No-One Here Except Us Trekkies
You know what I don’t write about enough on the internet? Star Trek. You’d think someone would revoke my nerd card.
I caught a bit of Q Who? the other day, a.k.a. the episode where the Borg first turn up (overview from the always excellent Blog of Geekery). Next Gen’s a funny old series. Although I remember so much of it being duff, whenever I see the odd episode, even some of the crap ones, I usually enjoy it. I’d like to go back and watch it all again, but believe me after the current X-Files project I can’t see it happening any time soon, not if I want to preserve my sanity.
One thing I hope is captured in the upcoming Abrams’ film is the sense of danger, even borderline horror, that goes side by side with the wonder and mystery of exploring the Universe. Star Trek’s always had an element of that for me. Plenty of Original Series episodes are scary (well, scary when you’re a kid), and my first real memory of watching Trek is the bit with the ear-infesting brainbugs in Wrath of Khan. You see that young enough, and it’s going to have a lasting effect.
Picard’s adventures never really managed that- the exception, of course, being the Borg. Because they really are very, very creepy.
The Borg aside, the episode’s got a good example of how Next Gen never quite managed to follow through on its potential. They hint about Guinan’s secret history, of how she’s not quite what she appears, even to the extent of somehow being able to counter Q’s powers (didn’t help her species against the Borg, mind). None of this, of course, is ever mentioned again, and like the early hints of a grand sinister conspiracy in Starfleet a promising possibility is missed.
While I’m writing about this, I’ll also sneak in a dig at Voyager, just to say that while the Borg are brutal, powerful and unstoppable in this episode, after First Contact none of this really comes through in their later appearances. God, Voyager was shit in so many ways.
I’m suddenly feeling a bit, I don’t know, nostalgic for Trek. The problem is, can it ever be relevant again? Battlestar Galactica has raised the bar in terms of how SF engages with not only present day issues, but also the sophistication of the world the producers have created. And it’s worth remembering that Ronald D. Moore, the mastermind behind the new Galactica, was also responsible for many of Next Gen’s good bits, and the Borg’s most terrifying incarnation in First Contact.
How do you pull that off? How do you capture everything that’s good about the old series, while also learning all the lessons that Voyager and Enterprise never did?
