Age and how you got here...

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

But, does not...wisdom come...with age, Master?

Attend, Grasshopper. Quickly as you can, take the pebble from my hand.

When you can take the pebble, you will be as wise as Mutai Sho-Rin.

The ancient and wise Sho-Rin was a humble Shao Lin student back in the 70s but I fear wisdom is arriving on a very slow train. To channel Mr. Spock, I have the live long part under control and still working on the prosper.

I will, however, return your pebble if you ask kindly.

 

[Campe]

35. Was raised on TNG but two instances stick in mind particularly with TOS before all of that.

The first was my dad watching an episode of Star Trek in a hotel while everyone else was asleep and me waking up and watching a little with him while pretending to be asleep. (I'm fairly certain that episode was "Devil in the Dark.")

The second was my mom and I renting some movies, one of being TMP. I took one of the kitchen chairs with arms on it into the living room so I could be just like Captain Kirk and watch the movie.

 

[BillJ]

Great thread!

 

[EnriqueH]

39.

I got here about 9 months ago, and I *think* I was wondering about Eileen Rexroat, Gene Roddenberry's first wife and what happened to her, when I stumbled upon this site.

 

[Kirby]

I'm 46, and I started watching TOS reruns around 1976 after school at my friend's house. We could watch an episode on WGN (he had cable, that was a big deal in 76) and then an episode on our local station right after that.

 

[mb22]

49

Reruns in the 70's.

Ditto to both.

 

[Iamnotspock]

I'll turn 29 next month. TNG's first run on UK TV was on BBC2 from 26th September 1990 until 6th May 1992, up to "The Best of Both Worlds" Part 2, before the first-run rights transferred to Sky TV. Before resuming the run, BBC2 re-ran TOS. I came in at the beginning of that re-run with "The Man Trap" on 26th August 1992. My uncle had loved Trek on its first BBC1 broadcast in the early '70s, and encouraged me to watch. I think he was interested to see how it would hold up for a 6-year-old 20 years later. I never looked back.

After TOS finished, TNG resumed in April 1994, and finished in 1996. A few months later, BBC2 marked Trek's 30th Anniversary by re-running the whole of TNG. So, I saw TOS in re-runs, followed by TNG Seasons 4-7, DS9 and VOY on their original terrestrial airings, then TNG Seasons 1-3 in re-runs. A downside of BBC2 being so behind was that when Generations was released, those of us without Sky were still on TNG Season 4.

 

[Noname Given]

As a young kid (age 6) I was really into the Apollo program, space and as a result science fiction in general. The first Star Trek episode I was was 'Elan of Troyius' on NBC first run at age 6 in 1969 - and I was hooked in that whenever I saw Star Trek on TV, I stayed to watch.

It wasn't until it was locked into local daily syndication on a local station in my area in 1975 (I was 11-12 years old) that I was finally able to catch it on a regular basis and after another year or so of watching, (VCRs in 1975 were VERY expensive; and very new, and our household didn't have one until 1980, so if I didn't catch a run of an episode, I had to wait until the syndication cycle hit an episode again); I realized I had finally seen every original Star Trek episode produced.

(As an aside I did catch every animated Star Trek episode on NBC when it was first run on NBC on Saturday mornings.)

Edited to add:
As for how I found this site. When 'Enterprise' was announced as being in pr-production, I wanted to see what info I could find on it, and I stumbled onto TREKBBS, decided to make an account; and have been posting ever since.

 

[Steve Roby]

52, early 70s reruns, but also through the books. I got a copy of Mission to Horatius at a time when I'd only been able to see an episode or two and it didn't do much for me at first, but when I figured I was done with the Hardy Boys I started buying James Blish's Star Trek books and then started getting regular reruns on TV again, and there was no looking back.

 

[Timewalker]

51. I've been a Star Trek fan since November 1975, when my grandfather wouldn't let me change the channel from that dumb-looking show with a pointy-eared guy to whatever cop show I really wanted to see. I was told to either sit down, shut up, and watch, or else go to my room.

So I sat down, shut up, and watched. Not too many days later, I started buying the Blish books, and thanks to Star Trek being shown 6 days a week on 3 different channels, I managed to catch most of them within a few months... except for the first half of "Conscience of the King." It took a couple of years for that.

By that time I was completely into science fiction on TV, science fiction movies, science fiction books, nonfiction science books, and my grandfather was becoming exasperated by my obsession with [strong Swedish accent]"dat damn silly Star Trek"[/strong Swedish accent]. I suppose the rapidly-increasing mountain of books in the house might have had something to do with that, although at that time he was reading my books faster than I was.

As for how I got to this forum... I don't honestly remember if it was because someone else recommended it, I saw a link, or just stumbled into it via Google. I probably have a post around here somewhere about it, from years back.

