make the teenager in me giddy with retro-delight (I would so have gotten mocked in middle school if they had existed then because I would have stuck them on my book covers for my textbooks!).

At three per box are the Star Trek Aliens autographs. The Star Trek Aliens autographs have comparatively high rarity (only two signers signed more than 500 cards!), despite the frequency of the autograph cards in the boxes. With a mammoth 76 card autographed card set, the Star Trek Aliens set is arguably the most impressive and bloated set of autograph cards yet. The most rare autographs include Whoopi Goldberg, Daniel Davis (Moriarty), Leonard Nimoy, and Jeri Ryan. Signers ranged from the always-impressive Malcolm McDowell to the regular cast members like Michael Dorn, Marina Sirtis, Armin Shimerman and Tim Russ. While the autograph set is remarkably light on main cast members for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise and there was an issue that had the actors names on the front of some autograph cards in the place of their characters names, the collection is largely impressive. Star Trek Aliens marks the first autograph cards for Paul Dooley and Chris Sarandon, in addition to the obvious draw of a Whoopi Goldberg autograph card!

One per case collectors could find one of six (or seven, depending on one’s perspective) badge pin cards. Rittenhouse Archives produced replicas of the Vulcan IDIC symbol, Klingon communicator, Romulan symbol badge, Borg symbol and Bajoran communicator in addition to a replica of a slip of Gold Pressed Latinum and attached those replicas to an extra-thick card. Each card was individually numbered to 200 and the cards are so thick that they take the place of any other cards in the pack when they pop up. These cards were beautifully made, but their thickness was problematic; virtually all of them had scalloping on the edges where they were pressed by the equipment used to seal them into packs! The Borg pins were available in two variants (black and red) and that gave collectors a little extra treat to hunt for for their collections.

The grail of the boxes, though, are the sketch cards. Thirty different artists contributed art of Star Trek aliens and ships to the Star Trek Aliens trading card set. The art ranged from the immaculately precise works of Roy Cover and Gener Pedrina to the less colorful, but more shaded works of Bien Flores. Jomar Bulda did not appear to sign his cards for the set and some of the artists (like Sean Moore) produced less precise and more stylized sketch cards, more like comic book versions of the subjects than the photorealistic works of, for example, Irma Ahmed. I was truly thrilled when I pulled a collage card by artist Javier Gonzales (he painted a viewscreen border and Naguilum’s head and pasted them onto a viewscreen painting!). Each one is a truly unique work of art and Star Trek Aliens features a number of artists who had not worked on prior Star Trek trading card runs.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Outside the packs found in the boxes, there are ten cards that cannot be found no matter how many packs are opened. They include the promotional cards and the casetopper cards. The promotional cards include a P1, which is simple to find and was given to dealers to promote the set and the P2, which was an exclusive promo in Non-Sport Update Magazine. P3 was exclusive to the Star Trek Aliens binder from Rittenhouse Archives.

In every case, there was one of two Juan Ortiz art cards. Developed in a similar style to the Star Trek Portfolio Prints cards (reviewed here!), the casetoppers are poster cards for the Borg and Klingon. This is an unfortunately boring casetopper for such an art-rich set of trading cards. The casetoppers are not even individually numbered to make them appear distinct or rare.

For every six cases of Star Trek Aliens trading cards a dealer purchased, they received a colored sketch/painting card from Warren Martinek. Martinek made cards of both characters and ships from the Star Trek franchise and they were very cool.

The nine-case incentive card was similar; Matt and Mike Glebe did painted art cards that were even more limited than Martinek’s and they, too, featured characters and ships. The Glebe’s artwork cards have been popular with Trek fans since they started doing them and these are already some of the most valuable and coveted art cards in the set (despite not being as rare as some of the other artists!).

The archive boxes feature R1, a Klingon Neck Collar artifact card. Given that this is a piece of Karen Austin (Miral in “Barge Of The Dead”)’s costume and she is hardly one of the most influential or impressive characters in the franchise, the card has more value for its rarity than its popularity. Each R1 card is hand-numbered to 80 and the fabric swatches in them seem similar across the run.

