Sometime in early 2017, trailers for Star Trek: Discovery started airing. The show looked pretty interesting, so I figured I’d watch it when it arrived. The problem was, I had never watched much of Star Trek, and I felt I would enjoy it more if I was familiar with the larger universe. So, I set out to watch Star Trek…all of it…
That journey ended this week.
What Are We Talking About?
It’s been an interesting ride, far more eye-opening than I expected, but probably not interesting to others, apart from the friends along the way who have been an inspiration (I’m looking at you, Melinda Robrahn and Sam Kao!).
I’ll scatter some personal anecdotes throughout, starting with this one: in 1994, I used to play basketball every day at lunch, but at one point I got sick or hurt (I can’t exactly remember), and I joined some other friends who hung out in the library instead. One of them loaned me a brand-new copy of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, and I remember taking it home and reading it cover-to-cover. So, I was familiar with ST lore, even though I had only seen a few episodes.
First Time
So, why hadn’t I watched Star Trek? While I was growing up, for a variety of reasons we didn’t watch television in our house with any amount of regularity. So, while I had seen ST episodes over the years, it would have just been a handful of episodes.
I remember when Star Trek: Voyager first aired in 1995, my dad and I were going to try our first weekly TV show as a family…I think we lasted 3 weeks. Sitting down at the same time on the same night of the week every week just wasn’t in our blood. Plus, it didn’t help that my mom was more interested in reading, and my brother was just a bit too young to understand, so there went that…
Also, starting in the mid-90s, I had become a Star Wars fanatic. In those days, the sentiment was that you couldn’t like both. (maybe because Star Trek was actively creating new content, and Star Wars had . . . the Jedi Prince series?) I was reading the Thrawn Trilogy as soon as Zahn was publishing it, so I had this sense of pride that I could only like one and not the other…
But in the early 2000s, it shouldn’t have mattered anymore. But as it also might sound, I’m a completist. I feel almost obligated to finish something that I’ve started. Luckily it doesn’t transfer over to a complete obsession, and my brain gives me some grace if I just barely start something (like the 1st novel in a trilogy if I don’t like it). However, if I give it some more effort (like the 2nd novel in a trilogy), it’s hard for me to give it up, even if that 2nd one is horrible…
So, due to that desired sense of completion, I take care before I enter into “large” universes or mythoses. So I definitely was actively avoiding it because I knew the effort I would have to put in.
Television
But the pull of Discovery was too great! I figured it was best to start at the beginning and just push my way through, in release order (partly because at the time, I didn’t know that timelines started jumping around). This meant watching:
- Star Trek (The Original Series), 3 seasons, 79 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: The Animated Series, 2 seasons, 22 30-minute episodes
- Star Trek: The Next Generation, 7 seasons, 178 1-hour episdoes
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, 7 seasons, 176 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: Voyager, 7 seasons, 167 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: Enterprise, 4 seasons, 98 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: Discovery, 3 seasons (currently), 42 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: Short Treks, 2 seasons, 10 15-minute episodes
- Star Trek: Picard, 1 season (currently), 10 1-hour episodes
- Star Trek: Lower Decks, 1 season (currently), 10 30-minute episodes
And *THAT* is what I completed this week.
Films
Before anyone asks, yes, I also have watched all 13 films. Since movies were more of my childhood than TV shows, I had seen all of them already, including several in theater when they were released. So this journey was more about the TV shows than the movies.
However, an amusing anecdote is that when I was 7 or 8, I had a really nasty ear infection (I used to get them frequenty) and couldn’t sleep. We had a tape of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home from a TV broadcast, and my dad let me watch it to distract me from the pain in my ear. It worked wonderfully…until the movie finished, and the pain set back in. So then I proceeded to rewind it start it all over. I think I watched it 3 times that night, until I finally fell asleep from exhaustion…
Impact
I had no idea how intricate and well-crafted so much of Star Trek is. Soon after I started, I discovered (no pun intended) Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki, and I proceeded to read the entry for every episode after I had watched it, especially for any of the behind-the-scenes info or ways episodes were interconnected. I could write multiple posts on how much impact the show has had on our larger society, on entertainment, on technology, etc. (obviously, multiple books have already been written on the topics!).
One of the most amazing parts is the epic serial that is Deep Space Nine. I say without a hint of irony that it may be one of the most impressive pieces of storytelling I have ever seen, both in scope and how it wisely it self-examines the utopian vision that Gene Roddenberry had set for the original series. But it is indeed its incredible serialized nature that is stunning. One of my friends is a huge fan of the series, and when I was starting to wrap up the last season, he asked me to remind him how far back he should go to hit the final story arc, probably expecting something like 10-20 episodes. We both sat in silence when I realized he would need to go back 2 seasons to follow through to the end.
The Future
So, what’s next? According to my list above, 3 series are still active, and 3 additional series have been planned. That could be a lot, considering I also enjoy shows from Star Wars, Marvel, and a ton of other things. But now that I’m invested, I’ll continue. My brain won’t let me do otherwise.
P.S. Yes, I did used to listen to the 1987 “Star Trekkin'” song by The Firm. I think I was introduced to it around the same time I read the Star Trek Encyclopedia in 1994.
P.P.S. I almost interned with the VFX department on either Voyager or Enterprise. Dan Curry (arguably the most prolific VFX supervisor/producer/artist in the franchise) had offered me a summer gig (his son and I went to USC together, and I was the only student around interested in VFX), but they kept delaying production, and by the time they began, classes had started back up. A loss for sure, but I think I’ve done alright since then.
