Question: Can you ever begin to explain your deep love for Star Trek?
Answer: If you must ask the question, you’ll never understand Star Trek.
And so it goes on into the wonder of limitless infinity. Indeed, there are many unexplained mysteries which make up our world, challenge our minds when exploring our galaxy and construct the delicate framework of our vast universe, and onward until the very multiverse itself beckons to us rhythmically and hypnotically.
So go ahead and pick an era. Classic Trek, Trek Movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard.
Choose your Captain: Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Archer, Burnham, Pike.
Finally, please select your vehicle - Enterprise, Defiant, Voyager, Discovery.
Mix n match these elements for the ultimate in Trekking exploratory goodness, and don’t forget your trusty gear - communicator, tricorder and phaser.
The Fandom Speaks
Still, we owe it to our loyal fandom and so must ask ourselves: Why all that love for what began as a TV show, which by any broadcast standard of the time, performed only fairly to moderately well?
Wait a subspace second. Not so fast. Ratings alone don’t paint the full and accurate picture. As well read Star Trek fans know, NBC cancelled the show after three seasons, yet didn’t then realize the valuable demographic of 18-49 watching was so high. The bottom line: Keeping Gene Roddenberry’s Wagon Train To The Stars on air would have been best for all involved.
NBC dropped the ball, yet Trek never really stopped rolling along.
It reinvented itself in novels, in a groundbreaking animated TV series, and into video games, comic books, feature films, fan films and onto sequel and prequel series.
It’s always prospered and it’s still living long.
Don’t worry. Most of us don’t even have an inkling of a true clue to it all. It’s not so easily understood by even the most brilliant among our still maturing species. Let’s just be grateful Star Trek is not only still with us, but evolving and branching out in so many new ways.
To Star Trek, With Love
How do you define and quantify true love?
We simply need more. We must reach out to a higher intelligence to even begin to grasp the intricacies of our reality. The Q… The Organians… The Metrons. The Guardian of Forever would say, “I am both machine and being… and neither. I am my own beginning, my own ending." V’Ger really had a struggle with that dynamic.
Clearly the enigmatic Guardian is on to something. Chalk up that kind of truth telling to ancient alien wonder. A storytelling vehicle is only as worthy and effective as its eventual impact on its audience. It’s not about a finale or an endgame equation.
In the end, remember, we all love to be in the thick of things, to see and even feel all the action, to be enveloped in the fray. However, getting there is more than half the fun. It’s all about living and appreciating the journey. For Star Trek fans, that journey spans over half a century now, and it’s still going strong. As Star Trek: Discovery and Picard continue to stream and with Strange New Worlds on its way, it looks like that love fest is in no danger of ending anytime soon.
Humanity marches on, our experience ongoing. At the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, we saw these words flash on the screen, as we left the theater….
The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning….