So, let me start off by clarifying something. We are not talking about Star Wars. People tend to think that I love Star Wars. The simple fact is that I don't. I like Star Wars; I enjoy Star Wars. But I don't love it. I'd take a Borg Cube over a Death Star; Quark's Bar over Mos Eisley. I'm not sure why people confuse them and assume that if one loves Trek, then they must love Wars. We're talking about a completely different universe here. I mean, just look at the androids!
I'll take the one that doesn't look like a slighty taller and less bird-like version of Crow T. Robot, please.
Anyways . . . so just how did my love affair of Star Trek begin? Well, okay, let's jump back to 1993. I was firmly into comics back then and had an obsession with X-Men already, so it wasn't like I wasn't a high-level nerd anyways. I remember going into Clicks (now Acme Fresh Market- my employer) and looking at the Star Trek: The Next Generation action-figures and trying to figure out which one was Spock. I then recall being quite ill over the summer and my Dad watching Star Trek XI: The Undiscovered Country while I laid on the couch feverish. I didn't quite get the parallels in that film to the end of the Cold War, but seeing all that action and stuff was enough to interest me. That whole summer, I spent trying to sort through just what in the hell Star Trek was all about. Were their two USS Enterprises? Why two different Captains? Why did the new look so different? What's the space station thing and what's that jelly guy?
It didn't make much sense at first, but by the time the summer came to a close, I had really gotten the hang of Star Trek and it was starting to make sense to me. And I think that was part of the appeal. When I was getting into X-Men, it was very much "go with the flow and grab a bunch of back issues to get caught up." And maybe this where the big divide comes with Star Wars and Star Trek - the one I knew since birth; the other I had to learn about and figure out.
Of course, even to someone that figured out that TOS (the original series) takes place 70 years before TNG (The Next Generation) and that DS9 (Deep Space Nine) takes place parallel to TNG and the up-coming VOY (Voyager) series, Star Trek still often times went over my head. I mean, I was 11 or 12.
But it was cool, y'know? In the 5th and 6th grades, there was always something new the next week. Even if it was boring, it was still on and, really, that's what the action figures were for. To make it interesting.
After TNG ended and I grew older and more mature, my attention really turned to Deep Space Nine. As promised, I plan on doing a huge review on the various shows, but needless to say, Deep Space Nine got to me like TOS got to people a generation before me. Maybe it was because I was older and was better able to appreciate it, but Deep Space Nine really showed me the potential of science fiction. It's not just about ships and aliens; it can be political, religious, and character-driven. The story-telling can be rich and interesting and complex.
This re-opened my eyes and as I was able to view the rest of the franchise with a different perspective. TOS and TNG grew in my eyes; they weren't just shows I liked, they were shows that were a lot deeper than I believed them to be when I was first getting into Star Trek. I became more critical of Voyager and, later, Enterprise.
Star Trek was key to my way of thinking in terms of the television. But it's also more than that.
It's a vast universe of diverse characters and is capable of bringing about a hundred different aspects of the idea of space travel. Some of them good; some of them not so good -- but at least it's different.
Star Trek is a hope for the future, yes, but it also shows us that hope isn't everything and sometimes we need to expand our minds or whip out our phasers to ensure that life continues on and that we can hold together. It is, for a show about aliens, a show about humanity.
~W~
