Doctor Who and Star Trek are the two longest running and most beloved sci fi television series.

There has already been a crossover between both series there. A comic book miniseries, Assimilation 2, which saw the Borg and the Cybermen (two major antagonists from both series who are somewhat similar to one another) team up against the 11th Doctor and Enterprise D.  It was a good crossover, but sadly that’s all there has been despite the goodwill between the two shows.

In this article I am going to explore ways in which Star Trek/Doctor Who crossovers could have worked on tv.

3 Things A Crossover Would Have Had To Do

Make Sure That They Don’t Exist In The Same Universe

Whilst its a charming notion that Doctor Who and Star Trek take place in the same continuity, ultimately its one that wouldn’t work in practice.

Doctor Who and Star Trek have two such vast continuity’s and histories, that its often hard to try and make all of their own stories fit in together. Trying to squeeze all of the adventures from another equally long franchise in there as well would be impossible.

The easiest way would simply be to have the two series take place in alternate universes to one another. That way you really get the best of both worlds as you can still have them be linked in some way, but ultimately you would avoid making both series history even more muddled and contradictory.

Also I think this would open up more interesting story possibilities. You’d have the Doctor fall through a portal into the Trek universe (or the Enterprise fall through a portal into the Who universe) and then have a stranger in a strange land type of scenario.

For once the Doctor wouldn’t know ANYTHING about the Trek universe and its creatures, which would be refreshing (particularly with the way the Doctor has been God moded in New Who.) Whilst if you did it with the crew of the Enterprise you could have them explore the history of the earth in the Who universe that would obviously be totally different to the one they are accustomed too.

Indeed the future of humanity in Doctor Who is not always presented as being rosey like it is in Star Trek. Not only are there periods where humanity are conquered by monsters like the Daleks, but the humans themselves in stories like Frontier in Space and Planet of the Ood aren’t always presented as the good guys either.

Also the laws of both universes are different too. Time travel is ironically much easier in the Trek universe, whilst in the Who universe travel between other universes is much harder. So again perhaps the Doctor would be appalled at Kirk’s more cavalier attitude towards time travel (just like the department of temporal investigations were in Deep Space 9), whilst at the same time if the Enterprise got stuck in the Who universe then it might not be able to escape back into its own quite so easily.

Also you could explore the differences between the Who universe and the Trek universe’s histories to one another and explain why certain races exist in both universes such as humanity, whilst others such as the Klingons evidently don’t.

I tend to see it as being like this. In the Who universe no life ever evolved on Vulcan. The Vulcan we see in Power of the Daleks IS an alternate version of the Star Trek Vulcan, but its a barren lifeless husk as the circumstances on this planet simply didn’t allow life to evolve. Maybe in the Who universe Vulcan was struck by an asteroid before any intelligent life could evolve and made the planet barren.

As there were no Vulcans there were no Romulans either. Meanwhile as for the Klingons, lets just say in the Doctor Who universe they never ended up becoming a war like race. In the Doctor Who universe Kahless was killed before he could unite the Klingon Empire and they wiped themselves out.

As for the Earth’s history well I see it like this. In the Who universe history went different from the 70’s on. In Day of the Daleks, earth is shown to be on the brink of a Third World War. In Day of the Daleks this is averted, so there were no eugenics wars in the Who universe and therefore no Khan.

I know that the World War 3 we saw in Day of the Daleks wasn’t the Eugenics wars, but lets just say that was yet another different version. After all there are multiple possible futures for any event no matter how trivial

So lets say it goes like this. For Sir Reginald Styles peace conference one possible outcome was that he was able to reach peace which is what happened in the Doctor Who universe. Another was that it didn’t work and then led to the Eugenics wars decades later.

The bad future in Day of the Daleks meanwhile was created by the Daleks (or rather the rebels) tampering with history by killing Styles, which caused a war to break out instantly, as opposed to in the Star Trek universe where Styles actions simply didn’t ease tensions, but didn’t lead to an all out war.

Earth’s history would also be changed by the fact that there were no Vulcans to make contact with them in the Doctor Who universe. They were also later conquered by the Daleks in the 22nd century too which obviously held them back by many years too. Humanity’s experience at the Daleks hands may also have made them slightly harder to other races as seen in various Doctor Who stories such as The Mutants.

It makes sense after all. In one universe humanity’s first proper contact was with the Vulcans, a peaceful race and as a result they built up the United Federation of Planets, whilst in another their first contact was with the Daleks, the most evil race in the universe, which instead lead to them building the Earth Empire as seen in stories like Frontier in Space.

As for the Daleks and the Time Lords place in the Trek universe well, lets assume that in this reality, the Doctor was never born, and another member of the CIA was sent to disrupt the genesis of the Daleks.

Unfortunately this agent buggered things up and was captured by Davros. Davros was able to download all the info from his mind about the Time Lords into the Daleks databanks.

The Daleks came to see destroying the Time Lords as their most important goal due to the fact that the Time Lords could wipe them out at any point. The Daleks took the fight to the Time Lords much earlier as a result before they bothered with other lesser races like human beings (who they believed they would dispose of at a later date.)

The Time War was fought on a much smaller scale as neither race were as powerful when it happened, and it ended in the total extermination of both the Daleks and the Time Lords before the Daleks could ever reach the earth or even our galaxy.

As for the Cybermen and the Borg, well I see it going like this. In the Who universe as we know the Cybermen began on the planet Mondas. They were originally humanoid life forms who slowly removed their organic components and transformed themselves into emotionless machine creatures who sought to do the same to all other life forms in the universe.

Eventually however their planet Mondas was destroyed during a botched invasion of the earth in the year 1986 which nearly wiped out their kind. Though they would later establish a second base on Telos, they never became the intergalactic power they had once been on Mondas.

In the Trek universe however, what if the Mondasians only partially converted themselves? They still by and large became machine creatures, but they left some organic components behind as that way they did not have to waste so many resources doing a full body conversion.

These Cybermen later simply left Mondas and managed to take over a galaxy many light years away where they would eventually become known as The Borg!

The turning point was when the Mondasians of the Trek universe found a way to convert their victims using nanoprobes which was more efficient for them than full body conversions the Mondasians of the Doctors universe used. 

The Voth and the Silurians meanwhile can also be considered counterparts to one another. In the Who universe the creatures were unable to leave their planet and forced to go into hibernation on earth, whilst the Voth were able to leave and settled in the Delta Quadrant.

Over the next 65 million years, the Voth obviously evolved into a different life form, but still ultimately they evolved from the Trek universes version of the Silurians.

Finally as to why there are no Sontarans in the Trek universe, well its not so unreasonable to simply assume that they wiped themselves out in a war thousands of years ago.

Overall I think there would be a lot more scope for stories and no danger of continuity problems if Doctor Who and Star Trek were in separate universes.

Do NOT Have The Villains Fight

The worst thing about crossovers is that often whoever is writing them is a fan of one series or character more. Now this isn’t normally a problem when its the heroes. Ultimately even the most uber fanboy isn’t going to completely undermine one hero for another.

However sadly when it comes to villains often one will be completely undermined in favour of the other based simply on who the authors favourite is.

Look at Batman and Superman. Whenever they meet the writers are always so careful to show how both heroes are effective in different ways, have moments where they save each other, and make sure they BOTH play a part in saving the day.

With the Joker and Lex Luthor, their two most iconic enemies however? The Joker who is overall the more popular villain has always thrashed Lex. No one playing Lex has ever won an Oscar for playing Lex for instance.

So far across animation, and comic books the Joker has outwitted Lex, captured him and used his own Lex wing to nearly destroy his entire life’s work (with Lex only being saved by Batman and Superman.) Captured and almost tortured Lex Luthor to death, killed him over and over again (when the Joker was imbued with the godlike powers of Mr Mxlyptlik), and beat Lex up in unarmed combat, whilst lecturing him about how much better a villain he is than Lex.

To be fair Lex did get a good insult in against the Joker, but at the end of the day, he was the one who was almost tortured to death.

