I have my older brother to blame for my love of Star Trek. Truly, it was all his fault.
Back in the mid-1970s, I was in elementary school and my brother had already graduated from high school. Every night at 6:00pm there was a monumental clash of wills in our living room:
He wanted to watch Star Trek.
I wanted to watch The Six Million Dollar Man.
Back then, both shows were in syndication and popular at the dinner hour. There was only one television our house at the time, so that meant that only one of us was going to get to watch what they wanted. My older brother, John, always won. He subjected me to every single episode and, somewhere in those 79 hours, I became a die-hard fan.
I figure that we Star Trek fans have been pretty blessed: 5 live-action television series, 1 animated series, 10 movies with number 11 in the works, books, comic books, collectibles, video games, board games, live attractions, a themed restaurant and bar… What did Colonel Steve Austin get? That’s right, you guessed it…nothing. He had 4 1/2 seasons. He’s not even out on DVD yet due to licensing issues. (How are those bionics treating you now, Col. Austin? Hmmmmm??)
So, I guess it seems only natural that after all my years of watching, reading and collecting things Star Trek in nature, that now I would blog about the television series that I pretended to hate as a child.
These days, the only Trek I can’t stand is Voyager. That’s because, to me, it’s just not Star Trek. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that there’s a female captain, trust me. That show just had dreadful writing and character development. I still haven’t seen the last two seasons of Voyager. Every time I try, I shut it off in a fit of near apoplexy. Someday I’ll make it through the whole thing. I’m sure it will be under duress as part of some secret CIA torture regimen, but I’ll see it. Funny…waterboarding is illegal yet watching Voyager is well within the law. Go figure.
The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise…I love them all. Hell, I even love The Animated Series.
I’ve seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan so often that my friends and family won’t watch it with me anymore. I quote EVERY…SINGLE…LINE. I’ve got an original 1982 lobby poster from the film matted and custom framed.
I’ve got a Klingon Bat’leth here in my home office.
I’ve got boxes upon boxes of Star Trek collectibles still in the original packaging.
I’ve got every hour of every series and movie on DVD and I repacked them in cases with custom DVD covers.
I won’t claim to be the biggest Star Trek fan in the world or know everything there is to know. I just know that I’ve loved it since I was a child and my love of Star Trek is one of the many things that has defined me as a person.
Somewhere, my brother is looking down on me and smiling at the irony.
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