Is There A Such Thing As Too Much Star Trek?

Over the last few days the Syfy channel has been having Star Trek marathons of "The Next Generation" and quite a few of the movies both TOS and TNG.

I have been a Star Trek fan since it originally aired. Yes, originally. My family was living in Hawaii and it was on on Thursday nights. Technically, I had skating lessons on Thursday night but I gave my mother so much hell about missing StarTrek that she finally gave in to me and I stayed home.

I had a TV in my room and for the hour Star Trek was on it was not acceptable to interrupt me. My family respected this or more so, declined to suffer the wrath of bothering me during my fantasy voyages with the crew of the "Enterprise".

One hour a week was not enough to keep me dreaming of the stars though. Of course I knew Star Trek was fiction, but I became fascinated then with all things outer space and all I wanted to be when I grew up was an astronaut. Of course this also being the dawn of the Apollo age and living in Hawaii, meant that my family was able to take me to see the recovered capsules and crews that had splashed down in the Pacific though admittedly, all I remember is a Navy ship and a couple thousand adults surrounding me so I couldn't see anything, but I was there dammit, and it was thrilling.

When we moved back state side we visited the Houston Space Center, I remember seeing replicas of the lunar module and the absolute hugeness of the rockets and I remember just wanting to be on one. I also remember asking my father if space travel, like what I had seen on Star Trek would ever be possible and I remember him telling me that he was sure by the year 2000 it would be. (Incidentally when they named a space shuttle "Enterprise" he was sort of right)

I didn't see a lot of Star Trek after those years in Hawaii- with no such thing as even a VCR of course, unless I caught it randomly on TV I lived with out Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock for a good many years until "Star Trek The Original Movie" came out. OMG. I don't remember how many times I saw it in the theatre. My best friend Patti and I would hide in the cinema and go to every showing of the day - not just once, but several times.

Of course the movies continued and as it would turn out, Patti did not live long enough to even see many of them, but she did watch the first episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and then called me ecstatic over how amazing it was! I had not even bothered to watch it. I had a bumper sticker that said "Loyal To The Original Crew" and I stood by that, well, for a couple of weeks anyway!

As with most obsessive Star Trek fans the journey to the next generation was not as easy one. Once I learned to stop trying to equate which character was allegedly portraying who from the original series, and once they got rid of that horrible God awful and fugly Tasha Yar (who had sex with Data for crying out loud) the series evolved and since I have been watching the marathon for a few days now, I have obviously adjusted to it. A lot of people say it is better than TOS but I am not sure better is the right word. It is just more sophisticated.

So, Star Trek V comes on later and even though it ranks at the bottom of the most popular Star Trek movies, it is one of my favorites and I will watch it again. Oh, and as for that age old question, Kirk or Picard? Well, I would not refuse a trip to Risa with either one of them ;)