I have one of those little quirks that take people by surprise when they find out, especially since I am not an adult who you would normally peg as a sci-fi kind of person (because I'm not.)
I love Star Trek.
When I was in junior high school, at the peak of my William Shatner crush and my fandom, I could name all 79 episodes of the original series (there were no spin offs yet.) I would travel into the city to visit the Star Trek store, some little New York storefront where some crazy Trekkie collected paraphernalia. I read the Star Trek books. I owned a Tribble.
I never went so far as to go to a convention. By the time I reached high school, and met some real Trekkies, I realized that this was not a club in which I wanted membership. I was not a science fiction/AV nerd-type – I was more the angst-ridden poet, the Virginia Woolf groupie, the English major in search of her Heathcliff. Not to mention my Annie Hall look-alike contest, which went on for the better part of my junior year.
But there is something about Star Trek that grabbed me and never let go. And I think that I've finally discovered the attraction.
This winter, as my husband has been recovering from knee surgery and we have been holed up in our house for three long, dark, cold months, we have, for the first time, spent a lot of time in front of the television as a family. We have introduced our kids to two shows, which come on back-to-back, after our dinner hour: "Jeopardy" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
"Jeopardy" is really fun – my husband and I used to watch it almost every night when we were first living together. We get a little competitive with each other, and we like to see who would beat whom in a real tournament. I get all the literature questions and he gets all the sports questions. The history and music are up for grabs. Our 9-year-old especially loves the geography , flag and landmark questions, and we now eagerly await 7:30 so that we can all play together.
Then, at 8:00, the second incarnation of Star Trek has been showing on the BBC channel every weeknight. "Star Trek: The Next Generation" has always fascinated me, because, as opposed to the first Star Trek, which I fell into as a young teen, TNG hooked me in as an adult, and I have longed tried to figure out why.
Certainly it's not the aliens, who still look all goofily humanoid, and funny enough, still all speak English. It's not the set, which is slightly more sophisticated than the original, and probably still has members of the stage crew opening and shutting those swishing doors (I read that in a fanzine somewhere.) And while I do think Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard is pretty hunky, I long ago gave up my TV crushes.
No, it's the human (and non-human, as there is both a Klingon and an android) relationships that grab me and reel me in. Each episode features a story of the heart, all taking place on a spaceship or in an alien world, but no matter – it's good stuff.
Just recently, we've seen Worf, the Klingon Starfleet lieutenant, become paralyzed and consider suicide, which is the Klingon way to honorably exit when you can no longer live life as a warrior. Worf asked for help, but none of his human friends would assist him in killing himself. He wound up undergoing an experimental treatment to regain his mobility. Doctor Beverly Crusher was opposed to the experiment, and fought with the visiting doctor who wanted to test her theories on his Klingon body. Worf's young son, Alexander, who was brought to the ship by his human mother who has since died, wanted to be by his side, but Worf was too proud to let him come in. He asked the ship's counselor, Deanna Troi, if she would care for Alexander if he were to die in surgery. And die he did – until something in his Klingon make-up allowed him to revive and come back to life.
Sounding a little like General Hospital? It gets better.
Another recent episode was a morality play. The crew encounters an alien planet where the "people" on the planet have no gender. Except that some do. Those who still have gender characteristics and the accompanying urges are forced to live their lives completely closeted, unable to love freely and be honest about who they are. They are ridiculed and harassed in school and tortured as adults.
One of the aliens with this affliction, who tells Commander Riker that she has known for her whole life that she is different, falls in love with Riker, who falls in love with her as well. (But first he must tell Deanna Troi, with whom he has had a relationship in the past. She tells him that it's ok, they can still be friends.) Then he and the alien are caught kissing, and she is shackled by her people and subjected to shock therapy which rids her of her illicit urges. She is, according to the top person on the planet, "cured."
I watched this one with my mouth hanging open – an unabashed allegory about the tragedy of homophobia in our own lives, which probably first aired nearly 20 years ago. And I'm pretty sure my kids got that.
It goes on and on. Each episode has a deliciously satisfying storyline – the aliens and costumes are merely window dressing for the true windows into the soul that this show offers.
I am loving this family time that we are spending together. My youngest son lip syncs all the commercials as we wait for the show to come back on, and he's hilarious. My 11-year-old daughter is sitting quietly and thoughtfully, and often comes out with an interesting question or reaction to the show. And my husband and I are simply enjoying some quiet time together after a long day, something we haven't done in a long time.
Needless to say, I am ambivalent about all the screen time. I know that it would be preferable if we were all reading together as a family, or doing flashcards, or something more educational and politically correct.
But we are watching Star Trek. We are exploring strange new worlds together, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and boldly going where no one has gone before.
Swoosh!
GeekGirlRantOn: If you like Star Trek, you like science fiction. Avoiding a whole genre simply because of stereotypes about *others* who like that genre means you miss out on some truly excellent literature and storytelling (both books and television).
Sure, some of it is cheesy beyond belief and not particularly deep, but that's true for any genre. Some of the best science fiction writing is simply some of the best literature (without qualifying as to genre) around. And even on television, Babylon 5 (whose writer created and developed it as a 'novel for television') and Battlestar Galactica are just masterfully done. B5 is *better* than Star Trek in almost every dimension (except for nostalgia) and creates a much more complex universe and much more layered characters..
Anyway, you're missing out is all I'm saying.
Posted by: Lyn | Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 08:26 PM
Actually, Alexander's mother was half-Klingon, half-human, not full human. Alexander's mother was K'Ehleyr.
Sci-fi is part of literature. Think of Frankenstein. Think of Brave New World. Think of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Think of Stranger in a Strange Land. All great classics. All sci-fi. Nothing to be ashamed of.
By the way, while I was in college, I majored in comparative literature and international relations. I also co-founded a science fiction group and made the best friends there. Now I work as a professional editor and sometimes write poetry for fun.
Posted by: Peggy | Monday, March 28, 2011 at 01:52 PM