Boldly Going 2

So there I was, waiting for these interlopers, this “next generation” of Starfleet officers and spaceships. We true believers knew that Star Trek meant Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and evil Klingons. But hey, I’ll keep an open mind about Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG).

It started well enough, especially when I first laid eyes on Counselor Troi (Marina Sirtis). She rapidly shot to the top of my list of Star Trek babes (where she remains despite the presence of Yeoman Janis Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) on the original series and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) on Voyager). But what was up with this captain with a French name who talks with an English accent? And the Federation and the Klingons are at peace? Uh, details, please. And a humaniform robot named Data? (Okay, an android.) And the Enterprise-D splits into two parts? And Worf (Michael Dorn), a Klingon is a Starfleet officer? And Wesley the boy genius Crusher? (I am convinced that Roddenberry put families and children on the new generation of Starfleet ships just so we could have the boy genius. Interestingly, his character generated a tremendous debate at Star Trek conventions. I recall reading about one that hosted a seminar titled “The Wesley Crusher Problem.”) And what’s with Q? Q? THE Q? I have a lot Q’s! Can I have some A’s? And then they made a very conscious homage to my heroes by having Data fly Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) in a shuttlecraft in the pilot because the good doctor never did trust the transporter. Okay. You had me at Dr. McCoy.

Okay. I’m being picky. I admit it. And despite my initial distrust and condescending attitude I quickly began warming to the new crew, especially when I tumbled to the fact that Data followed Asimov’s Robotics Laws. Be still my heart! And, hmm, what’s this relationship between Picard and the widowed Dr. Beverly Crusher all about? And then the Traveler tells Picard that Wesley is a unique person who needs special nurturing and encouragement. Well now, this COULD get interesting! (Funny story about that particular episode, “Where No One Has Gone Before.” That November, my wife had fallen at home and shattered her ankle, requiring surgical repair. So there I am, visiting her in hospital and I notice it’s time for Star Trek: The Next Generation. So, as history repeats itself, I put the show on and plop myself down to watch it. Gee, Mark, thanks for visiting me. Enjoy the show?) And we actually saw a real central member be killed in the episode “Skin of Evil,” Natasha Yar (Denise Crosby). Maybe they’re serious about making this a really good series with unexpected things.

By the time we encountered the return of Kirk, et al in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, we had met the Borg on TNG. But more about them in a bit. The best I can say about the fifth movie is that it had the original cast members. Bill Shatner, love you as Kirk, find you tolerable as T. J. Hooker and the Priceline.com Negotiator, but the sad truth is you ain’t no Fellini or Hitchcock when it comes to directing a movie. And Spock’s brother, a Vulcan who rejects emotional control? Puh-leeze. But the sight of Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) undulating with bare legs makes the movie entirely worthwhile! (Yeah, okay, sue me for being a pig. I’m a guy.)

At the end of the third season we got our first Star Trek TV cliffhanger. The good news is that meant there would be a FOURTH season, thereby passing the original series in longevity. The bad news is that we had to wait several months to find out how the Borg would be stopped and Captain Picard would be un-Borged. Unlike other humanoids in Trek, the Borg were not an individual species. They were a combination of organic beings and cybernetic technology all bound together in a collective, the ultimate technological monstrosity. Aside from being an Emmy Award-winning episode, this is my favorite TNG episode. (Okay, two-part episode but who’s counting?) And as pleased as I was to see Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes) stay as Picard’s first officer, those of us familiar with how military hierarchies work had to wonder what he was doing to his career. But, all the children were home safely and that’s all that mattered.

It was somewhere around this point in time when I decided to start reading the Star Trek novels. There were quite a few from the original series and a growing number of TNG novels. But of course OC-boy that I am, I wasn’t just going to read them. I was going to index them! There were already several encyclopedic works on the Trek universe on the screen but no one had done a similar thing with the books. What I began encountering, however, was the reality that Paramount (the company that produced Trek TV and movies) considered what appeared on screen as “canon” but that did not include what appeared in the books. So, in addition to indexing and then writing descriptive entries, I was faced with attempting to resolve the discrepancies, if possible, or simply noting a conflict with canon. What a project for OC-me! (And the comic books? No! Even I wasn’t going that far…uh, yet.)

TNG ran an episode called “Yesterday’s Enterprise” (also a favorite of mine) in which a the Enterprise-D is thrown into another timeline where the Federation and Klingons are locked in a protracted war that is not going well for the Federation. Tasha Yar was still alive in this one and we encounter the Enterprise-C with its female captain Rachel Garrett. That ship had to be sent back through the time vortex through which it emerged to help the Klingon colony where a young Worf had lived, thus leading to rapprochement between the Federation and the Klingons.

By the time Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country premiered, we had seen unprecedented changes in the world, typified by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. The Undiscovered Country provided us with a first glimpse at the possibility of the alliance of the Federation and the Klingon Empire that exists in TNG’s time. In that sense, it both paralleled our own real world and paved the way for the events of “Yesterday’s Enterprise.”

The Romulans had become the central enemy of both the Federation and the Klingons and a brief military confrontation ensued. That two-part episode “Unification” was notable for the return of Spock, now a Federation ambassador, Denise Crosby as the Romulan Commander Sela (the daughter of the Tasha Yar who had gone back into the past and a Romulan general) and learning that Data could perform a Vulcan nerve pinch.

Throughout TNG, we had encountered several new species of humanoids, notably the uber-capitalist Ferengi and the reptilian, warlike Cardassians. Introduction of the Cardassians and their brief war the Federation (the episode “The Wounded”) was important in establishing the back-story for what would become the third Trek Series, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (DS9). It was also important to me because it introduced me to the Irish song “The Minstrel Boy.”

Another piece to DS9’s back story was the introduction of a disgraced Starfleet officer named Ro Laren (Michelle Forbes), who was a Bajoran, a member of the race that had been most horribly oppressed by the Cardassians.

You may wonder why I’m going into such nauseating detail regarding these episodes. Honest, there is method in mine madness. When Star Trek originally premiered, little thought was given to maintaining a back-story and internal consistency or even establishing a real history other than some personal stories (Kirk and several women from his past, Spock and his parents and history of the war between the Federation and the Romulan Empire are examples.) Gene Roddenberry had been happy enough to get the show on the air by selling it as “Wagon Train to the stars” so the idea of a long-lived franchise was the farthest thing from his mind. By the time of his death in 1991, it had become apparent that the Trek franchise was going strong and had every appearance of continuing for years to come. By creating the interlocking stories, characters and events, TNG laid the foundation for DS9 which subsequently laid the framework for Star Trek Voyager. But those are stories for yet another day.

Stay tuned for the continuing story, Boldly Going.