I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
- from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
I remember the original Star Trek. I was only four, but I remember when it aired. Not in syndication, but when brand new episodes aired on NBC on Tuesday nights. I remember arguing with Mark Lydon, my bff at the time. I thought the transporter room was behind the doors off the bridge and he didn't. I was wrong.
Since then, I've seen every episode of Star Trek. All 80 episodes of the original series (including the pilot, which didn't feature James T. Kirk). 176 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 173 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 170 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. 98 episodes of Enterprise. 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. All in all, that's 719 episodes.
There were ten films and two documentaries. I can still remember anxiously waiting in line for the return of the valiant crew of The Enterprise when William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy et al., hit the silver screen with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Gripped the edges of my seat when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. And so-on.
But after an unceremonious end to the poorly-received Enterprise, in 2005 I was suddenly faced with a grim reality.
That was it.
The sounds of crickets chirping in the night haunted me. No more Trek, no more Trek, they seemed to echo. For the first time since 1987, a part of me, something which has been around my entire life, was gone. Gene Roddenberry's epic mythological universe was no longer. No movies, no shows. No Picard, no Spock. No Data, no Kirk.
No Star Trek.
I felt like Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. Alone, destitute, wondering when - or if - Kirk would ever save me from my existential reality. During the past four years, I've often speculated if or when Paramount Pictures would revive the massively successful franchise. While Trekkies all over the world continued to don Klingon outfits and give their Starfleet counterparts the 'live long and prosper' salute, the studio was suspiciously silent. Shocking, really, considering the success of the franchise, which has generated billions of dollars and influenced millions of peoples' lives.
Honestly, I believed the studio would respond immediately to the cries in the wilderness with a new television series. I even came up with a few ideas of my own: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, or Star Trek: The Fourth Millenium. Sitting and waiting for Kirk, I devised my own characters and lived-out imaginary episodes (not really; I'm just waxing poetic. Bear with me).
But when I first heard that uber-producer/director J.J. Abrams was going to do the unthinkable - start all over again - I did what most Star Trek purists probably did. I cringed. I tried to reconcile the terrifying images that come from trying to imagine anyone but William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk. Say it ain't so, J.J.! No way, man! NO WAY!
That was my first impression. But, perhaps assuaged by relief knowing that Star Trek wasn't dead forever - and made a religious convert to Hollywood's latest trend of reinventing franchises (à la Batman) - I quickly got over it and searched for my plastic pointy ears. I knew they were in that box somewhere, amongst a panoply of fake communicators, posters of Jonathan Frakes and a Seven of Nine action figure. 'Beam me up!' I cried from the highest hill I could find. (Actually, I was in the tub playing with Seven of Nine, but it was nothing kinky. Really.)
Now, I'm excited. Enthralled, anticipatory. Downright anxious to get myself to the theater to find out why those teaser trailers have made me salivate like a pathetic Pavlov dog. Sadly, it won't be this weekend. Unlike December, 1979, when I was ready to brave the cold and stand in line for ST: The Motion Picture, for the eleventh instalment of the series my fiancée and I have decided to sit-out the initial fracas and see it when we're not going to be threatened by pubescent Ferengi and smelly Nausicans.
Once I see it - in the next week or so - I'm sure that I'll have some things to say about the film, but I'm pretty confident it won't be negative. It might be a little depressing, though, for like the ending of The Wrath of Khan, seeing this latest instalment will leave me with one unpleasant feeling: that I'll have to suffer another two years before the next one.
Live long and prosper.
- from Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
I remember the original Star Trek. I was only four, but I remember when it aired. Not in syndication, but when brand new episodes aired on NBC on Tuesday nights. I remember arguing with Mark Lydon, my bff at the time. I thought the transporter room was behind the doors off the bridge and he didn't. I was wrong.
Since then, I've seen every episode of Star Trek. All 80 episodes of the original series (including the pilot, which didn't feature James T. Kirk). 176 episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. 173 episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. 170 episodes of Star Trek: Voyager. 98 episodes of Enterprise. 22 episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. All in all, that's 719 episodes.
There were ten films and two documentaries. I can still remember anxiously waiting in line for the return of the valiant crew of The Enterprise when William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy et al., hit the silver screen with Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979. Gripped the edges of my seat when Spock died in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. And so-on.
But after an unceremonious end to the poorly-received Enterprise, in 2005 I was suddenly faced with a grim reality.
That was it.
The sounds of crickets chirping in the night haunted me. No more Trek, no more Trek, they seemed to echo. For the first time since 1987, a part of me, something which has been around my entire life, was gone. Gene Roddenberry's epic mythological universe was no longer. No movies, no shows. No Picard, no Spock. No Data, no Kirk.
No Star Trek.
I felt like Vladimir in Waiting for Godot. Alone, destitute, wondering when - or if - Kirk would ever save me from my existential reality. During the past four years, I've often speculated if or when Paramount Pictures would revive the massively successful franchise. While Trekkies all over the world continued to don Klingon outfits and give their Starfleet counterparts the 'live long and prosper' salute, the studio was suspiciously silent. Shocking, really, considering the success of the franchise, which has generated billions of dollars and influenced millions of peoples' lives.
Honestly, I believed the studio would respond immediately to the cries in the wilderness with a new television series. I even came up with a few ideas of my own: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, or Star Trek: The Fourth Millenium. Sitting and waiting for Kirk, I devised my own characters and lived-out imaginary episodes (not really; I'm just waxing poetic. Bear with me).
But when I first heard that uber-producer/director J.J. Abrams was going to do the unthinkable - start all over again - I did what most Star Trek purists probably did. I cringed. I tried to reconcile the terrifying images that come from trying to imagine anyone but William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk. Say it ain't so, J.J.! No way, man! NO WAY!
That was my first impression. But, perhaps assuaged by relief knowing that Star Trek wasn't dead forever - and made a religious convert to Hollywood's latest trend of reinventing franchises (à la Batman) - I quickly got over it and searched for my plastic pointy ears. I knew they were in that box somewhere, amongst a panoply of fake communicators, posters of Jonathan Frakes and a Seven of Nine action figure. 'Beam me up!' I cried from the highest hill I could find. (Actually, I was in the tub playing with Seven of Nine, but it was nothing kinky. Really.)
Now, I'm excited. Enthralled, anticipatory. Downright anxious to get myself to the theater to find out why those teaser trailers have made me salivate like a pathetic Pavlov dog. Sadly, it won't be this weekend. Unlike December, 1979, when I was ready to brave the cold and stand in line for ST: The Motion Picture, for the eleventh instalment of the series my fiancée and I have decided to sit-out the initial fracas and see it when we're not going to be threatened by pubescent Ferengi and smelly Nausicans.
Once I see it - in the next week or so - I'm sure that I'll have some things to say about the film, but I'm pretty confident it won't be negative. It might be a little depressing, though, for like the ending of The Wrath of Khan, seeing this latest instalment will leave me with one unpleasant feeling: that I'll have to suffer another two years before the next one.
Live long and prosper.
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