I was raised in a strict Star Trek household - by strict, I mean that my older sister got home from high school at the first commercial break, and if I didn’t have a short summary of the episode up to that point*, I got a thump on the arm.
Oh, I know my Star Wars, and, truth be told, I converted to Whovianism as soon as I was old enough, and have raised my children as such, but still, there are…certain cultural touchstones from Trek that they really should be aware off.
Thinkgeek now has iphone cases with the Mirror Mirror Terran Empire Logo. When I discussed this, and how much I desperately need one, my kids were…underwhelmed. They don’t fully understand the glory that is Trek.
Now, to the point: What would you recommend for a course in remedial Trek? A whole season? Just selected episodes? Which ones?
My current thought is to go with, say, 5 episodes from TOS ( City on the edge of forever, space seed, Mirror mirror, Tribbles and maybe one to show the cheesiness of Trek, the Horta in Devil in the Dark ). We could follow it up with the movies that sucked less (Khan and the One with the Whales maybe)
The problem with going with 5 episodes is that you lose the whole triad relationship. It’s the cheesy episodes that bring that to the fore. Just duct tape them to the couch and run all three seasons of TOS. They have to know the bad as well as the the good if they are to make a free choice. City is meaningless if you don’t know what came before. Ditto Mirror Mirror. Tribbles isn’t funny if you don’t have the serious to contrast it with.
Watch all available seasons of Star Trek, then pout about the fact that instead of bringing it back to TV, they’re wasting time making movies that you have to pay to get into.
And then pout about the fact that they’re letting you cool your heels waiting for Kirk and co. to return to prime time, while they putz around with a collection of imitation Star Trek shows that you absolutely refuse to acknowledge, much less watch.
Then rent a couple of seasons of T.J. Hooker.
What is Whovianism, btw?
Show them the first two seasons of TOS (okay, to save a little time, you can skip Assignment: Earth.)
TNG is a little harder, because season one wasn’t very good, there were good and bad episodes sprinkled throughout the rest of the run, and some of it depends on which characters or story arcs you wanted to highlight. Just to keep the discussion going, I’ll suggest Encounter at Farpoint (it introduced the characters, after all) and then anything that featured Q or the Borg.
Agree. For instance The Naked Time and The Enemy Within are essential in understanding the personalities of Kirk and the crew. Naked Time is also good in showing how they mixed humor and drama. Plus, the whole Federation universe was build slowly as the first season went on.
If you have to dump a show from the first season, definitely [The Alternative Factor** should be dumped. I’ll take Spock’s Brain over that any day.
I think duct-taping them to the couch and making them watch it is going to make them hate it. Personally I’d start with the better movies, and they may want to watch the show all on their own.
That doesn’t work well either. Wrath of Khan and Voyage Home need the series to set up…everything. Without the series all of Undiscovered Country is meaningless.
No, to convert the heathen to the Holy Trinity, one must go back to the original Scriptures.
I went and forked out a wad of dough to get the remastered TOS DVD set. I watch an episode as I ride my exercise bike.
I hadn’t watched much TOS for well over 15 years, at least. (Crap tons of TNG, though.)
But watching them after such a long break, and with a [del]silently[/del] slightly different life-perspective than I had way back then, I catch a whole lot of meaning and subtext I missed (or forgot). It’s kind of fun!
I started with the first season, the DVD set comes with them arranged in the order “as aired”, I think. I recommend that approach. Simple to plan and execute.
That was brilliant. Thank you for that link, it deserves to be up there with 'Why can’t I own a Canadian".
This seems to be the consensus. The problem is, we’re a low TV family, and we’re already at work on the sacred texts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, as well as the current iteration of Dr. Who. We still have to view the Tom Baker years. I’m going to have to make a schedule.
11 and 14. Yup, I’ve been remiss.
Maybe I’ll start there, since it’s almost Halloween.
It worked for Pokemon, at least in the sense that I had to watch it for ages as they grew up. For that matter, the freakin’ Teletubbies had me constructing an elaborate cosmology to explain their existence*.
Really, anything will be fascinating if you spend enough time examining it, even Joe Biden eating a sandwich.
Thank god. I just looked at the Wikipedia page for this episode. It was meant as a pilot for a spin off that never happened. That explains a bit.
God is the baby in the sun, and the small and simple world of the Teletubbies is a baby God’s first draft of creation. It got more complicated than this, but thank God, my kids grew up.
To make it less of a task, you can skip *The Alternative Factor, Catspaw, The Apple, Spock’s Brain, Assignment: Earth, The Omega Glory, And the Children Shall Lead, That Which Survives *and Turnabout Intruder. That gets you down to 70 episodes.
There is no reason for Omega Glory to exist. Like weaponized smallpox, it must be destroyed before it destroys us. Specter of the Gun at least had some nice Chekov moments.
Black/White is Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. Alternative Factor is…not that. It’s hard to describe, like a bad acid flashback.
Personally I’d start with the better movies, and they may want to watch the show all on their own.