What do you LOVE about Star Trek?

[milojthatch]

A question not just about what drew you into being a fan of the Star Trek franchise, but what has sustained that fandom? What about Star Trek do you love?

I'll start with a few random things that come to mind:

-I love the adventure of the whole thing. Something that every version of Star Trek has maintained (even JJ-Trek) is a sense of adventure, and I love that about Star Trek.

-Great characters! It amazes me that with so many characters, the various powers that be have been able to populate this fictional world with not a few, but a great many wonderful, well written characters. I was lucky enough to work at Star Trek: The Experience for a short time and I remember one of the interview questions I was asked was "Who is your favorite character?" My answer was that it was a hard question to answer because it's like asking who your favorite child is? And it's so true, far to many great characters to put just one on top.

-I love that the same show that some have (maybe unfairly) labeled as "a Godless Atheistic program" could also come up with a line like this from Deep Space Nine:

“That's the thing about faith. If you don't have it you can't understand it. And if you do, no explanation is necessary.”

-Kira Nerys

That's the awesome thing about Star Trek, not just that it deals with social issues, but that it's not afraid to explore all sides of an issue and nearly ever possible point of view. A rare thing for a major Hollywood tv show to do, and it basically set the standard for it.

Those are but a few of the reasons I love Star Trek. I may list more, but what about the rest of you? Why do YOU love Star Trek?

 

[BigJake]

Floor coverings. I mainly watched for the floor coverings.

(EDIT: I kid, of course. More seriously, I've always been fond of Trek's ballsiness. Especially with TOS, but in different ways with later series, too. Trek was willing to tackle a pretty incredible range of subject matter and to really commit to it -- though it was sometimes silly, or sometimes incredibly difficult. We got some spectacular misfires out of this, but we also got some bloody great television.

There was also some pretty good fiction of ideas, especially from TNG and DS9. I am a science fiction fan before I'm a Trek fan, and I enjoy a good solid science fiction puzzler, or a nice meaty slice of socio-political drama.

The action doesn't go amiss either -- it looks dated today, but I still love Shatner-Fu. And Trek was surprisingly slower about updating its action format than a lot of its other elements over the years, but say what you like about Nemesis -- it delivered a genuinely great space battle scene.)

 

[Cyke101]

I say this definitely as someone who was not around from the beginning. I didn't watch my first Trek until 1989, and even then I didn't start to watch it consistently until maybe the 4th season of TNG. As a little kid, I knew that TNG came after TOS (both shows were on the same local channel here), but I started to respect Trek as a whole when I realized to a certain point that there was a great deal of change needed for TNG to ever hit the screen.

Now that I look back at it, and depending on who you ask, my first consistent turn at Trek was maybe five or six incarnations down the line, depending on your own personal definition of iteration -- TOS, TAS, TMP, TWOK - TSFS, TVH (at the time, I considered the BoP to be sufficient enough of a change), TFF-TUC, and then TNG. And that appreciation for change only improved once DS9 and VOY came, and then FC, and then ENT and finally Abrams. I love that the franchise keeps changing and evolving, never standing still, very much a breathing and elastic brand.

But instrumental to that change is that constant promise of humanity becoming better than it is now, the potential to grow up into an exciting, positive community. Though TNG set up the "perfect" humanity, I love that DS9 deconstructed it to examine the cost and thus elevate the appreciation for what TNG had built. Some of the better episodes of Voyager were of the crew holding on to their humanity where it was least expected in deep space. Enterprise may have been problematic at times, but I thought its heart and concept were in the right place, esp. as a natural reaction after DS9 and VOY did all that digging through. And though folks here may have a mixed opinion of NuTrek, I love that the reboot started out with normal humans doing extraordinary things, and that the movies very much have an enthusiasm about their material, with the crew and a few others who are passionate about their work.

Sure, not every iteration or incarnation is everyone's cup of tea, but we're chugging along to the big 5-0 here. In reality, society is dictated very much by the 9-5 grind and people are often defined by their line of work -- in Star Trek's future, everyone's line of work contributes to the greater good, one thing that is definitely a constant in all the iterations, and it's genius that the primary setting is a ship that's both work and community. I love that Trek is a constantly evolving creature, but a lot of that is dependent on the hope of a brighter, less cynical future.

