To boldly go where we've been going for the past 43 years...
Allrighty, then. If there is something beyond an ultimate test of your geek fu, this is it. Let's have a show of hands: who here is counting down the hours until you can go see the new Star Trek?
I'm not sure what more I can add to this. Friends, this is the sine qua non of geekdom; the ultimate index of nerdiness. This is a thing that has made such an enormous dent in the zeitgeist that even its parodies have become cultural touchstones: Galaxy Quest or the "Spooky Fish" episode of South Park, anyone?
This is the thing that tells me that every other depiction of the near-future in contemporary science fiction is flawed, because in all of these other futures, there is no Star Trek.
Heh. I can remember meeting Gene Roddenberry back in '75 or so, when he was stumping around the country on the college lecture circuit, trying to raise interest in a possible Star Trek movie. I remember how indignant he got when he talked about how the studios were tentatively interested in the project, but only if he recast it. The very thought of anyone other than Shatner playing Kirk or Nimoy playing Spock...
I suppose that's why they cremated Roddenberry. (After he died, of course.) So that they wouldn't have to listen to him whirring like a lathe in his grave.
Heh, again. Roddenberry was a decorated B-17 combat pilot in the Pacific Theatre. After the war he was a Pan Am commercial pilot for a couple of years, and then he quit that to become an LAPD cop for seven years while he chased his dream of becoming a screenwriter. Hard to reconcile any of that with Star Trek, innit?
But never mind that. Star Trek was, is, and will be again, and here we are, 43 years, six TV series, ten movies, and uncounted heaps of spinoff products later, eagerly awaiting the next installment. So while we're killing time in the ticket line, let's play Bests & Worsts.
Best series? Worst series? Well, in my book Deep Yawn Nine has a permanent lock on that title, but you're welcome to argue it. Best episode? Worst episode? Funniest moment of unintentional comedy in a series? I nominate the episode of ST:TNG in which Picard orders the Enterprise into a geosynchronous orbit over the south pole of a planet, but that's just me.
Best enemy? Most pathetically worthless recurring enemy? (There were a lot of lame-ass one-shot foes, but let's not dwell on the Space Hippies.)
Best movie? Worst movie? Best line from a movie? It's hard to see how anything could top—
"There is an old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China."—but you're welcome to try.
Let the arguments begin.
ULTIMAGE GEEK FU runs every Wednesday. Have a question that's just bugging the heck out of you about Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Battlestar Gallactica, Farscape, Firefly, Fringe, Heroes, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Smallville, The X-Files, X-Men, The Man From Atlantis, or pretty much any other SF-flavored media property? Send it to slushpile@thefridaychallenge.com with the subject line, "Geek Fu," and we'll stuff it in the queue.
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