Star Trek

You know, I catch a lot of flack for being a Star Trek fan. First of all there are the Star Wars fans who just can't see anything of value beyond the Star Wars universe. Then there is the people who just hate Star Trek, and for almost no reason just hate everything about it, or at least dislike it a whole lot. Then there's the Trekkies. Did that surprise you? I like Star Trek, but I'm not a fanatic of it. I would never argue with some Jedi wannabe over which franchise is better, it's not worth it. However, to hear some of the people I've talked to about Star Trek, it would be throwing the baby out with the bath water if you just dismissed it completely.

What is ST good for? It's definitely good for some not overly complicated compartmentalized science fiction stories that are over in 53 minutes. For me, this is really good. I don't always get a ton of time to devote to a movie or a book or a TV series, and Star Trek is written in a way that almost every episode is autonomous and if you haven't seen it for a while, it doesn't matter. This was probably most true with TOS, and least true with DS9, but even in DS9, it was still true over 90% of the time.

There's also a ton of books written for this franchise. There have got to be about 300 books written and they are still writing them. I'm all for this, except for William Shatner. He's writing books where Kirk is back from the dead, and working with the whole TNG crew, and some of the VOY crew. To me it's just a feeble attempt to keep the past alive, and see if he can milk Kirk just a little bit more. Plus, now there are two Spocks helping Kirk . I do however enjoy reading the books, and aside from a few series (New Earth being one of the best) they are easy short reads, good for an in-between book.

Someone almost always asks me who my favorite character is, and instead of being annoyed at this, I'll just say that I was always intrigued by Riker and by Kira. I think they are some of the most interesting characters, but Jolene Blalock is the hottest. However, I kinda stick by just saying DS9 and TNG are my favorite series, followed closely by ENT. I don't know if I just couldn't get into VOY all that well, or maybe it was just to 90's-ish. Whatever, I'm one of the rare fans of DS9 out there, so :P

So take that for what it's worth, and in the mean time, have a wonderful New Year!