Old or Young?

[RobertScorpio]

I have been a Star Trek fan since I was a kid, four or five I remember watching Doomsday Machine. And yet my wife is a new fan. I could never get her into TOS, but she loves DS9. The whole Odo/Kira romantic thing sucked her in....

Were you a fan from your childhood? Or did you come into the world of STAR TREK when you were in your teen, or beyond? And if you did come in at a later date, what was it that made you become a fan?

When I was a kid and Star Trek was on, I thought, then, it was this great show (it is) but with all these space battles and explosions. But as you get older you realize that TOS, though it did have battles and explosions, pretty much used stock shots of the Enterprise. What made it stick with you, in time, IMO, was the story. I could be wrong, especially with the modern treks, not sure.

What was it that made you a fan of Star Trek???

Rob
Scorpio

 

[Zeta]

I was too young to catch TOS in first run but remember watching reruns on the local UHF station in Boston in the early/mid 70's. I particularly remember Doomsday Machine and the look on Decker's face as he piloted the shuttle into the maw of the beast (that will give you nightmares when you're a kid!). Later in the 70's, my friends and I got our fix from Starlog and the articles about Phase II (which sadly never came to pass). It's hard to explain to anyone who didn't grow up in the 70's how excited we where when TMP was announced.

Like RobertScorpio, what kept bringing me back were the stories, especially since there was nothing else on TV to compare with it (outside of BSG and Quark, I don't remember any other space-based 70's series that caught my attention at the time). Funny enough, the other thing that kept me a fan of TOS in the early days was the music - the background scores made the stories more meaningful. Even a clunker like "The Empath" seemed to be a much better story than it was due to the score.

 

[Shawnster]

I was born in 1971, 2 years after Trek went off the air. Still, I cannot remember the first time I ever saw a Star Trek episode. It's always been a part of my life.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I was too young to catch TOS in first run but remember watching reruns on the local UHF station in Boston in the early/mid 70's. I particularly remember Doomsday Machine and the look on Decker's face as he piloted the shuttle into the maw of the beast (that will give you nightmares when you're a kid!). Later in the 70's, my friends and I got our fix from Starlog and the articles about Phase II (which sadly never came to pass). It's hard to explain to anyone who didn't grow up in the 70's how excited we where when TMP was announced.

Like RobertScorpio, what kept bringing me back were the stories, especially since there was nothing else on TV to compare with it (outside of BSG and Quark, I don't remember any other space-based 70's series that caught my attention at the time). Funny enough, the other thing that kept me a fan of TOS in the early days was the music - the background scores made the stories more meaningful. Even a clunker like "The Empath" seemed to be a much better story than it was due to the score.

Oh, so true. The think about EMPATH? I couldn't stand that episode when I was a kid. Sometimes the TV GUIDE would never have a tagline for the episode. So I would get my self ready, have some popcorn set to go, and then either EMPATH or THE WORLD IS HOLLOW AND I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY would come on and I'd be so pissed off..

But as I got older, and watched it close, the Empath just grew on me and now I like it alot. The third season gets its fair share of ribbing. But there were some gems in that episode (get it..Gem???)...and Empath was one of them...

Rob
Scorpio

 

[RobertScorpio]

I was born in 1971, 2 years after Trek went off the air. Still, I cannot remember the first time I ever saw a Star Trek episode. It's always been a part of my life.

Yep..I hear you. It just had something about it that had the ability to grab hold of kids...and ZETA brought up the starlog stories about Phase II...I remember those very well too...

Rob

 

[JNG]

When I was a kid and Star Trek was on, I thought, then, it was this great show (it is) but with all these space battles and explosions. But as you get older you realize that TOS, though it did have battles and explosions, pretty much used stock shots of the Enterprise. What made it stick with you, in time, IMO, was the story. I could be wrong, especially with the modern treks, not sure.

What was it that made you a fan of Star Trek???

For me, it was really all of the above...the strong performances, optimism, cool ships and tech, action, everything. I started watching with my dad when I was very young, and though I was still young when TNG premiered (I remember watching it on a hospital TV alongside my ill father), I had been watching TOS long and intently enough to remember having very strong opinions about what this spinoff should and should not do.

