Trekiness

I have always been a huge Star Trek fan. It all started when I was in elementary school. My dad and I watched reruns of the original series every Sunday morning in the early 1970’s. We only got two channels in those days, but luckily, one of them made a little room for the far reaches of outer space in between their Sunday morning offerings of TV evangelists. It became a weekly ritual for us, sort of like church but without the nice clothes.

As I matured, I made every effort to stay up with all the latest in the Star Trek universe. I gobbled up the Saturday morning animated series episodes as quickly as they came out. I spent my allowance on cheesy books like The Entropy Effect and Yesterday's Son. I waited with unrestrained excitement for the first movie and was thrilled to sit through the 10 minute sequence that consisted of nothing but a panoramic views of the Enterprise while dramatic music played in the background. I’ve been loyal over the years, extremely loyal. I tolerated Troi’s “space cheerleader” outfit and smarmy “Gratitude and joy and joy and gratitude” dialog from TNG series pilot without complaint. I watched the abomination known as The Final Frontier from beginning to end, for crying out loud. Let no one question my Trekiness.

OK, I will admit, I’ve slacked off a bit as I’ve aged. I didn’t see Nemesis until it came out on DVD. My Deep Space Nine viewing waned a bit after season 3. I watched the odd Voyager episode here and there, enough to know who all the characters were, but not enough to keep up with all the plot lines. But I was there for all of them, in spirit, if not in body.

Except for one thing.

In all those years, there has only been one failure. It’s my Waterloo, my siege of Leningrad, if you will. It is: Enterprise. I’ve never watched a single episode. Not one. I simply cannot make it past the nauseating, insipid, god-awful THEME MUSIC. I can’t do it. It makes me want to grab the nearest Phillips head screw driver and gouge out my eardrums. Who came up with that drivel? Oh, it might be fine music for a Michael Bolton album, or as background music for a Julia Roberts chick flick, but as theme music for a Star Trek series?? You’ve got to be kidding me. I still can’t believe it. I want to know which doofus heard those first few vile notes and thought “That’s it! This is the song we’ve been looking for!” He should be flogged! I’d rather be forced listen to a Muzak version of Captain and Tennille’s Greatest Hits over and over until my eyeballs bleed.

I challenge you to listen to it yourself without gagging. Go ahead. Try. I conveniently posted the video right above this post for your listening pleasure. (I can't seem to figure out how to actually get the video in the middle of this post, and I'm about to put my fist through the monitor, so we'll just settle for a separate post, and everything will be fine, won't it? Yes it will.)

So anyway, I avoided the theme music and the rest of the show sorta got thrown out with the bathwater, in baby-like fashion. Even Scott Bakula’s hunkiness wasn’t enough to get me past that theme music, and I had the hots for him back when he was only Murphy Brown’s boyfriend, long before he donned the uniform and became Captain of the Enterprise.

But things are different now. Now I have TiVo. TiVo changed everything. TiVo is my friend. TiVo would never make me listen to that theme music, would it? No, it wouldn’t. No, instead it will let me skip over the offensive theme music. And, EVEN BETTER, TiVo will go out onto the wires and find the episodes that I want to watch. I don’t have burrow around on the internet or possibly resort to buying a TV Guide™ to find the shows. TiVo will find them for me. While I sit and do NOTHING. Is that not the coolest thing you’ve ever heard??

So I’m off to do a TiVo search to find the next showing of the first few episodes of season one. It may take a little time, but TiVo will find them for me. I have faith.

May the Force be with me! (Tee hee, just a little sci-fi humor)