To Boldly Trek

I am a Trekker.

No, this isn't a coming out-of-the-Trek-closet article. As you may recall from the last article, Jase (i.e. best friend, best man, worst fire-builder who ever gained his Eagle Scout) asked me to do something comparing and contrasting the Star Trek captains.

Now, while that initially sounded like a writing assignment from my days at Eastern New Mexico University (oh, if only) really it was a test.

Could I do it, and not sound like a geek?

No.

Any serious Trekker (not to be confused with Trekkie, which is really a derogatory slang) who could write such an article knows far too much about the Trek Universe to ever sound like a casual observer. If you do sound like a casual observer, then every serious Trekker will mock you and make fun of you. That's just how the world works: the world mocks Trekkers, Trekkers mock the world.

I first knew that I was a Trekker when my good friend Eric Lahti leaned over to me during a directoring class finals scene at Eastern New Mexico University, and, at the most gripping and most heart-wrenching scene of Night Mother, while the two main characters were sitting back to back, whispered, "Spoooooooccccckkk."

For those of you who didn't laugh then you don't know and you may (happily!?!) consider yourself not a Trekker.

I, being a Trekker, did know and did get the joke.

Worse, anyone who knows me, and my propensity for laughing with great magnitude and for long duration at even the more modestly funny jokes, can now picture me, during this very toughing scene, desperately trying not to laugh. Eric was highly amused.

But the joke was funny for more reasons then just the moment and my inability to laugh quietly.

Now in it's third decade, the Star Trek Franchise is probably the most successful failure of all time. Gene Roddenberry's brainchild originally only lasted three seasons, and ran the third season only because of the rare success of a fan-letter campaign (which has since been the bane of television executives who have ever dropped the axe on a show). But we aren't going to talk about Star Trek history. You can get that at the drop of a hat from any Trekker nerd/geek walking down the street.

Hell!

No!!

When Roddenberry wrote and filmed his pilot "The Cage" (which would later be re-edited into the only two part original series episode "The Menagerie"), he had a different captain of the Enterprise in mind.

I wouldn't lie.

Captain Christopher Pike as played by Jeffrey Hunter was a lot of what Captain Kirk would later be, though not so overly dramatic with his soliloquies or his hormones (Must . . . sleep . . . with a female . . . of . . . everyspecieies; Spoooccckk!). Interestingly enough, Majel Barret (who would first play Nurse Chapel and go on to play Majel Roddenberry) played "Number One" and Pike even said the later Picard catch-phrase of "Engage."

Ahh, the trivia.

But Hunter opted out of the second Star Trek pilot ordered by NBC, and William Shatner stepped in as James T. Kirk (one bonus point if you can give his middle name -- Kirk's not Shatner's). Kirk was brash, had a great smirking smile, shot from the hip and could throw a punch to the belly, a judo chop to the neck and a double-footed kick better then nearly anyone. You could almost hear him say, "Damn the photon torpedoes . . . " (though it would have been more stilted) whenever the Enterprise was under attack from Romulans, Klingons and various other communist-paralleling aliens! Life for Kirk was pretty simple. He had the Prime Directive, a few other Star Fleet regulations, but nothing so set in stone that with a wink and a smile he couldn't be walking through a set of swishing doors and onto his next adventure. Kirk was like that little terror next door who is given command of a faster-than-light vessel capable of destroying an entire planet (or several, depending on the episode). And like any neighborhood-cum-future Dennis the Menace, Kirk knew how to use his expensive, high-tech 23rd century slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to great effect, and all this with a torn shirt and slightly mussed hair (it's NOT a toupee). Kirk was a cowboy in a cowboy age, the Enterprise was his horse, and the universe was his sunset.

But then the series was cancelled.

But then The Motion Picture was released, and ultimately The Next Generation.

And that waiter: Jean Luc (that's a little International Coffee's humor).

I won't cover the same well-groomed territory other writers have already pounded to dust. I won't mention how Picard, despite being French, had an English accent that put Richard Burton to shame. I won't mention that for the first three seasons Picard was pretty much a self-appointed woosey, second only to Wesley Crusher, relying on diplomacy and compromise as Kirk would have relied on his flying double-footed kick and a phaser set on random.

You would have though Picard was a sewing machine repair man with all his delegating ("Make it sew!").