 

[1001001]

Hope.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The hot chicks.

 

[Sophronisba]

Space.

And I love that even bad episodes often make me think.

 

[Tosk]

What's not to love? It's kept my interest in the good times and bad for about 30 years now, so it must be doing something right.

I think one of Trek's great strengths is its malleability. Multiple iterations, multiple creators, multiple casts...Trek has excelled with and/or weathered them all. Even with the limits of PG-rated television, is there a genre that Trek hasn't done? Sci-fi, action, romance, horror, drama, comedy, fantasy...it's done 'em all and then some. And the characters continue to shine through, even when the writing is not so good.

 

[F. King Daniel]

First and foremost the characters. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura and the rest are relatable and enjoyable sci-fi icons. With great characters, even poor episodes are watchable.

The adventures. Exploring alien planets, saving the galaxy from unimaginable threats, making amazing discoveries.

The scope of Trek's world. It's huge. Including the novels it's impossibly deep and rich. Thousands of planets, alien cultures and histories. Even alternate timelines where events unfolded in a myriad of different ways. Trek is an unrealistic comic book world (blue humans with antennae and wigs = space alien) but it's wonderful to get lost in.

The fandom. Chatting here about what we like, arguing about what we don't. The hype for a new movie or novel. The 50 years of fan fiction and fan art (including all the technical stuff that's out there about the ships) that Trek has inspired.

 

[dub]

Kira.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

Kira.

Damn you beat me to it!

 

[bbjeg]

Oh, the humanity.

 

[LobsterAfternoon]

a few things, but the biggest is:

The progressive future. I like that, for the most part, things get better. Yes, we occasionally go to war with Klingons or sentient space probes, but for the most part, things have improved in terms of inequality, health, and education.

 

[The Wormhole]

The cool spaceships.

 

[milojthatch]

And I love that even bad episodes often make me think.

Oh, that's a good one! In my opinion, even the bad episodes of Star Trek are a must see because even they have something in them that works. Maybe not as much as the better episodes, but how many shows can you say that about?

Even the bad episodes are memorable. I seriously doubt if they were from any other show, episodes like "Spock's Brain" or "Threshold" would still be actively remembered and talked about. That really is a credit to how good the over all Star Trek franchise is!

 

[desfem79]

- Great acting. Sir Patrick Stewart and Avery Brooks (IMHO the two best actors in the franchise, period) have plenty of fine hours of acting prowess on their respective shows.

- The Roddenberry vision. Whether it's realistic or not is IMO immaterial, but then it's a nice thing to portray.

- The aliens, from common ones like Vulcans and Klingons to the Q and Species 8472.

- The stories/plots.

 

[milojthatch]

Another thing I love about Star Trek is the attempt to have a franchise continuity over the films and shows. I realize that such things were not as big of a deal while TOS was on the air, or that after hundreds and hundreds of hours of Trek, that keeping events straight can be hard, but I think the powers that be did a good job all things considered.

I appropriate the attempt as it really helped establish that there is a whole mythology to this franchise, which I really love about Star Trek.

 

[2takesfrakes]

I love that Human's shit don't stink in STAR TREK.

We ROCK the Galaxy and everybody wants to be US!!! Smile, Reginald Barclay ... you're HUMAN, boy and you know what? At least you're not an alien!!! That's right ...

And it makes you the envy of the whole known Universe. Do that HUMAN thing you do! Flaunt your Humanity ... investigate it ... celebrate it ... that's what it's FOR!!!

 

[scotpens]

Pointed ears.

 

[AgentCoop]

I love the fact that in Trek, technological advancement is almost always portrayed as a good thing. Sci-fi has an unfortunate tendency to demonize technology and turn it into the boogeyman. Sure, they had the odd transporter malfunction or holodeck mishap, but Star Trek for the most part views the progress of technology positively.

 

[Data girl]

I love the bad guys especially in DS9. They are charming and crazy at the same time.