When and how did you become a Star Trek fan?

[JayTheTrekkie]

It was 1987 when I discovered Star Trek when Star Trek: The Next Generation came. It was sometime after season 1 started but I didn't fully get into it not until season 2 came (had watched the reruns of season 1 during the summer to catch up). I would say by 1988 fully I became a Star Trek fan.

 

[STEPhon IT]

A place to share your Star Trek journey with us. What and when was the first Star Trek you saw? When did you get hooked on the final frontier?

I have no firm foundations for when I first seen Star Trek. I've got vague recollections of STIII, though I would have been only two when it came to theatres, though seeing it on TV (in particular the 'Spock goes through Ponn Far' sequence). As I say, I have no firm idea when this was. I also recollect my four year old self upon being told by my big brother that Star Trek was returning to TV asking him if that's the show with the chair with buttons on it So I *clearly* had some early exposure to the franchise, but don't really remember when. I also have clear recall of seeing TNG's first season a year later, the episode I remember being one where the crew battle flying robots in a forest. I later learned this was "The Arsenal of Freedom", though again at the time I was waaaay too young to understand the story or follow exactly what it was I was watching!

That came later. The time I became a fan is much clearer to me. And it wasn't the Movies or TV shows that hooked me. It was a videogame. The PC title, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary. I was by 1991 an avid player of point and click adventure games. Titles such as Monkey Island and King's Quest owned my life. So I played any adventure I could get my hands on, and the CD-ROM version of 25thA, featuring the full original cast reprising their roles as voices of the characters, was one of those. I suddenly realized how amazing these charjacters were and the incredible interplay between them. Spock and Boknes bickering with each other was hilarious, but I was also captured by the nature of this science fiction universe I was really discovering for the first time. In a great many ways, the game, a distillation of all the great things about Trek, but in a way that was interactive and engaged me as a part of the story, was the perfect 'gateway' into the show, free from judgments about low budgets or hokey effects. I fell in love with Star Trek the concept before I got around to seeing anything of the TV shows or movies.

My subsequent "conversion" to Trek fan was rapid I ate up any Trek I could find. I hired the movies and original series on VHS casette from the local video library. Like many from the 1980s/1990s generation, I seen Khan's attempt at vengeance and his comeuppance in TWOK long before I ever saw Kirk sentence him to that fate in "Space Seed" The Next Generation was also on TV and at the zenith of it's popularity during this time, so I became an avid viewer about season five/six. As time and finances, and saving of pocket money, gradually allowed I began to collect the Playmates toys and the episodes themselves on VHS (a particular nostalgic fondness for season two of TNG persists to this day from it being the only full season I owned so therefore the one that got a lot of replay ). I was of course a fully paid up Trekkie by the time Deep Space Nine and Voyager premiered, and I watched both religiously through to their completions. Each of The Next Generation's movie outings were big events for me, and at the time I had no bad words to say about any of them not even Star Trek: Nemesis which I thought at the time was a fitting end to the adventures of these characters I'd grown to love (I was barely 20 when it hit theatres )

What happened next? I didn't watch Enterprise for long after it's premiere. I found its premise as a prequel which looked more advanced than TOS and featured canon busting ideas to be too big a suspension of disbelief for me (in this way alone I have empathy for some of the Discovery haters, but only in this way alone :P ). I also found the characters unlikable and annoying and lacking the spark of the previous ensembles. It was during this period that I lost faith in Trek, and as I say never during its original run did I get around to seeing more than those first few episodes of Enterprise. That entering the work force and other life interests took over during this period is also, probably, a contributing factor. I greeted the news that the next movie would be a reboot/reimagining/prequel with considerable amounts of both disinterest and disdain. Ho hum, I thought, *another* prequel, *another* milking of the pre-TOS period and characters, I presumed at the time, because they didn't have any original ideas left. Subconsciously I put the 2009 movie in the same basket as Enterprise and didn't find myself engaged enough to care. I didn't even go to see it in theatres. I wasn't even encouraged by reviews stating it was good. By this point, it wasn't a lack of fondness for Star Trek, but more a lack of interest in where the franchise had gone and was, to my eye, still going. My appetite for Star Trek just wasn't there anymore, and I'd gotten into other things.