The Simpsons/Family Guy crossover also whilst having Peter and Homer’s epic fight end in a draw, had Stewie Griffin the main villain from Family Guy capture and brutally torture Sideshow Bob and Nelson Muntz two major recurring antagonists from The Simpsons.

Then of course there is Alien Vs Predator Requiem which completely undermines the Alien for the Predator. The Aliens barely kill any Predators on screen in the film whilst one Predator mows its way through the Aliens, slicing and dicing them, blowing them up, and battering them away.

The crossover series Once Upon A Time meanwhile has regularly undermined one villain for another.

The Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood’s archenemy got tortured by the Evil Queen, Snow White’s archenemy (after an unsuccessful attempt to seduce her.)

He had already got the shit kicked out of him by Rumplestitlskin, another famous fairy tale villain earlier.

Sad day for Robin Hood fans. If it had been Paul Darrow or Alan Rickman’s Sheriff’s however they would have found a way to talk themselves out of it and convince Rumple to follow them. This Sheriff was crap however.

In the classic movie King Kong vs Godzilla, Kong actually beats Godzilla. It is somewhat left open as both monsters fall into the sea and we merely see Kong fleeing, but ultimately the intention of the film makers at least was that Kong won, and the next time we see Godzilla he is a bit beat up.

Even within Doctor Who itself look at the Daleks vs Cybermen battle. The Daleks and the Cybermen were the Doctors two greatest adversaries, but they never met onscreen for 40 plus years until the 2006 story Doomsday.

Sadly when they did finally clash, it wasn’t a fight, as the Daleks slaughtered the Cybermen. 5 million Cybermen weren’t even able to chip the paint off the casing of one Dalek.

Finally even the actual Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover itself, “Assimilation 2” was guilty of this. It had the Cybermen completely and utterly thrash the Borg.

See for yourself

Assimilation is pretty much exactly the same as the Batman/Superman crossovers, in that it goes to such great lengths to make sure that neither the Doctor nor Picard are undermined for each other, but sadly when its the villains turn then the Borg are just made into completely second rate monsters compared to the Cybermen.

Of course the great irony is that by undermining one heroes villains for another, then you actually do end up undermining one hero for another. After all if the Cybermen can thrash the Borg so effortlessly, the Borg who gave Picard more trouble than anyone else (save Q). Then the Doctor who regularly beats the Cybermen is obviously better than Picard.

I’m not saying you can’t have the villains meet. It might be quite interesting to have the Daleks and the Klingons work together to take on a bigger threat, or to have the Master try and manipulate a Star Trek race like the Romulans into helping him rule the universe.

However definitely do not have them fight. You might be thinking “well its not so bad if one villain is already vastly more powerful than another anyway”, but even then I think that’s a weak argument.

Yes its fun to debate “who would win in a fight between so and so”, which is something I have done before, but ultimately as none of this is real then really a writer can decide anything they want in terms of a villains power.

For instance at one point the Daleks could be killed by being pulled over a rug, but another writer then made them so powerful that they could destroy every universe!

The only way you could have say the Cybermen and the Romulans fight is if you made it a draw, or at least showed them both being capable of killing each other, but perhaps the Cybermen would win this fight because they had greater numbers, or get lucky, or even just tricked the Romulans.

You certainly couldn’t have it that the Romulan’s weaponry was completely ineffective against the Cybermen, as when you do that you are just making one franchises villains lesser than the other. A crossover is supposed to be a celebration of two great franchises coming together. Its NOT supposed to be the writer of that particular stories favourite one pissing all over the other.

Make Sure The Right Doctor Meets The Right Star Ship Captain

Ironically Jon Pertwee has said “Beam Me Up Scotty” whilst William Shatner never has.

There have been many different versions of Doctor Who and Star Trek over the years, and not all of them would mesh together.

For instance I don’t think a crossover with 60s Who and Trek would really work. Stylistically they would be just too different.

60s Trek was famous for its beautiful sets, bright colours, up beat premise where everything had worked out for humanity, and featured aliens who were more human and could interact with people in different ways.

60’s Who however was in black and white, was renowned for being scary, its sets were dark, and claustrophobic, like the ice tombs of Telos, and obviously its most famous aliens were hideous monsters that wanted to take over the universe like the Daleks and the Cybermen.

You can see how those two worlds aren’t going to mesh. One is ultimately going to swallow up the other. Either you will have to have the first or second Doctor in colour and face more Star Trek type aliens, IE creatures who are more human, sympathetic, and in the process lose everything that made 60s Who great, its scary monsters, creaky sets and spooky atmosphere.

Or you are going to have the Enterprise in black and white, and the crew of the USS Enterprise fight over the top monsters, and in doing so lose everything that made the original Trek so great, its bright, beautiful sets, more human aliens who were able to interact with the crew in all kinds of fascinating ways, and more up beat, progressive tone.

A 60s Who/Trek mashup would really be out of the question, which is a shame as they are two of the best era’s for either franchise, but sadly they are just too different.

However I think you could have had a great crossover between the Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who and Star Trek.

The Jon Pertwee era of Doctor Who was in colour, and its stories tended to be a bit more political at times just like Star Trek. Overall I think Trek and Who were just fun escapist series most of the time, but occasionally they could touch on some topical issues, and I think you see that more in the Pertwee era than any other.

Also I think the aliens and creatures in the Pertwee era of Doctor Who tended to be a bit more sympathetic and human than they were in 60s Who. You had creatures like the Silurians, the Draconians and the Sea Devils for instance who were just like us, capable of being good and evil, and villains like Omega who were genuinely tragic and sympathetic villains. Even old favourites like the Ice Warriors were shown to be capable of being good and evil too.

The Third Doctor is not entirely unlike Captain Kirk as a hero either. They both are action heroes who get into big over the top fight scenes, both also are fond of giving big cheesy speeches about morality, and both work for an organisation, UNIT and the Federation where they are respected, but at the same time mavericks who don’t always play by the rules and like to do things their own way.

The Pertwee era of Doctor Who I think was actually inspired by Star Trek to an extent. It drew from many things of course, but still I think Star Trek was in the minds of the makers of the show quite often.

Star Trek was first shown in the United Kingdom in 1969. Ironically Star Trek was far more popular at first in Britain than it had been in its native USA. It was a huge sensation in Britain in the early 70s, whilst in America though it had developed a strong cult following, it was actually a huge flop in the 60s.

Its worth noting that Jon Pertwee was a massive fan of Star Trek and used to watch it with his children whilst he was the current Doctor.

Many Pertwee stories appear to have been inspired by, or at least bare a strong resemblance to classic episodes of Star Trek The Original series.

The Curse and Monster of Peladon, both deal with the Doctor trying to convince a primitive planet to join the Federation, an organisation started by the earth which is a unification of several planets. The Curse of Peladon much like the Star Trek episode Journey to Babel is also a whodunnit type story with all of the delegates being accused of a murder and attempts to sabotage the peace process.

The Doctor Who adventure Frontier in Space meanwhile also bares some similarities to the various Klingon episodes of the original series particularly the story Day of the Dove. It revolves around humanity’s tense relations with another proud warrior race, the Draconians, with both having established a frontier in space just like the neutral zone between the Klingons and the Federation.

The Daleks and the Master meanwhile plan to provoke a war between the Draconians and humans, using powerful mind control techniques, and illusions, combined with playing on the already existing prejudices between both races. In Day of the Dove a highly advanced alien similarly pits the Klingons and the humans against each other through mind control techniques, illusions and again playing on the existing hatred between both species.

The Pertwee classic Inferno meanwhile which sees the Doctor travel to an alternate universe and encounter evil versions of his friends such as the Brigadier, Liz Shaw etc, (with the evil Brig having an eye patch.) Has often been compared to the iconic Star Trek episode Mirror Mirror where Kirk, Uhura and McCoy travel to an alternate universe where they encounter evil versions of the main cast (with the evil Spock famously having a beard to distinguish him from the original.)

Finally the Doctor Who story, The Mind of Evil is somewhat similar to the Star Trek episode The Dagger of the Mind.

The Mind of Evil sees the Doctors nemesis the Master create a machine that can remove evil from people’s minds which he tests on criminals. In The Dagger of the Mind meanwhile there is a machine that is similarly used to rehabilitate prisoners by purging their minds of evil thoughts.

