Having never really considered myself a die-hard Trekkie (or, indeed, one at all), it has come as some surprise to be enraptured by BBC2's recent showings of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Two episodes were on last night (Chain of Command, Part II and Ship in a Bottle from Series Six), I stayed up until 3:00am for them both, and during the introduction to the second I even found myself uttering those iconic lines
Space - the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: To explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.
as the Enterprise loomed into view, at the appointed time, as if I'd been a dedicated watcher all my life. Which I'm not sure I have, but I do remember it being around when I was only a little child. My dad is, what I would suppose we call, a fan, and it seems his fondness for the programme may have been inherited by yours truly. Indeed, this fondness seems to have permeated so deeply, that it has delayed my writing this entry, while I have been voraciously hunting for information about it on Wikipedia.
But, it's a funny thing: when one is watching it, it all makes sense, or if it doesn't one yearns to make sense of it. It's a complete, fascinating world, with hints of a rich history, and the technology! - the Holodeck, the ever present and helpful computer, the ability to speak to anyone on the Enterprise at the touch of ones communicator badge - oh, the technology is all wonderful! However, when one is away from it all, thinking about the logistics of this world, it starts to seem much less convincing. At least, the fact that everybody speaks English, and that there is hardly any variation in so much as accent - never mind vocabulary or grammar - is implausible at best; and it strikes me as pretty egotistical on the part of the creators that intelligent beings that are encountered in this Universe (or, at least ones that can speak - not quite the same thing) are all two-legged and upright- walking, and differ not a lot in appearance from humans. It doesn't really ring true with me.
However, if I'm not already, I think I'm on the way to being a devotee. Is this a bad thing? I don't know. It's only a television programme, after all! But I can say with absolute certainty and trust that it doesn't half feed that which is much in need of nourishment: the imagination.