But then... (dramatic plot twist )

But then, I took a vacation to Canada. And during the long flight, I noticed that 2009's Star Trek was among the movies available on the seat back in-flight entertainment. Stuck on a plane on a long journey, I figured what the hell. I figured that even if I didn't like it, and I was approaching the movie with seriously large amounts of skepticism, at least it'd pass two and a half hours of my flight across the Atlantic, right?? What harm was there, I thought.

And you know, it may have been coming at the franchise with the 'fresh eyes' of having been away from it for a while. Or maybe it was just the high altitude of the plane. But damn it if I wasn't hooked all over again. JJ Abrams Star Trek hit *all* the right notes for me. It was modern and had modern takes on the premise and modern effects, but I *liked* it. Because the characters, as reimagined by a stellar cast that made all these beloved favorites their own, also managed to be *to their core* the Star Trek characters I'd grown to love all those years ago. This new cast and new Star Trek put me back in touch with my teenage self and with these characters I'd fallen in love with back then. Everything felt note perfect, the characters felt authentic. Suddenly I had a compulsion to dig out my DVDs and revisit the original series again for the first time in some years. And through the lens of the 2009 movie I found myself seeing TOS differently, seeing it afresh, noticing details I'd not seen before *ever*. The 2009 movie reignited the dormant flame. I even ended up catching up with the rest of Enterprise and loving it.

So that's my story of how I got to be here today. How about you guys??

My journey to Star Trek were from father, a Navy guy, and my two older brothers; one of them is no longer a trekfan. Watching Star Trek was the thing in my home and when I was old enough, either 9 or 10 years old my Dad and my first brother started watching TOS with me in their chronological order* starting with "Where No Man Has Gone Before". This was smart in retrospect because this would lead me to "The Menagerie" where I was totally taken off guard by this secret episode of Star Trek which I had no clue existed. I was trying wonder where the hell that came from??? And my Dad and my brother had me wait for over a year to see "The Cage", but it did sparkle my imagination and by that time they knew I was hooked! By this time, I had my first encounter with the fan film "Starship Exeter" another injection of the juices of loving Trek!

*My brother was frustrated by the production aired run of the series and made a list of the episodes through chronological order based upon Kirk's Captain's log. He had also based his findings on how the uniforms appeared and their improvements there on.

By age 13, I boldy go where every fan has gone before and joined the TREKBBS; and tried to get as much info on my favorite fanfilm, and in my opinion is still the best fanfilm series because it honors TOS so well. No other fanfilm has done it better or even close in respecting TOS. It was then, where my dad and my brother wanted to journey into the film series of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy and I was invited to join. I don't know how I didn't know about Spock's demise but I bared through TMP was never a fan of the new Enterprise design and it's clunky hiccups such as a radiation suit and a warp core which I thought created a bulk loads of issues and IMO a design flaw, but I didn't hate it. I was deeply depressed and sad Spock was dead, again I could've researched more but in my mind I thought it was over and on with JJTrek! I didn't know.

Later I ventured through The Search for Spock, hated it, and then galloping through The Voyage Home, it is my favorite Star Trek film, but did it make me a fan? No. I did get a glimpse at Star Trek: The Next Generation which my dad forgot was in the promo of the laserdisc. He tried to fast forward it but too late, I was exposed, and so because of this the movie stuff was halted and onward to TNG. It was Star Trek: The Next Generation where I truly became a fan and I zipped through those episodes on my own and when I got to season 4 my dad wanted me to let him know when I reached the episode "Unification" which I did. It was there where I returned to the movies with Star Trek V a film I was really really REALLY anticipated to seeing, and boy I was deeply disappointed, especially when I chose to see Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade before seeing V which I thought was saving the best for last. Oh Boy. I hated it, but I wasn't disappointed long when I got word their was another adventure of Starship Exeter which was not complete but was mind blowingly better than the first one!!! By that point I started picking, and picking for knowledge of the fan series through Maurice Molyneaux, it took some time to pick his brain but I did, and Geez, that was info heaven knowledge even Barkley couldn't muster.

I got an education of his contributions to the great fan film and also some introspective knowledge of TOS and the era of 1960's and 1970's which were very valuable. I mean, it was a completely different time and made me gear towards TOS more and appreciated the series more. By this time I joined my two fellow family trekfans into The Undiscovered Country, I still hate this title by far the worst trek title ever IMO, I thought of the movie, although clunky and a very predictable plot was a decent movie. It's not how I'd imagine the great conflict between the Klingons and Federation would end because of solving a predictable murder mystery but... Oh well, the crew had an okay sendoff.

