Earthdate: September 28, 1987. Time 7pm: It was the final dress rehearsal of the student variety show. We had been working for five and half weeks and I was desperately trying to help my student create less of a gong show and more of a musical Saturday Night Live.
Things were chaotic. The show was filled with students who had never been on stage before. My college best friend had just started as my technical director and was finding her footing. We were preparing for an audience that behaved more like they were at a football game than watching theatre.
It was not a good night for the premiere of the first new Star Trek TV series in more than twenty years. Nonetheless, I borrowed my father’s portable TV with a six-inch pop-up screen pop, which weighed about twenty pounds. I plugged it in a hallway just off the stage and watched when I could.
Of course, I was videotaping that first show, “Encounter at Farpoint,” at home! However, I could not wait that long. I had to see the show immediately! I had been waiting far too long for this.
I had been introduced to Star Trek in Sunday school (yes, Sunday school) in 1975 and I was hooked. I had watched all the original series shows so many times that I had the dialogue memorized. I had seen the films multiple times. I had copies of the animated episodes, countless novels, books, and lots of toys and paraphernalia decorated the condominium that I had purchased the prior summer, after completing my first year of teaching. It is not an exaggeration to say that Star Trek was a religious experience for me.
I caught snippets of the first episode as I ran from the theater to the costume shop to the green room to our classroom. I was dumbstruck when an elderly Dr. McCoy made a cameo. I was transfixed when we finally got to see an Enterprise saucer section separate from the secondary hull!
The rehearsal finished and the kids left around 10pm. I didn’t get out until nearly 11:30 or so. I went home and watched the episode. I stopped the tape and went back. I nearly kissed the screen trying to see all the details.
Fortunately, Star Trek: The Next Generation ran on channel 50 twice a week. I watched both times. On the first showing, I taped the show and sometimes watched along. On the second one, I watched with remote in hand and would pause out the commercials. Thus I had two sets of videotapes on which I reverently recorded all the episodes for the next seven years.
My wife jokes that we could not go on a date until we had finished watching Star Trek. That is true. She learned all about Star Trek as we dated during the second and third seasons. No, we did not have a Star Trek wedding.
Although I had grown up with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov, it was the new cast of characters who became my icons. Star Trek: The Next Generation was a worthy successor to the original series. In more ways than I can explain here, it took the philosophy of the original and boldly went where 1960s television could never go.
It was not perfect. I worried about a captain who immediately surrendered, a counselor whose lines always seemed to be “pain, pain, anguish, anguish,” a Klingon on the bridge, and a child at the helm. The series took time to find its direction and soul, but when it did, it was one of the most rewarding and wonderful science fiction stories ever told.
Star Trek: The Next Generation came of its own as I was doing the same thing. The first few years of the series were my first years as a young teacher. As the show hit its stride in the third season, I had found my wonderful wife, married, and moved out of the bachelor condominium and into a little house. Our daughter was born at the end of the final seventh season.
The Next Generation took on big questions and told bold and ambitious stories. It wrestled with its creator’s rules and learned how to break some of them. While some episodes felt like retreads and others like they were written by a large and discordant committee, I often watched episodes several times because they were so powerful and well crafted.
The show holds up well today. I have used episodes in my own teaching, both in day school and in my Sunday school class! The issues that Star Trek continues to address retain their relevance.
It is appropriate that a new journey, a new ship, and new characters will premiere as we celebrate this anniversary. I am awaiting the new series with similar anticipation, optimism, and fear that I had way back in 1987.
Happy thirtieth birthday, Next Generation! Here’s looking to the ongoing voyage, continuing mission, and the never-ending exploration of new worlds and new civilizations! Bring on Discovery, let’s boldly go!
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