There are two cards, not available in packs, boxes, cases or incentives given to dealers. They are the P4 promotional card, which was an incentive used to promote the Star Trek Collective card resource and the F10 Q card. For the "Rittenhouse Rewards" program, which award points for each wrapper redeemed to Rittenhouse Archives, fans could get an exclusive F10 card featuring the first appearance of Q. This also makes the First Appearance set from a sensible 9 cards to an awkward 10 cards, but the card itself is still cool. The P4 follows the same style as the rest of the promos.

Overall

The Star Trek Aliens trading cards is going to be the crowning achievement of someone’s Star Trek trading card collection, but the number of collectors who can actually complete the set will be remarkably few. For those who complete or simply collect the set, the rarity too often overrides the quality: the common set is a mess, the autograph cards are inconsistent and the sketch cards are prohibitive to collect a complete set of. But the attempt is a neat one; despite their faults in formatting, the common cards look good and are fun to read – the bonus cards are (mostly) inspired and the thrill of most of the autograph signers overcomes the variations in the card fronts. And the art . . .and the art . . . Star Trek Aliens is worthwhile to collect if for no other reason than they are making art a living, breathing, vibrant thing for people whose love of a television show and movie franchise might cause them to neglect a love of genuine artwork. And looking at the artwork cards in this set, it is impossible to deny that they are art!

This set culls images from:
Star Trek
The Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise

This is a set that I proudly sell in my online store! Check out my current inventory at: Star Trek Aliens Trading Card Page!

For other mixed series Star Trek trading card sets reviewed by me, please check out:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Topps card Set
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 1
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 2
Star Trek 1994 Edition Master Series
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase One
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase Two
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase Three
Star Trek Cinema 2000
The Women Of Star Trek In Motion
Star Trek (2009 movie) cards
Star Trek 40th Anniversary

6/10

For other Star Trek trading card reviews, please visit my Trading Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Alternate Universe Still Makes For A Great Gaming Experience With "In A Mirror, Darkly!"

The Good: Easy to play, Wonderful images, Great concept
The Bad: Collation issues with common and uncommon sets, One of the Archive foils could be better.
The Basics: "In A Mirror, Darkly" makes for one of the best Star Trek gaming card sets and is a must for players, collectors and investors!


One of the most popular Star Trek CCG sets was "Mirror, Mirror" (reviewed here!) the gaming set that introduced the Mirror Universe to the gaming set. It made the game dangerous and exciting, just like the episodes that featured that particular alternate universe did. When the Star Trek CCG rebooted with the "Second Edition," players wondered when the alternate universe would make its return to the game. Sure, they were teased with the Mirror Universe Sisko, Smiley and the Intendant back in "Fractured Time" (reviewed here!), but since then, fans had been salivating for the adventure and darkness of the Mirror Universe in the Second Edition.

With "In A Mirror, Darkly," fans finally get their wish! Moreover, this set is everything "Mirror, Mirror" was with the addition of the dark and dangerous cards featuring images and concepts from the Star Trek: Enterprise Mirror Universe episodes! This makes this set one of the most popular and valuable of the Second Edition.

The Star Trek Second Edition for the Customizable Card Game was an easy-to-play game, at least by CCG standards. As the game evolved, the Second Edition worked to bring players and collectors back to the game by broadening the representation of the Star Trek universe it depicted. The "In A Mirror, Darkly" cards were only released in boxes of thirty packs, with packs possessing eleven cards each. Each pack included 11 cards: 1 rare (or foil), 3 uncommon and 7 common cards.

Basics/Set Composition

"In A Mirror, Darkly" is a 142 card set of gaming cards, mostly focusing on characters and events from the Mirror Universe in the Star Trek franchise. The set consists of 41 Common, 41 Uncommon, 40 Rare, 18 Archive Foils and 2 Archive Portrait foil cards. The Archive foils are reprints of popular rares from the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set and the 2 Archive Portrait foils are unique foils that foreshadow future cards.

