Let's all take a break from our troubles today. This post is going to be, as the title suggests, something refreshing.
With all the doom and gloom going around it's all too easy to feel face down in it. I remember so many things about life I sorely miss before being forced, kicking and screaming, into the sort of fear based, threat infested, zero-trust dystopian setting that, prior to today, was only imagined to serve as the prelude to some crappy summer movie plot. i.e. Hunger Games.
I remember going to a pub and actually meeting people, and enjoying myself. I remember having lots of friends. I remember when an invitation to a pot-luck backyard shindig made people feel special. I remember when people actually accepted invitations. I remember looking forward to a night out at the theater, and going to concerts or other events. I remember being happy. I remember anticipation, excitement. I remember being a fan of some beloved cast. I remember what it was like when I was a kid.
My parents divorced very early, so when I was a young boy, Sunday was visitation day for my father. The basic template for visitation day went something like this:
I would get dropped off with my brother at church and attend Sunday school, where we would do arts and crafts and produce silly things like painted rocks and holiday greeting cards with macaroni, glitter and Elmer's glue. My father would pick my little brother and I up around 11am in some mid-life crisis sort of vehicle, and the rest of the day would be spent with him at my grandparents house, whose garage was filled with things to play with, and when we tired of dragging everything in and out we would settle in for dinner and an evening in front of the TV.
This was in the early 70's, well before cable television was even available everywhere, so the Sunday night line up was pretty standard fare and we had maybe 6 main stations to choose from and a bunch of UHF channels. Everyone took turns picking a show. For grandpa this was Walter Cronkite reading the news at six. My grandmother followed that with The Laurence Welk Variety Show at seven. My brother and I got to vote next, so long as we agreed.
Eight o'clock was the beginning of "parental discretion" programming so our channel choices became even smaller then, but everyone back then bought a weekly copy of something called "The TV Guide", and we would always consult that to see what any upcoming show was about.
For anyone under 50 years old, televisions back then were pieces of furniture. Giant wooden consoles that were wired to a bare metal tree on the roof, and UHF channels were the double digit stations you had to tune into with a second knob on the console. That was the "Alt-Media" of the day. UHF was full of wonders.
You had Bob Ross, Flash Gordon, Alfred Hitchcock, and Jack Benny. You also had Star Trek, which was the best.
Star Trek was sexy, edgy… "grown-up" sci-fi. It was also in color, a big plus. It was full of action, and it frequently had scantily clad women whose costumes, just barely, failed to trigger my grandmothers frequent "TV veto" power move.
Needless to say, I was completely hooked, and a new "trekkie" was born. I can still vividly remember every episode.
Today, the Star Trek franchise is a total embarrassment, an insult to what it once represented. The importance of good story telling has been forgotten. Lazy writing has resulted in every story arc being a shallow repeat of the last and another excuse to further debase the original vision of a future in which humans had become something more dignified.
It is no longer a vision of the future, but a lament of the present.
Today's Star Trek magnifies our faults and excuses our weaknesses, and every character is some variation on a LGBTRHGVLDSHFJKE+10 theme. The cast is rife with weeping men and women, debauched villains, and mentally unstable officers mired in some galaxy wide grift. Strong male role models are completely absent, replaced with pussified, bi-curious or even full on queer counterparts, longing for a mission to Uranus.
Like most television and movies now, it's unwatchable.
Not everyone liked Star Trek, I get that, but a lot of people did. It not only gave us grand things to look forward to but actually created enough real confidence, industriousness and desire in people that many of the props used in the show, portrayed in the 60's for their futuristic, "whiz-bang" flair, have become real, even commonplace. My point is, there used to be entertainment one could find that provided a temporary escape from the troubles of today, shows that gave us something positive to look forward to, a reassurance if you like, that all things pass, and that there was a pleasant destination ahead we would eventually reach.
I find myself missing that quality a lot of older shows had. There's nothing like a good story to temporarily transport you to another place, preferably someplace better, for a little while, where you can rest up and renew.
Star Trek painted a picture of the future I wanted to live in and hoped I would one day live to see. As Star Trek declined, with it went that desire.
But today I saw something that rekindles that flame. Believe it or not, there is a re-production of the original show, a fan fiction facsimile, that is so faithful to the original concept that it was actually very easy to forget that there was another actor playing Captain Kirk. It's called "Star Trek Continues". [link below]
Today, the Star Trek franchise is a total embarrassment, an insult to what it once represented. The importance of good story telling has been forgotten. Lazy writing has resulted in every story arc being a shallow repeat of the last and another excuse to further debase the original vision of a future in which humans had become something more dignified.
