I am not a fan of Star Trek.
I’ve watched the original series and parts of the later series, as well as several of the movies, but it’s always seemed a little silly to me.
You have an entire universe to invent whatever you can imagine, but you choose to send Captain Kirk and Spock back to the Old West and Nazi Germany?
And with limitless planets for your characters to explore, you stick a holodeck on your spaceship so people can walk around ordinary locations?
How about just finding another alien civilization?
Then there’s the worst fight in the history of science fiction and possibly all of television.
It’s all too much for me. Or maybe not enough.
Either way, I’m not a fan of Star Trek.
But sometimes, Star Trek can really delight me.
For example:
“Star Trek: The Next Generation” contains evidence that the actor Patrick Stewart, who plays Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise, exists in the Star Trek universe.
Here’s how we know:
In almost every scene that takes place in Picard’s room, a book is displayed, open to a two-page spread.
The book?
“The Annotated Shakespeare Vol. 1.” It’s a real book that exists in our world today, available on Amazon for about $12.
In one episode, the book is opened to pages 354-355.
The left page of that two-page spread includes a photo from a 1968 production of “As You Like It” at the Royal Shakespeare Company in which the role of Touchstone is played by Patrick Stewart, who is pictured in the photo on the page:
Captain Jean-Luc Picard has a book on the Enterprise that contains a photo and a mention of the actor who portrays him.
Was this done on purpose?
It must’ve been. Right? Perhaps not by the writers or show runner, but by Stewart himself or some other clever cast or crew member?
I love Easter eggs like this. Moments like these, alongside episodes like “The Tribbles,” make the show occasionally brilliant, but it’s not enough to win me over to the Star Trek universe.
The show still fails to be inventive enough for me. Moments like Kirk inexplicably leaving his shields down in “The Wrath of Khan” (when it costs nothing to raise them in precaution), the ridiculous rebirth of Spock after a brilliant cinematic death, the episode in which an alien woman steals Spock’s brain to use as a computer, and the episode when a virus causes the crew of the Enterprise to “de-evolve” into animals causes me to see Star Trek as campy and silly and not worth my time.
But as a source for endless mocking and occasionally poking at rabid Star Trek fans?
Yes, that’s fun!
