Star Trek over Star Wars.
There, I said it. The nerd debate is unresolvable. It’s science fiction versus science fantasy, it’s space wagon train versus space opera. They are both magnificent, but I want to live in the universe of Star Trek. I cast a disapproving eye on any dude of my generation that I meet that doesn’t like Star Wars (this also includes a preference of comic universe and used to include a subscription to Sports Illustrated). Star Trek paints a future of ideals that could be the epilogue to that Dan Rather Patriotism book.
Last Fall the Star Trek franchise introduced it’s newest TV series – Star Trek Discovery. Fifty years after the original, thirty since Star Trek the Next Generation and fifteen since Star Trek: Enterprise.
Discovery has been uneven, thoroughly modern in its cinematography, inventive in its portrayal of common concepts, true to historic social themes in the show and ‘on the bubble’ for me.
Last night was the season one finale, and it had a good couple of plot twists in the final few episodes that looked like it might salvage my interest for a second season. And then they locked me in.
The setup is that the bad guys (Klingons) were winning the war and it looked like Earth might fall to The Empire. Senior officers were carrying out a clandestine mission to blow up the home planet of the Klingons which would send their clan-based leadership into disarray. Just before executing the genocide, the crew of the Discovery figured out the plan and got Star Fleet on the horn and refused the order. One after another they stood from their stations on the bridge and said “We are Star Fleet” with the implication of “and that’s not how we do”. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up. This was my Star Trek distilled into a single moment of higher goals and an acknowledgment that character is what you do when no one is looking, character is revealed in your most desperate hours. I found myself unknowingly standing as I watched it. I didn’t actually say “We are Star Fleet”, but I felt it.
Most of TV is a waste. It is a ‘thief of dreams’. It is a way to quiet a mind that has been conditioned to constant stimulation. It is a way to pass the hours for people for whom 24 hours in a day is too many.
But sometimes it is this. Over the past 35+ years Star Trek has brought me to the moment where they could make my hair stand on edge and I am grateful. Great TV can shape you, inspire you, transform you and move you, and so we suffer the seemingly endless dreck because every now and then, if only for a fleeting moment, the ambrosia can be intoxicating, rejuvenating and joyful. Buh-buh-buh, buh-buh-buh-buhhhhh. Buh-buh! (that’s the Star Trek theme).
Epilogue: the season one finale also gave a sweet kiss on the lips to long-time Star Trek fans. After the climax and denouement, as the Discovery headed off to set the premise for Season Two, they dropped out of warp to come into contact with Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise. What! Oh no you didn’t! Am I too old to say crap like that? Captain Pike was the captain of the Enterprise in the pilot of the original series in 1968 along with Science Officer Spock. When the show got picked up, the Captain Pike actor wasn’t available anymore and so they brought in some Canadian named Bill Shatner to be Captain Kirk and re-cut the original footage into a two-episode pilot called The Menagerie. Thank you my love, thank you.