Late-in-life Trekkie

In buying myself a bit more time over the half-term period to work on part six of my 'Re-Viva la Revolución' series, I thought you'd be keen to hear all about my recent adventures where I had never been before.

My partner is one of those late Gen-Xers who has since childhood loved Star Trek (The Original Series hereafter) and Star Wars (he fervently will not refer to the original film by its retrospective subtitle 'A New Hope'). Although a self-professed sci-fi nerd, I could have happily lived the whole of my life without seeing any of either franchise. He has most certainly irreversibly changed that outlook.

While I have now seen, let me see, the first and third Star Wars trilogies plus Rogue One and Solo, and I admit to enjoying the outlanders of the franchise Rogue One and The Last Jedi, I would maintain that I am not a fan. But when it comes to the Star Trek universe (galaxy, really), I hugely enjoy the company of the characters and the knowledge that flows backwards to references in other shows I've loved for years. Certainly by season 3 of The Next Generation I was fully fine with coming out as a late-in-life Trekkie.

Long before I knew Andrew (who is my favourite android), I had been a major fan of The X-Files, Futurama, and the movies Galaxy Quest and Spaceballs. The latter is of course a send-up of Star Wars, but in true Mel Brooks fashion is loaded with other film and television references amongst which is Star Trek ('Scottie beamed me twice last night' ahem). Galaxy Quest, though, is often heralded (certainly by film critic Mark Kermode) as 'the best Star Trek film never made'. Between that and Futurama, as well as having seen some re-runs of Original Series episodes over the years, I knew enough to have a fair understanding of it all, but not enough motivation to make any of the Star Trek series 'my shows'.

As with so many parts of life in 2020, that has now changed. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus rapidly spread around the world and we knew in March that we had to hunker down, Andrew suggested watching The Next Generation. He's a life-long trekkie and had seen Next Generation and Deep Space Nine first time round - with the gaps that were normal back in the days of week-to-week television airing before box-sets were a thing. In the recent beforetimes, any time I'd been away or out for the evening, he'd been watching Discovery on Netflix and it made him yearn to see those previous series as an adult. Usually up for giving most things a go, I said sure and here were are.

It was before the pandemic reached that level when we watched the opening episodes of Next Generation, 'Encounter at Farpoint' and 'The Naked Now'. They didn't inspire me to keep going, although I experienced an early fondness for the 'fully functional' Data, who I suspect many of us can relate to in his efforts to feel more human. We left it aside, then the new year brought increasingly scary news, we finished The Good Place, and self-isolation and lockdown loomed. We needed a show, and dove right in. 

There is some shaky ground and some dodgy storytelling in the early seasons, but my goodness does it hit warp 9 in season 4. Some honourable eyebrow-raising moments to point out include mention of the unification of Ireland in 2024 as the federation crew mediate a highly reductive patriarchal civil war. Now why would that sound so familiar? Hmm. And isn't it funny how in the 1980s the early 2000s sounded dead far away? There is also the one where a vigourous viral infection rips through the Enterprise which we watched as UK peak one was peaking, which was a bit raw if I'm honest. 

It has also been interesting seeing that story space edge into and skirt around mixed-race and same-sex relationships and gender identity and expression. I enjoyed seeing the dudes in the mini-dresses early on and missed them when they stopped appearing. It was nowhere close to where we ought to be on those subjects now, but for the late-1980s and 1990s, something more inclusive was trying to emerge, and it seems from what I've read around that it was viewers who pushed back against those developments. 

When Dr Crusher falls in love with a trill, a symbiont joined with a humanoid host, and he dies and receives a new host body who is a woman, it is disappointing by standards today (mine at least) that we couldn't see Beverley go with it. We're on season 1 of Deep Space Nine now and it is interesting to get to know Jadzia Dax, a trill now in its eighth host body and who has previously been a mother and a father while the core of Dax remains the same. While still binary along sex lines, it is a positive start to what has emerged since the 1990s as a more fluid way of thinking about social gender constructions. 

I get disappointed but not surprised at the ableism, which may be even more rampant in more recent shows. It comes across that disability has been 'fixed' and eradicated, with La Forge's visor being the only indication that parts of the body don't always function in typical ways. Even spinal transplants and being brought back from death in 30 minutes are possible (for some). But in looking at life-changing injuries, Next Generation at least attempted to square off with harmful notions of masculinity, usually with the klingon Worf as a vector for the debate.

While some of the alien looks and characteristics perpetuate stereotypes about groups of humans, the regular casts in these shows are refreshingly inclusive. I'm too used now to mixed casts to abide white-washed, mostly male cast lists. There is also fantastic space and time (indeed) given to developing recurring characters, my favourite of whom has to be Lwaxana Troi (played by Majel Barrett who was also the voice of the Enterprise computer) who is never short of fabulous in presence and energy. She was always great in her annual visit to the Enterprise, but she's something special when she annoys, scares and then is the dearest friend to Odo in Deep Space Nine. And oh the outfits. Sublime.

I think most of all what has been a source of comfort in these shows is their far-future setting. Our small, terrestrial lives are frightening and lonely just now, and it is fun to imagine the possibilities of the good and the bad and more of the same that await later us-es out there. For now, my galaxy is tinier than ever before, but the mind is willing to boldly go.

 

Worf's face, though.

 

 

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