Both machines are at one point used on the main heroes, The Doctor and Captain Kirk. and nearly destroy their minds.

Overall I think its fair to say that Star Trek was one of the major influences of 70’s Who and thus its not hard to see how a Pertwee era Doctor Who and an original series Star Trek crossover might have been really good.

I’d LOVE to have seen a fight between Jon Pertwee and William Shatner. You’d obviously have to have it be a draw, but still it would would have been a brilliant fight scene.

You can see how Kirk and Pertwee’s Doctor would be a good match for each other, though Kirk definitely had the better fighting music.

As for the 4th Doctor and Star Trek the original series, well, that is obviously the crossover that everyone would have wanted to see.

Tom Baker and William Shatner are unquestionably sci fi’s two most famous leading men on tv. Both huge hams, with massive all encompassing personalities. Get those two in the one episode and you almost wouldn’t need a story!

I don’t think the Tom Baker era would be quite as perfect a fit for the original series of Star Trek as the Pertwee era, but at the same time unlike with 60s Who I can see this crossover actually working because of their differences.

Tom Bakers era was a little bit darker, and edgier than Pertwee’s. It tended to draw on old horror movies for inspiration, and was less up beat than Star Trek.

However that could have worked as it might have been interesting to see Captain Kirk go up against an enemy that was devoid of any kind of redeeming features.

The villains in the Tom Baker era tended to be absolute monsters like Sutekh, Morbius, Davros and Magnus Creel. All of these characters are not only absolute pure evil, but they are horrifying even just to look at too.

In Star Trek the original series meanwhile most of the villains were sympathetic, and in a lot of episodes Kirk was even able to reach a compromise with them.

Even Khan arguably one of the most evil original series villains, did genuinely love his wife, and want the best for his people. You can even have sympathy for him at certain points in Wrath of Khan, such as when his most devoted follower dies in his arms and Khan vows that he will avenge him. You could never have sympathy for a villain like Sutekh however.

It would be a knew and scary environment for the crew of the USS Enterprise to face an enemy like this. or Davros

I think Spock’s reaction to a monster like Sutekh in particular would be very interesting. Spock relies on logic. Normally he can understand most of the villains actions, even if he obviously doesn’t condone them. Khan for instance genuinely believes than under his rule the world will be a better place as he is smarter and stronger than the average person.

With Sutekh however there is nothing logical about his plans. He is just irrational hatred, and senseless cruelty, yet he is not insane. It would be hard for Spock to understand his actions in any kind of way.

At the same time however it would be interesting to see the 4th Doctor interact with the crew of the USS Enterprise as they are obviously somewhat more hopeful and merciful than the 4th Doctor who tends to be a bit more of a sombre, brooding, even at times a callous hero, who is far more willing to murder his enemies.

Imagine Doctor McCoy’s reaction to the Doctors callous dismissal of Lawrence Scarman’s death in Pyramids of Mars for instance. No way would he have let the Doctor off with it as easy as Sarah Jane Smith did!

I think its quite funny actually how the general public often view the Doctor as a peaceful scientist who never uses weapons, whilst Captain Kirk is often dismissed as an action hero.

Obviously yes, Kirk is a man of action, whilst not all of the Doctors have been, but still when you watch the two shows, of the two of them the Doctor uses weapons and lethal force against his enemies far more often. Kirk actually most of the time tries to find a peaceful solution in dealing with his foes, and most of the time he succeeds. Very rarely does Kirk have to murder his opponents. Hell even Khan, his archenemy he gave a way out to at first (though we all know it went spectacularly wrong, but still at least he tried.)

see here

The Doctor has clearly never thought “We’re not going to kill today”.

I can see the Doctor and Kirk clashing over the methods of dealing with their enemies in some instances. Obviously overall both men DO prefer a peaceful solution, but certainly the Doctor is more prepared to kill than Kirk or indeed any member of the Enterprise.

Though having said that I can also see the 4th Doctor having the utmost respect for the crew of the enterprise too. All of the Doctors love humanity, but the 4th Doctor had a particular love for the strength and perseverance of humans. One of his most defining moments is in the story The Ark in Space where he gives a speech about the indomitability of the human spirit.

“Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. Its only a few million years since they’ve crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny defenceless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine, and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They’re indomitable, indomitable!”

With this in mind what greater example of the indomitable nature of the human race is there than the crew of the USS Enterprise?

Also finally I’d have loved to have seen a romance between Leela and Captain Kirk. She’d definitely be his type. Savage, alien warrior woman, and she always seemed to respect men who were brave, great leaders and tough guys too, so I think her and Kirk would have made a brilliant couple.

Of course having said all of that it is worth mentioning that some Tom Baker era Doctor Who stories were inspired by various episodes of Star Trek the original series too.

Philip Hinchliff and Robert Holmes who made the show in Tom’s early years were big fans of Star Trek. Though Holmes did bash Star Trek’s habit of having all perfect aliens show up and fix everything. It was actually this that motivated him to make the Doctors people the Time Lords more flawed and even somewhat degenerate in the story The Deadly Assassin.

Still he did watch Star Trek regularly and bits of it popped up now and again in his work on Doctor Who.

The story Planet of Evil’s plot bares some small similarities to the Star Trek episode The Alternative Factor with both involving careless experiments leading to a rip between this universe and one made of anti matter which threatens to destroy both.

On the official BBC website, The Alternative Factor is even listed among the influences on the story.

See here. BBC Planet of Evil

Pyramids of Mars also explores a similar idea to the Star Trek episode Who Mourns For Adonais.

Both revolve around the idea that the Gods from ancient mythology were actually aliens (in Star Trek’s case we meet the Greek God Apollo, whilst in Doctor Who’s we meet Suetekh the Egyptian God of evil.) Though such an idea has been done to death in the decades since, it was a fairly original concept at the time.

Finally the Talons of Weing Chiang is also similar to the Star Trek episode Conscience of the King.

Both revolve around a war criminal (Magnus Creel in the Doctors case, Kodos the executioner in Kirks) who is in hiding and who had previous dealings with the main character, Captain Kirk and the Doctor. Despite the atrocities they carried out, Creel and Kodos actually believe that they are hard done too, and had things gone a little differently then they would have been remembered as great men.

Creel attempted to master time travel, but all of his test subjects died gruesome deaths and eventually he was forced to flee to the 19th century using his own time machine which ended up horribly disfiguring him.

Kodos meanwhile in order to deal with a lack of resources on Tarsus Four slaughtered over 4000 people.

I always loved it when the Doctor and Kirk confront Creel and Kodos and let them know just how they are viewed by the rest of the world. Creel learns that all of his experiments were for nothing, whilst Kirk doesn’t buy into Kodos’ pity party for one second.

DOCTOR: I was with the Filipino army at the final advance on Reykjavik. 
WENG: How can you in the nineteenth century know anything of the fifty first? You lie! 
DOCTOR: Listen. What’s your name? What were you called before you became a Chinese god? 
WENG: I am Magnus Greel! 
DOCTOR: Oh, yes, the infamous Minister of Justice. The Butcher of Brisbane. 
(The Doctor moves a cockerel on the board.) 
DOCTOR: Checkmate. 
WENG: It is impossible for you to know these things! 
DOCTOR: I know you’re a wanted criminal and that a hundred thousand deaths can be laid at your door. 
WENG: Enemies of the state! They were used in the advancements of science. 
DOCTOR: They were slaughtered in your filthy machine. 
WENG: So, you are from the future, and I, for all my achievements, are only remembered as a war criminal. Of course, it is the winning side that writes history, Doctor. Remember, you would not be here if it were not for my work. 
DOCTOR: Your work? Your work? 
WENG: Yes! I made this possible. I found the resources, the scientists 
DOCTOR: The zigma experiments came to nothing. They were a failure. Nothing came of them. 
WENG: No! No, they were a success! Why, I used them to escape from my enemies. The first man to travel through time. 

DOCTOR: Hmm. Look what it did to you. 
WENG: A temporal distortion of my metabolism. It can be readjusted. 