The 122 non-foil cards consist of: 21 Dilemma (cards that feature obstacles from the series', like an Alien Conspiracy or being Captured By The Breen), 1 Equipment (cards featuring mass-produced objects in the Star Trek universe, like a Multidimensional Transporter Device), 19 Event (cards that feature extended circumstances for the ships or crews, like a Sabotaged Transporter or the appearance of a Temporal Flux Energy Ribbon), 2 Interrupt (cards featuring quick turns of fate in the game, like Brutal Experiments and the Standard Punishment for disobedience), 3 Missions (cards that act as the "board" for the game), 69 Personnel (4 Bajoran, 1 Borg, 3 Cardassian, 4 Dominion, 26 Federation, 5 Ferengi, 2 Klingon, 7 Non-Aligned, 4 Romulan and 13 StarFleet characters), and 7 Ship (1 Dominion, 2 Federation, 2 Non-Aligned and 2 StarFleet) cards.

The cards truly do manage to focus on the diversity of the Mirror Universe, though they do manage to appeal to fans of Star Trek: Voyager by providing the Revised Crew from "Living Witness" and fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation with images of the command crew as altered for "Yesterday's Enterprise" (reviewed here!). Those two series' could not do episodes in the Mirror Universe, so that Decipher managed to include them in this set makes it easily the most impressive and powerful set to date. Given that every Star Trek series is represented and - in the tradition of the earlier Second Edition sets - some of those popular characters and ships, like Captains Picard and Janeway are released as common and uncommon cards.

Playability

The Star Trek Second Edition CCG is essentially a cross between a role playing game and a board game with cards being set down to create the board and players assembling a ship and crew to then travel the "board" and earn points. This set follows the same basic rules as they were laid out in "Second Edition Premiere" (reviewed here!).

By this point, there is some complexity in terms of dealing with time periods for some of the cards (i.e. Enterprise and Star Trek characters are not, technically, supposed to interact in the game with the 24th Century Federation characters), but most of the cards designed for playing, like the Event and Interrupts include the necessary text to understand how they are appropriately played. Anyone who has been playing the game will find this game easy to play and the "In A Mirror, Darkly" expansion does not offer any changes to game play, it just restores the original Mirror Universe to play in the game.

It is worth noting that one cannot play the Star Trek Second Edition game with only boosters from "In A Mirror, Darkly" as there are only three Mission cards. Players need a few more than that to effectively play.

Rule Changes

There are no changes to the rules in this expansion. One need only be attentive that the icons indicating which quadrant of space and which time period/universe the card may be played in.

Highlights

Given that the very popular Mirror Universe from Star Trek and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the focus of the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set, it makes sense that the highlights would all be related to the Mirror Universe. Even the commons and uncommons are cool, though, with characters like Legate Damar and the Breen making their Second Edition premieres. The designers at Decipher had dome fun and chose to include cards in the Events that bear the titles to previously released Star Trek Second Edition CCG sets! This is very cute and well-conceived.

But the grails are all in the rares. It is in the rares that one finds Intendant Kira, Kirk, Spock, Archer, T'Pol, and Data as a Romulan. As well, "In A Mirror, Darkly" features several rare personnel who were never released in the first edition, like the Gorn captain Slar (who, to be fair didn't exist while the First Edition was in play), Captain Erika Benteen, and Laas, the Changeling. As well, Grilka - Quark's Klingon wife - returns to the game in this set.

The highlight of "In A Mirror, Darkly," objectively might well be the Elim Garak, Craft Underling card. 13R53, Garak is able to assume any skill with the sacrifice of one other character. While the card is a little less powerful than the Odo card in this deck, it also bears fewer consequences to activate a much more significant skill. And hey, it's Garak in chains!

Collectibility

The "In A Mirror, Darkly" cards were only released in the one release, so they are fairly uncommon, which always helps to increase the value. Unfortunately, there are two problems which lower the overall value of this release and make it a little more difficult to collect.

There are two short-printed cards, a common and an uncommon. Yes, the two cards that are new reprints of previous Archive Portrait cards are under-represented in the common and uncommon sets as a result of another printing error. Unfortunately, these are the very popular Empress Sato and T'Pol cards, making them pretty much indispensable for collectors.

