Star Trek: the Next Generation of Geeks

Wes got into the car after school yesterday and began telling me about a discussion he had with a few classmates. You see, our family watched the most recent Star Trek movie last Monday night for Family Night. I guess the topic came up in class, so Wes participated in the discussion.

Wes is actually pretty familiar with the Star Trek series', having seen several Star Trek movies, episodes of The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. I'm not sure if he's seen any of the original series episodes, but I suspect he's seen a couple. Or at least You Tube clips of them. Anyway, I guess the consensus in the conversation was that the most recent movie was "am-may-zing," and a brief discussion ensued regarding the cooler aspects of the action. Eventually of course, they began to extoll the genius of the various television incarnations.

Then one of the guys said, "Star Trek is really cool, but I HATE The Next Generation."

Wes turned his head sharply to look directly at me, his face taking on an aghast expression. Eyes popping out. I think I snorted and laughed. I've created a monster.

A year-or-so ago I began bringing home library DVDs of The Next Generation, which I will henceforth abbreviate to TNG. We are not so cool as to own our own library of them, but the Salt Lake County Library System has quite a large collection, especially of season 3, for some odd reason. My kids devoured them, as well they should have.

Back in nineteen eighty yadda when TNG came out, I thought that the world had been overtaken by symbiont geek-beings who were commandeering the television air waves. (Little did I know. Oh, how little did I know.)

I remember having a brief conversation in my Latin class (first clue) with my friend Jun about it. I was expressing a common view of the time that it was lame to try to ride the success of the original. Jun simply shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said, "it's actually a pretty good show." Jun was impossible to argue with. He's too friendly and he always makes sense. So, I just left it there and went on my ignorant way.

Not my creation, but cute!

Fast-forward a few years to 1993. I'm at the Uof U and dating Scott. Scott and I had an evening Japanese class together. Scott was living at home (lame) and I had a cool college apartment with fun roommates and a nearby hot tub (hip). Scott liked to come over after class, serendipitously pull his swimsuit from his backpack and take a dip in the hot tub which conveniently closed at 10, just in time for TNG re-runs. (I am aware that I ran-on in that sentence, but I sure enjoyed it.)

Soooo, I basically became a fan of TNG out of humoring the guy I liked. I can't think of any other scenario in which I would have been willing to give that show a try. Lucky for me I did, though, because it became our nightly ritual for YEARS. At least until 2003 or 4, or whenever FOX 13 finally took it out of it's late night line-up.

Now Patrick Stewart is one of my heroes, and the reason I made Scott promise me he wouldn't do anything rash if he began going bald. We didn't consciously name our son after Wesley Crusher, but we do have suspicions that the name took hold sometime during 9 months of faithful viewership. We also like to utilize handy quips such as, "you weren't like this before the beard," when applicable.

Wes's school conversation degenerated into a debate over which was the bosser character, Spock or Data... Data could "kick Spock's trash"... Spock wasn't a robot and he had cooler ears... Oh help me. I need to sit these boys down and explain how both characters were integral to the vastness of the storyline. And how Spock is cool because he hosted "In Search Of" and how yes, Data would kick his trash.

Oh yeah, and my dad met "Q," so we're just cool. I think now I'll go bake a cellular peptide cake with mint frosting.

This is not our fam, but I think I'd like to meet these people. Mom was smart to go with a season 1 Deanna Troi wardrobe selection. I wonder if Dad is really a doctor or something, ala blue uniform. Read many fabulous comments about this photo at Awkward Family Photos, another of my favorite time-wasting sites.