Star Trek at 50 #FanFriday 22

Star Trek is 50 this week, so how could I not use it for Fan Friday? Such a wonderful show - let me tell you why I love it.

Star Trek at 50

There is one thing that I have always loved about Star Trek above all else and that is it strives to show a universe where diversity and tolerance are what most of society aim for. In a time when there was racial strife, they put an African American woman on the bridge of the Enterprise, and they have always tackled issues head on.

Sometimes they've managed it well, sometimes terribly awkwardly where we look back and cringe, but at least they tried. This is one science fiction series that tried to show that the status quo was not the ideal.

Now I have been watching Star Trek ever since I can remember. I used to watch it in repeats on BBC2 as a child. It made an impression then, but I didn't become a Trekkie proper until The Next Generation hit our screens.

I was in secondary school at the time and Next Gen was everything I'd been waiting for in a program. A mixed race, gender balanced crew on a brand spanking new Enterprise, NCC 1701 D, going where no one had gone before.

It had everything:

• a great captain in Picard
• the handsome first office Riker
• female characters that actually had stuff to do, including Tasha Yar and Deanna Troi
• Data
• and my OTP - Riker/Troi

I loved it from Encounter at Farpoint all the way through to All Good Things.

At university I ended up the president of the Star Trek society and I am proud to say we were the largest society on campus that wasn't political or religious :). We used to meet every Wednesday in one of the lecture theatres to watch episodes we had acquired from the States via some contacts in one of the local comic shops. Bear in mind, in those days there was no download - this was a VHS tape that had been converted from NTSC to PAL and then copied. We used to watch it on a large TV that we perched on the desk at the front of the lecture theatre.

At the time this was awesome. We used to see eps only a week after they were shown in the States. They were a little fuzzy and vaguely green, but we got to see them!

We also used to have quizzes, which I would most often set from memory and check the answers afterwards. Have to admit, people still couldn't answer a lot of the questions. I was a geek of the first order :).

Then came Deep Space Nine, which was also awesome, until they got bogged down in the whole war with the Dominion. I know that's why lots of people loved it, but I didn't. We were all a bit worried to begin with that a space station would be too static to be interesting, but the colourful new characters and interesting conflicts kept it going.

My favourite characters were 

• Jadzia Dax
• Odo 
• and Dr Julian Bashir.

I also still think season 1 is brilliant even though it's a little awkward in places.

In recent years I have also become a big fan of The Original Series. It has it's problems, as with any show of the era, but it does it's best and it is wonderfully entertaining.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

How exciting is that?

Of course, as it turned out they weren't always exploring strange new worlds, but they did enough to keep us hooked. I'm not sure there isn't a contemporary trope that the show didn't hit.

My husband thought he'd catch me out the other day when we were watching an ep. He started it up and then paused it a few seconds in, looked a me and said: "So which one is it?"

I smiled, looked at the paused shot and said: "It's the one with the horta."

1 point to me :)

Never test a trekkie! The great god Roddenberry looks down from the beyond and smiles on us. ;)

Back when I started watching Trek I was sweet and innocent, these days I'd slash Kirk and Spock in a heartbeat. For those who are unaware, slash is fanfiction where you take two male characters and pair them together romantically. The name comes from where it started (possibly) with Kirk and Spock and was written Kirk/Spock.

My favourite character from TOS, hands down, is Spock, but I have also come to appreciate the dry wit of Dr McCoy.

I could go into why I didn't really gel with Voyager, why I love the original movies, but can't stand the Next Gen ones, why I think Enterprise missed the mark, and how much I love the reboot, but that would take too long :). Let's just say I've seen them all.

I shall leave you with just a few of my favs from over the years:

• Fav Eps - everything to do with the mirror universe: Mirror Mirror (TOS), Crossover (DS9) and The Naked Time  (TOS)/ The Naked Now (TNG) closely followed by The Trouble with Tribbles (TOS).
• Fav Movie - The Wrath of Khan
• Fav Series - The Next Generation
• Fav Captain - Picard
• Fav crew member - Data or Spock - I can't choose :)

Here's to another 50 years.

What are your favourites from Star Trek?

Leonard Nimoy - A Great Man Who Will Be Missed

I often feel sad when favourite actors pass away, but for Leonard Nimoy I actually cried. I saw a post on Livejournal saying that he had passed away and that was it; it was hanky time.

I was lucky enough to meet him for a few brief moments a couple of years ago at a convention. He seemed like a very nice man and very caring of his fans, which is something everyone seems to agree on. It is so sad he has been taken from us.

Star Trek has had a huge impact on my life. I remember watching reruns of the original series as a child and the show was full of so many things that simply stuck in my brain. I blame Star Trek and Star Wars for my love of sci-fi: Star Trek for my love of what I think of as pure sci-fi and Star Wars for sci-fi with a hint of fantasy. I was the head of the Star Trek society at university and I am proud to say we were the biggest non-political or non-religious society on campus at the time.

Mr Spock was one of the things that stuck with me the most. He was intriguing and different and fascinated me. Looking back is amazes me how much depth Leonard Nimoy managed to get into a character who wasn't supposed to show emotions. Those eyebrows could convey a thousand things through just a twitch.

