Migration to Star Trek Geekdom
By Lisa Fary
My whale period is one of those things that remain unexplainable. For years, it had been horses, everything horses: My Little Pony, Black Stallion, Black Beauty, even Mr. Ed. Then toward the end of fourth grade, suddenly it was whales. Drawing whales on my Trapper Keeper. Reading library books about whales. Begging to go to Sea World. Watching Orca. (I became insufferable to have around if Orca was on TV. “Killer whales don’t act like that,” I’d say in the same teacher voice that’s plagued my students for the past eight years. “They follow the food. Did you know killer whales don’t have migration patterns?”)
Insufferable. Like watching Troy with a Classics major.
Little did I know that my childhood whale obsession would lead me down a path of geekdom which would not be socially acceptable until adulthood.
Fall 1986. Fifth grade, my first ever sucky year of school. Not only was I bombing math (not due to a learning disability – due to a vagina. Seriously. “Girls are bad at math” was the explanation given and accepted), but also a bike accident had left parts of my face on the pavement a few blocks from our house. Think of a skinned knee. Now imagine that on your forehead, right cheek, and chin. Pretty gross.
And to make it all worse, there was another Star Trek movie coming out and Mom and Dad were all aflutter with Captain Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise. By now, Mom had taken a part time job at a fabric store and being home alone was nothing new. I also had friends in the neighborhood and could easily have gone to one of their houses to play while Mom, Dad, and Chad were out seeing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.
But, bless her heart, Mom tried talking me into seeing it. There were no double feature falsehoods to get me to go quietly, no ultimatums to avoid the cost of a sitter.
“But, it’s Star Track,” I whined.
Mom drew in the now familiar sharp breath, but refrained from correcting me. “Honey, you like The Last Starfighter and Star Wars. Star Trek is just like them.”
She was right. I did love The Last Starfighter and Star Wars; I’d even pretended our backyard tree was in Yoda’s swamp. Mom must have seen something in my eyes, something leaning toward accepting her invitation, and said the one thing that could tip the scale.
“Lisa, did you know this Star Trek movie has whales in it?”
“Whales? Really? What kind of whales? If they’re killer whales, they’d better not act like Orca.”
The Voyage Home turned out to be my perfect gateway drug to Trek. It had whales, it placed the crew in the 1980s, and it had the conservationist message I was just starting to latch on to at the time. And it was funny. Funny in a way I’d never seen the other movies or series episodes. I loved that movie even then.
Becoming a fan of the original series was still years off for me, but the following year, there’d be a new Star Trek series on television with a whole new crew. That one would seal my geek fate. Because, you know, being a fifth grade girl with half a face and an interest in whales somehow hadn’t done that, yet.
The new Star Trek movie opens this Friday and it’s all I can think about. So, all this week, I’ll be writing about my Star Trek life.
Tomorrow: Talking through the series premiere of Trek is grounds getting your ass dumped.
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Lisa Fary’s early exposure to classic Battlestar Galactica in 1979 is largely responsible for her lifelong interest in science fiction and her childhood ambition of being an intergalactic space cowgirl. She thinks diagramming sentences is a fun alternative to Sudoku.
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"Insufferable. Like watching Troy with a Classics major."
::raises hand:: Guilty. So very, very guilty. My friends now know that the very mention of this "film" can make me shudder. And yet they do it anyway, the sadists.
"The Voyage Home turned out to be my perfect gateway drug to Trek."
That's pretty amusing to me, considering that my sister-in-law (the marine biologist) can't stand Star Trek IV because of the bad science. Of course, she actually likes number five, aka The Search for God at the Center of the Galaxy, so what does she know?
Luckily for me, I'm not a scientist (but I could have been if someone had helped me in math instead of writing me off as a girl – yeah, I'm bitter), so bad science doesn't take me out of it (unless it's really bad, like anything Mohinder says on Heroes).
I like to pretend I live in a world where ST V didn't happen. Or where it's been exiled to the Phantom Zone along with The Phantom Menace.
"I like to pretend I live in a world where ST V didn't happen. Or where it's been exiled to the Phantom Zone along with The Phantom Menace."
Me too. Also in my world Nemesis was much better because they cast James Marsters as the villain. (He was in the running, and several of the main cast have publicly said they think he would've been a better choice.) I think the ultimate solution to our dissatisfaction is the formation of a geek advisory committee for the entertainment industry that filmmakers can consult before they muck up our childhoods.
OMG, James Marsters wold have been awesome – he could have made Shinzon, like, threatening!
Lisa I love how you get your life and Mom into your writing made me cry again, but that is a good thing!
Me too, Dad. Me too.
Love this piece! Also, it's really interesting that ST IV got you into Trek. I watched the Original Series when I was little, and I thought (and still think) it's really child friendly. Brightly colored, 1960's earnest humor, tribbles…
I didn't start watching the movies until I was in my teens.
I think I had such a horrible experience with stealth watching ST II and getting dragged to ST III, that it tainted Trek for me for years afterward.
I'd watched a few reruns of Classic Star Trek with my dad when I was young but I actually became a fan on the night Next Gen premiered (September 1987). I watched it with him and loved it. By my next birthday (April 1988, age 6) I was such a Trekkie that my birthday presents were a Captain Picard action figure and the video of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. It was my gateway to the original series and it's still my favorite Classic Trek movie.
ST IV opened the door, but Next Gen kicked me in the ass and knocked me full on into Trek.