The foil reprint cards help to thin the rares out some, but the grail for the collectors are the Archive Portrait cards, which pop up approximately one every three boxes. Unfortunately, in the "In A Mirror, Darkly" set there is a mediocre Archive Portrait (the Orion Slave Girl, Neras) and a highly coveted one, the naked Hoshi Dilemma foil card. The shot of Hoshi holding her breasts certainly panders to the audience that would be buying these cards.

The Archive Portraits have the potential to turn an average set into something truly extraordinary. Unfortunately, they fall short of that with the less inspired one.

Overview

Still, this is an impressive set and anyone who is playing the Star Trek Second Edition game will want to pick this up! The cards have retained their value, even after Decipher's collapse and the images are good. Moreover, because it contains complete command crews, it makes it ideal for fans and collectors alike as they are often the most coveted cards.

This was an all-around wonderful set, despite its minor problems.
.
This set was preceded by "These Are The Voyages" (reviewed here!) and followed by "What You Leave Behind" (reviewed here!).

This is a set of gaming cards I proudly sell in my online store. Check out my In A Mirror Darkly Inventory Page for my current inventory!

This set of gaming cards culls images from:
"Mirror, Mirror"
"Crossover"
"Through The Looking Glass"
"Shattered Mirror"
“The Emperor’s New Cloak”
“In A Mirror, Darkly”
“In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II”

8/10

For other gaming card reviews, please check out my Gaming Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Almost Perfect, Star Trek: 40th Anniversary Trading Cards Are Fun And Diverse

The Good: Great concept, Decent images, Good overall value, Decent chase
The Bad: Problematic high end chase cards.
The Basics: The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards are wonderful, with a few odd exceptions that once again force collectors to buy obscene amounts to finish the set.


For the fortieth anniversary of Star Trek there was a strange balance of fanfare and absence. The franchise was dying a little bit more, whatwith the failure of Star Trek: Enterprise (finally!), no movies in the pike and the novel line having hit a critical mass a few years before and virtually imploded. As the books and toy markets for Star Trek slowly rebuilt with more of an emphasis on quality than quantity, Rittenhouse Archives surged ahead in the trading card market with some truly ambitious trading card sets. To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Star Trek, Rittenhouse Archives released Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards. There was no series 2.

The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading card set is a massive celebration of the Star Trek franchise. The set includes materials from all five television series' as well as the Star Trek films. It is important to note, as well, that after Rittenhouse Archives released Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards, they released Star Trek: The Original Series 40th Anniversary Series 1 cards (reviewed here!). They are two completely different sets; those three words make all of the difference.

Basics/Set Composition

As the name, Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 suggests, these trading cards were a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the Star Trek franchise. Not limited to just the original Star Trek, this was a rich collection of Star Trek cards that featured images, autographs, and costume materials from all five television series as well as the Star Trek film franchise. These trading cards were sold in cases in North America as well as Europe and there were some minor differences in chase cards packaged into the foreign vs. domestic releases.

All in all, Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards were an impressive celebration of the Star Trek franchise. Packed with bonus cards that ranged from costume cards to lenticular (motion) cards to the grails - five autographed costume cards, Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 is an ambitious outing from Rittenhouse Archives and, while not flawless, remains one of their best sets to date. The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading card set, when properly assembled, includes two hundred twenty-nine (actually, thirty-one) cards, of which twelve are not available in any of the boxes! This was a hard set to complete, but one which the years will no doubt bear out as one of the series' most worth the effort to assemble.

The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards were released in packs of five cards. There were, appropriately, forty packs per box in both the domestic and international releases.

Common Cards

Out of the two hundred twenty-nine (or thirty-one) cards in the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading card set, ninety are considered common. The common set actually focuses on the captains of each of the Star Trek series. As a result, there are ninety cards broken down quite simply between each of the five television shows, with eighteen cards each featuring Captain James T. Kirk, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Captain Benjamin Sisko, Captain Kathryn Janeway and Captain Jonathan Archer. All of the cards are in landscape orientation and are printed in bright colors. This set has great color contrast on most of the cards, making for vivid, exciting common cards. All of the cards feature the usual UV resistant coating to prevent fading and this set seems like one that, were it lacking such a coating, fading would be evident in years in unfortunate ways. Fortunately, there is no such fading here.

