Hello World!

Sorry for the long silence. I had meant to write something about what Star Trek has meant to me for the 8th, in celebration of the series' premiere date, but that night I was at synagogue for the service before my son's Bar Mitzvah and it just didn't get posted. Since I'm a bit past the fact, and because the reason for it was a Jewish life cycle event, I am going to repost some of what I said on the tenth anniversary of Gene Roddenberry's death in 2001.

In my childhood, Star Trek had as much influence on my values and philosophy as my religious upbringing. Though I was born midway through the original series' first season, I'm really a second-generation Trekker - I watched nightly reruns with my father over the course of several years and discovered organized fandom through the books of those who helped shape it. The Great Bird of the Galaxy was already a being of mythic proportions by the time I learned anything about the life and career of Gene Roddenberry. To me he was the man who put a woman on the bridge of the Enterprise, who insisted that beings from radically different backgrounds could live and work together, who never stopped believing that human beings would reach the stars - if not during his lifetime, then during mine.

I remember crying the first time I saw 'City on the Edge of Forever' in elementary school, being upset about the choice Captain Kirk had been forced to make between the needs of the many and the needs of the one - though Spock hadn't yet articulated that Vulcan phrase about the former outweighing the latter. That episode kept me thinking for weeks about social obligations and personal honor; only much later did I consider the fantastic elements, the hazards of time travel and the conundrums of history. I didn't think of myself as a science fiction fan in those days. Star Trek was not about the special effects, the explosions and makeup. It was about people and ideas, a belief in our ability to evolve past current prejudices, a positive vision of the future.

Trek BBS Today

Below are some of the topics currently being discussed at the Trek BBS:

-Are we calling the remastered episodes TOS Reloaded, TOS Enhanced, The Unoriginal Series or what?

-Would a Trek XI box office disaster kill the franchise?

-Name five actors and actresses who make you want to go to the movies.

Many more topics can be found at the Trek BBS!

Trek Two Years Ago

These were some of the major news items from September 2004:

• Shatner Wins Emmy For 'The Practice'
  After a career in television spanning many decades, William Shatner won an Emmy Award for his guest role as Denny Crane on ABC's The Practice, saying, "What took you so long?" StarTrek.com joked that Captain Kirk had beaten Darth Vader, for Shatner defeated Star Wars star James Earl Jones; he also beat Space: 1999's Commander Koenig, Martin Landau.

• 'Enterprise' Wins Two Emmy Awards
  Star Trek: Enterprise also won Emmy Awards, for Outstanding Special Visual Effects and Outstanding Music Composition (Dramatic Underscore), taking home trophies in two of the three categories in which it was nominated.

• Berman Anticipates Break From Trek After 'Enteprise' Ends
  Longtime executive producer Rick Berman anticipated that after Enterprise completed its television run, there would not be another Star Trek series on the air right away, though he hoped that his proposal for a film that would be a prequel to the original series would be made.

More news can be found in the archives.

Poll Results

Below are the results of the most recent TrekToday poll:

Are you looking forward to the original series with new CG effects? Yes! Yay! It's about time! 45.8% - (776 Votes) I want to watch and see how they look, but I'm not replacing my original DVDs. 24.5% - (415 Votes) Who cares? The original series' cheesiness was always part of its fun! Bring on the styrofoam rocks! 14.8% - (251 Votes) Ugh no! It's like George Lucas and his revisionists got their paws on Star Trek! 10.6% - (181 Votes) I'm so annoyed I bought the original DVDs before they cleaned up the effects. 3.1% - (53 Votes) Total Votes: 1692

Please vote in our new poll about how you spent Star Trek's birthday!

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