Onward to TNG and in between Star Trek: Deep Space Nine seasons 1 and 2 and it firmly grounded my love for Star Trek and when "All Good Things..." ended I was all in on Star Trek. Enjoying JJ Abrams interpretation of Star Trek, just 1 and 2, and having my mixed reactions to DS9's 3rd season, but a fan I have become and I began writing pieces which were Trek related and still go on this forum to discuss what I believe Star Trek was and I personally believe it should be. The hell with CBS and what they think the franchise should be more like Star Wars, it will never be Star Wars. Never! Castrating the property to be this will only limit the franchises potential... like when TNG ruled the world.

 

[NCC-73515]

My dad watched TOS and TNG regularly, and I saw some scenes as a kid. I remember how weird it was to me when I was too young. At around 6 or so, I thought Trek was annoying and confusing, cause the Talosians were suddenly lying on the bridge (had not realized those were Bynars), and the computer voice wouldn't stop saying "intruder alert BEEP BEEP BEEP" in the most annoying way possible when a pillar of light was on the bridge. Those were my earliest snippets of Trek, and I thought I hated it. Star wars seemed much better.
Later I happened to be in the room again when he watched TNG We'll always have Paris, and I left after the teaser cause it was just guys fencing with a weird time loop. But then I was bored the next day and watched my first full episode: Conspiracy. Whoa, that was exciting and interesting! The German version didn't show Remmick's head explosion and belly disintegration stuff, otherwise I would have been traumatized and had never watched Trek again for years. Thanks to censorship, I became a fan, and watched every episode since then! The first corpse I ever saw was that in The Royale, and then those in Booby Trap, and they gave me nightmares, but damn it was exciting!

 

[Qapla!]

One of the things I loved the most about holidays is that you could always find a marathon of some kind on television, so those introduced me to wonderful shows like Star Trek: TOS and The Twilight Zone. Also, my next-door neighbor was a huge Trekkie and she had VHS copies of every single TOS episode and would let us borrow them whenever we wanted.

When TNG came out, I was entering junior high and it was one of the three shows my family watched religiously (The Simpsons and Married.. with Children being the other two). We loved the show and I'm pretty sure I saw every episode.

The first Star Trek movie I saw in the theaters was The Voyage Home and everyone in the audience loved it. To this day it's still my favorite but there are other good ones like The Wrath of Khan, First Contact, and The Undiscovered Country.

I watched DS9 up to the beginning of the fourth season but by then I was in college and too busy to care much for television so I stopped watching. Later on I saw a handful of Voyager episodes and didn't like them so I didn't bother with the rest. I should have checked out the fourth season and later, however, because those were better.

Then I spent many years not watching a single Star Trek episode until last winter when for some reason I wanted to see them all. I've been watching everything in order and now I'm up to the first of the newer Star Trek films. Enterprise turned out to be a lot better than I thought it would be and I think I like it more than Voyager, though Voyager had some good moments. It was also great to see the conclusion of the Dominion War in DS9 and it's now my favorite series.

 

[Ensign Ricky]

When I was young I watched a couple of TNG episodes. One that sticks out in my memory is when Lore and Data controlled the Borg. I watched Generations on TV, First Contact in theaters (scared the daylights out of me), and Insurrection on VHS. I wasn't a big fan, but I knew what it was.

It was not until I turned 11 years old that I became a full-on fan. In July of 2001 my family went to Las Vegas. On my 11th birthday, my parents took me to Star Trek: The Experience. As soon as I walked in the front gate, all of my Trek memories came flooding back. I got to go on the simulator twice. At the end of it, my dad bought me a tribble and a combadge pin at the gift shop. We ate lunch at Quark's and were heckled by a Ferengi.

When we got home, I tried to get as much Trek material I could get my hands on. This was the perfect time to be a Star Trek fan. eBay was new, with lots of merch for sale; there TOS, DS9, and Voyager reruns on Sci-Fi Channel, TNG reruns on TNN (now Paramount Network), & I read Star Trek: The Magazine. In 2002, Enterprise premiered, as well as Nemesis.

Gradually, I lost interest and moved on to other things. But, when the Remasters for TOS started coming out in 2006, plus rumors of a new movie started circulating, I became a fan again and have never looked back.

