To the Transporter Room!

Are you as excited as I am that there’s a new season on Star Trek, Strange New Worlds beaming down to our living rooms for the next few months? Okay, streaming, but same diff, right? To us Star Trekkies, any excuse to photon-shift our reality is welcome, and anticipated.

I really do hope there are some great story arcs in this fourth season. From the trailers and teasers I’ve seen online, it promises to be character-driven season, that could be setting up for some more development of the OG character cast – Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, Nurse Chapel – and I’ve seen mention of Year One, the proposed spin-off coming that aligns with the original series from the sixties. The series has not been green lit as yet, but we can hope.

With that, I bring us to a pertinent part of my article. Star Trek has been thrilling audiences for sixty years! This is quite an achievement, and testament to the enduring love fans have for the franchise, the characters, the stories, the spirit of Star Trek in its various iterations.

I willing admit to enjoying other series’ or movies more than others, to liking the tone and message of some more than others. I’ve had my fair share of disappointments, like for instance, when Star Trek Prodigy was cancelled. I thought it was a visually stunning show, with real potential to deliver on a compelling plot. I also found the ending of Star Trek Discovery slightly anticlimactic.

There is no mistaking that Star Trek, The Next Generation was the peak experience for me. As a Gen Xer, I grew up with those characters and their various adventures. I have rewatched the show’s seven seasons and the movies that were part of the show’s run and follow up. I loved the evident camaraderie most. The sense of dignity, equity, curiosity that the series exemplified. Did the pink/beige carpeted set draw some ridicule (inspired by the Citroen Karin, by the way!)? Sure, but it was such a wonderful reminder not to take anything too seriously, to simply enjoy the show for what it was – a space adventure set on a hulking Cadillac-like USS Enterprise D.

This past weekend, San Diego Comic Con hosted panels with the cast and writers from across the franchise, including guests like George Takei, Rod Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry’s son, and many others. Michelle Hurd, one of the cast members from Star Trek Picard sat next to George Takei on a panel discussion and got a little emotional expressing how much she appreciated the contribution that he and others have made to Star Trek through the years. Her touching tribute to Star Trek echoed sentiments that are shared by other actors who have been lucky enough to be part of the franchise’s story – the sense of inclusion, acceptance, of family, cooperation and teamwork. The bonds that are visible off-screen are brought forth in performances that reach out and embrace the audience. It’s powerful stuff, and its the magic that makes Star Trek so widely enjoyed and loved.

Some might argue we’ve had enough Star Trek, but I would like to wade in to that debate with a message to those who feel it’s beyond its expiry date. Something that gives us so much hope, so much inspiration, encourages curiosity, discovery and brave exploration should be lifted up and carried forward to the next generation, and so on, and so on. Why dim the light when it casts so much brightness into our world? We need the hope Star Trek brings that things will, one day, be better for all, not just an elite few.

In the words of Gene Roddenberry, “Star Trek was an attempt to say humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in lifeforms.”

Thank you, Gene, and thank you to every one of the people involved in some way in bringing the most amazing sixty years of entertainment to life.

Live Long and Prosper.