Amateur hour on the final frontier
Stars flew across the screen as the familiar gray hull of the USS Enterprise made its way from one corner of my laptop to the next.
"This is going to be bad," my wife said, snuggling up to a bowl of caramel popcorn.
The ship slowed enough to orbit an almost realistic planet, then unfamiliar words in a familiar typeface jumped on the screen.
James Cawley as Captain James T. Kirk...
I didn't know who James Cawely was, but I was pretty sure he wasn't William Shatner _ which was probably a good thing.
"No," I said. "It's probably going to be worse than that."
Jeff Quinn as Mr. Spock ...
We sat in the kitchen in the dark, watching a new fan-made episode of the classic "Star Trek" television series I'd downloaded to my computer.
John Kelly as Doctor Leonard McCoy ...
And why were we doing this? For the same reason a kid will taste something that made his buddy wince _ we just wanted to see how awful it was.
Charles Root as Mr. Scott ...
The Web-based series, "Star Trek: New Voyages,"* was started by fans who wanted to see more episodes featuring the original characters _ so they made them.
Wow, I wondered. Don't these people have jobs?
"We don't have to watch the whole thing, do we?" my wife asked.
I shook my head as the episode, "In Harm's Way," began. I didn't want to commit to something that may just push us over the geek-to-supernerd line or we'd have to watch one of those sit-coms with the fat husband and the hot wife just to bring us back to the norms of society.
"The special effects look good," I said as the ship opened fire on something that looked like a giant, space-faring rotifer. Yeah, the original series would have looked good with special effects like that.
"And to think this kind of devotion to a show that ran three years, 40 years ago ... it's just bizarre," my wife said.
She's right. The original "Star Trek" ran three seasons in the late '60s before NBC canceled it. It was followed by an ongoing series of books, comic books, a Saturday morning cartoon series, 10 movies and four TV series spanning the 1980s through 2005.
And, of course, all those conventions.
Shows like "Daktari," "Felony Squad," "Hey Landlord," and don't forget the lovable "Occasional Wife," appeared during "Star Trek's" run. Why didn't those shows spin off a series of movies, or at least one set of fake ears? Where are the fans of the African missionary veterinarian?
"That looks like William Windom," I said, pointing to a man on the screen who looked 40 years older than the guy who'd guest starred in the original series. "And that looks like that one chick from that one episode."
It was.
For some reason, this fan-created, low-budget show that garners no profit has attracted guest stars like Windom, Barbara Luna and Malachi Throne who all appeared in the 1960s "Star Trek." And D.C. Fontana, who wrote or consulted on 36 original Trek episodes, has written the next one for "New Voyages."
Hey, I'll have to download that one.
I was supposed hate this Fake Trek. I was supposed to laugh at the obsessiveness of the Trekkers who went to all the trouble to recreate something long gone _ Trekkers who may, or may not, live in their mom's basement. And my wife and I were supposed to laugh at it over a bowl of popcorn. But, uh, I kind of enjoyed the show.
I don't know whether I should be impressed or embarrassed.
*Episodes can be downloaded _ for free _ at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com, if you're not afraid of geeking the final frontier.
