13 May, 2009

Live long and prosper




Two posts in one week. You lucky people.

Why I am bothering you again so soon? I don't know, really. Probably because I've annoyed everyone at work by talking about Star Trek and Doctor Who for the last three days so it's your turn.

So - Star Trek. Don't worry, I'm not going to talk about the plot. I would ask commenters to refrain from doing so at the moment as one of our regular readers is going tomorrow night and I don't want to spoil it for her.
What I will say is that I thought it was spectacularly good. I was a bit apprehensive but it grabbed me within the first ten minutes and I was there till the very end. I cried, I laughed, I jumped up and down in my seat, I clapped (quietly), I watched through my fingers, I laughed again, nodded approvingly and jumped up and down a bit more. I don't think that prior Trek knowledge is required but there are plenty of nods for the fans. I'm going to watch it again at the weekend.

I wasn't always a Star Trek fan. My older brother used to watch it but to be honest I found it all a bit boring. Star Trek (or TOS as it's known by the obsessives) always seemed quite sexist to me. Yes, there were a couple of women but they didn't really seem to do much. Uhura picked up signals via that massive earring and told the boys about them and they went to a strange planet, had a fight, won and came back. It didn't really grab me.

Star Trek - The Next Generation (yes, TNG) was more my cup of tea. Here was a Star Trek I liked, more equal, more cerebral, more interesting. Whilst the series hasn't stood the test of time it certainly had me hooked in the 90s. I loved Picard, had a strange crush on Worf and wanted to be an empath like Deanna Troi, even though I knew it wasn't possible. TNG gave us the irrepressible Q and the Borg, the most fearsome sci-fi enemy since the sinister plunger wielding pepperpots themselves.

Deep Space Nine was less than interesting to me, I never liked the idea of a fixed station and couldn't warm to the Bajorans, no matter how hard I tried. They had a silly way of clapping for starters. The Kardassians were just plain ugly and that Latinum loving Ferenghi was like a big eared toad. Worf was introduced as a regular and it picked up slightly but to be perfectly honest if they'd all been sucked into the wormhole I wouldn't have cared one iota.

Voyager. Finally, a captain I could relate to. Janeway tried diplomacy then theatened to blow any enemies to smithereens. Well, not always. But you knew she had it in her. We had the enigmatic Tuvok, so beautifully Vulcan in every way.I so desperately wanted them to get home safely even though I knew that would be the end of the story.

Enterprise. No. Sorry. I watched two episodes and that was two too many.

So here we are again in 2009 and a new Trek. The future is bright, people.

6 comments:

NiC said...

Thanks for the absence of spoilers...I haven't managed to get to see it yet, but will, hopefully this weekend coming. |Glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I was clapping like a Bajoran the other day just to try it out.....it was rubbish (but then it wasn't a very good shgow I was clapping, so that's OK). I have to say DS9 grew on me over the years so that somewhere before the last series I actually really liked it for a bit. I hated Voyager at first but soon got into it but I've still not really found anything in Enterprise. As for the original series I recall my mother introduced it to us, she actually called us in to watch a TV show which I don't think she ever did before or after.

Alicia Foodycat said...

See, I always saw through the Ferengi makeup to Buffy's Principal Snyder - who got eaten when the mayor became a demon wyrm. And I was happy to know he had died.

We watched an early episode of ToS the other day - the effects are almost as good as plungers on pepperpots.

KAZ said...

I'm kicking myself because I turned down free tickets for this.
Now I'll have to pay to see it as it has fabulous reviews and I love jumping up and down.

Ambridge Fan of Chelmsford said...

I have now seen it and it is truly wonderful. I also had tears, laughed, cheered (quietly), smiled knowingly a number of times, thought it got a bit Star Wars in the middle, but maybe that’s no bad thing, and finished up with real tears that had to be wiped away at the end. I will have trouble watching Heroes now as I will be wondering where the pointy ears have gone.

It will surprise no-one who knows us that my opinions on the series are completely identical – funny that !

NiC said...

Excellent...now seen and thoroughly enjoyed.

HH said...

I am just home from seeing it and I thought it was awesome! With no real trekky knowledge apart from inbuilt cultural referenes I loved. I too laughed, and cried, and jumped and wrung my hands and gripped the seat! When can I see it again!?!?