 

[RobertScorpio]

When I was a kid and Star Trek was on, I thought, then, it was this great show (it is) but with all these space battles and explosions. But as you get older you realize that TOS, though it did have battles and explosions, pretty much used stock shots of the Enterprise. What made it stick with you, in time, IMO, was the story. I could be wrong, especially with the modern treks, not sure.

What was it that made you a fan of Star Trek???

For me, it was really all of the above...the strong performances, optimism, cool ships and tech, action, everything. I started watching with my dad when I was very young, and though I was still young when TNG premiered (I remember watching it on a hospital TV alongside my ill father), I had been watching TOS long and intently enough to remember having very strong opinions about what this spinoff should and should not do.

I remember when STARLOG published the name of the characters on TNG for the first time...I really did pronounce it as PICKERD...And, since I am not French, I actually pronounced his entire name as..."GENE LUCK PICKERD". I thought it sounded dumb..and it did...when I finally heard it uttered I was like. "oh yeah, I knew it all along"...BS..I didn't

Rob

 

[Shawnster]

I was born in 1971, 2 years after Trek went off the air. Still, I cannot remember the first time I ever saw a Star Trek episode. It's always been a part of my life.

Yep..I hear you. It just had something about it that had the ability to grab hold of kids...and ZETA brought up the starlog stories about Phase II...I remember those very well too...

Rob

You mentioned watching Trek on a UHF station from Boston. The only reason I would ever watch UHF as a child was Star Trek or Space 1999. I'd get outside, turn the antenna the direction of the city I was trying to get the signal from or I'd rig up some kind of aluminum foil/coat hanger accessory for the TV antenna...

I was so fortunate I could watch Star Trek on 3 stations within a 4 or 5 hour period on Sundays by doing that. Or it'd be on when I came home from school.

Kids these days and their cable television! I tell you...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What was it that made you a fan of Star Trek???

It was TMP that got me hooked. I was nine when it came out. It's the earliest Trek that I remember seeing.

 

[TheGodBen]

Way to make me feel young guys!

I was born in 86 and I've always been a fan. I don't know if I caught any episodes of TOS as a kid, but I remember watching TNG constantly. One of my first Star Trek memories is the ad they showed on Sky One for Deep Space Nine. I must have been six and I thought it was a once-off TV movie. It looked boring. Little did I know it would become my favourite.

You're right when you say that I watched it for spaceships and ray-guns, but as I grew up I slowly realised that there was very little of that and I was watching it for the characters and stories. Young kids just seem to gravitate towards it naturually, it seems to me. I used to help mind a kid a few years ago and whenever Star Trek was on TV I used to say "look, spaceships" and he'd stop whatever he was doing and stare intently at the screen, even if it was a boring meeting scene.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I became a fan quite young, while TNG was on the air. I very specifically recall my first episode, "Unification, Part I."

I remember at the time I'd thought Star Trek was incredibly stupid (this without having ever watched the show). I tuned into "Unification" as the crew was searching for a missing ship, and for some reason I couldn't change the channel--I had to find out what they were looking for. Imagine my shock when I found out it was Star Trek!

I was a rabid fan through DS9's run--unfortunately, though, school got so tough that I had to stop watching DS9. I didn't catch up on DS9 ALL the way until this year. When I did, it confirmed my opinion that DS9 was by far the best of Trek!

I tried watching Voyager but tuned out when Seven of Nine came on the show.

Enterprise...I never really got into, but from the descriptions I'm getting, I do rather regret missing the fourth season. Sometime, I think I'd like to see it.

 

[sbk1234]

One of the earliest TV memories I have is watching Kirk and Spock running around some caves, trying to catch some "monster" that looked like a pizza. That on an old black and white, staticy set. That would be nearly 40 years ago. In second grade we had a play leader who organized us into playing Star Trek at lunch time. I got to be Mr. Spock. It was cool.
So I guess you could say I'm an old-timer fan.

 

[NCC1968]

I'm 40 and remember the TOS reruns on tv. When TMP came out it was so cool....and WOK even better......

I'm a bigger fan than ever and now have the $ to enjoy the hobby of collecting.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The first episode I saw was when I was about 4, The Doomsday Machine. Would have been the first airing. I was TERRIFIED.