It is no longer a vision of the future, but a lament of the present.
Today's Star Trek magnifies our faults and excuses our weaknesses, and every character is some variation on a LGBTRHGVLDSHFJKE+10 theme. The cast is rife with weeping men and women, debauched villains, and mentally unstable officers mired in some galaxy wide grift. Strong male role models are completely absent, replaced with pussified, bi-curious or even full on queer counterparts, longing for a mission to Uranus.
Like most television and movies now, it's unwatchable.
Not everyone liked Star Trek, I get that, but a lot of people did. It not only gave us grand things to look forward to but actually created enough real confidence, industriousness and desire in people that many of the props used in the show, portrayed in the 60's for their futuristic, "whiz-bang" flair, have become real, even commonplace. My point is, there used to be entertainment one could find that provided a temporary escape from the troubles of today, shows that gave us something positive to look forward to, a reassurance if you like, that all things pass, and that there was a pleasant destination ahead we would eventually reach.
I find myself missing that quality a lot of older shows had. There's nothing like a good story to temporarily transport you to another place, preferably someplace better, for a little while, where you can rest up and renew.
Star Trek painted a picture of the future I wanted to live in and hoped I would one day live to see. As Star Trek declined, with it went that desire.
But today I saw something that rekindles that flame. Believe it or not, there is a re-production of the original show, a fan fiction facsimile, that is so faithful to the original concept that it was actually very easy to forget that there was another actor playing Captain Kirk. It's called "Star Trek Continues". [link below]
I have seen a few fan fiction attempts at this, so believe me, I was as dubious about even being able to finish a single episode as most trekkies would be but the sets, the costumes, the acting, the soundtrack, even the sound effects were just flawless! There are several cameos by actors that appeared in the original show and even some of the cast are apparently children of old one. Scotty is played by Chris Doohan. This new cast even somehow managed to retain all the character development and ease in their roles that the original cast had attained by the time the show was cancelled after only three seasons. By the end of the first episode the little kid in me was back. I was just blown away.
Nothing was enhanced in any way or brought up to modern standards. The show basically is, as it was, a Star Trek time capsule, with the premise being that these additional episodes would fulfill the original promise of a five year mission: To explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go, to all the places the current "Discoprise" will never see, because there are no men onboard who can identify a wrench or tell you what its for.
I watched the first episode, which was a follow up to the second season original series episode "Who Mourns for Adonis", in which the crew of the Enterprise come face to face with the God Apollo, who has taken up residence on some lonely world they were checking out. As that story unfolds, we learn that Apollo is the last surviving member of the pantheon of Greek deities who both watched over and tortured mankind from the top of Mount Olympus in ancient times, who left Earth long ago, when humans had outgrown the need for parenting.
Nothing was enhanced in any way or brought up to modern standards. The show basically is, as it was, a Star Trek time capsule, with the premise being that these additional episodes would fulfill the original promise of a five year mission: To explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go, to all the places the current "Discoprise" will never see, because there are no men onboard who can identify a wrench or tell you what its for.
I watched the first episode, which was a follow up to the second season original series episode "Who Mourns for Adonis", in which the crew of the Enterprise come face to face with the God Apollo, who has taken up residence on some lonely world they were checking out. As that story unfolds, we learn that Apollo is the last surviving member of the pantheon of Greek deities who both watched over and tortured mankind from the top of Mount Olympus in ancient times, who left Earth long ago, when humans had outgrown the need for parenting.
Finding a complete synopsis of the original episode is easy enough,
(https://www.tor.com/2015/11/03/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-who-mourns-for-adonais/) so I won't pen a lengthy recap here, but it was one of the better episodes that aired.
(https://www.tor.com/2015/11/03/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-who-mourns-for-adonais/) so I won't pen a lengthy recap here, but it was one of the better episodes that aired.
Long story short; Apollo went from loving and benevolent to power drunk and mad, a fair allegory that could be applied to many of the current events of today. A battle ensued that ended with Apollo's defeat, after which he begged the forgiveness of the rest of the gods for his arrogant choice to remain behind when the rest of them chose to vanish into this place he explained the Gods must eventually retire to, when they can no longer find anyone to worship them.
In this new episode, two years after the events of that day, the crew has a close call with a strange object in space that almost destroys them. As it turned out, they destroyed the object instead, but as a result are very surprised when in so doing, they accidentally run into Apollo again when he suddenly materializes onboard!
