What could possibly be better than spending a weekend with
the people that you have persistently watched grow and develop on television
for twenty years, in some cases even
longer? For most fans of film and television, their relationship with the
characters they love starts and ends with watching the movie or TV show, but for
a Star Trek fan its much more hands on than that as we have the luxury of being
part of one of entertainments largest ever fan bases. Because of that, the demand for meeting
the stars causes dozens of conventions all around the world and almost every
week of the year.
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| Me and Aron Eisenberg (Nog) |
I am a collector of personalised Star Trek autographs and
have been attending conventions for many years, the first being ‘Generations 2’
at the Royal Albert Hall in London back in 1996. I have recently returned from the
Destination Star Trek 3 event, also in London, and have discovered that the
often mentioned ‘Post Con Blues’ is a very real thing. I'm sure it affects
people in different ways, some feel down because they have to go back to work
afterwards and some because they generally spend most of their time alone and
they must leave their new like-minded friends behind. For me, it is a sort of
sick feeling of nostalgia and loss in my stomach, the loss being the time I spent as a teenager growing up in the middle of Star Trek’s Golden Age. A time which had three different
Trek incarnations running simultaneously, with weekly events to keep me satisfied such as a monthly magazine,
fact files delivered to my door and VHS releases of brand new episodes. I had
the original excitement of the season ending cliff-hangers and genuinely did not
know what was going to happen next. There was even a hotline you could ring to listen to
actors interviews as they gave hints of upcoming story lines.
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| A small selection of my Autograph collection |
The thing that depresses me the most after having attended an
event like Destination Star Trek is the realisation that what has been has gone
and could never return (at least not to the way it used to be). We all watch
Star Trek on an almost unending loop, and by the time you’ve finished watching,
say, The Next Generation, it's been six
months since you watched Voyager, so it's time to start that series over again.
All the Star Trek shows (after season two of TNG) are holding up remarkably
well with the passage of time, as are the movies, and it is easy to forget that
over 25 years have passed since the TNG crew were in their prime. The ‘modern’
series of DS9, Voyager and Enterprise were produced to such high standards that
they look like they could still be in production today, until of course you
actually meet your idols! For me, there lies the problem. There is something
terribly depressing about seeing a face that yesterday (on TV) was strong,
commanding and comforting and today is aged, withered and tired. They are not
the people you remember and it can be a little disheartening as it hits you
that the show you love is as good as an antique. The last time I saw the
legendary Uhura was two days before DST3, she was doing the naked fan dance in
ST:5. To be confronted by a little old lady with white hair in a wheelchair a
few days later only served as a reminder that the actors are ageing, that I am
old and that the movies are classics. Perhaps there’s a sub conscious thought
way in the back of our minds that keeps whispering ‘’they may do a DS9 movie or one last TNG
outing’’, but seeing the actors in the flesh then destroys that possibility. I think the biggest wake-up call for me over
the weekend was meeting Hana Hatae who played little 5 year old Molly O’Brian.
Of course Hana is all grown up now and is a far cry from the character she used
to play in Deep Space Nine. I probably know more about the O’Brian family than I do about my own neighbours, and I miss following those characters, and all of
the other Star Trek personas. We did grow up together after all.
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| Me and Hana Hatae (Molly O'Brian) |
Despite pining for the time when Star Trek was in the middle
of its franchise boom, meeting the people that made the show a reality is the
next best thing to still having the programme on air, and I will continue to
follow them as we grow old together. It isn’t difficult to understand why Trek
fans hunger for new (old style/traditional) Star Trek and we can only hope that
CBS acknowledges this sooner rather than later. For now, lets hope the existing
retired casts Live Long and Prosper.
