The All of Trek Project

Star Trek pops up a few times on my TV bucket list -- and, uh, once on my films list. But completely apart from the Star Trek franchise's status as a television milestone and a cultural force, Star Trek became near and dear to me first because my dad loved it.

Dad starting watching Trek, like a lot of kids in the sixties and seventies, via reruns. He joined the computer club at school because of it -- and promptly dropped out again. Turns out computers in the 70s just meant lots and lots of punch cards. But he kept watching the reruns on into college. According to Mom, he used to catch it every day at the student center, and every time he'd say, "I don't think I've seen this one!" -- and then five minutes later, "Oh, I've seen this one."

Mysterious scientist alone on a planet full of styrofoam rocks? I don't think I've seen this one!
(Also, Nurse Chapel -- thank goodness for artful shadows, eh?)

Then came Next Generation, which started airing when I was a kid. We sat with Dad and watched every episode. I remember during the Borg ones he used to wait until things got really tense, and then he'd GRAB us and we'd all scream and jump half out of our seats. (Seriously, those Borg episodes were terrifying.) It was excellent.

holycrapholycrapholycrapholycrap

But I also remember playing Star Trek with some other kids in the school library one day (we were total jocks, obvs), and since I'm a girl I obviously had to play a girl part. Which at that point, since Bev was taken and Tasha was dead, meant Troi. And even at 8 or 9 or whatever I was, I knew Troi was lame. Very pretty, but lame. Her power is feelings, y'all. That is some Care Bear bullshit, right there.

At least the Care Bears could shoot their feelings at people like a weapon
(a skill I have wished for during many arguments)

I couldn't have articulated it then, but I was coming up against one of most frustrating limits of Roddenberry's utopian vision, viz., women can be professionals, but they will always be girls. That means two things:

First, their main problems will be romantic or maternal in nature. All of Troi's storylines? Weird pregnancies, creepy boyfriends, and making eyes at her fellow officers. And Dr. Crusher, the other medical officer aboard? Worrying about her precocious son, making time with a Scottish space ghost (yup, that happened), and making eyes at Picard. It was as if the writers simply couldn't imagine any other kind of story line these women could be involved in.

And second, whatever their species, position or personality, girls will always serve an ornamental function first and foremost. In other words, she may have an advanced space degree, but she will definitely, always be bangable.

Too many images to choose from,
system overload, system overload!

None of that breached the surface of my mind during Trek's heyday in the 90s, though. We had TNG, we had DS9, we had Voyager, and we watched them all. My mom burnt out and started going to her room when Trek was on, but I barely noticed. All the space ships, all the androids, all the forehead prosthetics, I ate it up with a spoon. I loved the fraught ethical conundrums, the serious professionals working seriously together, the close-knit friends-cum-family kicking back together in their off hours, the vision of a future where everyone did their best and they won because they were the best at what they did. I loved the adventure. I loved the vision of a better tomorrow. I loved it all.

And I watched it all ... until gradually I didn't. I went away to college, and Voyager and Enterprise were still on, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't all Trek's fault, of course; I had a lot going on in college, what with learning to be an adult and getting an education and getting my heart broken a few times and all. Plus, I didn't have a VCR (look it up, kids). Trek and I drifted apart. It was, maybe, sad but inevitable.

Still, I never really stopped loving Trek (unlike those guys from college, who are all reading this, because I stay friends with my exes, yo).

Not like this. Actual platonic friends. Geez, get a room, you two.

But the movies! We saw every one of the movies. Or maybe most of the movies. To be honest, to a kid, a lot of them sort of blur together. I definitely saw enough of them through the years to know all the original crew, even though I never saw an episode of TOS until I was in my 30s. I remember the one with the whales, that one definitely sticks out. ("Nuclear wessels!", that is classic.) But have I seen them all? Well, not the first one, nobody likes the first one. But the others? ... Maybe? Possibly? Good chance?

If you said to me, "There's this movie and it's like Star Trek meets 2001: A Space Odyssey,"
I'd be like, "You mean like that episode where the old Earth probe becomes self-aware
and threatens to destroy all organic life, but then it thinks Kirk is its maker ...," and you'd be like,
"No, not that -- I mean, kinda like that, but on a bigger scale and with more star child stuff
and space ship porn," and I'd be like, "OK, that could work ..." 

All of which is to say: I've seen a lot of Trek. I've seen most of Trek. But what I'd really like to be able to say is, I've seen all of Trek.

So how can I be sure I've seen all of it, what with the hazy memories over decades of TV and film watching? Well, we can't just guess -- Mr. Spock would never approve (and I discovered, watching the original series a while back, that Mr. Spock is kind of a badass, soooo, let's not get on his bad side). No, to really be sure I've seen all of Trek, I'm going to have to watch it all. Again.

Thank God for Netflix.

And that's why we're commencing what I'm calling the All of Trek Project. It involves me watching All. Of. Trek. It does not, for the sake of clarity, involve tie-in novels or graphic novels, because that is not canon; that is merchandise. I don't care if Shatner wrote it. It does involve the Animated Series, though, so there's that to look forward to (and oh, I am).

I'll explain more of the rules and regulations of this mission (if you're someone interested in following an All of Trek Project, I assume you're someone who cares about rules and regulations -- call it a hunch) in the next post, on the first few episodes of the original series ... whichever episodes you think those might be (you hard-core Trekkies, you know what I'm talking about). In the mean time, let me just leave you with these specs: 6 series. Thirty seasons. Twelve movies. Forty-seven years. Three Spocks. One Shatner. Innumerable Q. One "The Beard" (you know the one I mean). One O'Brien-Bashir bromance. One series-saving Seven of Nine. One Bakula.

Say it with me, everyone: Make it so.

--SA