Each card focuses on the heroic actions of the appropriate captain in one of the episodes of the appropriate series; there are no images in the common card set from any of the films. So, for example, card 28 features Captain Jean-Luc Picard as he appeared in the episode "The Inner Light." Rittenhouse Archives did an amazing job of collecting images from the most popular or relevant episodes of each series. There are few duds in the common set. This is not to say that the set is devoid of them; there are some. Card 39, for example, is from the terribly unpopular episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Second Sight." Even with such a dud - including one of the less relevant episodes to focus on the captain (or Commander) in - Rittenhouse Archives manages to do something decent; they provide an image of Fenna, one of the obscure characters who does not appear on photographs, cards, t-shirts or action figures anywhere else to my knowledge. The common card set gives a well-rounded visual interpretation of each captain's tenure on their relevant ship or station.

In addition to the ninety cards that feature bright, often obscure images of the five Star Trek captains, the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 set is fairly well written. The back of each card features a blurb on the relevant captain and episode. So, for example, card 70, which focuses on the episode "Fair Haven" and shows Janeway and Sullivan on the front, makes a point of mentioning who Sullivan is on the back so the front is clear. The backs paint a pretty thorough picture of each captain and their adventures. There is one common set guaranteed per box and the breakdown per pack and box was remarkably regular usually netting collectors one and a half sets per box.

Chase Cards

These days, though, the common cards are almost incidental in a trading card set and to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Star Trek, Rittenhouse Archives loaded the set up with all sorts of bonus cards from the common and inexpensive to the downright annoying to chase down. Fortunately, in boxes of the trading cards, the one hundred twenty-nine bonus cards that can be found in boxes are fairly regular and the set is one of the more attainable sets to collect. Still, for the cards in the boxes it is likely to take collectors two and a half cases to complete a set of cards! The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards was packed with bonus cards that included the checklist, ArtiFex, TV Guide Cover, First Officer, Villains ArtiFex, Costume, lenticular, boxtoppers and autographed costume cards. The boxes of these cards are packed with value from the sheer number of bonus cards in them!

The first chase card, more on a technicality than anything else, is the checklist for this card series. The checklist is a simple black card found one per box and by stating the odds as one per box, Rittenhouse Archives manages to sidestep the checklist as being included in the common set for purposes of their guarantee – Rittenhouse Archives rather coolly guarantees a common card set and two costume cards in each box of Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards!

The first real set of bonus cards is the ArtiFex card set. These cards feature sketches of every major character from Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. For these cards, artists like Douglas Shuler, Cynthia Cummens, John Czop, Geoff Isherwood, and Sean Pence were commissioned to sketch the characters. The ArtiFex cards are not hand-drawn sketch cards (i.e. each one is not a unique piece of art), but rather each card is a copy of a sketch produced by one of the artists. These range drastically in quality. Shuler, for example, clearly used Keith Birdsong's portraits as a reference and those who have the Star Trek Masterpiece Edition trading cards (reviewed here!) already have essentially the same sketches of the original series crew that he produced from that set (and in color!). These black and white portraits are generally good, though there is no Jake Sisko in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine block, nor is there a Kes card in the Star Trek: Voyager block - though rather lamely, Nurse Chapel and Yeoman Rand are included in the Star Trek block. The quality varies, sometimes within the nine-card collection for each crew. For example, Isherwood's Janeway has depth and shading that is incongruent with the other Star Trek: Voyager sketches. The most consistent, recognizable and well-done are the seven Star Trek: Enterprise characters sketched by Sean Pence. Pence did an amazing job and his portraits are lifelike to an extent that makes them the best of the forty-three ArtiFex cards.

