We went to the Star Trek exhibit yesterday and the EMP in Seattle. It’s a great little exhibit but I left disappointed. It wasn’t the show, it was me.
I want to stress that the the exhibit is really good. There was a lot of the original props and models to look at, a BORG regeneration chamber to stand in, and a transporter to use. There was also the original bridge command section from TOS as well as many of the actual costumes. This is where I became disillusioned; literally.
Like many of us at this point, I grew up watching the show. The original series was being syndicated in reruns when I was born and seemed to always be on one of the main networks, usually UHF 50 in Detroit. Even more so when TNG started airing. When DS9 first aired I was already working full time and trying to save for college and studying random things on my own in the meantime. I didn’t really watch much TV. Eventually, due to circumstances that don’t belong on this entry, I was working, studying, as well as couch surfing. It was during this time that Voyager first aired. The place I was staying had a giant 29″ TV, they had taped the first season and we sat on the floor and watched them. Straight through. This is very important. Firstly because this is the day I seriously started looking at my life and made the decision to go to Alaska for school, and secondly, and more importantly for this instance, it forever skewed my view of the series. Again, literally.
Somehow, between watching TOS as a small child, Kirk’s over the top personality, still being a kid for TOS; although much taller, and watching Voyager from the floor with Captain Janeway being a very powerful and fleshed out character, I didn’t realize something. Even years later, when Melissa and I re-watched the entire series of series’ I didn’t catch it. When we nursed our nearly dying cat back to health while watching Enterprise, I didn’t see it. After we moved to Tacoma and watched Voyager again, I still didn’t see it.
As I walked through the exhibit, I watched the video documentaries, and read the placards (even the Picardagain’s Picard Placard) I sat there and quietly wondered to myself, did I really enjoy Star Trek because it shares my views on where humanity should be headed, or did these shows shape my view? I’ve had that thought before, and decided it didn’t matter, the idea was what was important. What happened to crush my image was that when I stood in front of the Seven of Nine and Janeway costumes, complete with heels, I was looking down onto their shoulders. I wasn’t a little kid anymore. The illusion was gone. When I went around to the other side they had scenes from TOS playing on a big screen in 240mhz. It made something that is simply dated and showing it’s age, look like it was shot by junior high kids with a handycam. Then again I think everything that is displayed in 120 or 240 looks like it was filmed with a handycam. It gives everything a daytime soap opera feel. Had they been playing Voyager in 240mz I would have found it funny, but my illusion having just been crushed it irritated me to the point that I actually said with my outside voice, “why the fuck do they think that everything is better when it’s displayed in 240?” to which the woman next to me said “you don’t have depth perception either huh?” We had a brief chat about TV’s and film rates and disillusionment. You see, I wasn’t the only one crashed into star trek adult hood. I watched for a bit, I and I saw the same thing happen quite a bit over the next 10 minutes. Not everyone, but usually it was the taller people that were walking around with a big painful grins, or people the same height or just a bit taller. I even heard a woman say “I thought she was soooo much taller!” referring to Jeri Ryans costume. How many of them were kept up last night contemplating this? I like to think it was more than just me. I just hope it goes away because if I ever finish watching Orange is the New Black, I don’t want to look at Red from that angle. I really like the character because she reminds me of my Grandmothers.