4. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) This was another recovery movie, though not on the level of Wrath of Khan. Because nothing is. It ventured into humor, which was kind of nice though Star Trek has to be very careful about veering into camp territory. Very careful. In some ways, it resembles a good old-fashioned Star Trek TV episode adventure, which is comforting and fun. Some people, like my mom who has a fondness for both time travel and whales, consider this their favorite Star Trek movie. I don't, but it will probably stack up as my second favorite from the original crew.

Overall: B+

Plot: B Giant probe looking for whales that have unfortunately gone extinct is just not that serious a villain. Especially when the probe resembles a giant log with a phallic protrusion. Time travel is fun, though, and they definitely went to town on that, with the swearing and the cultural mores and all. Like when Spock does the nerve pinch thing to the loud punk guy! Ha ha ha ha!

Costumes: B Kirk is still wearing his pleated shirt from the last movie. Spock is still wearing the white bathrobe that you get when you're re-born on Vulcan. The rest of the cast are either in Starfleet uniforms or, in the case of Sulu and Chekhov, have acquired conveniently 20th century-looking clothes from … Vulcan? The Klingon ship? Who knows? Though Sulu is apparently wearing a pool robe at the beginning and has this kind of cool leather cape later on. McCoy continues his fondness for suede-and-fabric patch outfits. He can get these anywhere.

New cast members: A- The only real addition of note is Gillian, the whale biologist. She's not bad and at least she gives old Kirk a chance to recapture some of his Lothario vibe, which I hadn't even noticed had been missing from the first three movies. Another plus: they ditched the new Saavik early on.

F/X: B A decent amount of cloaking and de-cloaking since they're flying around in a Klingon ship. The space probe was not very imaginative but the whale song sound effects were good. I was going to give this a B+ … but then I remembered the giant-heads-emerging-from-milky-clay that they used to illustrate time travel when they went back (but not when they went forward). What the hell was that about????

Series ranking: 1. Wrath of Khan 2. The Voyage Home 3. The Search for Spock 4. The Motion Picture