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

In my case, back in the '70s when I was a small child. My parents and my paternal grandmother both loved the original series so much, they constantly insisted that I watch it with them since I was a Kindergartener.

 

[Thomas Elliot]

I first saw TOS reruns as a kid. I watched a few of them but didn't get into it because it looked really old to me.

I don't think I was too aware of the TOS Shatner films. Maybe I saw a poster marquee or cardboard cut-out in theaters once or twice. I did like fantasy stuff like Star Wars, Transformers, Aliens, Masters of the Universe at the time.

Later I caught the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I liked the novelty of it looking so futuristic, but the bald old captain went totally against my expectations of what the heroic captain should look like. He looked nothing like Kirk! Why isn't that Riker guy the captain. Cleary whoever was making the show made a critical mistake. Besides, I considered Star Trek to be "nerdy" at the time so I looked down on it.

Of course, being a kid without cable, there wasn't too many options at the time. And eventually, every Saturday evening at 7 PM I sat in front of the TV to watch ST:TNG. Nothing else was on. And yet I ended up actually enjoying the show despite not wanting to admit it. Data was my favorite character. The Klingon warrior soap-opera was interesting. Picard being the strong but honorable and empathetic Captain was refreshing.

I think I caught the beginning of TWOK on TV once and thought it was great. The worms in the ears terrified me. But I never bothered to rent the actual movie.

When the show ended I didn't care too much and I never followed up with the TNG movies.

I caught Galaxy Quest on cable when I was 18 and I really enjoyed it. I think that's what started to chip away at my resistance to admitting I was a Trek fan. I was able to view Star Trek through the lens of a true fan, as played by Justin Long.

It was only years later as an adult that I started to admit I was a big nerd, and opened myself up to more serious SF like the stories of Isaac Asimov, Bradbury, and Harlan Ellison did I return to Star Trek. Ellison apparently wrote a classic Star Trek episode! I ended up watching the TOS films and found them all charming and imaginative. I started rewatching TNG online and it was just as good as I remembered it and I think the series still holds up.

Now I very much appreciate the imagination and positive view of the future that Star Trek, and in particular TNG, offered. As a kid I think it was a necessary pushback against the more negative entertainment I consumed at the time.

 

[Qonundrum]

Dear diary,

I was a wee kid at the time. My first memory was "Return to Tomorrow" and the cave with the red triangle motifs. I recall children's coloring templates of Kirk and Spock, "RED ALERT", and so on. I was a stickler for color accuracy, even if I wasn't able to crayon within all the lines neatly. And let me say, crayons don't taste like chicken so I promptly spat it out.

Trek III was the first I saw in the theaters. I know, I'm dating myself so much I took up two seats in the theater... I loved the ship interiors and wanted to see and explore more within it. Geez, I was real young back then.

Oh, the mid-80s when stations had those full screen, garish contrasting shape placeholder cards with backing pop music to say what program was coming up. I don't recall fully what the visuals were (probably red and green triangles going across the screen against a yellow or blue background - 80s garishness is a treat in of itself) but the song they used, appropriately enough, was Jim Croce's "Don't mess around with Jim".

I remember when the VHS tapes of the show were sold. I always thought "New extra footage grafted in" when, in reality, reruns chopped out footage and the tapes for sale were the full episode. That's 5 whole minutes per episode, back in the day.

When TNG premiered, I remember more the book cover sleeves handed out in school - you know, the perfect place for that sort of thing to hide your math book in because only nerds try to hide nerdy things like math books... yeah, that worked out real well (since TNG wouldn't become its own cultural zeitgeist until season three). In a way it did, as I wasn't the biggest fan of TNG when it came out (What, there aren't any more people of Asian descent are in space now?!) and it was more fun drawing pencil mustaches and beards on everybody. Even those who weren't season 1 Riker... I'd like to say I was working on a voodoo book cover that had only 1/7th the efficacy except it was just coincidence.

It would take me a while to see the strengths the (then-)new show had as what was bad was... really, really bad. Though to be honest I did find Pulaski a refreshing change, even back then. I was finally hooked by season 4 (3 for me had more growing pains as season 2 I recall paying a bit more attention to than season 1) and it was reruns of the earlier seasons that had me reconciling. Oh, some of the older episodes were not perfect but there were things to appreciate. Being an old geezer by the early-90s helped in the way middle-aged me circa 87 couldn't fathom. And walking dustpile that I am today, still find more to appreciate (and more to heckle, let's face it - Trek is more complex than a shrink's description of me). I'm sure the phoenix-to-be version of me will like Trek tomorrow too.

