Scene It: Star Trek Edition

A while ago, I played Scene It, Star Trek edition with a couple of my roommates. I did very well at the game. It amazes me how much I remember, from the original series through Enterprise, including all ten movies (the J. J. Abrams film does NOT count!).

I can remember episode names, characters, ships, actors, lines. Give me an episode, and odds are I can narrow it down to a particular season! Off the top of my head, I even named the episode wherein Janeway permanently lets her hair down! (Year of Hell parts 1 + 2, season 4.)

I remember more about a fucking TV show than my own country! I remember Star Trek in more detail than I do my own life! Something is wrong with this! Think what I could achieve if I could transfer this kind of recollection to the real world--apply it to something that matters!

As much as I laugh at Star Trek for the technobabble doublespeak and how intact everyone's hair seems to stay no matter how bad the crisis, I watch it now and it's not just for nostalgia. It's still good television. Too bad Enterprise ruined the whole thing. Come on, guys, who thought it was a good idea to go back to the beginning and retcon everything that already happened? Star Trek should've been more like Dr. Who: move forward from what's already been done. Don't go backwards and undo what we've come to accept as true for the last 40 years.

That reminds me, I recently watched the Voyager episode Distant Origin again. I can't help but notice it's similar to Sawyer's Far-Seer. A race of dinosaurs who originated on Earth but is now in a far distant part of the galaxy. Their species is mired in dogma, and one dinosaur (named "Gegen," which is the German word for "against." Symbolism!) is making a stand for scientific truth over untested assumption. The timing is right. The episode aired in 1997, and the last book came out in 1994. Makes me wonder if the books inspired someone on the Star Trek team.

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