So I just started watching START TREK for the first time ever on Netflix Streaming... Have seen all the movies but somehow, despite the fact that I'm a huge sci fi fan (it's my primary genre as a writer / screenwriter), I missed the show entirely growing up (save for, perhaps, a few random minutes caught here and there while flipping channels on TV). Because of the movies I'd always been fairly familiar with the universe, but never really felt compelled to dive into the hundreds of episodes I knew were waiting for me on Netflix, as it just seemed, well, so much like The Mountain at the Far End of the Street--something I might climb eventually, but not today...
That all changed, though, when I recently buckled down and watched the entire original series of THE TWILIGHT ZONE front to back on Netflix Streaming and, to my surprise, discovered a treasure trove of good--nay, great--high concept genre screenwriting. What a joy, to take a lunch break and sit down every day (with my just-retrieved-from-down-the-street chicken salad), flip on Netflix, and get into an all new, self contained story, an entirely new world, with each and every episode (certainly it beats flipping around and seeing what's on cable--inevitably, nothing...). I quickly made my way through the complete Twilight Zone (over the course of a few months), and, soon after, realized: what have I been waiting for?? Trek awaits!!
Am five epsides in as I write this (the pilot episode plus the first four with Kirk), which means I have 252 to go (assuming I want to watch everything from the original series and the Next Generation--skipping Deep Space Nine and Voyager--which is my plan). First impressions thus far: its campy, but I expected that (60s sci fi and all); Kirk is grossly underqualified (and underage) to be a starship captain but, hey, the man's got passion and that apparently makes up for a lot; Kirk's character alone wouldn't have flown but paired up against Spock (the fire of Kirk's passion against the iciness of Spock's logic), this is the masterstroke of the show, and the axis around which everything else turns; the overall chemistry amongst the different members of the crew (Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura, etc) is great (particularly this early on--they already feel like a family); and, perhaps most of all, it's really kind of enthralling to watch the show now, knowing with hindsight bias what a cultural phenomenon it was going to become, and yet also knowing that the actors, at the time, clearly had no idea what it was going to turn into (at least, at first), and thus, you can tell they were all just having so much fun with it, the whole time...
But yes, for all that, even five episodes in I'm already beginning to spot the pattern here... Just found this Star Trek Story Generator online at IO9 and couldn't help but sharing (click on the image to expand)--enjoy!
