In the most spellbinding Star Trek audio program ever, experience the incredible sensation of ambisonic 3-D sound as it envelops your mind and transports you to the center of the action in STAR TREK: TRANSFORMATIONS, the first Captain Sulu audio adventure. Star Date 11611.8: As Starfleet diplomat Captain Hikaru Sulu speeds alone across the galaxy in his state-of-the-art shuttlecraft, he is abducted by powerful, frightening dreams that return him to the once desolate, desert world of Sigma Cameron Four. It was here as Commander of the “U.S.S. Excelsior twenty years earlier, that he discovered traces of the ancient Shalakai — a ruthless culture who, legend held, had once uncovered the secret to eternal life. Driven to find that secret, Sulu’s brilliant science officer, Commander Flynn Konner launched a fateful mission whose outcome would forever haunt the Excelsior crew. Now, twenty years later, as the distinguished archeologist Dr. Constance Allenwood moves closer to uncovering the Shalakai’s secrets on Sigma Cameron Four, Sulu must race to stop her before she unleashes a disastrous chain of events. With it’s dazzling audio effects and original score, STAR TREK: TRANSFORMATIONS is sure to leave you breathless.

I think this was the first of the “Captain Sulu Adventures” and perhaps it’s something with the way the “3-D Sound” was mastered, but I had some trouble hearing everything that was going on in the story. At times it felt like they were just moving around their house and I had to push my stereo from the normal 25-30 mark up to the 40-50 mark to hear them. The story (spoilers for a 40 year old tape) is exceptionally shallow, with Captain Sulu on his way to a planet to stop someone from doing something that they end up doing, then he arrive after they’ve done the thing, waves his fencing foil around a couple times and vamooses off to the sunset. It’s only an hour long and I think Sulu got maybe about 10 minutes talking, the rest is a researcher doing field research, a (sorta) immortal god, and a couple other minor characters. As a first outting, it’s not terrible, but it definitely doesn’t rise to the level of ‘need to hear it’ media.

There’s a total of three entries in this series, I’m hopeful they learned some lessons from this one and the next episode has a tighter script.

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