Contrasting that was the other reality that, at the time, I saw TNG coming across and trying to take itself seriously (despite it all). Meanwhile, all the big screen Kirk movies felt like one slapdash comedy act after another and I loathed that. Looking back, that may have helped TNG get renewed... And given the success of IV's comedy that became a double-edged sword for that aspect of the franchise. So, at that time, I actually felt cheated because I wanted more of Kirk and crew as proper characters and not a comedy act. As the decades (that felt like centuries one minute, nanoseconds the next) that went by, even the more lighthearted Kirk movies I found much to appreciate but the comedy still did drag them down. There used to be more of a finesse. Not slapdash antics.

I remember seasons 5-7 of TNG. Each week became more of a chore than the one before. Season 3 had a refined style I was warming up to (as well as Pulaski leaving, yet another adjustment)... 4 was a home run... 5 premieres and I was thinking "That was okay, I hope next week's gets better." Whenever I'm a fan of a show and I start thinking that, I know thew Fonz just jumped over a whole school of sharks. It was around this time that season 1 would be reran, and comparing season 1 to season 6 - the difference was night and day. Season 1 had far more to offer despite being clunky and rough around the edges. Some friends were saying the same things as well.

It didn't help that I didn't catch all of early DS9 at the time, in part because they had the same music and everything else so it felt like more of the same (which DS9 largely wasn't, even at the time, but my dislike of what TNG became sullied DS9 because it looked more of the same). I missed "Duet", which is nothing TNG would dare do. But I did tune in, oops, for "Dramatis Persona" - which felt like a cheap ripoff of "Sarek". I more or less dropped out until season 4, when I really got into it with a tighter, more action-themed feel. Had I seen "Paradise" and some other episodes instead of skipping out, I might have been an avid viewer a lot earlier. But post-season 4, "Starship Down" felt like a redo of "Disaster" at the time, which was an episode I hated at the time and felt Trek was cannibalizing itself with pointless remakes -- but years later I'd realize "Starship Down" fixes the problems the disastrous "Disaster" had and is a genuinely superior episode. But during its early years and I should have mentioned this earlier, I recall Odo being tortured by Garak so I had periodically watched... and would eventually deem DS9 the best incarnation of Trek as it had everything.

VOY I was less interested in, though Janeway/7 I was always glued to the set for. At least in season 4. Pre-7 has a handful of solid episodes but VOY could have been much better earlier on with the right people; it felt like a retread of TNG because (at the time) DS9 was such a ribald departure from Roddenberry's Bible.

ENT... never got into it, even the season 4 stuff seems more fanwanky than anything. I'm just not into prequels - wasn't then, am not now, will likely never be. They don't do much of interest and rarely is there a big gaping question itching to be answered and usually the attempts to answer only lead to bigger and worse questions made in the process.

 

[Tarek71]

As long as I can remember. Watching TOS reruns in the 70s as a kid. AMT models of the TOS Enterprise (very hard to get those nacelles and struts to stay put while glue dried), Romulan BOP and Klingon ship. Phaser, tricorder, and communicator. They came as a set. Also from AMT iirc.

 

[Worf factor9]

Meanwhile, all the big screen Kirk movies felt like one slapdash comedy act after another

Say it ain't so....

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[Sparky]

It was 1981 and I was 5 years old. All I remember is the black and white TV we had was showing images of a space ship, and then there was a shirtless guy running around with a sword. I had probably been watching it for a few minutes when my dad came in the room, saw the shirtless guy swinging his sword at people and turned off the TV because it was too violent. I was quite upset, and of course being 5 I was bawling my eyes out. To his credit, he told me that it was a show that he watched when he was younger, so he would watch a couple of episodes to see if it was appropriate for me, and if it was then we could watch it together. Not too long after that we were watching Star Trek, by the next year we were going to see Wrath of Khan in the theater. He had also found that PBS was showing episodes of another show he had watched when he was younger, Doctor Who. He then got me into that show as well.