At two per box was one of sixteen TV Guide cover cards. Following in the tradition of the original and Next Generation "Quotable" sets, the 40th Anniversary set included TV Guide cover cards from TV Guide's celebration of the thirty-fifth anniversary of Star Trek. The sixteen cards in this set feature the outstanding cards from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise. Like the prior releases, these are foil cards and look amazing. They remain highly sought-after, especially the Star Trek: Voyager ones which seem to be oddly rarer than the others. The TV Guide cover cards were only available in the U.S. release cases, not the European ones.

The European boxes of Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 cards featured Villains ArtiFex. Like the crew portrait ArtiFex cards, these nine cards - found only one per box - featured original artwork by Warren Martinek replicated on the cards. As the name suggests, this set featured one villain per card and included the likes of the Borg Queen, Khan, Q, Gul Dukat, and a Suliban. These vary in quality fairly drastically, from the well-detailed portrait of Kor the Klingon from the original Star Trek to the almost cartoonish Borg Queen which opens the set. Recognizable characters like Sela and Gul Dukat are not quite right - especially in the hair and jawlines - and more obscure villains, like the Hirogen appear more bland than interesting. Still, die-hard collectors will feel the need to hunt this set down, despite its mediocrity.

At only one per box are one of six First Officer cards. These landscape oriented foil cards feature a photograph of each major first officer from the Star Trek franchise and it is a nice collection. Those asking "six?!" will be pleased to note that Rittenhouse Archives honored Majel Barrett's character Number One from the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage." The First Officer cards are initially quite nice and seem like they would be a great set. Unfortunately, these cards chipped remarkably easily and many of the pictures of the first officers themselves had holes or chips in them, which is quite noticeable considering through each hole the silver sparkles shine right through!

Also at one per box are the boxtoppers, oversized mini posters featuring artwork of each of the crews. These are simply replicas of the Lightspeed fine art prints and there is one per crew. These five by seven inch boxtoppers are limited to 1900 of each crew portrait - which is not very limited at all - and has an individual number printed on the back of each card. These are textured with the canvasboard stock much like the common set of Art & Images Of Star Trek trading cards (reviewed here!) and were conveniently packaged in an individual wrap with a cardboard backer board to prevent the edges from getting damaged.

Arguably the best cards in each box are the costume cards. Two per box are one of forty costume cards. These costume cards follow in the style and numbering of costume cards from the "Quotable" Star Trek trading cards (reviewed here!). Each double-thick card features a swatch from a set-worn costume - or in the case of the original Star Trek costumes, a bolt of fabric from the fabric the costume was made from - from the five television series and the movies. Far more than bland uniform swatches, the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards include some truly intriguing costumes. For example, C10 is Mea 3's sarong fabric, which is a bright collection of blues, rust, black and white colors; no two costume cards of the C10 are identical! As well, costumes like T'Pol's catsuits, Leeta's bathing suit, Quark's jacket, Dolim's armor and Sisko's baseball uniform are included in this set! Also cool is the Sulu costume card which includes a swatch from Sulu's shirt and pants! This is an amazing collection and the forty costume cards are the singular best reason to buy boxes of these cards.

Two per case - one every six boxes - is a lenticular card of each captain. The captains motion cards are variable in quality. The M1, Kirk, features Kirk and Spock and is a darker card that barely has any sense of movement. The Picard card is actually of Locutus of Borg! Lamest of the bunch is the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine card, which has Sisko, Dax and Odo beaming out of a darkened hallway on the station. The card is dark, does not prominently feature Sisko and the movement is not exactly the captain moving. Janeway's motion card is unfortunately identical to the Star Trek: Voyager Season Two lenticular of Janeway. These cards only have value because of their rarity and, unfortunately, have not retained their value proportionate to their rarity at all.