At 14 I started watching TOS reruns. I was utterly smitten. I watched TOS twice a day in black and white (we did not have a colour set as the maternal unit was convinced they would give us cancer). I watched it at 4:30pm from a Connectitut station which I accessed by angling a coat hanger antennae a certain way.. it was blurry but it was good. Then at 6pm I watched it on WPIX, Ch.11 in NYC. This enabled me to see a lot of cut scenes as they both cut different ones. WPIX cut all the friendly little exchanges in the turbolift. The Connectitut station left those in and just cut ONE big scene from each ep, often causing serious damage to the story.

I was a classically nerdy teenage trekkie, getting the Blish box sets and the Alan Dean Foster box sets for Xmas, saving up for the Tech manuel.. I also cut out every TV Guide description of the TOS eps and pasted them into a little notebook. I would then put a tick next to them each time I watched one. Yes the DID seem to play the terrible ones more often than the great ones.

I had a 6 foot poster of Captain Kirk on the transporter pad on my bedroom door.

Years later I saw all of TNG on video with friends, and enjoyed it. But my BIG return to Trekdom was renting DS9 on video.. just .. so.. wonderful. I remember feeling privledged to see such great television. And VOY and ENT followed.

 

[NCC1968]

........I had a 6 foot poster of Captain Kirk on the transporter pad on my bedroom door.
.........

Next to a Charlie's Angels poster....right?

Sadly I was so damn poor as a kid I had to wait.....

But now I'm laughing as I have one of the original TOS walking tribbles - over 3X the cost of my next most expensive Trek item.

 

[2 of 10]

I recall being about 8 or so when TOS came on, I don't recall if I saw the first episode, but I do recall watching it every week. Charlie X, Doomsday Machine, Trouble with Tribbles...ect. It was about 18 years until TNG came on, I do recall watching the first episode, new and better effects, totally different type of Capt,the guy with the funny visor and the Android with gold skin, loved it.

As TNG ended its run the new series came on DS-9 this one way really different, not as much space travel, rundown space station. This was also the first series that GR did not have a part in it's creation. So its look was as different from TNG as TNG was from TOS, not in the creative aspect, but in the plots, storylines and characters. Finally, Voyager I had seen female Capt's before in Trek, but not a series regular. This series was all about space travel, but on the other of the galexy all the way to the DQ in a burst of light, totally different species encountered, gave the BORG a regular part in the series and not another Star Fleet ship or station to be seen (Until Equinox). Again different, again really loved it. For reasons that still escape me only watched Enterprise a few times, I never gave it a chance, so I will have to watch it again for the first time on DVD's...

 

[WillsBabe]

I had a 6 foot poster of Captain Kirk on the transporter pad on my bedroom door.

I know the one! I think I might still have it. I hope so.

I can't remember what got me into Trek. I was about 9 or 10 when I saw it in repeats on UK tv. This was TOS. And I can remember the first time I figured out that I was watching repeats. I've always been a Trek fan, as long as I can remember, really. I was in my early 20s when TNG came out, and became a big fan of that, too, although it took until the third season. After that, no other Trek has really captured my heart, although I am looking forward to the new film, which surprises me after so long being luke warm on Trek.

 

[Ktrek]

I've been a Star Trek fan since the debut in 1966. I was ten years old when TOS came on the air. When TNG aired in 1987 I was not sure that another show could carry the name Star Trek and be any good. After two seasons I was hooked and became even a bigger fan of Star Trek than I already was. It was so great when DS9 aired to have two back to back Star Trek shows on TV. I loved DS9 from the start. I also loved VOY and ENT. I can't honestly say I loved every minute of every show but I sure loved most every minute.

Kevin

 

[jgdst]

I got into Star Trek at the tender age of 5/6 when TNG first started airing on BBC2 (Wednesdays, 6pm up against Blossom on Channel 4 ). I'm not sure what it was exactly that hooked me in, but I do remember being scared witless by Contagion.

That scene with Geordi being flung around the turbolift and his VISOR coming off just creeped me out.

From there I watched TOS, and so began 20 years of being the token Trekkie in the room

 

[Lord Garth]

I became a Star Trek fan when I was 11, around the same time I shifted from child to pre-teen and everything I liked changed. And I stopped watching Voyager in the fall of 1999, just after I turned 20. So I literally associate Star Trek with my adolescence.

My parents got me into it, I liked the futuristic setting, and it seemed better and more interesting to me than the 20th Century.