Looking Backward

Recently, rocky_t, seemag, and alex_voy waxed eloquent about their history as Trekkies, which made me think of my own long and winding road with the various series.  I realized that I've been watching Trek regularly for twenty-five years.  (My god.) 

I can't exactly say that TOS was before my time (I was a kid in the 60s), but I never watched it during its first run.   When the reruns came along in the 1970s, my siblings became fanatics, but for some reason, it just never hooked me.  I hated Kirk (my apologies to his legions of fans), and the women just never seemed to have much to do.  In a clear foreshadowing of the advent of Janeway, I always preferred TV shows that had active women.  My favorites during the TOS years were a silly sitcom called "Pistols and Petticoats" (I had a huge crush on its lead, former movie star Ann Sheridan, who was [ahem] a redhead with a gun) and "Big Valley" (there the was crush on Barbara Stanwyck, who did not have red hair, but did sometimes have a gun.)

Anyway, I didn't come to Trek until the first movie came out.  A bunch of my friends were going, and I thought it might be fun.  Even though I hadn't particularly liked the show, I was certainly familiar with it; my family had been using Trekspeak for years, and I had probably seen most of the episodes at one time or another.

Well, I loved the movie.  Yes, it was talky and static, but the special effects really wowed me, and I found myself liking the characters better than I had remembered.  (Well, most of the characters.)  Since then, I haven't missed a movie or an TV episode (until Enterprise, anyway).  I was a TNG fan from the start (loved Picard, liked Riker, liked Data, hated Troi, loved Worf, liked Crusher, loved Q, didn't even mind Wesley until he became the Will Robinson of Star Trek [in about the second episode].)  I saw various flaws in the show, of course, but pretty soon, the Federation had become part of my life.  (My favorite episodes:  "Darmok" and "Measure of a Man" and "Inner Light."  I show "Darmok" to my students sometimes to help them understand metaphor.)

DS9 took me a little longer to get used to, but mostly just because it wasn't TNG.  I quite liked the premise, and soon DS9 became my favorite Trek series.  (In terms of writing, story, and character, it still is.)  I did have a lot of problems with the character of Kira, but I could cope with her.  My favorite episodes:  "Visitor," "Far Beyond the Stars," "In the Pale Moonlight," "Trials and Tribble-ations."

I missed the first season of Voyager because we didn't get UPN in my rural area.  But over the summer, I found that my Trek-mad cousin in another state had taped all the episodes, so I was able to catch up.  I was hooked at once.  I adored Janeway from the start, and I liked virtually all the other characters, too.  I wasn't all that fond of Kes at first, and Paris's early persona sometimes got on my nerves, but they both improved.  I was angry about Seven initially, but Ryan turned out to be so good, and the possibilities of J/7 were so fascinating, that I forgave TPTB the catsuit, etc.  (I wasn't so quick to forgive all the many Seven-saves-the-ship plots, though.)  We finally got UPN at the start of Season  Four; until then, my long-suffering cousin taped the eps for me every week.

Even though I still think that DS9 is the superior Trek series, it never overwhelmed me the way Voyager did.  I've never, before or since, been emotionally involved with a TV show as I was with Voyager.  A lot that is due to Janeway, of course.  By the time I finished watching my cousin's Season One tapes, I was in love and obsessed and that's all there is to that. 

 Another reason for my involvement with the show is fanfic.  I discovered fanfic during the summer between Seasons Five and Six, and I was just completely swept away by it.  I spent hours every day reading fic, joining chats, finding the ngs, subscribing to lists, and eventually, writing my own stuff.  It's one of the two most fun, rewarding, absorbing hobbies I've ever had.  (The other is collecting old books, which I've done since my childhood.  There's literally nothing I like better in the world than going to used bookstores.  Eating and sex, of course, are great, but bookstores. . .ahhhh.) 

Favorite Voyager eps:  "Counterpoint," "Living Witness," "Killing Game," "Resistance," "Bride of Chaotica!"  "Dark Frontier." 

 I guess it's stupid to feel betrayed by a television show, but I did feel that way about what eventually happened to Voyager with the advent of Braga.  Rocky has recently written some really perceptive comments in which she gives a "fair and balanced" view of  Braga's influence on Trek.  She's right that he's not totally inept, but he pisses me off nonetheless.  A writer who basically admits he isn't really interested in character and emotions?  Please.  And I resent his disdain for Trek fans and for Trek itself.  Still, we should be thankful, in a way, because if the show had been better, perhaps the fanfic wouldn't have been as good.  The show left so many holes and disappointments.  If fanfic hadn't existed, we'd have had to invent it, just so we could fix Voyager.

Fanfic is another way that I've been looking backward recently.  I recently reread some of my own stuff.  It was. . .interesting and fun and disturbing.  Some of it has held up well, I think.  Some of it takes me on a nice nostalgia trip back to its composition:  the songs I listened to at the time, the chats I had, etc.  And some of it. . .well, I think it's pretty bad.  One story in particular strikes me now as really weak, like bad porn.  I can't believe I was satisfied with it at the time.

I'm sure I'd have published all sorts of novels and stories by now (g) if I weren't afraid that in five years, I'd think they sucked.