The grail of the boxes, though, are the autographed costume cards and here there is a strange mix of quality and sloppiness. Four of the cards were obviously created for this set and feature uniform materials and autographs from notables like William Shatner, Brent Spiner, Avery Brooks (Sisko's baseball uniform) and Scott Bakula (Archer's environmental suit). These are popular characters and great autographs and the cards are instantly recognizable from the others for their portrait orientation and the decent field of white on each one where the cards are autographed by their respective celebrity. The final autographed costume card is one of Jeri Ryan as Seven Of Nine. This card is a leftover from the Complete Star Trek: Voyager set (reviewed here!) and is landscape oriented and looks nothing like the others. The back of each of the Jeri Ryan autographed costume cards is individually numbered out of five hundred. The autographed costume cards were found one in approximately six boxes and the Ryan and Spiner autographed costume cards seemed to pop up quite a bit more frequently than the Brooks and Shatner cards. If it weren't for the lack of cohesion in this chase set, it would be an amazing incentive!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Outside the packs found in the boxes, there are ten (twelve) cards that cannot be found no matter how many packs are opened. They include the promotional cards and the binder exclusive costume card. The promotional cards include a P1, which is simple to find and was given to dealers to promote the set and the P2, which was an exclusive promo in Non-Sport Update Magazine. P3 and the Neelix costume card were exclusive to the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 binder from Rittenhouse Archives.

In every case, there was one of three James Doohan in Memoriam oversized cards. Individually numbered and limited to three hundred of each card, the oversized Memoriam cards paid homage to James Doohan, who died before the fortieth anniversary. Each card has an image of Doohan from the classic Star Trek and the tribute, 5 x 7" as it is, is identical in format to the DeForest Kelley tribute cards inserted into the first Rittenhouse Archives product, Star Trek In Motion (reviewed here!). The consistency of quality and the acknowledgment of the passing of the actor is appreciated by fans and collectors alike. These are coolly sealed in oversized card holders, protecting them from wear quite nicely.

For every two cases of Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards a dealer purchased, they received a costume card featuring fabric from Captain Kirk's uniform and Captain Jean-Luc Picard's uniform. This is, conceptually, a decent concept, especially considering that the two captains were together in Star Trek: Generations. In this case, though, the uniforms are from the television series and a film other than Generations, so the card is more of a novelty than anything truly meaningful to collectors. After all, it's not like the incentive card is autographed by both celebrities!

The six-case incentive card, though, is a decent one . . . only it does not fit this particular set. The six-case incentive, which remains highly sought-after, is a Legends Of Star Trek Patrick Stewart autograph. This autograph, which would have been ideally released in the "Quotable" Star Trek: The Next Generation cards, seems out of place in a 40th Anniversary set. It is a beautiful card, but it hardly celebrates the entire Star Trek franchise well.

Throughout this review, I have alluded to the idea that there are two cards, not available in packs, that technically are components to the Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading card set. For the "Rittenhouse Rewards" program, which award points for each wrapper redeemed to Rittenhouse Archives, fans could get an exclusive Seven Of Nine or Captain Jean-Luc Picard costume card. These cards, almost identical in fabric swatch to the cards released in the packs, feature alternate images of the two characters and are highly sought after by collectors. They are not supposed to be available in the secondary market, but do seem to have made their way there anyway. True collectors will consider these cards to be a part of the master set.

Overall

The Star Trek 40th Anniversary Series 1 trading cards are a great blend of beautiful images and interesting chase cards, hampered only by some truly outrageous rarities that suck down the collectibility for fans of some of the cards. After all, it is one thing to shell out a lot of money for a 6-case incentive card after spending thousands of dollars to collect the rest of the set, it is another to feel like the high-end cards or the cards exclusive to Europe do not quite fit the set one is collecting. That is the case with this set; the easy chase are easy and mediocre, the hard chase are hard and pointless or mediocre outside a few truly fabulous cards. Still, overall, it is a wonderful set and most fans will love it.

This set culls images from:
Star Trek
The Star Trek Movies
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Enterprise

This is a set that I proudly sell in my online store! Check out my current inventory at: Star Trek 40th Anniversary Trading Card Page!

For other mixed series Star Trek trading card sets reviewed by me, please check out:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture Topps card Set
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 1
Star Trek 25th Anniversary Series 2
Star Trek 1994 Edition Master Series
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase One
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase Two
Star Trek 30th Anniversary Phase Three
Star Trek Cinema 2000
The Women Of Star Trek In Motion
Star Trek (2009 movie) cards

9/10

For other Star Trek trading card reviews, please visit my Trading Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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