He was more concerned with rules, that silly Prime Directive and other silly Federation Regulations then he was with getting down and dirty on an away mission. Then, and sad as I am to say this, Roddenberry died, and we got to see Picard through a darker and less well-maintained tricorder (more bonus points if you can tell me what a tricorder measures and records). Picard took a Gnosican knife through his heart . . . and laughed! He took on Klingons twice his size and beat them to a pulp. He became a lover, an artist, he sucked the marrow out of life and spat out the bones in a huge and growing pile. Picard broke rules and broke hearts (ok, one heart, but he broke it good!). Picard was an American icon even before the show started, but he became worthy of the legacy of Trek when the show ended.

But with Rick Berman at the con, and Brannon Braga at the helm controls, Trek would not end with The Next Generation.

Hell!

No!!

Deep Space Nine (DS9 for you Trekkers) tried, and succeeded in breaking many of the established rules for Star Trek. First, there was no warp drive for engineers to scream about, there was no hopping around the galaxy (which is, as we know, a game for the young). And, most importantly, there was no captain.

That's right, I wouldn't lie.

Unless I thought I could get away with it.

Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) was . . . well, a commander (hence the title). Further, unlike his predecessor captains, Sisko was a widower with a son. Yes, yes, Kirk had a son too, but Sisko knew about his son! Sisko, as defined by Brooks, was much like his earlier roles as Hawk in Spencer for Hire and (oddly) Hawk (apparently not for hire). He was from a neighborhood where "mother" was only half a word and was usually preceded in regards to Brooks' character by "he", "is", "a", and "bad". And we knew that this meant he was oh-so-good at running DS9. Originally interpreted as a kind of punishment for his attitude, Sisko, almost eagerly found himself at the center of controversy with his sing-song style of line delivery. What was better was he took a more John Wayne/Captain Kirk attitude towards everyone while still carrying the Picard level or responsibility. When he found himself forced into a fisticuffs match with Q, he hit Q. Hard. Q, quite stunned, remarked, "You hit me. Picard never hit me." To which Sisko, dripping malice and meaning replied, "I'm not Picard." And he wasn’t.

But the fun doesn't stop there.

Hell!

No!!

(Hmmm . . . I can almost hear y'all saying that in the background.)

Berman barely let the ratings get cold from DS9 before introducing the world to Star Trek: Voyager and Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew). That's right ladies and gentlemen, the captain of Voyager had the same first name as the actress who played her . . . I mean what coincidence! And Mulgrew and Janeway have the exact same number of letters!! Oh, yeah, and she's female. Driving jokes aside, this was in stride with a great deal of ground that Star Trek always seemed to be trying to break. Again, I won't go into the history, and it's really not important, except that it happened and Janeway was an amazing result. With even more depth then Picard or Sisko (and far more then Kirk), Janeway had real emotions that not only tied her to her ship (because we all know that captain's first love is his/her ship) but also to the people of her crew. Chakotay wasn't just Janeway's first officer; he was her friend. But even more then that, Janeway was the embodiment of what a real captain would be like. She was obsessed. Obsessed with survival, but not at any cost. Obsessed with the well being of her crew. Obsessed with Star Fleet's mission and goals and carrying those on, though there was no high power to immediately report to. And all this with great hair. Yes, the balding (whether on purpose or by choice) of the previous Treks was ended the moment Janeway said, "Engage" (which she never did).

And now, now my friends, we enter a new era in the saga of Star Trek. This time, and yet again in an effort to break the mold and boldly go where no entertainment franchise has gone before, Berman will introduce to the world Star Trek: Enterprise. "Back to where it all began" and "The final frontier has a new beginning" are the taglines, and Captain Johnathon Archer will be portrayed by boyishly good-looking (rats, there's that rampant gay gene again Bruce!) Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap fame. In this pre-Federation universe, will this captain be more like Kirk in his blatant disregard for class and culturual customs? Will he seek compromise and diplomacy like Picard, as he boldly goes where, truly, no Federation captain has gone before? Will he put on the bold face of the future Star Fleet, while at the same time being obsessed with exploration and those ideals that will eventually, ultimately, amazingly become the Federation?Hell Yes!!

(Caught ya on that one, didn't I!?! Well . . . didn't I??)

As audiences and Trekkers alike have seen, each new incarnation (I always wanted to work that into an editorial) of Star Trek captain has been a better version of the previous one. Sometimes going a little too far on the improvements, but those are updated in later patches and upgrades. From Kirk 1.0 to Picard 1.2a to Sisko 2.1 to Janeway 3.0, each captain (or commander) has been a slightly tweaked and supped-up version of their predecessor.

As it should be.

And so long as the series and the franchise itself prosper, the American icons of its captains will also live long and prosper too.