Borderland

***** (5 stars out of 5)

Ask a Star Trek fan what five things they'd like to see most, take the top answers, and film the results. You'd get "Borderland", a delicious Star Trek goulash that tastes as great the second day as it did the first.

Spock's ancestor may have solved mysteries in Victorian drawing rooms, and Picard's ancestor may have founded the Martian Colonies, but Data's ancestor is a jailbird. Meet Dr. Arik Soong, a smug super-genius devoted to improving the human genome in a culture not terribly eager to repeat the 30-odd-million deaths they had the last time back in the Eugenics Wars.

Thoroughly Misguided Soong raised a dandy little crop of Nietzscheans, and they were left to their own devices when he was arrested. They may not have the common sense to get new clothes (unless the artfully ripped chest holes are 22nd Century Chic?), but they sure know how to kick stuff! Klingon butt, mainly.

Archer needs Arik to pacify his overpowering proteges before they make the Klingons mad enough to go to war... oh, too late. But first, the disgraced geneticist must come to the rescue when Orion slavers sell T'Pol in a market down on Verex III. You just don't get that personal touch when you buy your harem girls on eBay!

Real, Honest-To-Gor Orions! The third and final Hertzler Klingon! A Tellarite being a chauvinist pig! And all the infighting and bedroom antics of the gene-spliced Augments. Let's give a hand (before they take it by force) to Malik, Persis, and Raakin: the Khannabes, everybody!