Happy Belated Star Trek day! Especially to all you non-believers! I know this subject will probably bore some of you to tears, so please just feel free to like this post and move on if you need to.
Monday marked the 59th anniversary of the network television premiere of Star Trek. “The Man Trap” not the first episode made, but the first episode that aired did so today in 1966.
As a child of the 70s who came of age in the 80s, I always known about Star Trek but it wasn’t my thing as a little kid. I was a Star Wars guy. Sure, I’d heard about the show. I’ve even called reruns of it on channel 50 in Detroit back of the day. But to me, Star Trek was “that old science fiction“ show predated Star Wars by nearly a decade.
But by 1987, I was 13 years old and three years removed from Return of the Jedi as a self-professed geek, I think I was looking for my next science fiction fix. Then I saw commercials for a new series. Star Trek: The Next Generation.
I remember thinking “this can be my Star Trek“ and it was. Or it became so. I washed TNG religiously from 1987 to 1994 taking me all the way through junior high high school and even into my college years. Along the way, as episodes of TNG started making more connections to the original series, or TOS for short, I slowly began to go back and watch the original Star Trek series as well.
I have to admit: I haven’t watched them all. And even the ones I’ve watched having some cases Ben positively dated. Star Trek isn’t very many ways a product of its time. As progressive as its social and political views were, it was still very much product of classically, trained, theater actors, and this new TV innovation called Technicolor.
I could sit here and spew the usual dogma about “Gene Roddenberry ‘s optimistic view of the future” But instead, I’m going to say that the Star Trek franchise has probably done more to formulate my social and political views than any real living person in my lifetime.
Star Trek is all about Hope. It tells us that yes, things are probably going to get worse before they get better, but they are going to get better. And in times like these, we need Star Trek. We need to hear that the world is going to get better.
I was doing a lot of doom-scrolling yesterday on the Tickey- Tok, videos of people in Gaza, a region that has become a veritable Gell on Earth, thanks to Israel. I’m hearing historians making their predictions for what’s going to happen to the United States within the next few years. Ukraine, Sudan, I could go on and on. These are some really dark times we’re living in, and I’m not exaggerating at all when I say that.
Meanwhile…
Mother apparently was having a very rough day. Will see in one of the aids of her assistant living center started calling me at about 2 o’clock today because she was refusing to take one of her meds. I managed to talk her off the proverbial ledge today and got her to take her meds while I was on the phone. I went to see her this evening around dinner time as I usually do and she was quite anxious. I’m sure it’s not easy when you’re in poor health and have untreated anxiety issues, but Phred and I are doing everything we can right now, but there’s only so much time in a given day. And we have to be able to lead our own lives as well.
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related (and perhaps, not-so-related) posts:
- The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
- Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
- Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
- The Muscle of Empathy
- Where Do We Go From Here? Five Years Since January 6.
The article “Happy Belated Star Trek Day!” First appeared on Rebuilding Rob.
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