DOCTOR: Greel, listen. If you activate the zigma beam, it’ll be certain death for all of us. 
WENG: Lies, Doctor. 
DOCTOR: Listen, Greel! Greel, listen! The zigma beam is at full stretch. If you trigger it again, it’ll mean certain collapse. You know what that means? 
WENG: You can’t fool me. 
DOCTOR: There’ll be a huge implosion, Greel, and you’ll be at the centre of it. The zigma experiments were a disaster! 
WENG: No, no, the zigma experiment was a success! A brilliant, total success!
KIRK: I’m sure you are. Are you Kodos? I asked you a question. 
KARIDIAN: Do you believe that I am? 
KIRK: I do. 
KARIDIAN: Then I am Kodos, if it pleases you to believe so. I am an actor. I play many parts. 
KIRK: You’re an actor now. What were you twenty years ago? 
KARIDIAN: Younger, Captain. Much younger. 
KIRK: So was I. But I remember. Let’s see if you do. Read this into that communicator on the wall. It will be recorded and compared to a piece of Kodos’ voice film we have in our files. The test is virtually infallible. It will tell us whether you’re Karidian, or Kodos the Executioner. (switches on comm.) Ready for voice test. Disguising your voice will make no difference. 
KARIDIAN: (reading) The revolution is successful, but survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. (stops looking at the paper) Your lives means slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered. Signed, Kodos, governor of Tarsus Four. 
KIRK: I remember the words. I wrote them down. You said them like you knew them. You hardly glanced at the paper. 
KARIDIAN: I learn my parts very quickly. 
KIRK: Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t act this role out in front of a captive audience whom you blasted out of existence without mercy? 
KARIDIAN: I find your use of the word mercy strangely inappropriate, Captain. Here you stand, the perfect symbol of our technical society. Mechanised, electronicised, and not very human. You’ve done away with humanity, the striving of man to achieve greatness through his own resources. 
KIRK: We’ve armed man with tools. The striving for greatness continues. But Kodos 
KARIDIAN: Kodos, whoever he was 
KIRK: Or is. 
KARIDIAN: Or is. Kodos made a decision of life and death. Some had to die that others might live. You’re a man of decision, Captain. You ought to understand that. 
KIRK: All I understand is that four thousand people were needlessly butchered. 
KARIDIAN: In order to save four thousand others. And if the supply ships hadn’t come earlier than expected, this Kodos of yours might have gone down in history as a great hero.
KIRK: But he didn’t. And history has made its judgement. 

I always loved both of these scenes as they take you deep into the villains psyche. As evil as they may seem, Greel and Kodos clearly still feel some guilt, buried deep down for all they have done.

For years have tried to do all they can to justify it to themselves. “I was just doing what anyone would have done, it was all worth it in the end as we got time travel thanks to my work.” They’ve come to believe this crap so much that they now see themselves as the victims, but the Doctor and Kirk however shatter their delusions and they can’t take it, with Creel in particular screaming like a petulant child that his experiments were a success.

Both stories also play out like classic detective stories with the Doctor and Kirk having to piece together various clues to find Kodos and Creel.

So you can see how there was a bit of Star Trek in the Baker era too. Not quite as much as in Jon Pertwee’s time of course, and obviously though all of these Baker stories have similar basic plots to their Star Trek predecessors they are definitely done in a different style.

Still the fact that both era’s did explore similar themes, coupled with the fact that they were different in a number of other ways could have potentially led to a very interesting crossover between Star Trek the Original Series and the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who.

Moving on from the Tom Baker era, I don’t think 80s Doctor Who would mesh very well with the original Trek which had graduated onto the big screen at that point, but I do think that there might have been quite an interesting crossover between Star Trek The Next Generation and mid to late 80s Who.

Later Who and Trek were quite interesting in that they were an odd mix of the old and new styles. They were a bit more gritty than previous versions of Doctor Who and Star Trek, as popular sci fi at that point was becoming much darker overall like Alien, Blake’s 7, Bladerunner, the Terminator etc.

Gone were the cosy spaceships like the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space, big beautiful bright colours of the original Star Trek and heroes who always triumphed over the monsters like the Doctor and Captain Kirk.

In their place were anti heroes who often lost like Blake and his crew, filthy, creepy, gritty looking spaceships like the Nostromo and main heroes who regularly lost or were even killed.

You can see this in many episodes of the Peter Davison and Colin Baker era’s of Doctor Who in particular as well as many episodes of The Next Generation. However at the same time both still keep up the original versions more old fashioned, up beat spirit.

Thankfully the Next Generation still portrayed the Federation as a utopia just like in the original series. 80s Who meanwhile still kept up the original series fun sense of boys own adventure too.

Also the two shows explored similar ideas and themes too. The Cybermen who made a big comeback in the 80s were obvious precursors to the Borg in the Next Generation.

Both were cybernetic races who began as organic life forms until they slowly replaced all of their body parts with machine components and now seek to do the same to all other life forms in the universe.

The Borg Queen is also similar in design to the Cyber Controller as both have a huge dome shaped head and an enlarged brain.

Its no secret that the Cybermen were an influence on the Borg. Many of the writers of the Next Generation were big Doctor Who fans and there are in fact quite a few references to Classic Who in the Next Generation from the actors of then all 6 actors who had played the Doctor appearing on a computer screen to the crew of the Enterprise encountering a time pod that was bigger on the inside than the outside.

I’d like to have seen Picard meet Colin Bakers Doctor. Both have such a large, commanding presence, but Picard is very much a by the book character. He is someone who is prepared to sacrifice a planet out of fear of going against the prime directive. The Doctor meanwhile obviously whilst there are things he wouldn’t do, I can see him thinking he has the right to go against the prime directive if it suited him, and really clashing with Picard over it.

Another crossover that would have been interesting would actually be between Star Trek Voyager and the First Doctor’s era. Obviously that would be unfeasable due to the fact that Voyager was made decades after William Hartnell who played the First Doctor had passed away. (Though I suppose you could have done a special with David Bradley as the First Doctor instead.)

Voyager and the original Hartnell episodes of Doctor Who both revolve around people being lost in space and trying desperately to return home. In Doctor Who’s case it is the Doctors companions Ian and Barbara who the Doctor actually kidnapped from 60’s earth. Every story from that point on sees the Doctor try and make amends by getting them back to their right time, though sadly as the TARDIS isn’t working at that point he is unable to return them to earth for two years despite constant attempts.

Star Trek Voyager meanwhile revolves around a starship simply called the Voyager which becomes lost in the Delta Quadrant, an area of space controlled by the Borg, with the series focusing on their desperate attempts to get home.

I would have loved to have seen the First Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Susan accidentally fall into another universe and land on Voyager.

Not only would they be able to relate to each others predicament, but I can see certain characters being quite a good match for each other. The Doctor, the Voyagers hologram would be quite a good match for the First Doctor. Both quite arrogant, with a taste for the finer things, the most important members of both crews, but also the most difficult and at times selfish.

Barbara and Captain Janeway meanwhile are both strong, brave, non sexualised female heroes too, who yearn to return home. Whilst characters like Kirk and the Doctor want to keep exploring the universe, Janeway and Barbara are the polar opposites and just want to get home, and then have a completely quiet life.

The only Star Trek series that I don’t think could ever mesh with Doctor Who would be Deep Space 9. Now I love Deep Space 9. Its probably the best version of Star Trek for me after the 60s series. However as it tends to follow a story arc more, then it would be harder to stick in a story about Daleks and Cybermen into its narrative. Also its tone is overall, I don’t want to use the word realistic, but still its more about the politics of the Federation and other races like the Cardassians, and thus I don’t think the more comic booky world of Doctor Who would be a good fit.

Having said that I suppose you could do a story where maybe Worf was a companion to the Doctor. I think they’d be quite a good fit. Like the Doctor and Leela, except obviously Worf would be more intelligent.

I actually always thought you could have done a great Doctor Who/Star Trek crossover using the original planned story for the 5th and final Next Generation film. Originally it was planned to be a crossover movie that would have seen the greatest heroes from all the Star Trek series including Captain Kirk be brought forward in time to help Picard deal with a major crisis.