I'm a big fan of Mission Impossible as well, in which Nimoy plays Paris, a retired magician who is a master of disguise and can play any role. I remember first seeing him in it and being shocked when he laughed and joked, because I had only ever seen him as Spock before.

He was a great actor best known as a stoic alien and I will always appreciate the impact he had on my life. I love him in The Original Series, in the movies, in Next Gen and I think he was an inspired addition to the reboot. Spock aged gracefully, as did the man who played him and it feels like he's a distant uncle who I've grown up always knowing from afar.

My thoughts are with his family and friends at this time of sadness and I hope it gives them some comfort to see how many people he touched in his life.

A is for Android (and a thank you) - Blogging from A to Z April Challenge

It's the 1st April and that means a go for the A to Z Challenge, however, before we start A is also for ARLEE BIRD who founded this whole thing. This is a BIG THANK YOU for all the hard work. It is such a great concept and wonderful for getting everyone connected.

Now, on to the meat of today's post.

Okay, so I know there are some geeks out there who are now thinking of their phone, but when I think android, I still imagine Data or The Androids of Tara. I suspect I probably saw my first android when watching Dr Who, since that show had many things like that, and I grew up watching it. So today I will take you through some of the most memorable androids I have come across from film and TV.

Data (Star Trek: TNG)

Now Data is very close to my heart, because I became a huge Trekkie through Star Trek: The Next Generation and I remember watching Encounter At Farpoint, where we were introduced to this strange android-man, who could not whistle, like it was yesterday.

Brent Spiner plays him with a childlike humanity as he moves his way through the world of Starfleet with competence and sometimes wonder. His character grew through all the seasons of the show and on through the movies and I still adore Data.

My favourite moment from him has to be when Tasha Yar asks him if he is fully functional; it is just so perfect.

Twiki (Buck Rogers)

I have to say I don't love Twiki the way I love Data. He is a small mechanical man from Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and he's a little bit annoying. Now, don't get me wrong, Buck Rogers just wouldn't be the same without Twiki, but sometimes, especially after they changed his voice, I just wanted to throw him in the nearest trash compactor :).

When we first meet Twiki, he is Dr Theopolis' ambuquad, in that he carries around the member of the Earth computer council so that Dr Theopplis can be mobile. However, Twiki soon becomes Buck's firm friend and totally ready to get into any trouble Buck can find with him.

D84 (The Robots of Death, Doctor Who)

One of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who is The Robots of Death, which originally came out in Jan 1977. Now I was only four and a bit when this originally aired, so I didn't see it then, but it is one of my favs to rewatch.

Leela and the Doctor land on a sandminer that is run by a decadent crew and a whole bunch of human-like robots. The problem is, people are dying, so the Doctor gets the blame. Of course it's not him and central command also think something iffy is going on, because they've put D84 on board.

Now D84 looks like a Dum, one of the lowest forms of robot, who can't speak and only carry out menial functions, but he's a lot brighter than that. I love the way the robots speak, with a lilting voice, and I love D84 because he's badass :).

Bishop (Aliens)

Now, no list of memorable androids would be complete without Bishop. Firstly, I love Lance Hendrickson as an actor and he's as good in this as everything else and Bishop is superbly kick arse.

I love the way he tries to put Ripley at her ease and is still totally ready to back her up even though she is hostile. He's intelligent, fast and could probably take out the whole squad of marines if he wanted to. Bishop is an  android to look up to.

Roy (Blade Runner)

I remember watching Blade Runner as a teenager and I always wanted the replicants to survive and thrive. Their lot in life is not a happy one and the way Roy brings them together and looks after them is so poignant. All they really want is to live and they are doing the best with what they have been given.

Roy is something of a psychopath when it comes to humans, but that is because he has no choice. He wants to protect his own and extend his own life in an impossible world. I never wanted him to kill Deckard, but I kind of wanted him to win the fight at the end. If you have never seen Blade Runner and don't want to know what happens at the end, stop reading this part now.

The moment when Roy saves Deckard just before he dies is one of the most memorable moments in cinema as far as my mind is concerned. The raw emotion has stayed with me ever since I first saw it. It is a true moment of directorial and acting brilliance.

David 8 (Prometheus)

I know some people really dislike Prometheus, but I think is it superb film. In fact I wrote a glowing review of it here if you would like to read it.

As far as I am concerned David 8 is one of the best bits of the movie. He is creepy and yet attractive at the same time, giving a whole contradiction vibe that is simply superb. David 8 is totally amoral, he simply does what he has been told to do and the more we, the audience, see of it, the worse it gets.

When we see him bleaching his hair and watching Laurence of Arabia, it is utterly bizarre. He is possibly the freakiest android I've ever seen on film and that makes him simply perfect. He looks human, but he so totally isn't. Kudos to the director and Michael Fassbender.

So, there you have it, my most memorable TV and Film androids. What are yours?

If you enjoy androids in fiction, Soph and I have some short stories with androids/cyborgs in them. You can find them in the following anthologies:

       

If you would like to see what all of my posts will be about in advance, click here to see my theme post.
My twin and I are also doing the A to Z Challenge over at our fantasy erotica blog: http://fantasyboysxxx.blogspot.co.uk/