Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Star Trek

I am a huge Star Trek fan. I search the cable channels for reruns. I joined netflix just to view old episodes. And not just the original - I love Star Trek the Next Generation (TNG), Deep Space Nine (DS9) and Voyager. The only series that didn't thrill me was Enterprise but I watched it all anyway.

Star Trek has helped distract me during times of stress. The writing on most episodes was so superior to what is on television today. They dealt with social issues, intolerance, and much more in a way that maybe helped some of us look at our prejudices. And Earth (if not the Federation) had actually achieve peace in the 24th century!

But the episodes I really enjoyed were the "relationship" ones. Like "Companion" in the original series where an alien being sacrifices "her" immortality to take a form that Zephraim Cochrane (the inventor of warp drive!) can love with. I guess his love wasn't as unconditional as hers. And the TNG episode where Captain Picard lives a whole other life with a wife and family on another planet that has been destroyed for 1000 years. Or when the hologram doctor in Voyager creates a family for himself and then learns what it is to lose a child. Very strong stuff!

Star Trek has also touched on some very deep spiritual issues. More about those in later blogs.

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