Time Out for Star Trek

Given that a certain aging authoritarian is waving his nuclear thingies around and the End Might Be Near, I’m taking a break from politics today to write about another great passion in my life.**

As a kid I had notebooks filled with clippings about our planet’s initial forays into space. Show and Tell for me was explaining the difference between solid and liquid fuel propellants with all the certainty of a true believer. 

Once upon a time I told classmates to stop by to watch my home-built rocket launch. I’m sure it would have been glorious except that I’d neglected and had no clue how to actually build the thing. 

Beyond my embarrassment at getting busted for an overactive imagination, I likely missed some real scary action at the hands of the Guardia Civil, Spain’s national police force. Somehow I don’t think that boom-boom would have been too well received in Franciso Franco’s Madrid. 

Sometime much later in my life I caught the Trek bug. I find the acting in the original series to be cringy these days, but the general concept of heading out into space with a bunch of different people to see what was there has kept me as a fan through nine TV series.

One thing present in all the incarnations was an overall sense of optimism. No matter how hard the bad guys attacked the ships of the United Federation of Planets, you knew that some larger lesson beyond the resolution of hostilities was going to be there.

Each successive series built on the lessons learned, expanding the universe of character types, and creating new settings beyond whatever vehicle served as its center. 

Aside from the technological aspects (the graphics really are eye popping these days) of production improving over the years, the willingness of series writers to find new ways to be more inclusive has kept it fresh. These days all bets are off, as non-binary and even non-humanoid characters have joined the casts.   

After a decade-long drought of new small screen productions, the CBS/Paramount+ streamatorium has boldly gone where no network has gone before, building its content over the next few years around the remarkable longevity of fan enthusiasm.

Discovery, Picard, and the soon-to-be released Strange New Worlds are live action shows faithful to the canon and exploring different takes on the great beyond. Lower Decks and Prodigy are animated series finding their own niche as a younger crowd discovers them.

The Trek faniverse is always talking about new incarnations, and one of them features Michelle Yeoh in a spy-setting. I realize I’m a geriatric-class fan and promise to stay in my LazyBoy as long as today’s fans never lose sight of the possibilities of making something better for all of us. 

On Thursday there will be new episodes of two series appearing–Discovery and Picard. The network has promised fresh content through the middle of the year. 

Will Captain Burnam or Booker find the secret behind species 10-C’s entities threatening the galaxy? Will these extra-galactic aliens just say “sorry” and blame that destruction on an IT goof up? 

Will Picard find a way to stop the all powerful Q from changing history? Will Seven of Nine fully regain her humanity, lost after being assimilated by the Borg?

I almost don’t care, as long as I get to let my imagination run with characters who inhabit a universe where the goal is to be the best you can be.

(**Plus I’m having one of those pesky procedures today wherein I get all doped up instead of writing in the morning. Trust me, the writing is more fun.)

Email me at WritetoDougPorter@Gmail.com