They learn from him that the place he begged to be let into back then turned out to be a terrible prison that consumed each of the other Gods one by one until once again, he was the last of them to remain. Unable to escape he survived only by allowing this prison to parasitically feed off him. Ironically, the same guy that forced him there, Jim Kirk, also freed him when the Enterprise destroyed the wandering prison object.
This time around, because he was now mortal, very old, and dying, he begged for mercy, fearing his own inevitable passing. He asks the crew to take him to some inhabited planet and leave him there, "so that he could feel the sun upon his face once more, live out his remaining years in the company of other mortals, and not be forced to face death alone", leaving Captain Kirk to wrestle with the decision.
Wow! What a wildly imaginative twist of fate, and to top it all off the SAME ACTOR that played Apollo back in 1967 returned to star in this episode! But it wasn't just the thrill of finding a hidden stash of new original Trek episodes to watch for the first time that made me want to drop everything else to sit down and write about an old TV show, and it had even less to do with being a fan of Star Trek.
I was completely unprepared for the waves of emotion that washed over me when I saw this.
Without leaking any spoilers, the message of this new episode was about the virtue of self sacrifice. There was no predictive programming, no mention of viruses, no pretexts that weaved in a reason for anything in the story that was the result of climate change, no fighting over resources of any kind. The story was about overcoming personal character flaws, sound moral reasoning and forgiveness. It was about once again portraying humanity in a dignified manner. Most of all, it renewed a sense of confidence in humanity I had all but lost chronicling the events of the last few years, in which every sacred cow we have ever had has been systematically and unceremoniously slaughtered.
All it took was a hour long play to restore a vibrant and renewed sense of hope. If you loved the original series for what it was, and are disappointed with what it has become, you need to see this. There are nine new time capsule episodes in all. I have every reason to expect the rest of them will be as good as the first, and just as uplifting. If this review has wet your appetite for nostalgia, rather than binging out on a Re-Trek marathon, I suggest maybe spacing them out and taking them in at times when you feel kind of low.
If you have always hated Star Trek, I suppose my advice will lost on you, but I don't think you really have to be a long time fan of the show to appreciate the contrast with daily life today.
We all need something like this to jog our collective memory, to help us realize that we all still have a choice about what we become, and to remind us of all why those choices are so very important.
That is my positive message for today.
-John
They learn from him that the place he begged to be let into back then turned out to be a terrible prison that consumed each of the other Gods one by one until once again, he was the last of them to remain. Unable to escape he survived only by allowing this prison to parasitically feed off him. Ironically, the same guy that forced him there, Jim Kirk, also freed him when the Enterprise destroyed the wandering prison object.
This time around, because he was now mortal, very old, and dying, he begged for mercy, fearing his own inevitable passing. He asks the crew to take him to some inhabited planet and leave him there, "so that he could feel the sun upon his face once more, live out his remaining years in the company of other mortals, and not be forced to face death alone", leaving Captain Kirk to wrestle with the decision.
Wow! What a wildly imaginative twist of fate, and to top it all off the SAME ACTOR that played Apollo back in 1967 returned to star in this episode! But it wasn't just the thrill of finding a hidden stash of new original Trek episodes to watch for the first time that made me want to drop everything else to sit down and write about an old TV show, and it had even less to do with being a fan of Star Trek.
I was completely unprepared for the waves of emotion that washed over me when I saw this.
Without leaking any spoilers, the message of this new episode was about the virtue of self sacrifice. There was no predictive programming, no mention of viruses, no pretexts that weaved in a reason for anything in the story that was the result of climate change, no fighting over resources of any kind. The story was about overcoming personal character flaws, sound moral reasoning and forgiveness. It was about once again portraying humanity in a dignified manner. Most of all, it renewed a sense of confidence in humanity I had all but lost chronicling the events of the last few years, in which every sacred cow we have ever had has been systematically and unceremoniously slaughtered.
All it took was a hour long play to restore a vibrant and renewed sense of hope. If you loved the original series for what it was, and are disappointed with what it has become, you need to see this. There are nine new time capsule episodes in all. I have every reason to expect the rest of them will be as good as the first, and just as uplifting. If this review has wet your appetite for nostalgia, rather than binging out on a Re-Trek marathon, I suggest maybe spacing them out and taking them in at times when you feel kind of low.
If you have always hated Star Trek, I suppose my advice will lost on you, but I don't think you really have to be a long time fan of the show to appreciate the contrast with daily life today.
We all need something like this to jog our collective memory, to help us realize that we all still have a choice about what we become, and to remind us of all why those choices are so very important.
That is my positive message for today.
-John
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