I have to preface all that I am about to say with the following assertion. I am a second-class nerd. By this I mean I care too much about my social appearance, and am not nearly brilliant enough, to be a genuine, bona-fide, first-class nerd. But Spock was my hero growing up and I do have a Physics degree: which does give me some nerd-cred.
When "Star Trek: The Next Generation" came on, I was initially appalled. I was living in London at the time and, apart from the fact that it was on at a stupid time of day (6pm on a Tuesday, as I remember it), I was simply outraged that they would even dare to try to top the "real" Star Trek. When I moved to an isolated part of the States in early 1991, however, I was incredibly bored, and started to watch "The Next Generation" on re-runs twice a day just to fill in the time. After a couple of months I was more than just hooked... I was family.
True confessions time: not only did I have some incredibly vivid dreams about the Enterprise's Captain, Jean-Luc Picard, but the philosophy of this fictional 24th century had a profound effect on my own thinking. As someone without any religion, who had cobbled a morality together from a myriad of different sources, I suddenly found my beliefs being neatly expressed on a TV show. All along, I was a Roddenberryite.
Let me set this up. I am in Southern California on business and have arranged to meet with Michael Pillar - Next Generation and Deep Space Nine head writer and Executive Producer - for lunch at Paramount Studios. Pillar is a second cousin once removed, as it happens. I nervously drive through LA in my sporty red rental car and my best LA-looking clothes and shades (so I thought). After getting through security (who, of course, lost my pass) I make my way to Pillar's office. Outside, Paramount looks more like a university campus than studios. Inside, the offices seem too busy, practical and unglamorous to be Hollywood...
Michael shows me the new TV Guide with Quark on the cover. He is pleased to have the exposure: it can't hurt the ratings.
After the initial greeting we walk next door to the "commissary", a posh-looking but not radically expensive restaurant filled with mainly businessy-looking lunchers: its all pink linen tablecloths and potted palms. We sit down and start talking. I am very nervous. He asks me how I like DS9. Some people think Cisco is too wooden, he says, what do I think. We talk about an idea I have for a plot line. We talk about the inevitable end of "The Next Generation" and whether it should be sooner or later. I tell him later: we will miss our friends on the Enterprise. We discuss the merits of the female characters in both series, and the development of Worf. (I also find out that Pillar was a fan of "thirtysomething". As someone who has been vilified for my devotion to this programme, I take comfort in being in such good company.)
I ask absolutely none of the questions I had wanted to ask. When he asks me questions I either am at a loss for a good answer or prattle inanely or both.
As we talk, Pillar casually remarks that some of the cast have just walked in. He waves hello. My eyes follow his and I see Picard, Data, La Forge and Riker (Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Levar Burton and Jonathan Frakes). Stewart and Frakes seem to be in normal clothes, but Spiner is in full make-up and he and Burton are both entirely dressed in black.
I was not prepared for this. I become more and more uncool. I occasionally glance behind me, to where THEY are eating lunch, during my conversation with Pillar. This is unspeakably rude, but I am utterly starstruck. I am terrified that they will leave before we do, and I won't get a chance to have a good look at them on my way out.
However, at the end of our talk about Star Trek and life and television and relationships, Pillar and I got up to leave, and he immediately walked over to the cast members. I was so nervous that I lost about thirty seconds, badly negotiating the close- together tables. And then it happened. I was introduced to, and shook hands with, four of the Enterprise crew.
The first thing that blew me away (and I WAS blown away) was how big they were. Real life-size human beings. Frakes is enormous. I have never been a Riker fan... he was always too much like Captain Kirk, had too many stupid lines, and had absolutely no nerd-cred. In any case, I had always found Picard to be the more appealing. But when Frakes smiled one of his knock-out mischievous "Riker-at-play" smiles, I have to say I was converted. Patrick Stewart seemed not-at-all interested and Levar Burton ignored me as best he could, but Frakes was gracious and charming. I am smitten.
Spiner, as you can tell when he plays Data's dad or brother, is quite a whacky character. I don't think we really exchanged words, but he also has an extremely engaging smile. Unlike the other two actors, Frakes and Spiner seemed genuinely pleased to meet me. Both these men have a gift that few men have: when they talk to you, you feel like you are the only person in the room. It doesn't really matter whether it was just "front" or not: it made me feel wonderful.
All the while I was being more uncool than I had previously thought possible. I told the story about the only Star Trek convention I ever attended, where Stewart was the guest speaker. In advance of his coming out, the woman introducing him told us that he did not like people to have their hands up to ask a question while he was speaking, and that those who did that would not be called on. This was fine, except that while answering a question, Stewart would inject long actorly pauses, during which the audience would think he was finished and put their hands up. Then he would start on again and they would put their hands down. This puppet-like behaviour continued for an hour.
"Audience control, I like it," commented Frakes with his knock- out smile (swoon). Stewart looked, if not sullen, at least disinterested. (I fell out of lust with Picard after that convention, by the way, when I realized what an "actor" Stewart was.)
After uncoolly telling a convention story (which showed me up as a nerd and a trekky), and completely failing to let them know that I thought they were marvellous, I waved goodbye and made my exit in completely the wrong direction and had to backtrack. Humiliation comes easily to me.
On my way home in the car, I alternately grinned at my luck at meeting everyone and cringed with embarrassment at my behaviour. After thinking about it though, I became less hard on myself. Here were four men with whom I had spent hours, almost every day, for two years, and who I had never seen more than six inches high. Men who I thought I knew inside out, but who were just actors. It was Jean-luc and Geordie I wanted, not Patrick and Levar: they knew this. I knew these two men not at all. What could I say to them?
Perhaps it was because Frakes was "Rikerish" (except with better lines) that I felt more comfortable with him. It was bizarre though, like an incarnation from a dream. In Spiner too, I recognized the parts of his personality which he put into Data, Lore and Dr Nunian Sung. With them it was like meeting family. I felt like I wanted to go hang-out in their world, be their friend. But it was all in my mind.
Perhaps it is a truism, but television is an extremely powerful thing. The characters in Star Trek are real for me, in some fundamental way that I can neither deny or explain. They have a life far beyond the writer's lines or actors' interpretation.
As I was leaving Paramount, Patrick, Jonathan, Levar and Brent were all getting into the minibus to take them (presumably) to the set. The looked like they were having a good laugh: comfortable with their surroundings and with each other. They did not notice me standing there, fumbling in my handbag to find my sunglasses. It was hard to watch them leave.
This article perhaps does not really fit into Convulsion in the conventional sense, but I myself, Stuart my co-editor and most of the rest of the Convulsion "staff" are, to extent or another, Trekkies and Nerds and as such I feel that the article is appropriate.
One comment that I would like to make is about the use of the term "Nerd" within the article. While being a somewhat American expression I would be willing to bet that most of our readership are nerds. By that I mean you, the reader, are probably socially maladjusted, with a close group of friends who are just like you, listening to socially unacceptable music, reading socially unacceptable literature and generally practicing socially unacceptable behaviour.
All I can say to that is: more power to you.