Sadly the script was rejected as at that point mainstream interest in Star Trek was beginning to fade. Still I always thought it would have been great if you’d had the Doctor be the one who brought all of the different Star Trek heroes together, as after all he might need them to deal with a crisis in their universe, as he isn’t as familiar with it as they are.

Here is what Patrick Stewart himself said about the proposed crossover film.

“One of the ideas John Logan and I had about what the next film would have been was a Justice League of Star Trek. Something would bring all the great Star Trek villains together from Khan to Shrinzon and Picard is the only person who could stop them and he has to go through time and pluck people he needs to help him. He goes back to the moment before Data blows himself up and takes him back to get Kirk and Spock and goes even further back to get Scott Bakula’s character Archer. The problem with that more than anything else is cost. How do you pay for that?”

I think it would have been cool if they had done this and had the thing that brought all of the villains together be the Master, calling the Doctor into action in uniting all of the greatest heroes against the Masters army of Star Trek villains.

The best Doctor to use for that story would be the 8th Doctor as he was the current one at that time, whilst I think that Geoffrey Beavers version of the Master would be a good one to unite the Star Trek villains. Imagine Khan and the Burned Master sharing the screen!

As for a crossover with the New Doctor Who and Star Trek well it depends. I think that a lot of New Who could have crossed over with Star Trek (though again it would have been difficult as New Who begun after all of the Star Trek series had finished ironically, just as the Star Trek sequel series began close to the end of Classic Who.)

I think the David Tennant era of Doctor Who would be the best one to have a crossover with.

I think the Tenth Doctor’s era would have merged with Star Trek the Original series the best. Much like with the Pertwee era, I think that you can see bits and pieces of Star Trek the Original Series throughout all of David Tennant’s time.

Though he has made a few good natured jabs at Star Trek over the years, Russell T Davies the producer of the show in Tennant’s time is a big fan of Star Trek. In fact he actually wanted to do a crossover with Star Trek in his first year as producer, but sadly these plans were foiled by the cancellation of Star Trek Enterprise.

Still you can see a definite Trek influence in Tennant’s time.

Take a look at the first season finale of David Tennant’s era, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. Long regarded as one of the best New Who episodes, its kind of a mash up of two different Star Trek episodes at its core.

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday sees the Daleks escape the Time War by hiding in the nothingness between universes, the void. When they emerge they create a rip between realities which the Cybermen from another universe use to crossover into our reality. The Cybermen invade the earth and though they propose an alliance with the Daleks, the Daleks being Daleks, refuse and unleash their hidden army in the Genesis ark leading to an all out war between both races across the world. On top of this the Cybermen and Daleks tampering with the walls between realities are in danger of causing both universes to be destroyed. The Doctor however saves the day and defeats the Daleks and the Cybermen by pulling both armies back into the void and sealing them there, seemingly forever.

In the Star Trek episode The Alternative Factor a man named Lazarus discovers that there are multiple versions of himself and goes insane as a result. He tries to murder his counterpart from an anti matter universe. If the two of them meet however it will result in the total destruction of both universes, but the original Lazarus doesn’t care as he’s mad. With no way of stopping him, the anti matter Lazarus is forced to lure his evil counterpart into the nothingness between universes (the only place they can meet) where he asks the crew of the Enterprise to seal the rip between realities, trapping both versions of Lazarus in the nothingness between universes forever.

As you can see both stories involve a threat to two universes, caused by irresponsible travelling between universes, both feature a nothingness between universes where time stands still, and both feature the main antagonist being trapped in that nothingness for all eternity, whilst fighting with their mortal enemy.

Doomsday also bares some similarities to the Star Trek episode All Our Yesterdays. All Our Yesterdays features Spock and McCoy accidentally travelling into the past of a planet that is about to blow up. They land in its ice age where there is only one humanoid life form, a woman named Zarabeth. Zarabeth explains that she was condemned to live here by a ruthless dictator in the future and that none of them can return to the future as the time machine conditioned them to only be able to live in the past.

Zarabeth and Spock soon fall in love, but sadly it turns out that Zarabeth is lying and that only she can’t return to the future (furthermore if Spock and McCoy don’t then they will die) thus Spock and McCoy and forced to leave Zarabeth behind to a lonely life in the frozen wastes.

In Army of Ghosts/Doomsday meanwhile the Doctor and Rose are separated when Rose is almost pulled into the void along with the Daleks and the Cybermen. Fortunately however an alternate version of her father Pete catches her and takes her to his universe. After the rip between universes is sealed then Doctor and Rose are trapped in two different universes forever.

There are some similarities between Spock and Zarabeth and the Doctor and Rose. Both feature lovers trapped in totally different worlds from each other forever, and in both cases there is even a shot were we see all that separates them both is seemingly just a wall, but it is in fact an entire reality.

This trick is used again in The Girl in The Fireplace. Here the Doctor and Madame DePompadour who falls in love with the Doctor are separated by a wall, which is actually a barrier between two different time zones where the woman is forced to remain on the other side away from her love forever.

The Doctors Daughter meanwhile bares some similarities to Star Trek 3 The Search For Spock in that both feature a machine that can create the entire surface of a planet. In both cases the planet even aids in the resurrection of someone who died giving their life for the main hero (Jenny and Spock.)

The Waters of Mars meanwhile has a similar premise to City on the Edge of Forever in that both see the Doctor and Captain Kirk stumble upon an important historical person, who is a good person, but sadly needs to die in tragic circumstances in order for the greater good of humanity in the future.

The beloved Tenth Doctor story Human Nature/Family of Blood also bares some similarities to the Star Trek episode This Side of Paradise.

In both stories we have a character who is an alien, the Doctor and Spock suddenly become more human (in Spock’s case he is hit by spores that bring out his human side, whilst in the Doctors he actually becomes a human.) Both end up falling in love whilst in this state, and don’t want to go back to being their old alien selves, but eventually they are convinced that they have to by a friend, Martha Jones and Captain James T Kirk.

Of course there are other huge differences in the two stories plots but you can see how the basic crux of the two stories is the same.

I might add that it was during the Tenth Doctors era that they actually had the Doctor gain the power to basically perform a Vulcan mind meld. Of course they don’t call it that, but its pretty much exactly the same.

The Tenth Doctor is also somewhat similar to Captain Kirk in that he is a somewhat more emotional, flawed, human hero, who falls in love just about every other week. He’s also fond of giving big, cheesy, over emotional speeches about the morality of humans too.

A lot of critics of the Tenth Doctor have actually often complained that he was written more like a conventional human hero like James T Kirk than the previous Doctors, and there is a great deal of truth to this.

For instance I can imagine Captain Kirk in the Tenth Doctor story Voyage of the Damned a lot more easily than any of the first 7 Doctors. In that episode the Doctor falls in love with Astrid played by Kylie Minogue, snogs her and is devastated when she dies to the point where he screams “I CAN DO ANYTHING!” when he fails to save her.

Be honest here could you imagine William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee or Tom Baker, even Peter Davison’s versions of the Doctor in Voyage of the Damned?

But you could imagine Kirk as he was always in a similar position of losing the latest love of his life every second week!

Then of course there is this notorious scene from The Doctors daughter.

Now as we all know its ridiculous to have the Doctor say “I never would” when we all know he always kills his enemies.

However again I could imagine Captain Kirk delivering this speech and whilst it would still be a bit hypocritical (as Kirk has killed more than a few people), it wouldn’t be quite as glaring as the Doctor, as most of the time Kirk and the rest of the crew of the enterprise won’t kill.

Take a look at the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name” where Captain Kirk shows mercy to aliens who murdered members of his crew in cold blood and even offers to help them.

In contrast the Doctor actively hunts down creatures like the Daleks and the Cybermen with the sole purpose of killing them, and even in some cases wiping their entire race out like in Remembrance of the Daleks.

