Throwback Thursday: Star Trek on Weed

At the beginning of 2014 I teamed up with my friend Jimmy Mills to deliver the final, and best, episode in the then new Ahoyager series. Entitled Galactic Ganja, this episode focused on two minor characters during an alien invasion. The twist? The two friends are high as a kite. Here’s the YouTube link for your viewing pleasure:

I’ve loved Star Trek since I was a tween and, to the surprise of many, Voyager was the series that grabbed me. It’s no longer my favorite series, but it has always held a special place for me, flaws and all. This “new” Ahoyager isn’t a direct parody. It’s mostly a name carry over from my old series. I seem to build new iterations of things I developed years ago. It’s just the way I like to work.

The Ahoyager series never found it’s footing for me. The first episode isn’t very… good. I even got criticized for being misogynistic with it. The idea was to create a female over exaggerated version of Captain Kirk. While I understand the point of view that I am bringing down a quality of Trek that shines (equal representation), it really is just meant to be funny. A burnt out aging woman burdened with her command and poor life choices. But I totally understand the point of view that I am knocking and bringing down what is seen on the real Trek series as a strong and inspiring female captain. I just wasn’t thinking that way during the production of this series.

The second episode, while trying to do an Office-like Michael Scott approach to Pakaday’s character, the whole things comes off as racist with a weak underlining message that doesn’t pay off. Again, the intention here was to go a little deeper, highlighting that Pakaday just isn’t capable of dealing with people who are different from her. She’s uncomfortable with dealing with people of a different race. But it’s not really well conveyed and it’s probably a low point for me in terms of execution and writing.

I feel this third and final episode got things right. It focused on the most normal of the characters (BJ) and his friend CJ, who is possibly the least normal of the crew. Under normal circumstances BJ would probably clean up the situation quickly. But his state of mind from the galactic ganja complicates matters. Ultimately though, it’s the ganja that saves CJ. Jimmy helped me write this episode and that whole back and forth struggle with the characters really paid off, especially with his voice acting.

While some of the animation and pacing could use some tightening from my 2019 perspective, I still find this to be a solid animation. It also uses an older style of animation, which can be charming in some cases.

So there you have it, a little history on Ahoyager and the final episode. I still find it enjoyable. I hope you do too!

See you next Thursday for another throwback blog piece!