 

[Lance]

I'm 32. I came to Star Trek as a whole via The Next Generation, which was on when I was a kid and which I watched rabidly every week, and DS9 and VOY, which were on when I was in high school. I didn't follow Enterprise at all when it was originally on because I was busy with college/work/life by then (but I caught up with it later).

I came back to TOS mostly via watching TAS and the movies on VHS tape, and then regressing further backwards to the original live-action TV episodes after that. So it was actually TAS which introduced me to the classic characters! (Which is probably why I never understood the whole 'TAS is not canon' debate; to me they were always a part of the "Star Trek experience".)

 

[Ssosmcin]

I'm 47 and have been watching the original series for as long as I remember. At least since I was 4. Syndication, obviously, running on WPIX Channel 11 in NY. At its most popular, the series aired six days a week. Some of my fondest memories are of me and my family watching Star Trek followed by Space:1999 on weekends. I was entranced by Trek so early and got my family into it. I turned them all into Trekkies.

I was hooked on the animated series and was crushed when it was cancelled and replaced by "Westwind." I had most of the Mego toys (I still do) and loved creating my own adventure with the figures as well as the licensed Utility Belt set (which looked like the AMT Exploration Set with a plastic belt) and my Donmoor uniform shirt. When I got together with my buddies to play Star Trek, I'd crack out the Mego communicator walkie-talkies and Command Communications Console. At home, when Trek wasn't on, I'd spin the Power Records LP I had. I sat on my share of Enterprise model kits, too. I always forgot to put the model away after I was done recreating the stock exterior shots. Such great times.

I don't remember how I found this site, but it was probably nothing more complicated than a web search for Star Trek sites. One of the earlier threads I remember had to do with then upcoming release of Star Trek Nemesis and how one poster claimed he saw a preview cut of the film. He described in detail what he saw, down to the font of the opening titles. Everyone on the thread scoffed and mocked and as soon as I saw the film, I thought, "damn, a lot of people are gonna be apologizing to that guy." Nobody did.

 

[HIjol]

But, does not...wisdom come...with age, Master?

Attend, Grasshopper. Quickly as you can, take the pebble from my hand.

When you can take the pebble, you will be as wise as Mutai Sho-Rin.

The ancient and wise Sho-Rin was a humble Shao Lin student back in the 70s but I fear wisdom is arriving on a very slow train. To channel Mr. Spock, I have the live long part under control and still working on the prosper.

I will, however, return your pebble if you ask kindly.

Would not, Masters Dennis and Melakon, the act of asking be a sign of weakness and defeat?

GrassHIjhopper

 

[Nerys Myk]

Asking is the first step to victory.

 

[Goji]

I'm 28, as of a few weeks ago. The earliest Trek I can remember was watching Voyager, usually with a generous helping of snow, on UPN when I was 9 or 10. Shortly afterwards my family moved and got a satellite dish, and the Sci-Fi channel was airing episodes of TOS that were 90 minutes long and full of interview clips. I worked my way through the other shows via VHS tapes and eventually DVDs. Over the years, TOS has stuck with me in a way that only DS9 has also managed.

I found this site shortly after the first season of Enterprise ended, to talk about the finale. That was... a while ago now.

 

[bbailey861]

I'm 54, 55 in a couple of months. I started watching in '69 after coming back to Canada, but my clearest memories are of those in the very early 70's when it was syndicated and on every day. It has been a hobby to one degree or another ever since.

 

[J.T.B.]

I'm 45, I guess I'm here because when I was a little kid there was a lot of space stuff in the media, with the moon landings and all, and I wanted to soak up all the space stuff I could, and there was a great cartoon on Saturday mornings with a cool spaceship visiting colorful planets. There were also toys based on the show, and then pretty soon I found there was a live-action show in the afternoon that was the same thing. I'm sure there are better ways to experience TOS, but catching semi-random reruns was pretty fun, especially when a new one popped up that you'd somehow missed for years.

 

[GeorgeKirk]

37. I was weaned on nightly Star Trek reruns that ran on a local independent station (back when there were such things). You know how Calvin was always pretending to be Spaceman Spiff? That was pretty much me as a kid, only instead of Spaceman Spiff I pretended to be Captain Kirk. Our family didn't have a color TV until 1987, so the vast majority of my Trek-watching was in black-and-white; for the first several years of my childhood, I didn't know that the crew of the Enterprise wore different colored shirts.

TNG premiered when I was 9, but I didn't like it as much. Sure, the special effects were better but the characters almost never did anything except stand around and speechify. I'll admit that TNG briefly supplanted TOS in my affections during my teen years, but then I rediscovered the show in my early 20s and never looked back. It's amazing how it's held up better than the shows produced 25 years later.

 

[BillJ]

You know how Calvin was always pretending to be Spaceman Spiff? That was pretty much me as a kid, only instead of Spaceman Spiff I pretended to be Captain Kirk.

I still want to be Captain Kirk when I grow up!

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've decided I want to be Bones.