 

[frankieteardrop]

I grew up watching a lot of genre cinema and television with my stepfather, particularly horror and sci-fi. He's a big Trekkie, so Trek was on a lot in our house, and I'd sit and watch with him whenever I could. That said, I didn't get really invested as a fan in earnest until TNG/DS9/VOY hit DVD and I was able to revisit each series in full. DS9 in particular really resonated with teenage me, and my appreciation for it has only deepened over the years.

 

[Seven of Five]

I vaguely remember watching either City on the Edge... or Amok Time first, on the BBC with my Dad. He used to like TOS when he was younger and so would catch the odd episode with him.

I also remember at some point watching TWOK, and seeing Spock die, and I thought that was the last episode for a very long time until I was about 11-12 and a friend lent me the TOS films she had taped on VHS.

I remember seeing TNG advertised in the Radio Times, and I used to think what a cheesy name The Next Generation was. At some point during the BBC airing TNG first run, I watched Suspicions round my cousin's house, and remember being entertained by the idea of Whoopi Goldberg in Star Trek. I also didn't realise quite what a bad episode that was, but I used to watch every week from that point on.

When season seven ended, it started from the beginning, and so I carried on. This was also around the golden age of Star Trek on the BBC, as it was also showing DS9 (from season two), Voyager was just starting up, and TOS was even being shown from the beginning.

 

[suarezguy]

I started regularly watching in '96 or '97 Voyager season 3/DS9 Season 5 and liked them but became a real big fan with watching TNG reruns I think in '98.

 

[The Lensman]

Star Trek has been part of my life as far as my memories go back. I'll continue to be a fan for a very long time I surmise.

Ditto. I think we're about the same age, so probably around '71 or '72. I can remember thinking the Romulan Commander was Spock's father, but I don't know if that's because I'd seen Sarek, if my mom told me it was the same actor, or because he had pointy ears and to my four or five year old mind he *must be* Spock's father because.....who the fuck knows, I was four.

Because we lived in a relatively rural area, couldn't watch Trek without tv snow, and in those early days to my four year old mind, I thought the sensor dish was a propeller as I couldn't see it too clearly. I do remember my mom telling me I needed to change the channel often as "you can't see anything!" But yeah, you could....if you turned the tv or the tuning knob just right. LOL!

I remember going to my grandmother's house in the city and seeing Star Trek there.....holy shit! It blew my kiddie mind seeing it crystal clear! It had never occurred to me that it looked that good! LOL! So I think that's one reason I never get tired of the original, because I'm still discovering stuff in it.

I do miss Trekathon's though. Once video tapes came out, it wasn't the same. The Trekathon's were where I'd see some Trek episode I'd never seen before. My parent's would let me stay up, knowing I wouldn't make it past midnight, and they let me sleep on the couch all night with the t.v. on. I remember seeing the end of "Errand Of Mercy" for the first time after waking up in a daze around 2 or 3 am. It was right as the Organians were turning to energy and I had never seen that episode before. I loved that surreal experience of waking up and seeing some bit of an ep I'd never seen before.

Good times.

 

[B’Elanna]

TNG for me as well. I used to steal my mother’s banana hair clips and wear them across my eyes and pretend to be Geordie. Fantasy and Sci-Fi have always been go to genres for me. However, as I got older, Star Trek was always the most...I’m not sure if relatable is the right word, or rather if it’s the most aspirational, the world I want to be in?

 

[Gordie]

During the mid 90's me, my brother and a friend were living together without cable TV. We only got 2-3 channels. TNG was in syndication and came on 5 nights a week on one of the channels. Fell in love with the show at this time.

 

[Worf factor9]

During the mid 90's me, my brother and a friend were living together without cable TV. We only got 2-3 channels. TNG was in syndication and came on 5 nights a week on one of the channels. Fell in love with the show at this time.

Early 70's for me TOS, on UHF channels.

 

[Yes Man the Great]

I saw the Star Trek episode of Futurama and started watching the show after that.

 

[Kirby]

I was in 4th grade, so 1976 or 77, and I was hanging out at my friend's house after school, and his section of the neighborhood was the first to get cable, so this was a big deal. We found Star Trek, and he knew it a little bit because of his dad, but I had never heard of it. I remember the first episode was Tomorrow is Yesterday, and I just thought they traveled through time on every episode. We ended up watching it every day after school, and then we quickly discovered it was on a local station right after that, so we ended up watching two episodes a day for months. By the time TMP came out, I was an expert.