I remember it quite clearly. It was 1989*, I was 14, and TV had just got a third channel. My sister and I were watching the box when an ad for a new show came on. There was this guy with what looked like a gold banana clip wrapped round his face. We turned and looked at each other and burst out laughing!
That was the first I ever saw of Star Trek: the Next Generation. Not that I actually watched it. Oh no! It obviously was a show for total dorks. Not a girl like me trying desperately to be cool.
What would 14 year old me think of 41 year old me? Between then and now, I have to admit, I turned into a Trekkie. I like to think I'm not one of those super crazy Trekkies who wear Starfleet uniforms in public and know how to speak Klingon, but.... When Miss Missy was a baby and said "qapla" (that means "success" in Klingon, you know) I claimed that as an actual factual word, and even said it back to her whenever she did something clever.
I've planned family holidays to Wellington and Las Vegas around Star Trek exhibits and experiences. I own every available Trek movie and series from Enterprise to the Kelvin timeline reboot. I've even got Star Trek The Animated Series - but not the original series (that could be because I'm not a big fan of Captain Kirk, but actually it's because I've never seen it for sale). And I do wear my Starfleet T-shirt in public.
See, the thing is, when I actually watched Star Trek a few years later, I discovered a show that is not only exciting sci-fi, but also funny, poignant, and thought provoking. My first exploration of the final frontier was Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home**, otherwise known as "The Whale Movie". Funnily enough, this is the movie that doesn't feature the Starship Enterprise, isn't set in space, or the future, and doesn't have Spock's iconic pointy ears (as he spends most of the movie with a bandana round his head). What it is, is a lovable, funny, conservation parable, where the crew of the Enterprise (in a stolen Klingon Bird-of-prey) go back in time -- to what was the present, but is now 30 years in the past (that's as far back as Marty McFly goes in Back to the Future, you know!) -- to rescue some whales in order to save the world, and the future.
It's full of wonderful scenes like Chekov wondering round 1980s San Francisco looking for "nuclear wessels" with his Russian accent; Scotty trying to talk to a (now very old school) computer; Kirk getting the girl (as usual) and excusing Spock's odd behaviour by mistakenly claiming that he had a bit too much "LDS" back in the '60s. I recently watched it again, with The Young Lad, and enjoyed it just as much as I had when I first saw it on TV when I was 17.
After seeing the Voyage Home, I started watching The Next Generation now and then -- until I became hooked when Jean Luc Picard (aka Patrick Stewart) was captured by the Borg. It turns out that resistance really is futile. Becoming a Trekkie was inevitable. Although I must say, you can call that thing Geordi La Forge wears a Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement (or VISOR) all you like, it still looks just like a banana clip to me!
Of course, my first contact with Star Trek in 1989 was nowhere near the beginning of the story. Before my generation of Trekkies, there were those who were captivated by The Original Series which first aired 50 years ago today on 8 September 1966.
1966 was the year that The Sound of Music won an Academy Award, the year that John Lennon said The Beatles were bigger than Jesus. The year that US planes began dropping bombs on Hanoi and Haiphong in Vietnam. It was the year that the Black Panther Party was formed, and the year Martin Luther King was stoned during a civil rights march in Chicago. It was the year that Luna 10 became the first space craft to orbit the moon.
And it was the year that Gene Rodenberry surprised the world with his groundbreaking "Wagon Train to the stars."
Star Trek: The Original Series featured a mixed race, mixed gender, mixed species crew on a space ship, in an imagined future where planet earth is at peace.
At its core, Star Trek has been about tolerance and understanding, with reason triumphing over prejudice.
The show had a hard time getting on air, with the first pilot being rejected because it was too cerebral, had a female character as second in command, and because Spock looked too demonic with his pointy ears and slanty eyebrows. Roddenberry wrote a new pilot (with a fist fight at the end) and recast Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel instead of Number One -- but he refused to get rid of Spock. And thank goodness! Imagine what Star Trek (and pop-culture) would be like without Spock! No "Live long and prosper," no Vulcan hand salute, no "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few." Were those network executives out of their (non-Vulcan) minds?
Well, the show did make it to air, but it struggled to survive. It managed three seasons mainly thanks to a million-letter-strong writing campaign by the ever loyal fans. But then, even though it was cancelled, the world just refused to say goodbye to Star Trek. Because whatever the network execs said, the audience found it inspirational.
When I was nine years old Star Trek came on. I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.
And so here we are, fifty years later, celebrating the anniversary of a franchise that totals (to date) six TV series and 13 movies, and all manner of spinoffs.
Now I can't bring you anything as exciting as a make-up collection, or a collectors edition Barbie doll. Or something as weird as an inflight Spock bag. But I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. I made a Star Trek book list not that long ago, so this time I decided to trawl through all our Sci-fi and movie magazines for all the best Trek bits on offer. Well, I'm not usually much of a magazine junkie, but I've thoroughly enjoyed discovering the wonders of PressReader and OverDrive, which can bring you magazines on the go on your smart phone or tablet -- the PressReader app will even tell you when the latest issue of your favourite mags are available. And I've realised just how easy it is to place a hold on the right issue of a magazine. And so, without further ado, I present to you:
Missbeecrafty's Star Trek Magazine Round-up
- SciFi Now Timewarp Collection, Volume One: A guide to the first six Trek movies, with some interesting 'did you knows' and a guide to The Next Generation. Interestingly, only one of my favourite episodes made it onto their Best list (Chain of Command), and another favourite (I, Borg) is on their Worst list. I would definitely add Measure of a Man and The Outcast to the Best list!
- SFX, Issue 270, March 2016: The anniversary issue, sporting a fetching but anachronistic red cover and command emblem. Interviews with William Shatner (James Kirk), Jonathan Frakes (Will Riker), Robert Picardo (The Doctor), and Brannan Braga (writer and producer). Also a 52 year, logical temporal anomaly of a 50 year timeline.
- SFX, Issue 275, Summer 2016: An interview with Brent Spiner, which is actually about Independence Day, but I did like his idea of Tilda Swinton playing a Soong-type android.
- Empire, Issue 326, August 2016: Another anniversary edition. This one is a 58 page mag-within-a mag ram-packed with Trek-ness. Some wonderful photos from the CBS archives; my favourite is Anson Williams (aka Potsie from Happy Days) chatting with Seven of Nine. I never knew he grew up to be a director! Did you know Christian Slater, Famke Janssen and Kirsten Dunst all starred in Star Trek? Check out Before They Were Famous to find out who else! Celebrate Redshirts, and finally, test your knowledge with the 50 years, 50 points quiz.
- SciFiNow, Issue 105 2015: A touching tribute to Leonard Nimoy
- SciFiNow, Issue 119 2016: Part 1 of a timeline which includes info about voyages that never made it to the screen. (Sorry, I didn't manage to track down part 2 in time to include it in this list).
- Total Film, Issue 248, August 2016: The making of Star Trek Beyond and another timeline. This one is worth mentioning because it includes Galaxy Quest ("the greatest Star Trek film that isn't"). It's wonderful to know that Patrick Stewart loved it, and laughed longer and louder than anyone in the cinema!
And there you have it folks. Live long, and prosper!
*The nitpickers among you may know that Star Trek: the Next Generation originally aired in 1987, but that was in America of course, and this was a loooooong time before anyone invented "same week as the US" TV!
**While we don't have the DVD in the catalogue, we do have the soundtrack for Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, on LP no less!!
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