Now to be fair it can be argued that its different for the Doctor as he often deals with monsters who are programmed to all be evil, like the Daleks and the Cybermen, and whose very existence is a threat to the rest of the universe. Captain Kirk’s enemies meanwhile like the Romulans and the Klingons do still at least have the capacity to choose between good and evil (though even then so do many of the Doctors enemies that he slaughters like the Ice Warriors, the Sontarans and the Sycrocrax.)

Still whilst it could be argued that the Doctor often has less of a choice than Kirk, either way you still can’t really have the Doctor go on about how he would never kill or never use a weapon when he does all the fucking time. In fact he probably has the highest kill count of any hero.

Definitely a man who never would!

With this in mind its not hard to see how the Tennant era would actually probably be the best fit for the original Star Trek in a lot of ways.

However there might be a problem with the fact that the Tenth Doctor and Captain Kirk are so similar. Part of what makes a crossover so much fun is seeing two different characters clash like Batman and Superman for instance.

You’d still have this with the Third Doctor and Kirk. As similar as they are in some ways, ultimately the Third Doctor is very different to Kirk. He is very anti authority, he is obviously a totally asexual hero, he is very British (even though he is an alien), more of a loner who likes to do things his way, and clashes even with his companions all the time, and is very stiff upper lip, serious and more restrained than the emotional Kirk, yet also far more willing to kill too.

With the Tenth Doctor and Kirk however I fail to see how they’d react to anything differently?

If they both were to meet a sexy, alien babe like Astrid or Shahna, they’d both fall in love with her. If they were both in a room full of aliens who weren’t sure about whether to continue warring with each other, like the Hath or the Eminian people, they’d both give a big cheesy speech about war being awful “WE’RE NOT GONNA KILL TODAY”, “MAKE THAT THE FOUNDATION OF YOUR SOCIETY A MAN WHO NEVER WOULD!” They’d also both go on about needing their friends like Martha, Spock and McCoy to stop them from going too far as well.

Its a moot point I suppose anyway as the two series were separated by many decades. Even the new rebooted Trek movies began just as Tennant was stepping down from the role of the Doctor.

As for Matt Smith well 11 has already shown to be a good match for Picard, with the 11th Doctors child like persona playing quite nicely off of Picard’s cool and more rational personality.

As for a crossover with the 12th Doctor or the 13th Doctor and the modern J J Abrams Star Trek movies, well I am sorry but I really would not be interested in seeing that.

I don’t hate the 12th Doctor. I’ve always spoken highly of Peter Capaldi as an actor, but I really did not like his era. I am not going to go into why here. I have done so many times before and well we’d just be getting off topic. If you’re really interested then check out the other articles I’ve written on the subject.

Its also no secret that I HATE the idea of a female Doctor. Got nothing against Jodie Whittaker either as an actress or a person (well I’ve never met her so obviously I couldn’t) But I have always felt a female Doctor was a mistake. I won’t go into it too much here as that’s really a subject for a different article, but I see it like this.

The Doctor is NOT like say the Trill from Star Trek where all of his different incarnations are actually different people. All of the Doctors are the same person whose body has simply changed. Regeneration is basically like an advanced form of healing. The Doctors old body is badly damaged, so it repairs itself, but in doing so it changes its appearance.

He is the same man however, and adding a gender change on top of that feels out of place. Also it doesn’t make any sense within the narrative as if the Doctor can change gender why has he not already when he has regenerated 12 times as a man? If he changes gender by chance, then there is no way he would be 13 men in a row. Similarly if he can change his gender by choice, why would he suddenly do it after being a man 13 times in a row? Why when he was morphing from David Tennant to Matt Smith and he knew he would be on his last ever life, did he not try to gender swap if he wants to or doesn’t care either way?

To me a female Doctor just doesn’t make sense so I personally would rather not see her meet the crew of the Enterprise.

Still good luck to Jodie anyway. Got nothing against her as she is just an actress earning a living like anyone else. And good luck to those who don’t think its silly and are just open to the idea. Hope you enjoy it, and by all means propose any crossover ideas between Jodie’s Doctor and Star Trek that you would like to see in the comments section below.

If Steven Moffat were still making Doctor Who I’d imagine he’d probably have there be a romance between the 13th Doctor and Captain Kirk. God imagine if the Doctor was added to the countless alien women James T Kirk has taught how to love!

William Hartnell and William Shatner have changed quite a bit since the 60s.

Dinosaurs have always been a good subject for video games, whether that’s playing as a Dinosaur tearing innocent people apart, or unloading rounds of machine gun fire into their scaly faces, or beating them to death with clubs, or fighting them as a giant ape on Skull Island. I think most people enjoy a good Dinosaur game. In many ways they have had just as much success in the video game medium as they have had in any other, and in this article I am going to run down my 10 favourite Dinosaur games from all platforms.

10/ Turok Dinosaur Hunter

For the Nintendo 64, this game didn’t have the largest variety of Dinosaur species. Just Velociraptors and one Tyrannosaurus Rex with the odd Pterosaur tossed in.

Still it more than made up for it with its engaging and somewhat unusual premise. The game took place in a bizarre fantasy land called simply The Lost Land, that mixed various time periods together. For instance the penultimate boss is a Tyrannosaurus Rex who has been cybernetically enhanced.

He has a robot laser eye and can breath fire!

The game spawned an entire franchise beyond even just video games with the character of Turok even gaining his own short lived comic book series too. In some ways Turok works better as a fantasy game rather than a Dinosaur one. Still it was a very engaging and exciting game all around.

9/ Dino D-Day

As crazy as its title would suggest, this 2011 game is set in an alternate universe where Hitler cloned Dinosaurs during World War 2.

Its true that its graphics are somewhat sub par for the time it was released, but I think it more than makes up for it with its wild premise as well as the large variety of Dinosaur species too. Everything from the classics like Tyrannosaurus to obscure creatures like Protoceratops.

I always like it when people merge two genre’s that you’d never think of putting together. Dinosaur and World War 2 games? Yet it worked and managed to bring something new to both genres.

In this respect the game kind of reminded me of the Ray Harryhausen classic Gwangi which similarly managed to blend the unlikely duo of Dinosaur movies and Westerns to great effect too.

8/ Jurassic Park: The Game

Released for several platforms in 2011, this Telltale game would prove to be somewhat polarising in a number of ways.

Still I must admit whilst it wasn’t perfect I did think it was still probably one of the better Jurassic Park games.

It had an original story, that actually served as a direct sequel to the original game (though it would later be contradicted by Jurassic World). The Dinosaurs are also every bit as scary as their film counterparts and the deaths are really quite gory and explicit.

In fact to be honest I’d say that was the best thing about the game was how creative the ways both the supporting characters as well as the main character were killed by the Dinosaurs.

This was actually an advantage that the games had over the films, as often the deaths in the movies were a little bit more straight forward. I feel the makers of the game had a little more fun with their dinosaurs.

7/ Peter Jackson’s King Kong The Official Game of the Movie

An all around excellent game. It follows the same basic plot as Jackson’s equally brilliant film version, but it obviously expands on the story too.

You get to play as both Kong and the main human protagonist, Jack Driscoll at different points throughout the game. As Kong its brilliant to fight head on often with multiple Vastatosaurus Rex’s (fearsome descendants of the Tyrannosaurus Rex) but my two favourite parts of the game are as Driscoll.

One is when a V-Rex knocks Kong off the edge of a cliff and you have to rescue Ann from it as Jack. Its one of the most intense moments in any game trying to hold off a V-Rex inside tiny little ruins with only a piece of bone!

The other is when the V-Rex again corners you and you have to summon Kong himself. You really feel all 4 of the main characters terror as the Rex relentlessly smashes down the walls of the rotten fortress they are trapped in.

I found the setting of this game effective too. Skull Island is a truly horrifying place, filled with rotting bodies, crumbling ruins of a once great civilisation and hideous monsters lurking round every corner.

Its a fitting setting for Kong as it just adds to the tragedy of his character that in many respects he has never fit in anywhere as the place he is taken from is so heinous.

Overall a very effective and exciting game.

6/ Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis

One of the best Jurassic Park games, this was not an adventure game, rather a platform building one. The player’s task was to create a version of Jurassic Park that would gain a 5 star approval rating.

Of course there are many obstacles to your goal, with the flesh eating Dinosaurs ironically in some ways being the least of your troubles. Tornado’s strike the island, your dinosaurs get sick, you run out of money and go bankrupt etc.

The game probably has the largest collection of different species of Dinosaurs of any Jurassic Park title, though sadly you can’t use them all. Still overall this was a brilliant game as it treated the Dinosaurs like real animals rather than as unstoppable monsters.

In this respect it really captured the spirit of the original Jurassic Park movie better than any other game in the series.

5/ The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Based on the film and book of the same name, this game however doesn’t really have a story. You just play as 5 different characters through a series of levels.

The reason I rank it so highly is because you get to play as both a Velociraptor and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

I loved the T-Rex levels so much. Though they could get a bit samey, it was still brilliant being able to kill hundreds of Raptors and human soldiers. It was quite explicit when you killed people as either the Rex or the Raptor. Your human victims would scream for mercy as you tore into them with your claws as the Raptor, whilst as the Rex you’d hear both your Raptor and human victims scream in agony and their bones snap as you crushed them to a pulp in your jaws.

The levels as the other characters, a Compsognathus, a human soldier, and Sarah Harding are still enjoyable, but nothing can quite match playing as the T-Rex. Still it is brilliant the way the game allows you to explore this vastly different world from so many different perspectives, from the Compy that’s no bigger than a Chicken, to the humans who don’t belong in the Lost World, to the absolute king of all the Dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

4/ Yoshi’s Island

Again in some respects more of a fantasy game, still as Yoshi is technically a Dinosaur then I’m going to list it.

Yoshi’s island is a prequel to the Mario series. It sees the evil Kamek attempt to kidnap two babies Mario and Luigi (both of whom are foretold to stop King Koopa, AKA Bowser in the future)

Though he is successful in capturing Luigi, Kamek ultimately fails to capture Mario who falls lands on Yoshi’s island, where all the Yoshi’s decide to band together to protect baby Mario from Kamek and his minions, rescue Luigi, and finally bring the boys to their parents.

Yoshi’s island is an absolute classic. Visually its absolutely stunning with all the levels being unique and beautiful in their own way. There is also a wide variety of monsters too, made up of plenty of old classic Mario foes, and plenty of new ones.

Its always fun to play as Yoshi and this game really helped to establish a lot of his most iconic traits such as his ability to turn his enemies into eggs and his crazy flutter jump.

When you think about it, Yoshi really is an unstoppable killing machine! He kills his enemies by eating them alive, and he can eat just about anything, but on top of that he can also turn the people he kills into weapons too!

Don’t be fooled by his cute appearance, Yoshi is one of the most dangerous Dinosaurs in any work of fiction and that’s what makes him so fun to play.

3/ Dino Crisis

One of the ultimate horror survival games. Dino Crisis was made by the creators of Resident Evil. Indeed at the time many critics dismissed it as being just a rehash of Resident Evil, with the Raptors standing in for the Zombies and the T-Rex standing in for the Tyrant.

The premise was also somewhat similar in that both revolve around a team going to investigate a remote area where an experiment has gone wrong, leading to monsters overrunning the place. In Resident Evil’s case it is because of an outbreak of the T-Virus that turns people and animals in Zombie like mutants, in Dino Crisis’ it is because of Doctor Kirk’s third energy experiment which creates a rip in the time vortex and allows Dinosaurs to emerge into modern day.  The main characters in both games is also the only female member of the team, Jill Valentine in Resident Evil, Regina in Dino Crisis.

Finally both sequels see the government get hold of the secrets of the experiment (Kirk’s third energy program, the T-Virus sample) which later thanks to their recklessness results in it getting loose in a big city. Raccoon City in Resident Evil’s case which is overrun with Zombies and eventually nuked, and Edward City in Dino Crisis which is eventually destroyed by Velociraptors.

Still whilst it can’t be denied that it did reuse a lot of the same game mechanics and tropes as its more famous predecessor, overall Dino Crisis managed to stamp out its own identity.

The Raptors were different to the Zombies in that they were a lot faster, more intelligent and could leap out of seemingly nowhere at the player without warning. Also the Tyrannosaurus was far bigger and much more terrifying than anything in the Resident Evil series too.

Also I personally though Regina was a lot better than Jill Valentine. Jill was always a bit too wet and mopey for me. Regina however was far more badass, and snarky. No scene demonstrates that better for me than when the Tyrannosaurus first smashes its way through a window and corners Regina in a tiny little room and she just responds with “you’ve got to be kidding me!”

I think its a shame that Regina is not more famous. The dry, fearless T-Rex and Raptor slayer definitely desevres more respect in my opinion.

I’d love to see a Dino Crisis film with Famke Janssen as Regina.

She’d be so perfect for the role its not true!

Dino Crisis is not without its faults. Like some of the Resident Evil games its a bit slow and it also doesn’t have the greatest variety of Dinosaurs. Still overall its a brilliant game that still holds up thanks to its atmospheric and engaging story.

2/ ARK Survival Evolved

One of the most recent Dinosaur games for the PS4 and X Box One. This game doesn’t have a story. Instead you simply have to train Dinosaurs in order to survive. The game has probably the largest selection of Dinosaurs of any game. Everybody’s favourites are here, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Spinosaurus, Giganotosaurus Allosaurus etc.

I do miss the lack of a story like the Dino Crisis games, but ultimately I can’t rate it as anything but a classic due to the sheer amount of Dinosaurs you get to train as well as the detailed lost world the player can inhabit.

1/ Dino Crisis 2

An oldie but a goodie, Dino Crisis 2 may look a bit primitive by today’s standards but for me its still the best Dinosaur game for a number of reasons.

To start with it has a great selection of Dinosaurs, also its fast paced (rectifying the problems of the first game.) However its story and setting is really what elevate it.

I love running through the crumbling ruins of old cities and military bases (always littered with mutilated bodies) that the Dinosaurs have overrun, finding out how the humans were eventually overcome. And then there is the twist that it was not by Dinosaurs, but a mysterious group of Helmet wearing women from the future.

Trust me it actually makes sense. One of the Helmet women, Paul I always found to be quite unnerving. It was the way she was so child like, yet still somewhat intelligent in other ways. She couldn’t speak and would act like a helpless child, yet was smart enough to use a gun, work a computer etc. You were left to wonder how much of the young woman she once was is left in there.

Dino Crisis 2 much like the first game would make a great movie. Hopefully one day it will get the recognition it deserves.

Thanks for reading.

So much for draining the swamp.

Yes sadly it seems many people’s dreams of a peaceful co-operation between Russia, the US and Syria just went up in flames.

Donald Trump like the immediate US Presidents before him is apparently desperate to start a war after all.

Naturally many of Trump’s supporters such as Paul Joseph Watson who only supported him due to his anti war stance, and his desire to limit American intervention in the middle east have now turned on him.

Whilst some people have criticised Watson and others such as Lauren Southern for apparently “flip flopping” on Trump personally I admire them for sticking to their principles.

They only supported Trump because they believed he was a better option than Hillary Clinton in terms of foreign policy. Now that Trump is seemingly pursuing the same destructive foreign policies that Hillary wanted in toppling Assad then they are calling him out on it.

I will say there has already been a lot more criticism from Trump’s high profile supporters for his actions in Syria than there were from Obama’s for his many war crimes.

Trump’s Syrian strike not only classes him as a war criminal, but also reveals him to be a spineless, weak man who is easily manipulated by those around him into changing his position in the blink of an eye.

Courtesy of Ben Garrison cartoons.

Abby Martin, former host of Breaking the Set actually warned of this many months ago saying that she felt Trump’s biggest problem was the way he was too easily influenced and prone to changing his mind all the time.

See here in this video.

Trumps actions in Syria could very well lead us into a full scale conflict with Russia. It remains to be seen if Russia and America can smooth things over, but still he is taking a huge risk over what is ultimately a pointless endeavour.

To start with it is not known yet if Assad was even guilty of the recent chemical attack. I am not saying that he wasn’t, but its certainly not proven and in some ways it doesn’t make sense for Assad at this stage to gas his own people when things are generally heading in his favour. ISIS and Al Qaeda were both in retreat, peace talks were going ahead and at that point Trump was limiting intervention in the middle east. For him to suddenly blow that does seem a little unlikely, though again we still don’t know for sure.

Personally I think that this smells of another Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, Benghazi debacle, a lie cooked up to goad us into being ready for a pointless and bloody conflict.

Whatever the case even if Assad does turn out to be guilty then removing him is still the worst of all options. To start with it risks a war with Russia which could in turn escalate into a Third World War! Remember Syria is close allies with Russia, who in turn are close allies with Iran and China. The end result of Trump poking and prodding Syria and Russia could see the US, the UN, Russia, Iran and China all aiming nukes at each other. Russia is also no lame duck either. It has weapons capable of destroying an area the size of Texas.

Russia has already tore up a 2015 military operations agreement it had with the US, which gives both sides open communication regarding air operations. There is now a much greater risk of American and Russian jets accidentally shooting each other down!

Even if there somehow isn’t a war between Russia and America then removing Assad will make things worse for Syria. It will completely destablise the country just like Iraq and Libya and shatter it into a thousand pieces leading to more deaths, and another refugee crisis. It will also give ISIS a footing and lead to a greater rise in Islamic extremism (the very thing Trump promised to fight).

Ironically these are all the things that people (myself included) were terrified Hillary Clinton would cause if she got in. To be fair I do still think that Hillary would have caused a conflict with Syria and Russia if she had been elected President.

Just last night Hillary Clinton said she wanted the US to launch an attack against Syria and for Putin to be held accountable for his actions.

See here Clinton calls for Bombing Assad’s Air Fields.

Hillary Clinton called for Bombing Assad Hours Before Trump Airstrike

So its not a question of “if only Hillary had won” its more that sadly Trump was no alternative after all. No matter who the Americans voted for it seems war was inevitable.

It funny in a tragic way how Obama and Trump really are no different after all.

When Barack Obama was voted in in 2008, people hoped that he would be a positive change and end the conflict in Iraq and limit American intervention in the middle east.

Just like Trump he promised to do that and the two candidates he was up against, John McCain in 2008 and Mit Romney in 2012 were also both crooked war mongers. Thus Obama at the very least was seen as the lesser of two evils. Obama however ended up not only increasing the use of drone strikes significantly from George W Bush, but he too destroyed an entire country, Libya, in an illegal invasion.

Flash forward to 2016 and many people myself included hoped that Trump would be a positive change in terms of foreign policy and limit American intervention in the middle east as he promised to improve relations with Russia and leave Assad alone. He also went up against a candidate who was a crooked war monger, Hillary Clinton too.

However barely 3 months into his Presidency Trump has already carried out a war crime and an illegal attack on another sovereign state.

If you weren’t duped by Obama in 2008 being a positive change then you were probably duped by Trump supposedly draining the swamp in 2016.

It seems there is no escape. Its always the same war mongers running things from behind the scenes, using a spineless puppet as their front man. You can vote Democrat or Republican, Trump or Clinton, Obama or McCain and the result is the same. More wars.

Its time in my opinion that the left abandoned identity politics once and for all. Rather than constantly fight each other over trivial stupid things like gender pronouns, white male privilege etc. The left seriously needs to get its arse in gear and try and find a way to reform the current corporatist system that favours endless wars and expansion.

Sorry David Bowie these people couldn’t be heroes for one second!

Not everybody has what it takes to be a hero. In some cases its because they are weak, cowardly, selfish or amoral. In others however they can be strong, brave, dashing, handsome, sexy, noble, have all the right ingredients on paper, but fail for one simple reason. They are completely fucking useless!

In this article we will briefly look at what I feel are the 4 most useless heroes on television. All of these characters really did mean well. They all have the heart of noble warrior, but sadly the competency of Homer Simpson.

4/ Emma Swan (Once Upon A Time)

I am sorry to have to include her here. I do like the character. She has an interesting backstory, great characterisation, and Jennifer Morrison who plays her is brilliant in the role.

Sadly however she makes this list simply because she NEVER saves the day. Seriously try and find me a main villain of the series that Emma has actually defeated?

In series 1 it is Henry who in a way brings down the Evil Queen. He is the one who stops Emma from eating the apple which forces Emma and the Evil Queen to work together which ultimately reveals the truth.

In season 2 it is Snow who kills Cora (following Rumple’s orders) in season 3 it is Rumple himself who kills Peter Pan, whilst Zelena the Wicked Witch is defeated by Regina.

In season 4 the snow queen is stopped by Ana, whilst Rumple is beaten by Belle. The Author meanwhile is beaten by Henry.

In season 5 Emma does kill Hook to be fair and she also killed Cruelle in season 4. Even then however Cruella couldn’t kill anyone and Hook also wanted Emma to kill him. Finally Hades the main villain of season 5 is killed by Zelena.

I haven’t seen the 6th season yet. Maybe Emma finally stops the badguy herself but really for the so called saviour its pretty poor that in the first 5 years she only killed two main villains, one of whom couldn’t kill anyone and another who wanted her to kill him.

This is pretty much what always happens in Once Upon A Time. The badguy is completely unstoppable and is about to kill everyone, Emma included, but then someone else bursts in and saves the day leading the viewer to wonder why Emma is called the saviour.

3/ Merlin (Merlin)

Again I liked this show a lot and Colin Morgan who played the character was excellent in the role. Sadly however Merlin ultimately makes the list as not only does he fuck everything up in the show but he is also technically a traitor to his kind too.

The premise of Merlin is that magic has been outlawed in Camelot by the tyrant Uther Pendragon. However an ancient prophecy states that one day Arthur and Merlin will bring magic back to Camelot.

Only problem is that this never happens! Now to be fair I did used to think that this was quite a good twist on the legend that Merlin’s knowledge of the great future caused him to make the wrong decisions. However I have changed my opinion now only in that it would have been better if he and Arthur had at least accomplished something before Arthur’s death.  I get that they needed to have Arthur die just like the myths but they should have had Arthur at least bring magic back before he died. Ultimately Merlin just looks like someone who supported two regimes that persecuted his own kind and turned his friend Morgana evil.

2/ Kendra the Vampire Slayer

The short lived slayer from Buffy’s second season. Kendra is most famous for her dodgy accent, but she was also quite a useless slayer too.

Granted she never went rogue and tried kill people like Faith. Still as a Vampire Slayer she has a pretty poor track record. She is killed by Drusilla barely a year into being a Slayer.

To be fair Kendra unlike the others on this list is meant to be lame. She is meant to highlight how Buffy is a superior Slayer as Kendra never thinks for herself. Still it cannot be denied she was a pretty lousy and unimpressive Slayer.

1/ Hawkman (Arrowverse)

The most useless hero. Hawkman is reborn over and over only to be killed by the exact same guy, Vandal Savage each time. Vandal Savage kills him over 200 times.

Then when Hawkman finally defeats him (only with help from two teams of heroes) Vandal returns and kills Hawkman again in a one on one fight, before going on to drink his blood.

No matter whatever the time or place, Hawkman will always be Vandal Savage’s little bitch.

I don’t think that it was a good idea to have Vandal Savage kill Hawkman and Hawkgirl so many times. It just made them look too inept that they couldn’t beat one guy for over a thousand years. Though Hawkman does finally triumph over Savage at the end of Legends of Tomorrow, but still its only with help and the score is still something like Vandal Savage 270, Hawkman 1.

Overall I’d say that’s a poor track record for any hero against his enemy and just makes Hawkman look all the more inept.

On top of that the only reason he was picked for the mission was because he was deemed unimportant by Rip Hunter and thus if he did die then it wouldn’t make that big a change in the timeline.

This is an advert for some upcoming stories on my fiction blog “The Secret Lives of Vampire Killers”.

Its still presented as a short story but let me know what you think.

Famous Vamnpire HuntersFamous Vamnpire HuntersFamous Vamnpire HuntersAll of the characters mentioned here will soon be starring in their own series.